DINAH
The bass thumped against the wall, shaking me from my concentration as I tried to write. As if on cue, my phone vibrated against my desk lighting up with “Mom” across the screen. I silenced it, dodging yet another call from my mother wherein she tried to persuade me to go out on a date with another “nice Italian boy from the old neighborhood.” See also: balding, divorced dads. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I was only thirty and she kept trying to set me up with guys closer to my dad’s age. My family meant well, but they just didn’t understand what it was like to be a widow at my age. Or what it was like to endure a dangerous miscarriage that almost killed me.
Not that I’d ever told them that last part.
I put my headphones on and tried to drown out the sounds of my neighbors having another party. I didn’t really mind the noise, it was a Friday night after all. I was always invited to their shindigs, but tonight I had to get some writing done. I stared at the screen blankly, trying to figure out how to dig myself out of this plot hole. Working a full-time job in marketing sucked when all I wanted to do was write my novels.
I cranked up the volume of my own music. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop as if it would will the words out of me. When I heard the thumping bass through the wall again, I knew tonight just wasn’t my night. Not that I was going to blame the hockey players next door, this was on me.
I lived in a kind of swanky condo next door to two pasty Canadian hockey players for The Philadelphia Bulldogs. TJ was a lovable douche, but friendly enough. His roommate, Noah though, was a tall, lanky hottie with long hair who said “eh” a lot. Even when I had a husband, I had to admit he was cute.
When Jason died suddenly in a car crash two years ago, Noah had sent flowers and came to the funeral. He handled all the hockey questions my dad and three older brothers threw at him, even though it had been wildly inappropriate. My family were loud-mouth Italians from South Philly, so it hadn’t really been all that shocking that they razzed my friend, the hockey player, at the funeral for my husband.
The Mezzanettis did not give a single fuck about anything.
Like ever.
My phone buzzed on the desk and I tried not to smile when I saw it was from Noah. Speak of the devil.
NOAH: Is the music too loud?
I smiled at his question. He was such a good old Canadian boy. I could barely stand it. It definitely made it harder for me to not think about just banging one out with him, just one time. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to, that would have made things too complicated. Plus, I was pretty sure he was just really nice because he was Canadian and was not into me like that. He was a sweetheart, and it wasn’t like he ever had fantasies about me.
ME: Kinda. I’m on deadline.
NOAH: Sorry. I’ll ask them to turn it down.
ME: It’s fine!
NOAH: Come over!
ME: What part of deadline, did you not understand?
NOAH: Please?
A smile curled up onto my lips. I couldn’t help it when it came to Noah. He may have been a total hockey hottie, but he was also my best friend. It was sweet that he cared enough to ask if the music was loud. That was Noah, he always was putting others before himself. I think deep down I knew that it was one of the reasons I couldn’t stop myself from fantasizing about what his big hands could do to me every time he smiled at me. Or how when he looked at me with amusement in his azure eyes it sent shivers all the way down my spine. Half the time, I didn’t know how I kept my composure when I was around him. Maybe it was because I knew I was one hundred percent not his type. Besides, at the fresh age of twenty-two, he was a bit too young for me.
I couldn’t focus tonight, but it was crunch time, and I was coming up on the deadline to get my first draft to my editor. It was fine, I would just spew garbage and fix it later. I turned up the volume on my music and poured out all my sorrows into my laptop. I still had a plot hole, but I didn’t know what to do about it right now. I didn’t think it was something I was going to resolve tonight. I had to look at this with fresh eyes, not eyes that were lingering on my phone.
I closed my laptop and proceeded to melt into my couch listening to My Morning Jacket, even though it reminded me of Jason. And then I felt even guiltier for thinking of Jason and Noah within the same sentence.
My phone buzzed against my thigh. I rolled my eyes at TJ now hitting me up to come party with the dudebros.
TJ: Girl, come over!
ME: On deadline!
TJ: Come over anyway! Noah would be happy to see you.
ME: He’s SO not into me. I’m too old for either of you fuckers.
TJ: hahaha. Yeah...okay....
ME: What does that mean???
TJ: come over!!!!
Ugh, TJ was insufferable. I loved that guy, but also I hated him because he saw right through me and he knew if things were different I was down to clown with his roommate. He had been encouraging it, and I didn’t understand why.
I met my husband in college, and I never imagined being with anyone else. It also didn’t mean I needed to be alone forever. I didn’t exactly think fucking my next-door neighbor, no matter how cute he was, was a particularly good idea. Not that I hadn’t thought about it, multiple times and when alcohol had been involved. That’s how TJ found out that I had the hots for his best bud. We went out drinking together last year when Noah had been dating this pretty blonde. I had let it slip that I thought Noah was hot, and TJ had been holding it over my head since then.
It had been two years since Jason’s death and since Noah found me passed out in the stairwell. Immediately he had jumped into action, took me to the hospital and probably saved my life. Then held me while I cried after the doctors told me that the scarring when they did the D & C meant it would be harder to bring another pregnancy to term. I never really wanted kids before, but learning that it was unlikely for me, straight gutted me for months.
I never told anyone about the miscarriage, so naturally everyone just assumed the dark depression I went into afterwards was solely because of my dead husband. That was only partly true. The only one who knew and kept my secret was Noah. Noah, the gentle giant who let me soak his t-shirt while he stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be okay. Even when I felt pretty fucking far from okay.
Noah was a good friend. The kind who held my hand while I cried myself to sleep in that hospital bed. The kind who missed a practice and got benched for a couple games, because he cared more about his friend than playing a fucking hockey game. Even if it could have cost him his career. Which was why nothing could ever happen between us. I couldn’t bear to lose his friendship.
I was trying to make a decision on if I should attempt to figure out my plot hole some more, or if I should go next-door, when my phone buzzed again. This time it was my oldest brother Frankie.
FRANKIE: Can you please just tell Ma you’re okay?
I groaned and typed away back to him.
ME: I’m FINE! Just tired of her trying to set me up with old men.
FRANKIE: Sorry, Dee-Dee.
FRANKIE: I’d tell her to back off, but you know how she is.
ME: I thought it would get BETTER when her and Dad moved to Florida.
FRANKIE: You’re cute!
I groaned again. I loved my family, but they could be nosy as fuck. And blunt as shit. Two days, TWO WHOLE DAYS, after Jason was in the ground, my mom started asking if I was seeing anyone. Like, lady, let me mourn a bit! Of course it was because my mom was expecting grandchildren. Even though she already had one from Frankie and his wife, and honestly my meathead brother Tony probably had some running around he didn’t know about. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I couldn’t have kids. I wasn’t ready to pour a pound of salt into that wound.
I sighed, and dropped my phone back onto the couch. Now I was frustrated, and I really needed a drink. I urged my body off the couch and decided to say fuck it and go next-door. Maybe the shitty beer TJ drank would mellow me out.
TJ opened the door and screeched mere seconds after I had knocked, “You came!”
I laughed when he bent down to my five-foot-two frame and laid a sloppy drunken kiss on my cheek. A lovable douche indeed. He must have been really into it tonight, because if there was one thing I discovered about the Desjardins, it was that they could put it away. His twin sister was somehow worse, if that could be believed. His pale face was red from all the beer and his short cropped dark hair was hidden by his backwards baseball cap. What was it with hockey boys and wearing hats backwards?
“Not in two years,” I joked.
TJ broke out into a hyena laugh, that I was concerned he was going to fall on the floor and start rolling around on it. He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I deadpanned.
“What about that guy last month you met at one of our games?”
I rolled my eyes. The last Bulldogs game I went to, I ended up chatting up the guy next to me. He was nice enough, and I figured it was time to get back on the horse. It was the wrong horse. Like so bad, I had to tell him to stop before we even had sex. I came over here after he left, laid on the floor in their living room and asked Noah to put me out of my misery.
I put my hands over my face in mortification. “Please don’t remind me.”
TJ handed me a beer. “Come on girl, we need to find you a man soon!”
I scoffed at him but took the beer.
TJ was smirking at me now. “I think I know one perfect for you.”
My eyes slid over to Noah sitting on their couch with a beer in hand. “T, he’s not into me. Plus, the age difference would be weird.”
“We’re not that young! What’s eight years? That’s nothing!”