The Neighbor (boyxboy) [On Hold indefinitely]

Chapter Two

My alarm clock went off. I shot up startled by the blaring noise. I looked at the time. It was 615am.

I sighed and got out of my bed. I did the usual morning ritual: shower, pick out clothes, and make breakfast. After I was done with all of this, the clock only read 728am. I decided to watch the morning news to kill time.

It slowly, but surely, reached 800am. The night before when I went to drop off the money to Joey, he said that we could do the yards early in the morning so we could beat the hear, which I had no problem with. I heard a knock on the door. I let out a big sigh. I slowly got up and walked over to the front door and opened it. There he was smiling. I looked to see what he was holding in his hand. He was holding a container with a hose attached to it. Must’ve been the gas he needed. “Hey, ready for some work?” he asked, still maintaining his smile.

 “Y-yeah, I’m ready. What do we do first?” I barely managed to ask.

“Well,” he started as he walked in the house to get into the backyard, “we can start back up again in the backyard. I can finish cut the grass, and maybe you can clean the pool out. After I’m done with the grass, I can help you with that, or you can trim the bushes while I cut and then we can clean the pool. Your choice. Then we can take a break, then do the front yard, which shouldn’t take that long.” We reached the backyard by the time he was done explaining the morning's activities.

I looked at him as if he spoke Greek to me. “I think I’ll trim the bushes, then we’ll clean the pool,” I half smiled. He smiled back, and went to where he left the lawn mower. It didn’t take long for him to finish the lawn and it didn’t take long for me to trim the bushes, athough it was tiring.  After I was finished, I went in the garage to get the nets to clean the pool. When I returned to the backyard, I came to find that he took his shirt off. It wasn’t even ten in the morning and the temperature already reached eighty six degrees. I stopped in my tracks and stared at his body.

He looked up at me, catching me stare at him. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind if I took my shirt off, it was kind of getting hot,” he said sounding apologetic.

“It’s alright, don't worry about it,” I said reassuring him. "Actually, you're right. You don't mind if I take my shirt off do you?"

He laughed. "Your lawn, your rules."

I laughed with him and took my shirt off. I looked at Joey and he was looking at me.

“Wow, someone's been working out.” he said chuckling, looking me over.

My body grew warmer, and it wasn’t from the heat. I chuckled nervously, “I’m trying to look good for when I'm an upperclassmen.” I quickly handed him the net and went to the opposite side of where he was.

I never noticed how big our pool was before. We were already thirty minutes into cleaning it and only made about 20% progress. The constant scooping of the leaves and whatever bugs that decided to visit the pool the night before was strenuous. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Fifty minutes into the ordeal, I felt my cell phone vibrate. I took it out. It was a text message from Corinne. "Wondering if I could come over later and finish what we started last night? ;) xo". Fuck. I really didn’t want to repeat yesterday and then some. I still wasn't ready. I was about to reply, but then I dropped my phone by the edge of the pool. I tried to retrieve it quickly, but I lost my step, and then

I’m underwater.

Even though the pool was only six and a half feet deep, I still felt like I was in an ocean, and I began to panic. This is it, I thought to myself, I’m going to die. This is what I get for being a fucking klutz.