Neighbors

Lainey POV By ten o'clock we had found the sheets, one lamp, and no forks. We had also found three casseroles. They had appeared on the porch sometime after dark, without a knock or a car door or a single footstep that I heard. Each one had a note. The first said Welcome, neighbors! The second said Welcome, neighbors!! in handwriting pressed so hard it had torn the paper. The third just said NEIGHBORS. "See?" Travis said. "Nice people." He had been saying that all day, about people who had looked at us like we had climbed out of a spaceship. We ate chicken and rice on the living room floor, straight from the dish, passing one serving spoon back and forth. Travis was sunburned and worn out and happier than I knew what to do with. He talked about shelves. He talked about a garden. He said he would start looking for work first thing, and that with no rent he could take his time and find something good. He said "we" a lot. I had missed "we." "We did good, Lane," he said, and he kissed the top of my head. I felt like the worst person in Cedar Ridge. All day, while he hauled everything we owned up that driveway, some part of me had stayed out on the porch, looking at the road. We put the mattress on the bedroom floor. Travis was asleep in four minutes. I lay there and listened to the house, which was the quietest place I had ever been. There was no traffic and no neighbor's television. There were only the woods, breathing. I gave myself a talking-to. It was the heat. I was dehydrated. It had been a long, strange day, and a good-looking stranger had looked at me, and I had looked back. People look. It doesn't mean anything. I nearly had myself convinced when I fell asleep. In the dream I was on the porch, and he didn't stop in the road. He came up the walk like it was his. He came up the steps. He didn't say anything, and neither did I. He just put his hands on my hips, big and warm and sure, and walked me backward until the front door met my spine. His mouth found my throat, right at the base where my pulse was going, and he breathed in like a man coming up from underwater. I should have pushed him off. I grabbed his shirt in both fists instead. He lifted me, turned us around, and sat me on the rail like I weighed nothing. His stubble scraped my jaw. One hand slid up the inside of my thigh, slowly, giving me every chance to stop it, and I let my knees fall open. When his fingers pushed past my shorts and found my waiting p*ssy, I was already soaked. He made a sound against my neck, low and rough, close to a growl, and I felt it between my legs. He slid two fingers into me, and I stopped being able to think. I rode his hand. I wasn't shy about it. My head was tipped back and my nails were in his shoulders and it was building so fast, tight and hot and right there. He lifted his mouth to my ear and said one word. I didn't catch it. I woke up. The room was dark. I was flat on my back with my heart slamming and my T-shirt stuck to my skin. I was throbbing. I was so wet I could feel it on my thighs. I had been seconds from cumming, in my sleep, over nothing at all. Travis was snoring beside me with one arm thrown across my waist. I stared at the ceiling of the house he had bought us, and I tried to remember the last time I had wanted anything that badly while I was awake. I couldn't. I didn't even know his name. I wasn't going back to sleep like that. I slid out from under Travis's arm and found the kitchen in the dark, by feel, with both hands out in front of me like a mummy. We had no glasses unpacked. I ran the tap and drank from my cupped palm, then pressed my wet hand to the back of my neck. The window over the sink looked out at the backyard and the woods behind it. There were no streetlights back there. There was only a little moonlight on the grass, and past that, the black line of the trees. And two eyes. They were low to the ground at the edge of the woods, pale gold, and they were shining. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They were pointed straight at the house. Straight at me. I stopped breathing. I rubbed my eyes hard with the heels of both hands, the way you do when you know you're still half asleep. When I looked again, there was nothing there but trees.