In the Garden of Eden
A surly student librarian vows revenge against an irksome artist, but things get tricky . . .
Click on the picture above to look at this book, or just to check out my other website where I have many titles for sale, all for 3$ or less! If you like Slash Romances with a splash of Yaoi, this is the place to go!
Chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13141516171819
Gives You Hell
Chapter 1
A/N: The name of this story comes from a hilarious video by the All-American Rejects, which is what inspired this story in the first place. Check it out, its pretty funny. -DL
Thomas Merriweather hated his neighbor Rob Carleton. In fact, Thomas hated his neighbor a lot. So much so that he’d even dreamed about buying a gun and taking it over there sometime while the horrible man was playing loud head-banging music at three a.m. and ‘putting a cap in his ass’, as they'd said in the one gangsta movie that he’d seen.
There was absolutely nothing that Thomas didn’t hate about Rob. The man was just awful. He was a musician, and he spent most of his nights playing in bars. He’d stumble home at four a.m., and wake Thomas out of a sound sleep with his cursing and banging as he drunkenly knocked over his metal trash can, or slammed his car door with enough force that it was a wonder that it didn’t fall right off. When he was like that Thomas was scared to go out and yell at him, even though Rob had woken him up yet again at an unholy hour. But because he came in so late, that meant that the musician slept during the day - and woe be to anyone who woke him up doing normal things like cutting the lawn. He’d come storming out of his house and curse at the offender loudly. Unfortunately, it seemed to be Thomas who set him off the most, since their houses were right next to each other.
But that was only one of the things that Thomas hated about his neighbor. Rob’s band came over and practiced at all hours in his garage, and so he never knew when loud music would start up over there. He loathed their so-called ‘style’ of music, which made it so much worse. This same band would throw drunken parties at Rob's house all the time, and crowds of people would mill around on the lawn yelling and listening to loud music. They would throw their litter over the hedge and into Thomas’s yard, so he’d venture out the next day and find a horrible mess which he’d have to clean up. Going over and demanding that Rob clean it up (Since it was his friends that had caused it in the first place) was out of the question, because he was more than a little afraid of his wretched neighbor. Rob had a bad temper, and he must have found some time to work out between partying and singing, because he was a pretty big guy. Muscles would ripple in his chest whenever he stumbled out of his house to yell at Thomas about making too much noise and waking him up. He only wore a pair of scruffy-looking sweat pants to bed, so Thomas always got a good view of that chest.
Thomas liked order. He liked quiet. He knew he was stiff and kind of uninteresting; he knew that he had more than a touch of OCD, and probably a touch of Asperger’s as well. He worked as an accountant, balancing books and producing orderly columns of numbers. This tidiness pleased him. Going home and making dinner also pleased him, as did pouring himself a glass of wine while Mozart played in the background. Watching PBS while he worked on his bring-home paperwork was another pleasure, and pottering around in his garden on the weekends was yet another. But having to deal with Rob Carleton day-after-day was not a pleasure at all. There was nothing he could do about the situation; with the economy tanking there were few other jobs that would pay as well as the one he had. Moreover, since the housing market was in the tank too, he couldn’t hope to sell his house for what he’d paid for it. Especially not with the house next door, which Rob had painted a virulent shade of lime-green. The front lawn was always untidy, and the paint was peeling around the windows. Rob’s house did not up the resale value of any of the houses in the neighborhood. But most especially not Thomas’, which was such a startling contrast with its well-tended flowerbeds, always mowed lawn, and pristine paintwork.
Perhaps the thing that made Thomas hate Rob most of all, however, was the fact that he also felt more than a slight twinge of attraction to the other man. Rob was good looking in a scruffy sort of way, and he had a great body (which he displayed constantly in a casual semi-nudity) - and truth be told his singing voice wasn’t bad at all. When it could be heard above his band mates’ loud playing, that is. But despite those things, he was a generally horrible man who drove Thomas crazy. That’s why he hated the fact that he felt those twinges once in awhile. He didn’t want to like Rob Carleton. Not at all.
Not that he could ever expect anything to come of that attraction. He himself was so far in the closet that he could have found the dust bunnies along the back baseboard. And his neighbor had an endless procession of pretty but slutty or trashy-looking women go through his house. Thomas wanted to pull his neatly-cut brown hair out over the fact that he was attracted to a heterosexual, and an awful heterosexual at that. He'd never do that, of course, since having a large bald patch on his head would upset his prized orderliness. Not to mention make him look like an idiot. All in all, having the musician move in next to him had been one of the worst things that had ever happened to Thomas. Who knew when he’d ever get relief from his problem? Rob certainly showed no signs of moving out, or of being kicked out for lack of paying his mortgage. Where he got his money from was anybody’s guess, but somehow he seemed to manage to make his payments month-after-month. So all Thomas could do was endure, and hope that he wasn’t finally driven totally insane by the guy next door.
“That guy over there is glaring at us again,” a voice said lazily.
Rob Carleton looked up from his bass to frown at his drummer Ricky Morales. “Huh?” he said, having not really paid attention to what his bandmate had said before.
“That weird guy with the glasses. The one who lives over there,” Ricky jerked a thumb at the house next door, which was a neat one-story painted a soft cream color with dark-green accents. “He keeps staring at us over the hedge. Looks like he’d love to stick an ice pick through us. You sure he’s not a serial killer, man? He’s kinda creepy.”
Rob laughed. “No, I don’t think he’d a serial killer,” the musician replied good-humouredly as he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “Just a little odd. Well, maybe more than a little,” he amended. “But basically harmless, I think. You sure he was glaring at us?” he said doubtfully.
Ricky nodded. “Hell, yeah, man. If looks could kill…you’d be six-feet-under by now.”
Rob lifted an eyebrow. “I think you’re exaggerating again, Ricky. Like that time you claimed you banged eight chicks in one day.”
His other guitarist, Jack Prentiss, roared with laughter from his seat on a saggy lawn chair nearby. “He’s got you there, Ricky,” he hooted, pointing a finger at the glaring drummer. “I doubt that you’ve hooked up with eight chicks in your entire life, let alone in one day.”
Rob’s lips quirked as Ricky gave Jack a killing look of his own. “Now, now,” he soothed, flapping a hand at them both. “No fighting, kiddies. I don’t need somebody calling the cops again, like last time.”
Ricky sniffed. “That was Jack’s fault too,” he said, glowering at his bandmate, who was smirking at him. “Bastard told me that he’d slept with Kelly before we broke up.”
“I was drunk at the time,” Jack pointed out in his own defense, “And she wasn’t. So, whose fault was it really?”
“He has a good point,” Rob said equably. “Some blame at least has to fall on your former girlfriend, Ricky, who was a…pardon my French…fucking slut.”
“Yeah, I know she was,” Ricky said glumly. “God, women suck! Why couldn’t I have been born gay, damn it!”
“It’s not any easier on the other side of the fence, Ricky,” Rob said. “There are just as many male sluts out there as there are female ones. Maybe more. Being gay doesn’t ensure that you’re not going to be cheated on. Hell, you know what guys are like. Would you expect to find one under thirty that DIDN’T want to have sex with everything that moved?”
Silence as Ricky and Jack digested this remark. “Fuck.” Ricky said at last. “There’s no hope, is there?”
“As a card carrying bi-sexual, I can say with impunity that you are totally correct. There is, in fact, no hope whatsoever,” Rob replied easily. “Humanity on the whole sucks ass. Women as well as men. It’s just the way things are.”
Jack stretched his legs out in front of him. “Hence the reason that I don’t bother with a girlfriend,” he remarked in disgust. “One day, when Cocks of the Walk makes it big, I’ll marry a trophy chick with huge fake tits and cheat on her with dozens of groupies. It’s the most honest way of living, if you ask me. None of that lousy ‘commitment’ crap, or the ‘faithfulness’ shit either,” he said scornfully.
“What a romantic you are, Jack,” Rob said in amusement.
“Like you won’t end up doing the same thing, man,” Jack remarked sardonically.
Rob considered this as he sucked on his cigarette. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Just because I’m cynical and hate most people unconditionally, doesn’t mean that I couldn’t find true love.”
Ricky and Jack howled with laughter at this. “Y-Yeah! You have about as much chance of that happening as you do that creepy neighbor guy of yours showing up on your doorstep to kiss your ass!” Ricky said when he could speak again.
Rob gave him the finger genially. The two ribbed him a bit longer, then their attention got distracted as they talked about the lyrics of the new song that Rob had written. Their loud voices drifted over into the ears of the man who lived next door, who was weeding his rosebushes and scowling as he did so.
Thomas had, of course, heard this entire conversation. Rob Carleton and his friends always talked at the tops of their lungs when they got together. He could have heard them a block away, let alone next door. His cheeks burned with anger when they referred to him as ‘creepy’ and ‘weird’, and that joke about him doing something completely disgusting to an unmentionable part of Rob’s anatomy – his face had turned brick-red, and he’d had to take several deep breaths to try to control himself. He did have a pair of very sharp hedge clippers lying nearby, after all. If they wanted to see serial killer…The only part he’d missed was when he’d stormed into his house to refill his bottle of water. Thus, he’d missed the part where Rob had indentified himself as a bi-sexual. By the time he’d returned, the conversation had moved on.
He pulled up weeds vigorously, taking his anger out on them instead of on his neighbor like he would have liked to. His hazel eyes snapped behind the wire-rimmed glasses he was wearing. He was actually more attractive when he was angry, for color surged up into somewhat pale cheeks (he had an office tan, plus he always wore a hat when out gardening), and his eyes showed more animation than usual. He muttered to himself under his breath as he worked. “Rotten people. Probably they can’t get girlfriends who are faithful to them because they’re not worth it. Always talking about sex and bragging how many people they’ve slept with…it’s disgusting,” he told the Eiffel Tower roses he was working around. “They should be ashamed of themselves…Not that they ever are.”
He felt a bit better just getting to vent, even if it was just to several species of flora. Of course, he’d much rather have said all of these things to Rob’s face, but he had never worked up the courage to do so. For which he hated himself. Why did he have to be such a coward? Of course, ranting at his neighbor probably wouldn’t produce any useful results, but he’d feel better to finally get it off his chest. He winced as he heard a bass guitar start playing next door. There went another peaceful Saturday afternoon. Why couldn’t he just be allowed to enjoy his weekends? What had he done to make God blight him so? Whatever it was must have been very bad, for the punishment he was receiving was pretty spectacular.
The band finally broke up for the day, because they had a gig tonight and wanted to get some shut-eye. Thomas sighed in relief when he heard their loud goodbyes to Rob, and the sound of cars screeching out of his driveway. The man himself continued to play his guitar idly for a bit, singing softly to himself as he went over the lyrics of his new song. Despite himself, Thomas found that he was listening to it. And it wasn’t bad, all things considered. Better than the usual horrible stuff they normally turned out. Rob was singing the refrain: “And you looked at me with those bedroom eyes, and I lost all of my inhibitions. And you cut me with your razor tongue, and cast me into Perdition. When will I rise up from Hell, when will the torment stop? The day I throw you out of my heart, is when I’ll cry my last tear drop.” His husky voice made the song sound rather poignant, full of yearning and heartbreak.
Thomas paused among his roses, feeling a bittersweet emotion in his chest. It was at times like these that he felt that deeply buried attraction most strongly. When Rob actually acted like a semi-human being, or when he sang like this and reminded Thomas that he actually had some talent. He didn’t want to be moved by his neighbor; he just wanted to hate the man. But unfortunately for his peace of mind, he couldn’t quite do that all of the time. Ah well, he didn’t have to worry. Rob would inevitably do something soon that would break the spell, and remind him of why he loathed his neighbor. Then things would return to normal. That in its way was its own form of order, in sharp contrast to the disorderliness of very strong feelings. Thomas didn’t like those; they tended to throw his world entirely off-kilter. His hatred of his neighbor was low-level and constant, rather than some burning thing that would send him spinning out of control.
Rob finished his song and stood up. Thomas heard the scuff of his shoes on the walk in the backyard next door. Then he spoke: “Try not to make too much noise and wake me up, will ya? I have a gig tonight and I need my beauty sleep,” then he chuckled and walked off. Thomas heard his back door swing shut, and gritted his teeth as the last of his finer feelings about the man dissipated in the return of his simmering anger. The man hadn’t even bothered to use his name! And that injunction not to make too much noise! This from the man who constantly woke him up with loud noises! Thomas nearly growled, stabbing his trowel into the earth forcefully. He was imagining that it was actually Rob’s face that he was planting it in.
Go to Next Chapter