Neighbors with Benefits (Anderson Brothers, #2)(10)

“Don’t yell at the girl! Can’t you see she’s preoccupied?” Blanche, Gladys’ best friend and unofficial leader of the Queen B’s, grabbed the yarn and passed it.

Preoccupied? More like exhausted. She’d spent a nearly sleepless night, tossing and turning in her bed, trying not to imagine what Don Juan was doing on the other side of the wall—which was more disturbing than anything. After seeing and meeting the guy, it was hard not to imagine a lot of things—things she’d sworn off of when she broke up with Jason.

“Well, what’s wrong with her?” Gladys asked, volume just shy of deafening. “She’s all blue and clammed up.”

“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I’m tired today.” She was used to Gladys speaking about her as if she weren’t in the room. She suspected it was another tactic used by the woman to remain distant from outsiders.

“Tired, my arse,” Gladys said, stabbing her knitting needles into whatever atrocity she was working on. “Only a man can distract a woman like that.” She nodded to Betty on her right. “Men. Nothin’ but trouble.”

No kidding. Mia smiled halfheartedly and dipped her brush again.

“What are you knitting, Gladys?” Bernice, the quietest of the group asked.

“Don’t rightly know yet. Sometimes I just make stuff up as I go along. No plans. Kinda like our crafts teacher, Mia, huh? No plans at all.”

Ouch. Gladys was a lot more with-it than she let on.

“Leave the girl alone. She’s tired,” Blanche said. “Why didn’t you sleep, honey?”

“I have the most awful neighbor. He brings a different woman home every night and I can hear them through the walls. Well, I would if I didn’t drown him out with loud music.”

“I wish I had a neighbor like that. All I get to listen to through the walls is game shows.”

Bernice gasped. “Gladys!”

“Well, it’s true.” She picked up her needles and pulled the horrible yellow and orange scrap of knitting onto her lap. “I’m old, not dead.”

Mia stood. “Anyone else finished with their brushes?” Betty and Bernice held theirs up and she gathered them. Usually she loved her work with the women at Heart’s Home, but that afternoon, it was hard to focus. And every now and then her mind would wander to her handsome, hard-bodied, good-smelling, obnoxious, stuck-up, uptight neighbor. He certainly wasn’t uptight in his bedroom. Well, at least she assumed he wasn’t, based on the noises his guests made. And despite her willing it not to, her imagination conjured images of what it might be like to be with a powerful, driven man like that. A man who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. So unlike Jason.

Stop! She shook her head.

“Maybe you should go over and ask him nicely to keep the noise down,” Blanche suggested.

“I think you should report him to the building security,” Betty said, wiping paint on the front of her apron.

“I think she needs to ignore it. Reporting him will only make him mad,” Bernice added.

“I’ll tell ya what she needs to do. She needs to march over to that man’s apartment and make some noise of her own with him.”

“Gladys!” a chorus of three female voices shouted. Mia simply gasped.

“Aw, fiddlesticks. I know what I’m talking about. Whenever I felt blue, my husband Tom knew precisely how to make me all better.” She winked and the women cast sideways glances from each other, to Mia, and then back to Gladys, who paid them no mind. “I miss Tom. He had the biggest—”

“Stop!” Betty interrupted.

“Heart, for chrissake, Betty. He had the biggest heart. What did you think I was gonna say?” Gladys arched a gray eyebrow and tapped her knitting needles together.

“I appreciate all the advice, but honestly, I think I need to go home and sleep. I have lots of time before he gets home and starts his shenanigans. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ask him to stop.”

“Report him.”

“Ignore him.”

“Bed him.”

“Gladys!” Three voices admonished in unison.

Mia stifled a giggle as she stepped out onto the street. She had come to love the Queen B’s. Unfortunately, the job didn’t pay much, and the only way she could afford to continue working there would be to complete her next series of paintings that the Heart’s Home owners had commissioned for one of their other properties. That meant going home. Home it was.

As she emerged from the subway station, a sleek, black limousine pulled up to her building a block away. It was too far away to see clearly, but it was undoubtedly Michael Anderson and Clancy who stepped out on the curb. Figures he’d travel by limo.

As she got closer, though, she noticed something wasn’t right. His suit was soiled and even torn in a few places. His hair was mussed and he had a smudge on his cheek. Perfect Michael Anderson looked anything but perfect. And Clancy was a mess, partially covered in something black and gooey.

The moment he noticed her, Michael’s eyes narrowed. So be it. Two could play this game. “Rough day at the office, Mr. Anderson?” she taunted as she breezed past him toward the door.

“Yes, actually. It has been a rough morning—preceded by a rough night.”

Mia stopped before she reached the door. The limo pulled away, and somehow the man and dog seemed even more pitiful without the opulent backdrop of the shiny car. Pitiful and irritating. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh. Poor thing. Did one of your houseguests keep you up all night?”