Page 113 of Nothing Like the Movies

Or worse.

“What the?”

I glanced down when I heard those words, but I couldn’t see anyone, so hopefully that was just the sound of someone talking inside their apartment with the window open. My heart started pounding as I climbed farther up the limestone, using the gutter for balance.

When I got close enough to kick a leg out onto Liz’s balcony, I damn-near had a heart attack when I looked below.

Because I’d miscalculated.

I was definitely high enough to fall to my death.

Shit, shit, shit.

I threw my weight over and landed on her balcony, a little harder than I would’ve liked, but thankfully it had a concrete pad that absorbed the sound. Pulse pounding, I took off the backpack, unzipped it, and started getting busy.

I set out the candles, one by one, lining them up to form a heart and then a larger heart around it. Once I finished that, I opened the daisy petals and sprinkled the white inside the smaller heart, and the yellow inside the bigger heart.

I stood back to look and, dearLord, it looked good.

Liz will love this,I thought as I took a quick photo and put my phone away.

The nerves were still there, but now they were joined by excitement.

It’s going to work.

I pulled the big lighter from the backpack, leaned down, and started lighting the votives.

Which lookedamazingin the darkness.

“What are you doin’ up there?”

Fuuuuck.I glanced down, and the guy from garden level was looking up at me from below with a scowl on his face and something in his hand.Is that a hose?It was too dark to tell from where I was.

“Shhh,” I said, holding up my hand.

“He’s trying to start a fire!” the guy yelled, and I realized the lighter was in my hand, the orange tip flickering in the dark.

“No, I’m not!” I released the button on the lighter, trying to yell down at the guy while also being quiet. Something with a motor was humming now, so I felt like he couldn’t hear me, but I also didn’t want to alert Liz to my presence. “Christ, I’m—”

My words were stopped by his pressure washer.

His fucking pressure washer.

Thatwas the humming motor.

The guy pointed up with his pressure washer and sprayed me, the deck, the candles—fuuuuck. It was nearly impossible for me to see as he exfoliated my fucking head, but that high-pressuredwater wiped out the flower petals and blew out the candles.

“Will you stop it?” I whisper-yelled, trying to see while getting my face waterboarded by a dipshit with a pressure hose. I stumbled, kicking over candles, trying to shield my eyes with my hand as I said, “I’m not trying to—”

“What’s going on?” A woman appeared beside him, squinting up at the balcony while holding out her phone. “Is there another possum—”

“There’s an arsonist!” he yelled.

Yeah, I was pretty sure I was having a heart attack as my entire body went numb.

Shit shit shit, this was not going the way I’d imagined. I’d imagined falling to my death but hadn’t imagined getting fingered for arson.

I needed to get the hell out of there.

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