Chapter One

The number one Hellos

The moving truck groaned up the street just after midday on a bright Saturday, tires crunching over the old asphalt. Evelyn heard it first — the low diesel rumbling pulling her away from her crossword teaser. She glanced up from the sun porch, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

Walter was in the backyard, fussing with his tomato works — she called him in through the concealment door.

"Looks like soul finally bought the Carter post,"she said, peering through the lacing curtain.

Together they stood in the den, side by slope, watching through the big sliding methamphetamine door that opened onto their sloping chiliad. The Carter house sat just downhill — its back windows lined up perfectly with theirs. No fence, just a across-the-board stretch of grass and a low hedging someone planted years ago, more for palm than privacy.

Evelyn squinted."Oh my…"

She didn't even try to enshroud the smile that curled across her lips.

First, they saw her.

The young char hopped down from the truck's side rail, a cardboard box balanced on her hip. She wore tight blue jean shorts that left a complete crescent of sun-kissed second joint and a blanch pink tank top that clung to her chest when she bent over to slide the box onto the driveway.

She stood, brushed her fuzz back — long, loose waves the people of color of honey, bouncing over her shoulders like a shampoo commercial. Savannah. They didn't know her name yet, but the figure would stick to her even before she introduced herself — she looked like a Savannah River : confection, subdued, promiscuous to imagine laughing in the sun.

Evelyn felt a petty flush of envy, then something more refine. savanna had that impossible, unthinking early days — the flushed cheeks, the blind drunk peel at her thighs, the careless way she tugged her shirt down when it rode up, not caring if someone caught a glimpse of flat belly.

"Pretty girl,"Walter murmured, trying not to stare too obviously.

Evelyn elbowed him, half tease, but her centre stayed on the daughter, too.

Then he stepped out.

Tall — so tall he looked like he might scrape the truck's roof with his berm. He carried two big moving boxes stacked high up, arms roped with brawn, forearms veined like a man who never needed to ask for avail. His peel was smooth, trench brown, catching the former sun like polished bronze.

Jax set the boxwood down and stood back, hands on his hips, shirt damp with sweat already. His T-shirt — old, soft, clinging just enough — stretched tight across his chest. He laughed at something Savannah River said and reached to tug her ponytail like a tease.

Evelyn felt her throat go dry. There was something so easy about the way he moved — like he owned that yard already. Not cocky. Just… sure-footed. Walter made a gentle grunt of surprise. He'd never admit it, but the new man's size made him feel small-scale in a way he hadn't felt in years.

"Lord,"Evelyn said under her breath, feeling a discharge low in her belly she didn't dare speak out loud."Well… they're… they're lovely."

Bruno Walter cleared his pharynx."favorable enough, you think ?"

Evelyn's creative thinker wandered. Friendly enough for what, exactly ?

It took a week for the first moving ridge across the yards.

Evelyn watched them every few eve — the girl dragging corner inside well after shadow, the man carrying a monster headboard all by himself, laughing when Savannah fussed at him to be careful.

One afternoon she found herself in her garden just as Savannah was watering a few drooping rose George W. Bush by her new porch. They caught oculus. savannah waved that sweet, easy wave. Evelyn waved back, impertinence warm.

By the end of the hebdomad, they were exchanging civilized hi. Walter even wandered over one morning with an old garden hoe.

"demand a bridge player ?"he asked Jax.

Jax's grinning was panoptic and boyish, but his shake nearly swallowed Walter's whole.

"Nah, we got it, sir — but thank you."

Evelyn stood behind the screen, biting her lip as she watched. savannah bent to tug a box open, tomentum falling like a pall around her case. Jax's hand brushed the small of her back — protective, possessive case. There was something electric about them, even when they didn't know they were being seen.

That night, Evelyn lay beside Walter in their big bed. She could still see the anatomy of Savannah's branch in those bantam short circuit, the smooth strength in Jax's arms. She closed her oculus, surprised by the warmth pooling in her belly.

She wondered, half-dreaming : What did they look like when the sun went down ?

Did he lift her up with those big hands, spread her across the sheets, that strong back rippling above her ? Evelyn felt a ghost of her professional dancer's body — the tightness she'd once had, the hunger she hadn't felt in decades.

Beside her, Walter snored softly, oblivious. But Evelyn lay awake, the windowpane cracked open to the summer air, wondering just how a lot those astray chamber Windows really showed after dark.

Chapter Two

The glint

The summer hebdomad drifted by like flower petal on body of water — tranquillity, fond, familiar.

Savannah River and Jax settled in well. The go of the boxes vanished. The lawn got its first white cut. Small talk by the fence turned into friendly waving when they crossed itinerary at the mailbox.

Sometimes Evelyn found herself standing in her garden just to catch savanna in the sunlight — her pegleg bare under a sundress, the hem swaying around those flabby thighs. Sometimes it was Jax she'd picket : the stretch of his arm as he carried patio furniture on one berm like it weighed nothing at all.

Walter would tease her, saying she was fussing over the roses too a good deal, but he didn't mention how he'd stand by the sliding trash doorway with his coffee cup, watching Jax mow the curtilage in his crocked jersey, sweat dripping down his neck.

-- -

It was later one night when Evelyn woke up thirsty — the window candid, the air sticky against her hide. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake up Walter. The house creaked around her, floorboards sighing like they always did. She padded barefoot into the den, her robe loose around her hips, and poured herself half a methamphetamine hydrochloride of cheap red wine.

The backyard lay diffused and dark, the hedge a Shirley Temple silhouette under the moon. Evelyn almost didn't notice the faint radiance at initiatory — that single warm lamp inside savanna and Jax's sleeping accommodation window. She squinted, her drinking glass hovering near her lips.

There they were.

Or percentage of them, anyway.

She could see the corner of their bed — rumpled plane, savannah's mild silhouette on her knees, kissing her hubby with that sweet, hungry closet of her oral cavity against his jaw. Evelyn felt a pang in her chest she couldn't name. She told herself she'd just watch a irregular. Just a second.

Savannah River broke the kiss, smiling at Jax — and then she slid off the bed, bare and glowing in the lamplight, crossing to the windowpane. Evelyn saw her reach for the curtain, probably about to pull it unopen. But Jax followed her — so quick, so sure. He caught her hips from behind, kissed her shoulder, and pressed her laurel wreath monotonic against the glass.

Evelyn's breathing space caught. She should have looked away — but she didn't. Savannah's head tipped forward, her fuzz falling in a diffuse golden tumble. Jax moved in behind her, big men sliding to her shank. savannah pushed her pelvic arch back into him like she wanted every inch he could pay her.

Evelyn's sass parted as she watched him go under into her — the slow roll of his rose hip, the way Savannah's organic structure jolted just a minuscule with each mysterious stab. Her thenar stayed braced on the windowpane. Her breathing time made a diminutive swarm on the glass. Evelyn felt warmth gather low in her belly, her thighs pressing together as she studied every silent item — the bed right there behind them, but the window so much closer, so much more than exposed.

She didn't hear Walter step in until his bureau brushed her back. He didn't say anything — just slipped his arm around her, his breath warm at her ear as he followed her gaze. Evelyn felt him severe against her hip, voiceless than she'd felt him in years. She trembled when he tugged her robe up, pressing her hands to the stale meth as he bent her just enough to take her.

She couldn't front away. Savannah's back arched. Jax pulled her pelvic arch back into him, slow at first, then faster — Savannah's head dropping frown, her legs trembling. Evelyn's breath smudged the glass as Walter drove into her, matching that rhythm method she could see but never hear.

When she came, it broke out of her in a gasp she had to swallow against her radiocarpal joint. She felt Bruno Walter's digit dig into her coxa, holding her tight. outside, Savannah's consistence gave a footling final shudder, and Jax carried her backbone to bed like she weighed nothing at all.

The lamp clicked off. The windowpane went coloured. But Evelyn's pulse kept humming, her body still pressed to the glass — warm in places she'd almost forgotten. And Bruno Walter stood behind her, panting like a man who'd just remembered he was still animated .