Runes - By Ednah Walters Page 0,2
moving past our mailbox.
“What’s your name?” I called out.
He turned, lowered his sunglasses, and studied me suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t,” I said with as much distain as I could muster, “but Eirik will need a name to go with the message.”
“My name won’t mean anything to him. Just tell him the message is from your new neighbor.”
My stomach hollowed out as though I’d jumped off a plane without a parachute. He couldn’t possibly be my next-door neighbor. A week ago, the For Sale sign had disappeared, but I hadn’t seen any moving truck to indicate someone was moving in.
Please, let his home be farther down the street. Several houses around my neighborhood had been up for sale the last year. Using a trip to our mailbox as an excuse, I continued to watch him. Nice walk. Too bad it was overshadowed by his arrogance. He passed the low-lying white fence separating our yard from our next-door neighbor’s then cut across the lawn and headed for the front door.
Crap.
He stepped on the patio, turned, and looked at me, a mocking smile on his sculptured lips. I averted my eyes and pretended to sift the bills in my hand. As soon as he disappeared inside, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and furiously texted Eirik.
“Who was that?” Cora asked from on top of the stairs when I entered the house.
I bumped the door closed with my foot and dropped the mail on the foyer table. “Our new neighbor.”
She hurried down the stairs. “Eirik’s old house or down the street neighbor?”
“Eirik’s old house.”
“Oh, I hate you. How come hot guys don’t move next door to my house?”
“That’s because you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere,” I retorted.
“Yeah, whatever.” She ran across the living room to the kitchen window and peered outside like an overstimulated terrier. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
I grinned. Trust Cora to provide me with comic relief. I collected my books, the empty bag of chips and soda can I had left on the coffee table, and followed her. “I told you, Eirik’s place.”
“Ooh, if he takes Eirik’s old bedroom, he’d be able to see right inside yours and you his.”
“And that’s interesting because…?”
“We want to see him shirtless.”
“Hey, don’t include me in your craziness.”
She made a face and mouthed the words I’d just said. “Oh, live a little, Raine. Seriously, sometimes I wonder how we can be so tight. You move slower than a slug when it comes to guys.”
“And you go at warp speed.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you calling me a—”
“Male connoisseur… aficionado… nothing tacky.” We laughed. Cora fell in love fast and often, and got bored just as easily. I was only interested in one guy: Eirik. He and I had been neighbors until last year when they moved up the hill to one of the mansions at the end of Orchard Road. I never worried about him seeing inside my bedroom. The thought of the new guy that close to me was, I don’t know, unsettling. I dumped the soda can and bag in the garbage and started toward the stairs.
“It would be like old times,” Cora continued, moving away from the window, “except with him instead of boring Eirik.”
“Eirik’s not boring.”
“Is to. So what’s Mr. Hotness’ name? What did he want? Is he throwing a meet-the-new-neighbor party? First dibs on your plus-one.” She looked at me expectantly.
I laughed. “No one throws that kind of a party around here. I don’t know his name, and he was looking for Eirik.”
“Pretty Boy knows him? He just lost hotness points,” Cora mumbled.
“I heard that.” I waited for her to catch up before I continued upstairs. “I don’t get it. You and Eirik used to get along so well. Now all you do is snipe at each other every time you’re in the same room. What happened?”
“He talks down to me, like I’m stupid or something.”
“He does not.”
“Does to. Today I asked him to help me with a math problem, and he looked at me like I was a slug masquerading as a human being. Then he smirked and told me to ask Keith. He can be so...” She growled, her eyes narrowing. “I wanted to smack him. I should have smacked him.”
Cora was smart, but she tended to act helpless around guys, which drove Eirik nuts. Deciding not to comment, I pushed open my bedroom door, and my eyes went to the window facing our neighbor’s. The wide