I'm 28 years old and lucky enough to live alone in a relatively small, two bedroom home in a quiet little neighborhood. My parents actually own the house, I'm paying them rent to live there as I work on my master's degree. For the most part, my life is very simple: I go to school, spend a lot of time studying, go to the climbing gym when I have time, and occasionally grab a beer or two with my classmates. I've been in this house for just over a year and a half, and like I said, the neighborhood is very quiet. Nicer houses, retired people, perfect for someone trying to focus on school work with minimal distraction.
Then few months ago, one of houses next door went up for sale and sold pretty quickly. A young couple around to my age with their two or three year old son moved in. We exchanged hellos as they unloaded the U-Haul, but otherwise had very little in the way of interaction. They seemed nice enough, kind of quiet, but friendly and polite. Scott and Claire are their names. I slowly got to know them over the course of a few neighborly exchanges. Turns out they moved from the other side of the country for Scott's job, he's a newly minted lawyer. Claire stays home with their son, but eventually wants to finish a teaching degree. On the surface, an exceedingly normal family.
Now it's worth noting (especially for the purposes of this story) that Claire is an absolutely stunning redhead. She's tall and thin with a few sexy mom-bod-type curves. Her face is covered in cute little freckles, and she has a very cute sort of Southeastern accent. Her hair is a darker shade of auburn that shines like fire in the sun. Usually she has it up in a ponytail. Perhaps best of all, she has a way of wearing very athletic tank tops and yoga pants. Needless to say, this was not lost on me, but hey, she's a married woman with a kid, in my mind not worth spending too much time drooling over.
For a few weeks life carried on as normal. I busied myself with school as usual, occasionally waving to Scott or Claire if they happened to be outside when I got home. Late summer turned to early fall, and then I started noticing things. Sometimes at night I could hear the muffled sound of Scott yelling at Claire. Sometimes doors were slammed or soft 'thuds' could be heard. One night in October I arrived home late after a study session only to see Claire sitting on the front porch with her face buried in her hands crying. A few times, after arguing, Scott would hop into his truck and peel off into the night. I couldn't help myself from watching and listening, and the more I did so, the more I began to suspect that Scott was the aggressor, and Claire was a sort of helpless victim.
As the fighting and arguing continued I began to have more interactions with Claire. I'd run into her on occasion while she was pushing her son on his bike around the block. I bumped into her once or twice at the grocery store. She always seemed happy to see me, beaming a big smile, and she would often linger on conversation until I said that I had to go. During our chats I became more and more aware of just how beautiful she was, and I in a subtle way started to notice a slightly flirty undertone to our interactions.
I went to visit my family for Thanksgiving, and it wasn't long before finals were looming over my head. At the same time, winter was rearing its ugly head, and we got our first snowfall of the year. I didn't hear as much fighting next door, but I noticed that Scott would often come home very late at night. Then one evening in early December there came a heavy knock at my door.
I was surprised to see Scott standing on my front porch, and my first reaction was that I had somehow done something to piss him off. Turned out that he was headed away to some lawyer conference for a week, and he just wanted to ask me just to keep an eye out for his family while he was away. That might sound silly, but there was a big snow storm looming a few days off, and from what I understood it sounded like they'd never really experienced anything like that back east. Of course I said I'd be happy to help if they needed anything. Scott thanked me, and that was that.
I became so absorbed in my preparation for finals that I pretty much forgot about Scott's visit and my agreement to watch out for his family. And then the snow came. It dumped for a solid day and a half. In the end we were left with about 18 inches. I woke up early two mornings in a row to shovel both Claire's driveway and my own, and also went over to check on them once to see if they needed anything from the store. Claire thanked me, but said that they were just fine. I considered my job as good as done.
That night we got hit hard with freezing rain. The combination of snow and freezing rain broke off huge tree limbs, turned roads into ice rinks, and also wiped out our power. Nothing is worse than a snowstorm without electricity (And thus heat), hot water, and of course internet, but this wasn't a new thing, so I walked out to the garage and fired up the generator and space heater.
I was just sitting down to read a book when there was a much softer knock on my door. On my doorstep, shivering cold in a red down jacket and jeans was Claire.
"Umm Hi, everything okay?" I said as I opened the door and instinctively let her in.
"Look, sorry to barge in like this, but our house is absolutely freezing, " She said, still shivering, her arms crossed across her chest, looking absolutely miserable. "I heard your generator... And is there anyway my son and I can hang out over here until the power comes on?"
"Of course." I said not even pausing to think, "Can I help you bring anything over?"
"Oh you're so sweet!" She said, and then gave me a huge hug. "Let me just go get him, I'll be right back."
A few minutes later, Claire knocked on the door again, this time, her son, Jeremy, was in her arms clutching a sippy cup wrapped up in a snowsuit onesie. I let them in and Jeremy said something cute like, "Mom, who's that?" to which she replied something like "That's the nice neighbor man who is going to let us warm up in his house."
Before long everyone was comfortably inside. I made some tea for Claire and I, and stacked books with Jeremy on the floor. It was honestly the most fun that I'd had in a long time. Eventually Jeremy passed out on the floor, so I sat with Claire on the couch. She had shed her jacket and was wearing a surprisingly revealing white tank top, you can imagine how beautiful she looked.
We chatted quietly which Jeremy slept on the floor. We talked about school, her move out west, Christmas plans, and then totally out of nowhere she just broke into tears. I of course had no idea what to do, so I just rubbed her back and asked her (like an idiot) if everything was okay. She apologized through her sobs and then we sat in quiet for a few minutes as she cried. At last she gathered herself and wiped her tears away with her shirt.
"It's just that," she looked at me with a sort of weak smile, "It's just that you're being so nice to us, to me. Thank you."
I don't know why, but I completely lost it and broke out laughing, and then Claire broke out laughing. Jeremy stirred at our feet and she covered my mouth with her hand with a "shhhh".
I held back my laughter and looked back at her. She pulled her hand away and then apologized for touching me.
"It's okay," I said, "It's not like I was going to let you two freeze to death next door."
"I know, I know," Claire said, "Things have been kind of tough lately, so it was also nice to have such a pleasant conversation with you. I miss talking like that." She looked suddenly sad and stared at Jeremy as he slept.
"I'm sorry to hear that, It sounds hard." I said feeling really bad for her.
"Well I don't think the power's coming back on tonight. Do you?" She asked, looking at me once more.
