Page 2 of Swept Away

I called him Maverick because he’s bold and adventurous.

One of the branches touches the windowsill, so I grab it and pull it down to clear my view and get a glimpse inside the tree.

The streetlights dotting the road across from where I live gleam faintly through a curtain of leaves and branches.

It’s a nice summer evening, a comforting breeze sweeping the streets, which is a big improvement from a month ago when I sweated my butt off even with the AC blasting ice-cold air in my apartment.

The kitten has stopped crying again.

I swear he does this on purpose to annoy me.

Sometimes, I turn the AC off and open the windows at night. He must see inside my place and do everything he can to make me stop doing what I’m doing and come to the window to search for him.

And then he plays hide and seek with me, like now.

I bet his little furry ass he is one of my exes reincarnated.

For the record, none of them are dead, but their spirits must’ve taken up residence in this little furry ball of joy.

Oops.

I can see him.

Usually, he sits on the highest branch and looks down at me with amusement.

He did it again.

Here I am, staring at him.

Males. They’re all a tease.

I barely finish that thought and move my eyes away before peering through the branches again, and something interestingand newcatches my eye across the street.

“Who the fuck is that?” I whisper to myself.

The houses across the street are similar to the brownstones tucked on this side of the road.

And the one across from me is almost identical to the one I’m living in.

They both have a few steps leading to the main door.

Speaking of the house across the street.

The windows are rarely lit, and I don’t remember seeing people going in and out of that house since I moved here.

I moved into my aunt Charlize’s apartment last fall at the beginning of the school year and pay rent, but nothing like the exorbitant prices other people ask.

Although she’s given me plenty of information on her neighbors—just to make sure I know their quirks and get along with them–she's never talked about the house across the street.

But someone lives in that house.Or comes to that house regularly.

An older woman.

I saw her walk in a couple of times, turn on the lights, and open the windows.

I was always under the impression that she was living somewhere else, and she was only checking on the house.

But who knows, right?