Page 14 of Filthy Little Midlife Fling

“What?” The phone shuffles and a door closes, and a lot of the background noise cuts out. She must still be at the office. “What are you talking about?”

“Were you playing a prank on me last night?”

“When I threw the cheese?”

“Screw the cheese! When you tried to convince me to have a fling! The whole sex-on-the-counter-then-eat-pie thing!”

“Audrey. Slow down. What’s going on?”

“My neighbor is not a little old lady.”

“Okay…”

“It’s the mechanic!”

“The one who sold you that piece-of-crap van?”

“No! The one who towed the van yesterday!” I sound shrill, so I take another breath. “My next-door neighbor isn’t an old lady. He’s a man. A man who drives the tow truck that picked up my van from his own front yard yesterday. He opened the door wearing a towel. I’m mortified.”

Laurel lets out an excited squeak. “Did he bend you over the kitchen counter like we planned? And then you ate pie? Did you eat pie off his chest? Wait! Did he eat pie off your chest?”

“What? No! He hates me. I crashed into his tree, remember?”

“Oh.” Laurel sounds dejected, but she brightens up when she says, “Is he hot?”

I let my head fall back against the door and picture the sight of his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his dense pack of abs, and—“Yes,” I tell her. “He’s hot.”

His eyes were a dark shade of brown, surrounded by a network of crinkles, and he had chestnut-brown hair shot through with gray. His beard was cut shortish and almost white, and his body was the most insane, tattooed, muscular, manly piece of art I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

No part of me wants to be a cougar right now. I want every bit of his silver-haired, crinkly-eyed deliciousness.

And I crashed into his tree.

The hottest man I’ve ever seen is my next-door neighbor, and he saw me get wheeled away by the paramedics after I. Crashed. Into. His. Tree.

I’ve never been this embarrassed in my entire life.

“Yay! This is perfect. Audrey, you can—”

“I’m not having a fling with my neighbor, Laurel.”

“Oh, boo. We talked about this, Audrey. It’s a sign from the universe.”

“What, that I should feel even more embarrassed than I already do?”

“No! It’s a sign that you should most definitely have hot and sweaty sex with this man.”

“I live next door to him,” I protest. “What happens when the fling ends?”

“You nod politely when you happen to cross paths and otherwise ignore each other’s existence. If you see him in the driveway, you wait until he’s gone before you go outside. You know, like a normal person.”

Before I can come up with a retort, the doorbell rings. “I have to go.”

“Wait! I need more deets.”

“He’s waiting for me, Laurel.”

“What? Why?”

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