The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(76)

“Uh huh,” she mumbled sleepily.

“Then he went out of his way to sneak her in here when I was out back in the shop working every night. That got me thinking, she’s either a teacher or a parent, which makes the most sense since he never goes out,” Matt murmured, sounding thoughtful and making her sigh.

“It’s me,” Joey said, hoping that would be enough to get him to shut up so that she could sleep.

“Sure it is,” Matt said with a condescending pat on the head and a sigh.

“It is,” Joey said, raising her head to glare at him to find Garrett, who looked like he’d had another run-in with their mystery neighbor across the street, running his hands roughly down his mud-splattered face with a “You really can’t be this fucking stupid,” as he headed back towards the back door. For a moment, she considered following him, but even the prospect of finally finding out who their mystery neighbor was, wasn’t enough to tempt her into getting up.

“So, who do you think it is?” Matt asked, ignoring them.

“I give up,” Joey said, dropping her head back onto her folded arms with a sigh.

She considered going upstairs and crawling back in bed and passing out, but she didn’t have the energy to move. Not after last night. They’d made love against the kitchen cabinets, on this table, against the wall, kissed on the stairs, against his bedroom door before moving to the bed where he’d made love to her one last time before he’d carried her into the shower where he’d taken his time caressing her. Once he’d had her boneless and ready to fall into a coma, he’d given her a quick kiss and a playful slap on her butt and told her to get ready for work.

“Maybe it’s Julie,” Matt said as he began drumming his fingertips against the table and really making her regret promising not to kill him. “It would make the most sense.”

“It’s not me,” Julie said from her usual spot next to him where she waited for her daily entertainment to start with a stack of gossip magazines, a large cup of coffee, and a-

“I really should know better by now,” Julie grumbled, letting Joey know that Matt had finally noticed that large blueberry muffin that she’d foolishly brought with her.

“You really should,” Matt readily agreed.

“It’s not Julie,” Reed said as he walked into the kitchen.

“Then who is it?” Matt asked, making her sigh even as she considered crawling beneath the table so that she could pass out.

She just wanted a little sleep before she had to drag herself to work. She really didn’t want to go to work. Not today. Today, all she wanted to do was pass out in his bed and stay there until she could open her eyes again without feeling like she was dying.

“Why do you want to know?” Reed asked, dropping into his chair.

“Why wouldn’t I want to know?” Matt asked, snorting in disbelief. “The woman has you screaming to the rafters every night. Of course, I want to know who it is.”

“I already told him that it was me,” Joey mumbled weakly, wishing they’d take pity on her and let her sleep.

“She really did,” Julie said, sounding amused.

“Fine,” Matt said, sighing heavily. “If you’re not going to tell me who it is, then at least tell me why you needed a favor at six in the morning.”

“I need you to wait here for Trevor and Jason and give them a ride to school,” Reed announced, making her frown.

“Why?” Matt asked the question that she didn’t have the energy to ask.

“Because I need extra chaperones so that Joey and Shawn can go on the field trip,” Reed said, and admittedly it took her sleep-deprived mind a few seconds to grasp what he said, but once she did…

“Really?” she asked, shoving her chair back and scrambling over the table and onto his lap so that she could wrap her arms around him as she kissed him.

“Oh, my god! What is the meaning of this?”

---

“You know,” Joey said, pausing to take a sip of her soda as she watched another group of students walk towards the ax throwing booth that she wouldn’t mind trying, “this isn’t so bad.”

“It’s too loud,” Shawn, her assigned field trip buddy, said, taking a sip of his soda before he put it down on the ground between them and focused back on building her fortress.

“There is that,” she said with a nod and a yawn as she took in her first field trip and had to admit that this wasn’t a bad way to spend a school day. She’d never been to a Medieval Faire before and as she sat there keeping Shawn company, she had to admit that it looked like a lot of fun.

“Do you want to have a look around?” she asked, although she was more than fine where they were, she felt that she should at least try to encourage Shawn to have a look around.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Okay,” she said, nodding as she settled back against the small fence that separated the booth area from the game area.

She would have preferred to take him over to the picnic area where she could have set him up at a table out of the way, but he’d barely made it off the bus before the noise and crowd became too much and he’d started to panic. Before he could lose it, she’d managed to get him over by the fence, shoved her iPad in his hands, and demanded a fortress. After glaring at her, he sat down with a sigh and began working on her fortress.