Friday had not been much of a day.
After drinking his coffee, Leo had spent most of the morning out on the lawn picking pieces of broken bottle out of the grass with a pair of barbecue tongs and a bucket from the garage. The pole was still leaning two degrees off true.
After that he really didn't do much of anything. Maybe he wanted to keep a low profile after the incident. Or maybe Leo just felt like using the day as a lazy day. Whatever it was, the day passed fast.
Before he knew it, it was Saturday morning. The next day.
Leo was at the kitchen window with a coffee around eight when a yellow U-Haul rolled up across the street at 740.
…
It was a mid-size truck. The driver pulled in at the curb in one clean attempt without straddling the line.
The driver's door opened.
A woman stepped down. She was tall, with the loose easy build of someone who stayed in shape and sometimes worked out. In her early thirties, maybe. It was hard to tell from a distance.
Her brown hair was the deep rich color of a coffee bean and was pulled back through the loop of a red bandana knotted at the back of her neck. Gold hoop earrings caught the morning light. She wore a faded purple short-sleeved t-shirt that had clearly been through years of washes and was now thin enough to cling where it touched. It stretched tight across her large, full breasts.
When she stepped down from the cab the motion made them shift and settle, and Leo's eyes followed the movement before he could stop himself. Her jeans were the same soft, worn blue as before, faded pale at the knees, but they sat low on her hips and pulled snug across the curve of her ass every time she shifted her weight. The denim looked like it had been broken in by real use. Tighter through the curve of her hips than at the waist. Brown leather sandals covered her feet. No wedding ring on either hand.
The passenger door opened a second later.
A girl stepped down.
She looked about seventeen, with long brown hair that hung loose past her shoulders, a little messy from the long drive. An oversized army-green jacket hung open on her frame, a white corporal's insignia stitched onto one sleeve. Underneath she wore a plain white t-shirt that was really tight across her chest and shoulders. Black skinny jeans wrapped around her thighs and cream sneakers finished the outfit, along with a pair of headphones slung around her neck. Her face carried the flat, bored expression of a teenager. Besides her expression and hair color, she was like a much younger version of the mother in terms of body and looks.
The mother put both hands on her lower back and stretched, then jerked her chin at the back of the truck. The motion pulled the purple shirt even tighter across her chest and lifted the bottom just enough to show a strip of bare skin above the waistband of her jeans. Leo saw the faint shine of sweat already forming in the small of her back.
The daughter rolled the back gate up on the moving truck. The two of them stood there for a second looking at the stack of boxes inside. It seemed like it would be a lot of work.
He watched the mother for one more second before he put the coffee down. The woman was hot. The duo was cute.
Leo had nowhere to be until two. Nothing made a better first impression than being the first helpful face.
He went to find his shoes.
…
He crossed the street in jeans and a plain shirt.
The mother had her arms wrapped around a huge box that seemed extra heavy and was three-quarters of the way to dropping it before she had taken two steps off the truck. Leo caught the underside of it with both hands on his way past her and took the weight.
"Let me get that for you." Leo took the box out of her hands and looked down at her. "Leo Depp. From across and one over at 743."
She looked up at him over the top of the box. The bandana shifted on her forehead.
She had a good face. Cheekbones a little high, a small straight nose, nice jawline.
She took her time about it. Her gaze went from his face down to his shoulders, then to his arms where he was holding the box, then to the strip of forearm visible under the rolled sleeve, and then back up to his eyes. The whole pass took maybe three seconds.
"You do not have to."
"I know. But I have some recent experience with moving boxes just like this. And it would be a real shame not putting it to use to help my new neighbor."
She raised her eyebrows listening to him, "Okay, but I am not paying you in anything except coffee. And it's far from being unpacked yet."
"More motivation I guess. We'll get to it fast and I'll hold you to it."
She studied him for one more second. Then a small dry half-smile lifted one corner of her mouth.
"All right." She began to introduce herself. "Ruth Powers." She looked over to her daughter. "That's Laura. Don't talk to Laura. She is going through a phase where she does not want to be talked to."
The daughter, Laura, walked past with a box under each arm. "It is not a phase, mother. It is who I am."
"It's a phase."
"I can hear you."
"You were supposed to."
The daughter disappeared into the house with the boxes.
Ruth wiped a strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist.
"743 you said? So the white one across and one over. The trimmed hedges?" She gestured to his house.
"Yeah that's me."
"I noticed the pole in front. Are those marks on your lawn?"
He glanced over his shoulder at his own lawn. The pole was still leaning and had a large impact zone on the bottom half. There was also indeed a very visible skid mark going across his lawn still.
"Long story."
"I have all day."
"I'll tell you later then. While we enjoy that coffee you promised." Leo lifted the box in his hand half an inch up. "Where does the box go?"
She jerked her chin toward the house and led the way up the path.
…
The morning settled into a rhythm. Leo did the heavy ones. Ruth did the others.
At one point, the couch came off the truck with him at one end and Ruth at the other, Laura supervising from the porch step with a glass of iced tea she had produced from somewhere despite the kitchen not being unpacked yet.
Halfway across the lawn Ruth's end dipped and she had to bend her knees to correct it. The motion made her breasts sway forward inside the thin purple shirt, and when she straightened again the fabric was stuck to the curve of one breast for a second before it peeled away. He could see the outline of her nipple through the cotton for one brief moment. They were very large.
Ruth told him where she wanted it in the living room and he set it down, and she sat on the arm of the couch for a moment, legs slightly apart, one hand braced on her thigh. The purple shirt had gone darker in a V between her breasts where sweat had soaked through. A single drop slid down the side of her neck and disappeared under the shirt collar. Leo stayed leaning against the opposite wall because if he moved he was afraid it would be obvious what he was looking at.
He decided to talk.
"You will not be alone over here for long, by the way. The neighbors on this street tend to introduce themselves within the first day or two."
"Yeah, I think I found that out already." She raised a single eyebrow while looking at him. He was basically the person he was talking about.
Leo laughed. "Fair enough." He shrugged. "But I'm talking about the actual neighbors who have lived here for a long time. I'm almost as new as you so I say I don't count."
"Is that why you said you had recent experience moving boxes earlier?"
"Yeah, I had to move a whole lot of them not that long ago."
"Fine I wont count you then. And the actual neighbors? Should I be worried when they introduce themselves?"
"Depends what you find unwelcome. Mostly food shows up first. Then the questions about the food. Then the questions that are not technically about the food."
"What food?"
"Casseroles, mostly."
"How unique. I'm so so excited for it. Never had that before."
"Oh, is that sarcasm I hear? I think we'll be getting along very well."
Ruth laughed. She got up off the arm of the couch and went out the front door for the next box. Leo followed.
…
The dresser was harder. Solid oak, mirror still attached, no easy place to grip. He took the bottom end and she took the top and they navigated the stairs sideways, with him backing up and her watching his feet for him.
She was two steps above him, close enough that he could smell the clean sweat on her skin and the faint trace of whatever soap she'd used that morning. Every time she adjusted her grip the front of her shirt pulled tighter across her chest. Halfway up she swore under her breath when the corner caught the molding, she let out an unintentional moan and the sound went straight to his cock. He had to shift his stance on the step to hide it.
Boxes of tools came next. More than he would have expected. He read the side of one as he carried it past her on the stairs. The label said TOOLS — GARAGE in black marker.
"Hand-me-downs?"
"Bought-them-myselves, actually."
He set the box down at the top of the landing and the contents shifted with the unmistakable weight of metal on metal. Heavy in the corners. A torque wrench, by the sound of it.
"You do your own work?"
"Yeah." She shrugged. "On the house, on the car, on the lawnmower, on the screen door, on whatever else stops working between now and the year that my daughter goes off to college." She had set her own box down on the landing and was wiping her forearm across her brow.
"I used to have a lot more of a collection, but because of some stupid idiot, I've had to restart."
She pulled the bandana off her head. "So I have been buying it all back. Slowly. One at a time. There is a circular saw in that box that I just finished paying off in October. There is a sander in there that I bought at a yard sale in February. Hopefully I never have to buy them ever again."
"Mm."
She gave him a small dry look at that.
"You handy, Leo?"
"More than I look."
He set the box down on the landing and stretched his back. He gave her the short version.
"My company started in machinery. Industrial mechanics, mostly. I came up on the floor of my own shop with a wrench in my hand. I have spent more hours under a piece of equipment than I have spent at a desk. The company has gotten big enough that I am not the one in the field anymore, but the knowledge will probably never go away."
She had set her box down on the landing again. The bandana shifted on her forehead.
"Huh."
"What."
"I had you pegged as the guy from the desk."
"Hey, did carrying all those boxes with ease not have you thinking otherwise at all?"
"It had me thinking you were just strong. So, you have a collection too? What do you have?"
"Everything. I have got a stockpile that I have not touched in two years. Cordless drills, three impact drivers, a circular saw, a table saw, a torque wrench set, a full socket set in both standard and metric, and a lot lot more. Most of it is sitting in the same boxes I moved here with."
She was looking at him.
"Wow. Shit. You actually have me beat."
"What can I say?" Leo grinned, teasingly. "Anything you need, come find me. Don't spend all your money. If I have got it, you can have it for as long as you want it."
"Anything?"
"Anything inside that garage. Yes."
She grinned. "All right, neighbor."
She picked her box back up off the landing and started up the next flight. He followed again.
…
The last hard one was a locked metal case about the size of a small suitcase. Heavy. She carried it herself and took it directly into her bedroom closet.
"What's in that one?" Leo asked, curiously.
She looked over her shoulder at him. She straightened up slowly.
"Glock. Nineteen. Loaded. One spare magazine in the case."
Leo let out a low whistle, but didn't say anything.
Ruth looked up at him. "Don't tell me you also have a whole collection of guns too?"
He shook his head. "Unfortunately not. I have been meaning to. Haven't gotten around to it since I moved here. I had one back in the city. I sold it before the drive out because I did not want to deal with the state paperwork at the time."
"Mm." She turned the key in the case and clicked it shut. "You should get on that. I researched and found out Springfield has a range out past the off-ramp on the east side. Decent."
"Good to know."
"I going to go and find out where it sits in the weekly schedule. There is supposed to be a women's hour on Tuesday mornings."
She closed the closet door.
"You should come, when you have one of your own. By then I should be able to show you the place."
"That works for me. I don't know how well I'll fit into women's hour though."
…
Through the morning he got the rest of her through talking while moving the rest of the boxes.
She had come from Capital City. Before that, a couple of other places. Military upbringing, hence the corporal's insignia on Laura's jacket. Laura's father had been Army, and Laura had grown up on bases. Ruth said the word "Army" with some visible detest on her face each time.
Springfield was a deliberate choice. The schools were cheaper than Capital City, the houses were bigger, and she had wanted Laura settled before the start of the next term. The dead grass and the white shutters of 740 had been within the budget. Ruth said she would get to the shutters in the spring and the grass in the fall and the inside of the house in between.
…
Around ten-thirty Laura came back down the stairs from whatever she had been doing on the second floor. She had the headphones around her neck now instead of on her ears. She paused in the doorway of the living room and looked at her mother.
"I am going to walk."
"Where."
"Around. I want to see what is here before school starts on Monday."
Ruth considered it.
"You have money."
"Yup."
"Text me before you head back."
"I always do."
Laura's eyes flicked to Leo for half a second, looked him fully up and then back down, and then back to her mother.
"Bye."
"Bye, sweetheart."
The front door closed behind her. Leo watched through the front window as she went down the porch steps, took a left at the curb, and started walking up Evergreen Terrace with the headphones going back on as she went.
"She walks a lot," Ruth said.
"Walking is calming."
"It is. She has been walking since she was eleven. She handles new places by walking around them for an afternoon and then deciding what she thinks. I have never had to teach her anything about the world she did not figure out by walking through it first."
Ruth went back into the kitchen with a box of mugs.
…
The knock at the open front door came about twenty minutes after Laura had left.
"Heeellllooo, new neighbor!"
It was Marge's voice this time.
Leo was coming down the stairs with empty arms on the way back to the truck. Marge Simpson was standing on the porch in her classic green tight fitting dress, hair up and pinned the way she always wore it, holding a wicker gift basket wrapped in cellophane and tied at the top with a ribbon.
Homer was behind her on the porch step, holding a six-pack of Duff in one hand. One can was already missing from the carton.
Marge looked up and saw Leo on the stairs and went still.
Her eyes did a quick involuntary pass over him before they came back to his face, the rolled-up sleeves, the place at his throat where sweat dripped down. Then her eyes flicked one quarter-second toward the kitchen doorway where Ruth's voice could be heard humming something, and then back to Leo. She did her best to change her look of surprise to one of a smile.
"Oh, Leo! You are here too."
"Hi, Marge. Hi, Homer."
"Heeey, Leo, buddy!" Homer squinted past Marge and then his face brightened with sudden relief. "Leo's already here, Marge! He's been here since — how long, Leo?"
"Since about eight-ten."
"That's a lotta hours, buddy. A lot." Homer did the math on his fingers. Gave up halfway. "So like — the heavy stuff. That's done? You already did the heavy stuff?"
"Most of it."
"All RIGHT, Leo!" Homer punched the air with the Duff hand. A small amount of Duff came out of the open can.
Ruth came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a dish towel. The purple shirt was still damp at the chest.
"Hi."
"Hi! I'm Marge Simpson. From across the street." Marge held out the basket with both hands. Her fingers tightened a fraction on the wicker handle as she said the next part. "I wanted to come over and welcome you to the neighborhood. It is a small basket. There is a coupon for a free drink at Moe's Tavern in there, which I would not recommend redeeming, but I put it in for completeness. And a casserole. I left the casserole on your porch step so it would not be in the basket."
Ruth's eyes flicked sideways to Leo for one quarter-second. Leo kept his face perfectly still.
"That is very kind of you, Marge. Thank you. I am Ruth Powers."
"Ruth. Welcome. This is my husband, Homer."
"Hi, Homer."
"Hi, Ruth."
"And Homer brought you some beer."
Homer raised the six-pack triumphantly. "Some of it is missing because I had a thirsty walk over here."
Marge sighed the small sigh she always sighed when Homer said something exactly the way he was always going to say it. Then she turned her attention back to Ruth and the smile came back on.
"How are you settling in, Ruth?"
"Slowly. We are nearly there. Your neighbor here," she gestured to Leo, "has been a tremendous help all morning."
"Leo is a good man." Marge said it without looking at Leo. Her fingers tightened again on the wicker handle of the basket. Her eyes went down for one tenth of a second to where his hands rested at his sides and then came back up. "He moved in across from us not that long ago too and he has been a good neighbor to all of us ever since. If you need anything in this town that does not have an obvious answer, you ask Leo. He even helped solve a teachers' strike recently."
"Has he now?" Ruth raised an eyebrow again and checked out Leo.
"Yes," Marge continued, "He's helped countless other people I know and even me. He has been helping me with my children's schoolwork. He has been very generous with his time."
"I have noticed the generous-with-his-time part."
"Yes. He is like that."
Marge looked, for one second, at Leo. The look was the polite-neighborly version of a look she had given him in a robe on his lawn thirty-six hours ago. The one where his fingers were in her mouth.
Marge turned back to Ruth.
"Anyway. I will not keep you. You have a lot to do today and the truck still has some things left I noticed. I am going to leave Homer here for you to use however you can use a Homer."
"Marge, I —"
"Homer. You are going to stay and help Ruth and Leo finish moving the rest of the boxes in. The truck has to go back today. Right, Ruth?"
"Correct."
"And the sooner it is empty the sooner Ruth can rest. Do not drink any more of that beer in front of her. Put it in her fridge. Are we agreed?"
"Yes, Marge."
"Good. Ruth, it was lovely to meet you. I will bring my daughter Lisa over tomorrow with a proper welcome plate. I think I saw that you had a daughter?"
"I do. Her name is Laura. You just missed her. But I'm sure Laura would love to meet Lisa."
"Wonderful. Bye, Leo. Bye, Homer."
Marge turned, went down the porch steps, and crossed back across the street in her dress at the same brisk neighborly pace she had crossed over with. She did not look back.
...
...
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[A/N]: For future readers. I'm only going to be updating the disc0rd link in the Fanfic's bio description. So go there to find the recent working one.