Mr. H.O.A. by Carina Taylor (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

basket, wandering the aisles together. When we made it to the produce section, Bane peered down his nose at me then proceeded to toss several grapefruit into his basket.

"Hilarious."

His stoic face broke into a grin. "I thought I’d grab a few for old times' sake."

I nudged his side with my elbow as I scooted past him to grab a box of strawberries.

"Bartholomew!"

Smiling, I turned around to look for whoever dared call Bane ‘Bartholomew.’ A middle-aged man stood behind a cart, his suit jacket unbuttoned, and an insincere smile on his face.

I didn’t like him.

I didn’t even know him, and I’d only heard him say one word, but I knew I didn’t like him right away.

Bane’s face tightened only for a brief second before it went back to his stoic expression. "Sterling, how are you?"

"Excellent. You haven’t been falling asleep on the job anymore, have you?" Sterling laughed loudly. Obnoxious was the word that came to my mind.

"I have not. Have you been double charging for your realtor’s fees?"

The man’s face fell, and an angry expression filled its place. "Well, it’s clear only one of us has a sharp business sense. Soon I’ll be the only real estate agent in town that people want to work with. As a matter of fact, I’m taking on a Mercier property. I’ll be his go-to agent after I finish this project."

With that, he marched past us, pushing his creaking cart.

"Who was that?" I asked as I studied Bane’s eyes that were still trained on Sterling.

Bane finally looked at me. "He’s another real estate agent in town. And the most self-absorbed, self-righteous...anyway."

"Don’t hold back. Come on. We’re married. You can tell me what you really think. And maybe I can figure out why he seems so familiar to me."

"He's not my favorite person. I hope that someday I won't have to deal with him. But right now, we tend to cross paths when we’re representing clients."

I snapped my fingers. "I figured it out!"

"What?" He asked in surprise.

"Where I’d seen him before! He was there at the house," I told him.

"At the house?" Bane asked.

"Oh, I mean at the old apartment building when they were evacuating the entire building, before they shut off all the power. He was there in the parking lot talking with the demolition crew. Chippy was there too. I wonder if he's helping Sebastian Mercier with the renovation and construction of the luxury apartments. But that doesn't make sense," I said. "Usually Sebastian does his own work."

"He does?" Bane looked surprised.

"Yeah, at least he used to." The dull feeling in my chest was back. "But I guess now he wouldn’t be in a hurry to meet his real estate agent."

Bane quirked an eyebrow. "Would you hurry to meet Sterling?"

With a snort, I answered him, "I’d hurry away from him, that’s for sure."

"I knew you had better judgment than most people."

I straightened my shoulders and nodded. "Thank you. Now, I’ll show off my impressive judgment skills in the frozen pizza aisle."

I looped my arm through his and he finally broke out with a relaxed grin—the one I was coming to love so much.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Homeowners Association Rule #55:

Lawns must be kept at ¾ inch length.

The lawn was getting long. And Carol had canceled the yard crew that had been hired to mow the yard for the homeowners. She had told me that they came one afternoon while Nola and I were at work. Carol just knew that I would prefer to mow the lawn myself, so she told them to take my lawn off their list.

Just great. At least there was a lawnmower in the garage. I didn't want to have to go out and buy one. That was an expense we didn't need.

I was already worried about how much our electrical bill would be this month. With the amount of laundry Nola did, it should be nearly sky high.

I wanted to keep track so that we paid Nola’s friends back for the increase in bills. I really hoped Nola could get a hold of them soon.

I hopefully balanced out all of that with the number of cold showers I was taking. Of course, that only increased our water bill.

Living with Nola was going to be the death of me, but I had to admit it would be a great way to go. I hadn’t looked for another rental for myself in a week now. I wish I could say it was because I was so busy working, but the reality was that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her. It was getting harder to not think about her all day. I looked forward to coming home every night and spending time with her. She didn’t have any friends in town. I sometimes wondered if she had had any other friends since her friend Riley had disappeared.

I really hoped she would be able to find some closure someday, but in the meantime, I could be the friend she needed.

I opened the dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of athletic shorts. Was this what people were supposed to wear when they mowed the yard? I wasn't sure. Having never mowed a yard before, I wasn't sure what the expectations were and if I was going about this the right way or not.

There wasn't a manual out there that covered proper lawn mowing attire. Or at least I didn't think so, but I didn’t want to sacrifice any of my suit pants to the task.

Pulling on the shorts, I grabbed my tennis shoes from the shoe rack in the closet and headed down the hall toward the garage. It took me less than three minutes to drag the lawn mower out onto the front lawn.

Now to start it. It couldn’t be that hard.

VRRROOM. 

I glanced across the street to see Carol mowing her yard. She pushed the mower so fast that her floppy sun hat nearly fell off with the wind resistance.

In the yard next to me, Fredrick, who was apparently our neighbor, was busy rolling