Drive Me Crazy: Girl Next Door, #3

Copyright © Crystal Wood Wilson 2013

Interior Design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats

All Rights Reserved

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

About C.C.

The shrieking and banging woke me up from my favorite dream. I lay in bed a moment, trying to figure out what dragged me away from Alexander Skarsgard and a bottle of honey. Another scream pierced through my bedroom wall and I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow. Not again. The strains of a hardcore metal band and what could laughably be called music came blaring from next door.

Jesus Christ, he was at it again. I glanced at the clock and saw it was two in the morning. The asshole had no consideration.

I was going to kill fucking Troy, I thought darkly. I hadn’t met my new neighbor yet, but he had only moved in a few weeks ago and this was the tenth time I had been woken up in the middle of the night because of his noise. Last night, it had been the porn star wannabe who sounded like Betty Boop. She screamed his name loud enough and often enough for me to never forget that my new neighbor was called Troy. I decided she had to be faking it. I never had any man make me want to scream like that.

Then there was the headboard hitting the wall. Why the hell did he decide to put his headboard against the same fucking wall? It sounded as if our headboards lined up perfectly.

Some nights it was just his loud ass music that woke me up. Others it was his television blaring until four a.m. And there had been three occasions, including last night, where his trysts with women and the subsequent noise had woken me.

As the cacophony continued, I glanced at the wall as though I could see him. God, he was a douche. Why anyone would think that playing their stereo that loudly in the middle of the night was okay, I would never know.

Then I had a deliciously evil idea. I grabbed my phone and set an alarm for six a.m., just three and half short hours from now. Then I ran into my living room and found my recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I knew that second semester of music history would come in handy someday. Since Wagner sounded like screaming in German to those who weren’t hardcore opera fans, I was pretty sure Troy would hate it. Especially since he tended to listen to classic rock after he got up around ten in the morning.

Content with my plans for revenge, I curled up under my blanket and went to sleep.

I pulled into my driveway at noon figuring five hours of Wagner on repeat would be punishment enough for Troy. When my alarm went off at six, I had rolled out of bed and taken a quick shower. Just before I left the duplex at 7 a.m., I set up the stereo in my bedroom, programming the CD player to repeat the disc. As I was walking out the door, I pressed play on the remote. Then I got the hell out of there because I didn’t think it would be long before my neighbor would be banging on my door.

Since it was Saturday, I went to the local greasy spoon and ate a leisurely breakfast with lots of good, strong coffee and then read the paper. It was almost nine by the time I finished, so I drove to the local mall and shopped for a couple of hours. My last stop was the bookstore. I bought several bargain books, some CD’s, and a café mocha.

As lunch time neared, I decided I was tired and hungry so I headed home. After I pulled under the carport, I put the car in park and glanced around. I didn’t see anything, so I hopped out of the car, grabbed my bags, and scurried into the duplex. Wagner was still blaring from my stereo. Grabbing the remote, I shut it down. I put together some tuna salad and made myself a tuna sandwich with alfalfa sprouts. I was grabbing some chips to go with my lunch when the banging on my door started. I nearly dropped my half-full café mocha because it was loud. I had a bad feeling that the person pounding on my door was my neighbor.

So I did the smart thing, which was also the cowardly thing, and ignored it. After a few minutes, there was silence. I sighed and went to my little breakfast nook. As I was about to take the first bite of my sandwich, someone starting knocking on the side door that led to the carport, which opened up into my kitchen-slash-nook. It looked like Troy was in the mood to be persistent. I started to ignore him again but he added yelling into the mix.

I know you’re in there! I can see you through the blinds.

I scowled at the window to my left. The blinds were closed. How the hell could he see me? I leaned over and noticed one of the slats was a little askew, and I found myself eyeball-to-eyeball with the horse’s ass. Well, shit. I sighed and abandoned my lunch.

When I opened the door, I got a load of my neighbor for the first time. Wow. Okay, so now I kind of understood why all those girls kept going home with Troy. He was certainly easy on the eyes, with short black hair, chocolate brown eyes, and probably the most beautiful skin I had ever seen on a man. He was definitely of Latin descent and exactly my type. Especially since he was inconsiderate. Latino and a dick. Yep, the exact kind of man I usually fell for. Well, I usually fell for them before I realized they were assholes. Since I knew better, there would not be any of that going on between me and Troy.

Also, he was dressed like a drug dealer or, at the very least, a thug. His clothes were nice but street. And the bling. I liked bling, but his consisted of a heavy chain around his neck and a huge diamond stud in his ear. That was not the kind of bling I liked. Great, I lived next door to the ultimate in bad boys.

I was also not the only one taking a moment to check out their neighbor. Troy looked me up and down twice before he finally focused on my face. He seemed surprised before the angry expression returned.

I’m from next door. Could you not play your music so fucking loud on a fucking Saturday morning for five fucking hours?

Wow, someone was pissed. I leaned against the doorjamb and crossed my arms over my chest, settling in to let him have it.

"Well, that depends, Troy."

His eyebrows rose. How exactly did you know my name?

"Well, Troy, you had a Betty Boop impersonator in your bed screaming it two nights ago at two-thirty in the morning. Oh, and that girl who likes to be spanked was moaning it rather loudly last week. Then there was the one who wanted you to suck her toes. Wait, the spanking girl and toe girl were one in the same."

He lifted his hand, palm out, to stop my monologue. I think I get the picture. A dull flush crept up his neck into his face. So the wall between our bedrooms is that thin?

I nodded. Yep. I popped the ‘p’.

And Wagner this morning was to make a point? he asked.

Now it was my eyebrows that rose. A drug dealer that knew something about opera, now that was a surprise.

You could say that, I replied. I’m sure you appreciated Wagner as much as I appreciated your death metal in the middle of a very good dream last night.

I was shocked when he grinned. Not just because he was smiling but because he had some of the whitest teeth I had ever seen and a damn nice smile. Too bad it was wasted on a guy that probably sold crystal meth to high school kids. How he’d managed to hook up with all those girls, I would never understand. Then again, straight-laced girls usually did like bad boys and that smile said he was unmistakeably a bad, bad boy. Being gorgeous didn’t hurt either.

Well, neighbor, I’ll be sure it isn’t a problem in the future and I am sorry. If I had realized the walls were so thin, I would have been more discreet. Oh, and I apologize for interrupting your, uh...good dream.

Apology accepted, I said politely. Ignoring his suggestive pause when he mentioned my dream, I started to step back to close the door, thus ending the conversation.

Wait, he said, I don’t know your name.

I just smiled and shut the door in his face. I stood there and listened for a moment. At first there was silence, then I heard Troy’s footsteps wander away.

I went back to my tuna sandwich but my appetite had disappeared. I was in deep trouble. My new neighbor was exactly the kind of man I preferred. He was also exactly the kind of guy who would stomp all over my heart. I decided that my sandwich would wait until later. I wrapped it up and stuck it in the fridge.

I decided that a nap might be in order. After having my sleep interrupted the night before and getting up so early, I was tired. Also, I liked my sleep. Most nights I preferred to sleep nine or ten hours but I could easily sleep twelve a night over the weekend. My friend, Nat, used to make fun of me all the time because she slept less than anyone I had ever met. She joked I was sleeping my life away. I told her that people who got very little sleep died young.

Only the good die young and I’m a bad girl, was her reply.

I couldn’t argue with that point. Especially since she was right. She was a bad girl.

I grinned at the memory and decided to try to do girls’ night out with my friends Natalie and Catherine as soon as possible. Since Nat was pregnant and Cat had a brand new baby boy, I knew it would be hard to pry them out of the house, but I needed some time with my girlfriends. Now that I knew exactly how hot my new neighbor was, I needed their take-no-prisoners attitude and bullshit-free words of wisdom.

I decided to text my friends later in the evening, after my nap. I went into my bedroom and stretched