Chapter One

The beginning hullo

The moving truck groaned up the street just after noontide on a bright Saturday, tires crunching over the old asphalt. Evelyn heard it first — the low diesel rumble pulling her away from her crossword puzzle puzzle. She glanced up from the sunroom, her reading shabu perched on the end of her nose.

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

"Looks like somebody finally bought the Carter place,"she said, peering through the lacing curtain.

Together they stood in the den, side by side, watching through the big sliding glass doorway that opened onto their diagonal cubic yard. The Carter planetary house sat just downhill — its book binding windows lined up perfectly with theirs. No fences, just a all-embracing reach of grass and a low hedge someone planted years ago, more than for decoration than privacy.

Evelyn squinted."Oh my…"

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

kickoff, they saw her.

The young womanhood hopped down from the truck's slope rail, a cardboard box balanced on her hip. She wore blind drunk dungaree drawers that left a stark crescent of sun-kissed thigh and a pale pink tank top that clung to her chest of drawers when she bent over to skid the box onto the driveway.

She stood, brushed her whisker back — long, loose waves the color of honey, bouncing over her shoulder like a shampoo commercial. Savannah. They didn't know her name yet, but the name would nonplus to her even before she introduced herself — she looked like a Savannah : sweet, flaccid, wanton to imagine laughing in the sun.

Evelyn felt a small bloom of enviousness, then something more complicated. Savannah had that unsufferable, unthinkingly youth — the sluice impertinence, the pixilated skin at her second joint, the careless way she tugged her shirt down when it rode up, not caring if soul caught a coup d'oeil of flat belly.

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

Evelyn elbowed him, one-half ribbing, but her eye stayed on the girl, too.

Then he stepped out.

Tall — so tall he looked like he might scrape the hand truck's cap with his articulatio humeri. He carried two big moving boxes stacked high, subdivision roped with musculus, forearms veined like a man who never needed to ask for help. His pelt was smoothen, cryptical brown, catching the late sun like polished bronze.

Jax set the boxes down and stood back, manpower on his pelvic arch, shirt dampness with sweat already. His jersey — old, soft, clinging just enough — stretched tight across his pectus. He laughed at something Savannah 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… convinced. Bruno Walter made a soft grunt of surprise. He'd never admit it, but the young man's sizing made him feel small in a way he hadn't felt in years.

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

Walter cleared his throat."Friendly enough, you think ?"

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

It took a workweek for the first wave across the yards.

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

One afternoon she found herself in her garden just as Savannah River was watering a few drooping rose pubic hair by her new porch. They caught center. Savannah waved that sweet, leisurely undulation. Evelyn waved back, impertinence warm.

By the end of the calendar week, they were exchanging polite hullo. Walter even wandered over one morning with an old garden hoe.

"need a hand ?"he asked Jax.

Jax's smile was wide and boylike, but his handclasp nearly swallowed Walter's whole.

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

Evelyn stood behind the covert, biting her lip as she watched. Savannah River hang to tug a box loose, whisker falling like a curtain around her face. Jax's helping hand brushed the humble of her dorsum — protective, possessive. There was something galvanising 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 Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of Savannah's wooden leg in those tiny shorts, the smooth specialty in Jax's weapon system. She closed her optic, surprised by the warmth pooling in her belly.

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

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

Beside her, Walter snored softly, forgetful. But Evelyn lay awake, the windowpane cracked open to the summertime breeze, wondering just how much those all-encompassing bedroom windows really showed after dark.

Chapter Two

The Flicker

The summer weeks drifted by like petals on water — lull, warm, familiar.

savanna and Jax settled in well. The finally of the boxes vanished. The lawn got its first clean cut. Small talk by the fence turned into friendly wafture when they crossed track at the mailbox.

Sometimes Evelyn found herself standing in her garden just to trance savannah in the sunlight — her legs bare under a sundress, the hem swaying around those soft second joint. Sometimes it was Jax she'd lookout man : the stretching of his arms as he carried patio article of furniture on one shoulder like it weighed nothing at all.

Walter would cod her, saying she was fussing over the blush wine too much, but he didn't mention how he'd stand by the sliding glass threshold with his java cup, watching Jax mow the cubic yard in his tight T-shirt, sweat dripping down his neck.

-- -

It was latterly one dark when Evelyn woke up athirst — the window open, the air steamy against her skin. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Walter. The menage creaked around her, floor board sighing like they always did. She padded barefoot into the den, her robe liberate around her hips, and poured herself half a methamphetamine of cheap red wine.

The backyard lay gentle and disconsolate, the hedge a black silhouette under the moon. Evelyn almost didn't notice the deliquium glow at first — that individual warm lamp inside Savannah River and Jax's bedroom windowpane. She squinted, her glass hovering near her lips.

There they were.

Or part of them, anyway.

She could see the box of their bed — rumpled bed sheet, Savannah's soft silhouette on her stifle, kissing her husband with that sweet, athirst press of her mouth against his jaw. Evelyn felt a stab in her thorax she couldn't gens. She told herself she'd just observe a indorse. Just a second.

Savannah broke the candy kiss, smiling at Jax — and then she slid off the bed, bare and glowing in the lamplight, crossing to the window. Evelyn saw her compass for the curtain, probably about to pull it shut. But Jax followed her — so quick, so for certain. He caught her hips from behind, kissed her shoulder, and pressed her decoration plane against the glass.

Evelyn's breath caught. She should have looked away — but she didn't. savanna's head tipped forward, her hair's-breadth falling in a soft golden spill. Jax moved in behind her, big handwriting sliding to her waist. Savannah River pushed her rosehip back into him like she wanted every inch he could grant her.

Evelyn's brim parted as she watched him subside into her — the slow cast of his rosehip, the way savannah's soundbox jolted just a little with each deep driving force. Her palms stayed braced on the window. Her hint made a tiny cloud on the chicken feed. Evelyn felt warmth gather low in her belly, her thighs pressing together as she studied every still detail — the bed right there behind them, but the window so much closer, so much More exposed.

She didn't hear Walter footstep in until his chest brushed her back. He didn't say anything — just slipped his arm around her, his breathing space warm at her ear as he followed her gaze. Evelyn felt him laborious against her hip, harder than she'd felt him in years. She trembled when he tugged her robe up, pressing her hands to the cold shabu as he bent her just enough to take her.

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

When she came, it broke out of her in a gasp she had to swallow against her wrist joint. She felt Bruno Walter's fingers dig into her hips, holding her tight. Outside, Savannah's body gave a little final shudder, and Jax carried her vertebral column to bed like she weighed nothing at all.

The lamp clicked off. The windowpane went dark. But Evelyn's pulse kept humming, her body still pressed to the glassful — 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 .