Page 127 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

PETER

T he little cabin was cozy and comfortable at night.

Darkness had fallen hours ago, and a gentle breeze outside rustled leaves and branches, creating a chorus of sounds that immersed me completely in nature.

I lit a couple of candles I found in the cupboards in the kitchen, made myself dinner, and ate at the kitchen table, which wobbled from side to side on legs of different lengths.

I added it as a task to my never-ending list of things to fix in this place.

After my meal, I washed my dishes in the sink. There was no dishwasher in a place as quaint and simple as this, and I liked the routines I was establishing. Getting back to basics and simpler habits was exactly what my soul needed.

Your soul? I thought, mocking myself. Your soul doesn’t need shit. You just needed to get out of LA.

It was true, of course. I’d lost track of who I was and what I wanted amongst the sea of chaos that was that city.

I’d given everything I had to my job and to my father, whose ailing health had become my number-one concern over the last five years.

My brother had been content to let me handle everything from doctors’ appointments, medication costs, insurance follow-ups, and meals for my father, who was no longer able to take care of himself, let alone cook.

I didn’t regret being consumed by the end of my father’s life. I just regretted how lost it all made me feel.

What did I want for myself? What did I need? What didn’t I need?

Those were all questions I didn’t have the answers to.

But this place felt like redemption. I could peel back the layers here.

I could sit in the quiet and the peace and figure out what my next steps were.

I could heal my mind as well as my body without the steady demand of people who needed things from me.

I set the dishes on the mat to dry on the counter and spent the next hour with a book on the sofa with obnoxiously loud springs.

By ten o’clock, I was tired, so I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed.

It too creaked like it was going to collapse beneath me.

I worried that I might fall right through to the floorboards, bed and all, in the middle of the night.

It wouldn’t be an ideal way to wake up.

But I couldn’t fix it all at once. I’d have to move slowly and strategically.

There was always tomorrow.

I drifted off and was visited by the three young women from the market in my dreams. Only this time, I was the one calling the shots, not evading their attempts to take me home with them.

I woke to the distinct sound of muffled laughter outside.

My eyes fluttered open and I stared at the ceiling of exposed rafters above. I breathed softly, ears straining, and listened.

The laughter came again.

Teenagers.

I waited. There was no sense in getting out of my bed if they were just passing through and being stupid.

But the longer I listened, the clearer it became that they were tampering with something outside.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out what might be entertaining them so much.

My cabin was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.

The only thing outside that wasn’t on the porch was—

“The mailbox,” I muttered. “Damn it.”

If this had been my place, I might have left it alone.

But it wasn’t. It belonged to the sweet elderly couple in Miami, and I’d be damned if I was going to let a group of stupid kids mess with their property.

Besides, the mailbox was obviously hand painted.

I’d noticed it on my way home from the market earlier in the afternoon and assumed the wife had done it at some point when they used to live here themselves.

I pulled the covers off.

Nope. I wasn’t going to be the guy to roll over and pretend he never heard anything.

I’d teach those damn kids for coming and messing with the new guy on the island.

I had no doubt in my mind that was what this was about.

They were probably some locals who got their kicks hazing people who had recently arrived on the island.

They couldn’t mess with anyone in the hotels for obvious reasons, so I was the lucky bastard they’d settled on.

I moved silently through the house. By this point, I’d picked out which floorboards were the loudest. I avoided them diligently. In some places, I had to press myself up flush against the wall and creep around it just to make sure I didn’t tip the kids off that I was coming for them.

My slow stalking through the house reminded me of the days when I was young and used to scare the shit out of my younger brother.

Mike had always scared easily and I relished making him scream like alittle girl whenever I snuck up on him.

Our father found it infuriating. Every now and then though when I got Mike really good, I’d catch my father smiling before he collected his composure and yelled at me for being a menace.

I’ll show these kids what a menace really looks like . My stomach was full of butterflies. A sense of playfulness unlike any I’d felt in a long time rolled through me as I approached the back door.

I had no intention of going out yelling like a madman and chasing them off.

Oh no. I had bigger plans than that.

I unlocked the back door and the screen and pushed it open as quietly as I could.

Inevitably, it creaked softly on its un-oiled hinges.

The kids around the front went quiet, but I didn’t hear them retreat, so I moved down the back steps.

My bare feet hit the grass and I began to creep around the side of the house.

It was extremely dark out. The only light was that of the single light post that stood loyally at the edge of what might have once been a driveway. Now it was overgrown and full of weeds.

I used the grass to my advantage. My steps were silent as I crept out into the surrounding bush. I moved off of memory and kept low as I moved up the side of the house to where the mailbox was.

I spied the teenagers as I came around the bend.

There were three of them. All boys.

Surprise, surprise.

They’d knocked the mailbox over and had stomped on it, flattening the metal like a broken down cardboard box put out for recycling. I grimaced and wondered how much time and effort the old lady had put into painting it. How long had it taken her husband to put it up for her?

Better yet, how long had it stood at the edge of the property?

At least twenty years, I assumed.

Little shits .

I continued creeping through the greenery. The soil was wet and soft beneath my feet.

Up ahead, the kids spoke quietly amongst themselves. Laughter ensued, and I remembered being their age and being filled with terrible ideas and no sense of self-preservation or respect for others.

They had a new idea. Whatever it was, I doubted I would like it.

They began moving toward the cabin. They kept low and to the shadows, and one of them, the ring leader, stepped out in front and gestured for the others to follow.

I wasn’t going to get a better chance than this. Somehow, I’d managed to get behind them.

Grinning to myself with as much maturity as the teenagers possessed, I reached out, grabbed the branch of a particularly full bush of some sort, and shook it vigorously.

The three boys stopped, straightened, and looked behind them.

I stopped rustling the branches and hunched down low, watching them from my hiding spot.

One kid whispered to another. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know. Go check it.”

“I’m not going to check it out! You check it out.”

“It’s probably a cat.”

“Cats aren’t that big, you dumbass.”

“Fine, a dog then.”

The boys went quiet.

I grinned and relished the silence that hung in the air.Feeling no remorse, I picked up a branch from the ground and snapped it.

One of the kids yelped. Another scrambled backward and slammed into the third. They fell on their asses and promptly tripped over each other as they tried to regain their footing.

“We should get out of here,” one said.

“I second that.”

I snapped another branch and shook the bush. For added drama, I decided to cup my hands to my mouth and make eerie animalistic sounds. I’d done this to my brother a handful of times as kids. Each scare was just as satisfying as the last.

This was no different. The boys panicked.

I wished it hadn’t been so dark because there was no doubt in my mind I’d have been able to see the whites of their eyes as they raced to the far side of the property to give me and my bush as wide a berth as possible.

Hellbent on making sure they didn’t come back here and destroy more property, I lunged from the bush when their backs were turned and they’d reached the driveway. I let out a loud bellow and one of the boys actually screamed. He pitched forward in the dirt and landed heavily on his stomach.

I hobbled after them, back hunched, arms raised above my head, and yelled again.

One of the boys kept on running like he thought he was going to die. The other, the shortest of them all, ran on all fours to retrieve his fallen comrade. He screamed at him to get the hell up as I closed in on them.

They ran as fast as they could into the night.

I intended on chasing them right to the end of the dirt road, but a sharp pain in my shoulder made me stop. I grimaced, clutched my aching shoulder, and let my arm fall to my side as fresh pain flared in my collarbone.

“Shit,” I hissed.

As I made my way back to the house, I replayed the screams from the boys in my head. I grinned. The pain was worth it. Tomorrow, I would fix the mailbox. Maybe I could head back into the market and find someone who would know where I could get some paint and sealant.

I massaged my shoulder and shook my head at myself as I walked gingerly across the dirt road to the front porch. “Peter Stenley, coder turned handyman. Who’d’ve thought?”