Naughty ish a naughty ne.., p.1
Naughty-ish: a naughty next-door neighbor holiday romance, page 1
A Holiday HOTTIES novella
www.lbdunbar.com
Copyright © 2023 Laura Dunbar
L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.
https://www.lbdunbar.com/
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Cover Design: Elle Maxwell Designs
Editor: Nicole McCurdy/Emerald Edits
Editor: Gemma Brocato
Proofreader: Karen Fischer
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BLURB
DEDICATION
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
THE LIST
Sample Scrooge-ish
More by L.B. Dunbar
About the Author
Connect with L.B. Dunbar
BLURB
With the name Holliday, you’d think I’d be all about the Christmas season. Most years, I am, but this one not so much. Between my ex being a real Scrooge-in-the-backside, re-entering the workforce, wrangling my two children, and evading my eight-year-old’s questions about Santa’s existence, I’m struggling to believe in the magic myself.
Enter Nick, my next-door neighbor. My very hot, single, fireman neighbor. He’s full of the seasonal spirit from hanging my outdoor Christmas lights to playing Santa for the local church breakfast.
Funny thing about Nick, he kind of resembles the man in red, in a younger, sexier, silver fox way, complete with snow in his beard but rather tight abs suggesting cookies are not part of his diet when they are a staple of mine.
Anywho, he’s sweet in a rugged sense, and if he were the man making a list and checking it twice, I’d like to be in his naughty column. Because something tells me being a little naughty-ish with Nick from next door might bring me tidings of comfort and restore my joy in this season.
When he discovers I have a seasonal list myself, he’s determined to help me accomplish all the to-dos, only falling in love with my next-door neighbor wasn’t one of them.
+ + +
From L.B. Dunbar comes another SHE-grump Christmas tale of holiday shenanigans and jingling bells with a sunshine silver fox.
DEDICATION
For other ‘moms’ who feel the pressure of the holidays.
Even without being that elf on your shelf, I see you.
BE YOUTHFUL
Chapter 1
Where is that fucking elf on a shelf doll?
In preparation for the upcoming Christmas holiday, I’d been searching everywhere for that damn creepy imp that sits on a shelf, pretending to monitor my children’s behavior in the weeks before the holiday.
Naughty or nice, Nash and Eloise are my favorite two people in the world.
But that elf really annoys me.
I couldn’t keep the festive doll with the other decorations for fear the kids would discover him, thus ruining the ploy that he appears on the Feast of St. Nicholas. A tradition which includes setting out your shoes—in our case, by the front door—and if you are on Santa’s nice list, candy fills your footwear. A kid on the naughty list receives a lump of coal.
My parents used this setup when I was a child, which was long before that shelf elf was even imagined. It was another gimmick propagated by adults to keep their children in line during the holiday season.
“If you’re on the naughty list, there’s still time to right wrongs.”
I’ve said those very words myself, although my children are not bad kids. They aren’t angels by any stretch, but with the year we’ve had, they’re damn near perfect. My ex-husband is the one who belongs on the naughty list. Actually, he belongs on the dirtbag’s list, but that’s neither here nor there tonight as I tackle my first holiday season without his presence. I want it to be a pleasant Christmas for my little ones. They deserve it.
“Shoes,” I mutter aloud, standing in the wintery darkness of ten o’clock in my living room.
Before the kids went to bed, Nash put his gym shoes by the front door beside Eloise’s Sherpa-lined boots. She thought St. Nick might bring her more candy if she had taller footwear. St. Nick is on a budget this year, kiddo. Of course, she doesn’t know the tradition is all make-believe. There isn’t a saint named Nick checking in on us. There isn’t even a Santa Claus, but I’ll wait a few years before breaking her heart on that one.
Lord knows she’ll have bigger heartbreaks in her life. I’ll shield her as best I can, for as long as I can. But what happens when she’s older and on her own? What do I do if she ends up like me, marrying a schmuck?
Mitch hadn’t been a schmuck when we married. He was everything I’d been looking for in my early thirties. What does the heart know though, right? Good sex brought us together, but it apparently wasn’t good enough because he eventually went elsewhere.
Once. It only happened once.
On a scale of zero times it should have happened, his infidelity occurred one time too many.
His decision shattered me. No marriage is perfect, but that kind of slip-up means there was an issue I hadn’t noticed buried underneath the daily life of a married couple with young children. I faulted myself in some ways. Not for him stepping out on me. That was all on him. However, I’d been blinded by a sense of security I had with my ex-husband. And blindsided by his actions.
Now I was forty, wiser, and wary.
And Mitch’s construction boots are conspicuously absent from our collection this year.
“Shoes,” I mumble again. Snapping my fingers, I recall what I was doing—looking for the elf. Eventually, he’ll be placed on top of the fridge or the china cabinet because he needs to be out of reach from Nash, who is only five. At eight years old, Eloise is the one with questions. And shoes are the answer tonight, as the wily elf is in a shoebox on a shelf in my closet—a place the children would never go.
Climbing the stairs of my new-to-us home, I find the little rascal in an old box for heels I no longer own. Once retrieved, I look about the house seeking a good spot to place him. Eloise already wrote him a long list of questions, and I’ll need to forage through her letters from last year (also placed in the box) to recall previous answers. She’s a smart one, my little girl, and she remembers this shit better than me.
As the litany of her questions spans a sheet of paper front and back, a glass of wine is in order to navigate this process. As a right-handed person, I’ll have to disguise my handwriting by using my left hand to write the answers. A full glass of red matches the holiday spirit, I decide, although I don’t have a stitch of decoration up in this house yet. I haven’t had time. Returning to full-time work after the divorce, plus carpools for extracurricular activities, and the daily grind of getting my children to and from school, then dinner and homework, baths and bedtime routines, I’m beat by the end of the day.
Besides, Thanksgiving was just over a week ago.
After a hardy drink, I focus on the first question.
Number one. Do you like peppermint dick?
I blink, certain I’ve misread and realize I have.
Do you like peppermint stick?
Sweet baby Jesus in a manger, my imagination got the best of me there, or perhaps it’s more my subconscious, as I haven’t been with a man in over a year. Feeling dirty and unwanted after what Mitch did, the dry spell hadn’t bothered me at first, but now, twelve months later, I miss the sensual touch of another human. My own fingers have worked willingly but not provided the wonder of connecting with someone else.
Number two. How many—
THUNK!
“What the hell?” I glance over my shoulder, peering behind me through the small window in the eating area. Something has just hit my house.
Another thud and then something clatters outside, out of sight of the window.
“When up on the rooftop, there arose such a clatter,” I mutter the famous line from Clement Clarke Moore’s poem ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Standing, I hold my breath, awaiting another thump when a different thought wafts through my head. The poem is actually titled A Visit from
Impossible.
Bemused, I breathily laugh at myself. Clearly, I need more sleep.
Willing my shoulders to relax, I prepare to sit back down when I hear the telltale sign of an aluminum ladder clanking and a light thud of metal connecting with my house again.
On second thought, is the verse arose such a ladder?
Shaking my head, I realize I’m losing my mind, but something is definitely banging on the side of my home. With wineglass in hand as if that will protect me, I slip into my own set of Sherpa-lined boots and step out the back door leading to the driveway I share with my neighbor. My single car garage is detached from the house, and I don’t park in the slightly leaning building. The space covers bikes, summer furniture, and boxes I haven’t unpacked yet. We’ve only been in the house for seven months.
Standing on the back stoop, I pause. What am I doing? I’m a single mother living alone. I shouldn’t be out here investigating in the dark.
Then I hear the metal clang of a ladder against the siding once more coming from my front yard and curiosity gets the best of me. Despite the cold, I walk along the side of my home and down the drive toward the front. Cupping the wineglass against my chest, I slowly approach the corner of my house.
“Shit.” A deep male voice whispers in the night.
My heartbeat ratchets up a few thumps. Is someone trying to break in? They’re making quite a racket if that’s the case. Not to mention, the only thing of value in this house are my two children nestled all snug in their beds.
Rounding the corner, I shout, “What the hell are you doing?”
My sharp voice rips through the quiet night air, causing the man standing on the low roof overhanging my front stoop to slip. With a curse from his lips and the slide of his feet, he scrambles to stay on the narrow strip of roofing. Only his left foot goes over the edge, kicking the gutter. He does an awkward split motion before his body slowly glides to the end of the roof, and his weight takes him off it.
“Oh my God!” I cry out, rushing toward the large body dangling from the overhang. Not more than ten feet from the ground to the start of the incline, his stretched form shows he’s roughly six feet plus. He only has a few feet to drop if he lets go of my gutter, which is starting to strain under his weight. He’s too far away to reach the ladder, which is propped up on the opposite corner of the overhang. With a swing of long legs in jeans that accentuate the thickness of his thighs and the firmness of his backside, he tucks forward before lunging back and dropping like a cat to the ground, clearing the stairs that descend from the porch. His back remains to me for half a second, and red buffalo check flannel strains over the expanse of thick muscles and flexed biceps in a shirt that hugs his body. Slowly, he turns to face me.
“Nick?” I choke.
With a bright red knit cap on his head, my next-door neighbor stares down at me. He has these intense, dark blue eyes and cheeks like cliffs, matching the mountainous stature of his body. His jaw holds an artful combination of black and white scruff, which is more snow than earth-colored despite his hair still being a shade of charcoal.
And I know these details about Nick, my next-door neighbor, because he’s hot with a capital H.
Nick Santos was already living next door when the kids and I moved in. My first interaction with him was when I’d pulled into my driveway one evening to find him making out with a woman against his front door. He didn’t break away from her mouth until I’d parked my car, gotten out, and walked toward my front entrance. Only a sliver of grass separates our single car driveways.
I hadn’t wanted to look at them, but it was hard to pull away from the sight of his body pressing some woman against the building. His thick leg between her thighs. His hands on her sides. Her arms were around his neck, hands in his hair. He was going for a breast when he pulled back from her and turned his head toward me. Our eyes locked and his gleamed in the early darkness.
Then, like a frightened mouse, I’d scampered toward my house with my head down.
The next time I’d seen him was a week or so later. Shouts and curses came from the house next door. I had been leaving for work sans children, thankfully, as the display in his yard included him standing on the lawn and the woman who I assumed was the one from the week before tossing items out the front door, calling him names I’d never heard and stringing together profanity that might make a sailor blush.
Nick had stood stoic and firm with his legs spread wide, arms crossed, one hand lifted to his chin, slowly stroking thick fingers over that beautiful layering of ink and chrome hair on his jaw.
Hours later, he’d ripped out of his driveway on his motorcycle.
Questions had flitted through my mind at the time. Was she the same woman or someone different? Had he cheated on her or were they the same hot-for-each-other couple from one week ago? The scene had been a reminder of how quickly a relationship can flip. And for some reason I felt sorry for him.
Another week had passed before I’d seen him again, tinkering under the hood of a large pickup truck in his portion of the shared driveway. On that day, I’d been returning from work. Walking up my side of the drive, something prompted me to stop and address him despite us never having exchanged a word previously.
“Are you okay?”
He’d tipped his head. Surprise had been evident in his hard expression before he stood straighter and turned his face in the direction of his front yard.
“Nothing that hasn’t happened before,” he’d huffed and leaned forward, half-hidden underneath the hood again. “Might have been more effective if it wasn’t my house, though.”
Puzzled by his explanation, I didn’t move from my spot. “Well, I just wanted to make certain you were all right.”
He didn’t respond at first, but his body stilled once more.
“I’m Holliday,” I’d offered. “That’s with two l’s.” There’s irony in the name, and I’d waited for him to comment, but he didn’t. “My children are Eloise and Nash.”
I’d paused, thinking he would introduce himself. Or not.
“Just thought you should know.” I’d previously lived in a neighborhood where everyone knew each other’s names and the names of their children. It takes a village. Then again, that village knew everyone else’s business.
Like how my ex-husband cheated on me while attending a reunion at his alma mater. A rambunctious Big Ten football game led to post-game shenanigans with his college sweetheart.
This new-to-me neighborhood, however, consisted of mainly older homes with elderly residents, and I was out of my element here.
With the growing silence between my neighbor and me, I’d turned on my heels and headed toward my back door.
“I’m Nick,” he’d finally stated.
I’d stopped walking but hadn’t spun to face him before he added, “You should get your old man to cut the grass.”
Glancing at what I could see of my yard, I’d taken offense at several things.
One, I didn’t have an old man.
Two, I was aware my grass was overgrown, but I didn’t have a mower yet—it was just one more item on a list of growing necessities.
And three, I could take care of my own damn lawn, even if I wasn’t certain that was true. I didn’t need an old man to do it for me.
“I’ll get right on that,” I’d muttered, turning only my head over my shoulder and giving him a friendly salute when what I really wanted to do was give him the finger. “Nice to meet you.” Sarcasm had dripped in my tone. So much for being neighborly.
However, within a few days, the drone of a lawnmower filled the air, and the sound came particularly close to my home. When I’d stepped out on my front stoop, Nick was mowing my grass.
“What the hell are you doing?” I’d snapped, wondering what he was playing at by encroaching on my yard. I’d said I’d take care of it. But I didn’t have a viable plan. I’d considered asking Mitch if I could borrow his lawnmower, the one I’d bought him two years ago as a Father’s Day present, but the thought of asking Mitch for anything made me sick.
