She hadn’t met her next-door neighbor yet—someone named “F. Dixon” according to the mailbox next to hers in the lobby—but from the sound of things, he or she was having a late-night get-together.
As if on cue, the acoustic guitar intro of Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” began to play, and a woman—who sounded more than a little tipsy—yelled out, “I LOVE this song!”
Victoria covered her head with a pillow and tried not to weep.
It wasn’t that the music was overly loud. And, admittedly, the voices were muted; presumably F. Dixon and Co. were hanging out in the living area of his/her loft—which, yes, they were perfectly entitled to do. But it was two A.M., and Victoria had just been in the middle of the longest stretch of sleep she’d had in a month.
“Who wants a penis pop?” someone shouted.
And . . . that was her cue to take her leave.
She had no clue what a “penis pop” was—although it sounded kinky and quite possibly a little painful for all parties involved—but these were not things she needed to be musing over at two A. M. With a huge sigh of annoyance (not that the people next door could hear her given all their damn racket), she grabbed her pillow (yes, she was fussy and couldn’t sleep without her special pillow) and dragged herself out to the living room. She flopped onto the couch and tried to get comfortable.
Then tried some more.
Granted, when she’d bought the couch, she’d been going for style. Silly her, to not have presumed that one night she’d need the Edwardian-era sofa with its low-rolled arms and arched back for a campout in her living room because her neighbor would be throwing a raucous late-night sex soiree complete with penis pops.
She tossed the sofa’s too many damn throw pillows to the floor in frustration.
Then she got up and grabbed her iPad to Google “penis pop” because, seriously, what was that?
Ah . . . lollipops. Got it.
After tossing and turning for nearly an hour on the couch, she heard a door shut, and then several voices out in the hallway. When the voices faded, she got up to check on the situation in her bedroom.
Silence.
Thank God. With a spring in her step, she quickly grabbed her pillow from the living area and crawled back into bed. She snuggled in under the covers and had just begun to doze off when she heard a woman laugh.
Victoria’s eyes opened.
Next she heard a man’s deep voice—his words muffled—followed by the sound of something bumping against the other side of the wall. A headboard.
The woman moaned.
Oh . . . that was just great.
Not needing to hear any more, with an angry huff, Victoria carted her special pillow back into the living room, flopped onto the couch, and hunkered down for a long night.
* * *
EARLY THE FOLLOWING morning, grumpy and bleary-eyed after a less-than-ideal night spent sleeping on her sofa, she went on a quest in her new neighborhood for some much-needed coffee.
Fortunately, she didn’t need to walk far. Just around the corner from her place she found a café called The Wormhole that looked promising enough. She opened the door and blinked in surprise when she saw all the 1980s movie posters on the walls, as well as an actual DeLorean—yes, the car from Back to the Future—parked on the loft upstairs.
Wow. It was safe to say they took their ’80s seriously in these parts.
Charmed by the kitsch of the place, she ordered a large coffee and grabbed a seat at the table underneath the Raiders of the Lost Ark poster. She checked the morning news and her e-mail on her phone, in no rush to get back to her place.
So, her first night in her new loft hadn’t gone exactly as planned. Granted, she’d probably cobbled together around six hours of sleep, which was more than any other night this past month. But she hoped that last night had been an aberration, and not a sign of what she could expect from her neighbor in unit 4F during the course of this summer.
If not, she and this “F. Dixon” person were going to have some serious words.
Fueled by caffeine, she left The Wormhole and headed back to her place. After riding the elevator up to the fourth floor, she got halfway down the hallway when the door to the condo next to hers opened.
Ooh . . . the mysterious F. Dixon, she presumed.
A thirtysomething woman with shoulder-length brown hair stepped out,