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Aspen could tell they were movers because they were wearing uniforms with the name of a moving company, which meant that Kendra Bowie was moving. Well, not just moving; moving in. The house next door had been for sale for a few months. From what she’d seen when she’d been home, it had gotten plenty of interest, but when she’d looked up the asking price, she’d balked because they were asking at least fifty grand more than that place was worth. She’d been inside once at a party held by her now-previous neighbor, and while it was a nice house, hers had been updated more recently in both the kitchen and the master bathroom and had gotten a fresh coat of paint, so there was no way that place was worth more than hers.

“Um…” Aspen mumbled to herself and walked over to her fence. “Kendra?”

Kendra heard her name and looked inside the house, probably expecting someone from the moving company to be the one saying it.

“Over here,” Aspen added.

Kendra turned her head in Aspen’s direction, and her eyes went wide.

“Aspen?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah. Hey. You’re… You’re moving in?”

“Yes. What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” She pointed to the house as if doing that would somehow prove her point. “This is me.”

“You–” Kendra walked over toward the fence. “You live here?”

“Yeah. See the sand in my backyard? That’s for me.”

Kendra got a little closer and looked down over the fence.

“I saw this when I checked out the house. I didn’t really put it together with you, though.”

“Why would you? California is filled with the stuff,” she replied.

She wasn’t sure why she was acting so strangely. Well, yeah, she was. It was because Kendra Bowie was standing just on the other side of Aspen’s fence, and Kendra Bowie was beautiful. She had that blonde, blue-eyed, all-American look about her that always made Aspen internally swoon, but she was also nice, as far as Aspen could tell from the few times they’d talked outside of the interviews she gave Kendra for work. She remembered something about Gatorade but had no idea why they’d been talking about flavors of it or which one of them had brought it up in the first place.

“I had no idea you lived here,” Kendra said. “I guess this means we’re neighbors now, huh?”

“I guess so,” Aspen replied.

“Where do you want this box? There’s no label,” one of the movers asked, holding a box in his hands just outside the sliding glass door.

“Oh, they’re all labeled. I know I put labels on all of them.”

“Not on this one,” he argued.

“Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“It’s okay. I’m just going to get in a workout. Maybe we can talk when they’re gone or something, if you want,” Aspen suggested. “I’m home all day.”

Kendra gave her a small smile and said, “Yeah, okay. I just need to get them out of here as quickly as possible. I’m paying by the hour.”

“Good luck with that,” Aspen replied. “Oh, if a ball goes into your yard, do you mind if I grab it? I had a deal with the last people who lived here. If I break anything, I buy it. That was also the deal.”

“How many things have you broken?” Kendra asked.

“None so far.”

“Can we keep it that way? I just bought this place.”

“Sure,” Aspen said with a little laugh.

“And, yeah, you can just grab it. I’ll maybe stop by later if I can find time to breathe.”

“Just come by whenever. We can have coffee or something. I’m sure you could use a break.”