Her eyes crinkled at the corners at his admittance to not being very creative. Has if she’d not already figured that out by now about him… Sliding him a smirk as he turned the spatula over in his hand as if she’d handed him some sort of sonic screwdriver and expected to save the universe with it. Licking her parted lips she looked away, “Thankfully frosting a cupcake is fairly simple.” A teasing smile danced on her lips, “The average five year old can decorate cupcakes. Let’s hope you can manage.”

She hopped up onto the counter as she’d done hundreds of times. What was the point of having a house to call home if you could do those sorts of things? She also danced around in her panties with socks and slid across the hardwood floor like Tom Cruise occasionally. Sitting on the counter was one of the more ordinary habits she’d cultivated.

‘Of course you’re going to laugh.’ Evie shot him another grin not in the least bit shy for asking. ‘You act like you’ve never seen curls before? It’s just hair. But if you must.’ Her grin widened as she reached out to grasp the curls in a clutch. Dipping her index finger into her open cup of frosting and then smeared it across his cheek with a throaty laugh as she let go of his hair. It’d been too good to pass up.

“Oh, I’ve seen curls before just not curls quite like those…” She managed to say between laughs as she offered him a towel for his face. She wasn’t too concerned about retaliation. Her new neighbor seemed a bit stodgy, he probably drank port and listened to jazz. He was far too cultured to smear any icing on her. That would be so far beneath him. Her mouth quirked at his comments about not knowing it came in a can. Yes, the man needed to be loosened up and she had a few ideas on how to do that.

Absent-mindedly she dislodged the cupcakes and placed them onto a plate so that the frosting could begin. “Mmm… I am sure there are a lot of things in cans you never knew existed.” She murmured, her lips turning up into another smirk and she glanced over at the way he was staring down the cupcakes and gaped at him for a moment. Had he really never done this before? She blinked and looked back at the cupcakes. No, he had to have frosted cupcakes before.

‘Ok. I’m ready.’ Evie hazarded another glance at him and felt her eyebrows raise a little towards her hairline. ‘ I thought it was done with one of those little squeezy bags? Are we just….daubing it on with these?’ She blinked at him again a couple more times. Her lips parted but she didn’t say anything. Okay. So maybe he had never frosted cupcakes before. She cleared her throat, “Um… Well… we could use a little squeezy bag but that’s a lot of extra work…” Pausing, she licked her lips and looked down at the cupcakes. “Yes. Yes we are just going to take a dollop of frosting and smear it all over the cupcake’s top.”

Dipping her spatula in the cup of warm water for a few seconds before she dug into the frosting and commenced to smearing it… this time on the cupcake. Sliding him a glance, the corners of her mouth quirking up, “See. Easy Peasy.” Reaching out in front of him, she sat her freshly frosted cupcake onto the empty plate in front of him.

Satisfaction lay in the withering look that her hunky new neighbor threw her. She’d always had a natural inclination to find that giant red button everyone had and mash it down. There was something refreshing seeing their fireworks go off. It was a release of tension and for a moment a person’s mask fell away. Her head ducked as she hid the smile that had curled on her lips. And again, she battered at those lines of normalcy. It had been too easy not to crush that button down again under her finger once she’d noticed those wild, voluminous curls that contradicted his straight-laced facade. The icing had just been… the corners of her lips curled again in amusement… The icing she’d wiped across his cheek had been the icing on that cake.

‘Hey!’ The giggles started at that disgruntled voice. He sounded like her fourth grade choir teacher after that spit-wad had hit him in the back of the head. ‘You give some people an inch…’ Evie feigned an uncaring shrug and turned her nose up as she watched him attempt to wipe away the sticky mess off of his freshly washed face.

There was a smudge of chocolate smeared across his cheek and she bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing about it. The puckish dark eyes warmed and crinkled at the corners. She wouldn’t be able to frost cupcakes with him as long as it was there… She opened her mouth to tell him but the towel hit her in the face and temporarily stunning her generating her wide eyes to start blinking as she tried to gather her wits about her. Excuse him… She’d been about to tell him about that smudge but now that she thought about it… it served him right.

Reaching for the towel that rested half on her shoulder and half laying across her chest where it had been caught by her feminine charms. Snatching it, she laid it on the table and huffed in amusement. He thought he’d gotten the better of her… but no one got the better of Evangelina Leventi. Pretending to ignore the flourish with which he wielded his own spatula. She concentrated on hers…

‘Well don’t say I didn’t warn you that’s all…’ She cast a mocking glance over at him, her lips raised in a smile to answer that challenge. “Big talk… You know what they say… The bigger they are the harder they fall,” She murmured and focused on spreading the delightful buttercream onto her too-dry cupcake. Glancing over as he applied another very meticulous glob of buttercream to his and smiled, he was entirely too pleased with himself. But it was okay… her’s looked normal.

‘Well I know whose would stand up better in a competition,’ Her big brown eyes narrowed slightly at him… Oh, Game on, neighbor… Game on!  Her lips pressed together in mock disdain. ‘Though yours has a… rustic charm to it.’

Her flew mouth opened to give him a dose of her own snark when suddenly, her elbow was shoved causing her to knock her perfect little cupcake over. Staring at it for a moment in disbelief. This was war. Taking a deep breath, she hopped off the counter to stand a little closer to him. A cloying smile formed, “I’d be a lot more concerned about my charm if I, too, had a giant smear of frosting still on my cheek.” With her hand still resting on the cupcake, she darted her body at him whipping the cupcake off the plate and shoving it into his face.

“Oh no! It looks like you’ve got a little more cupcake on you now too…” She replicated a battle cry as she smooshed it into his chin since that was as high as she could reach and then attempted to retreat to the other side of the kitchen island hoping for the opportunity to dart past him into the freedom of the rest of the house. This was a take no prisoners war… I repeat… take no prisoners…

Sometimes the only way to get rid of temptation was to yield to it. The temptation to shake that cool composure of her phlegmatic hunk of a neighbor was too tempting. The mild indignation shifted to surprise as he lowered his head to blink at the cake crumbs and frosting that dripped down from his chin onto his naked chest. There was some more temptation… Evie’s mouth watered a little at the sight of the frosting and cake on the broad expanse. She had to stop staring… She had to get control over herself. She licked her lips and pulled her eyes back up as he wiped the cupcake off his chin.

Oh boy! Oh, she was in trouble now… Whenever his brain stopped being boggled by her oddball behavior he was going to retaliate. She would have been lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit curious to see some of this shell he’d created around himself drop away in a moment of craziness. He pivoted to look at her and she shifted her weight onto her heels in order to bound out of the way if one of those cupcakes were hurled at her.

‘Really? That’s how you treat a guest in your home, Evangelina?’

Her eyes widened and shifted wearily to the way his hand still clutched the cupcake debris. Did she mind if he threw it? No. Houses weren’t meant to be spotless. They were meant to be lived in and if she ended up spending another hour cleaning up cupcakes and frosting from her kitchen then so be it. It wasn’t like it would have been the first time something like this had occurred. Have you ever seen what would happen if you decided to prank someone by adding baking soda to ketchup and it was shaken up?

Holding both her hands up, she gave him a shrug. “It would appear that is exactly how I would treat a guest in my home, Achilleas.” She drew out his name, her lips curling a little nefariously. Her mouth however snapped shut as her words seemed to cause him to make a decision about how he was going to move forward with his plan of attack. He closed the distance a little, but blocked her path by the door. She narrowed her dark eyes, but there was an almost smirk on her lips as if she’d expected such a move from him.

‘You already know I’m a runner.’ He moved another step towards her, effectively using his bulky frame to block the path so she couldn’t slide around him. ‘And you are physically stunted with you little hobbit legs. It seems like you didn’t think this through.’ This made her smile widen and her eyes spark with laughter.

“Taunting me?” She smiled, dimples showing and her eyes sparking with laughter. “You know, in the end the hobbit succeeded, don’t you?” Evie paused, her own plan of attack forming in her brain. “Even with his little hobbit legs.” Subtly she shifted towards her sink and her hand reaching out grasping the kitchen sink spray wand… Her smile became that familiar wicked one that every Disney villain seemed to possess. Her other hand she used to crook her index finger at him. “Come here, you’ve got a little something on your chest.” She purred fully prepared to send a jet of water from the wand at him if he dared take a step towards her.

So much of her life had been lived with a rather strict sort of awareness of others. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do things the way other people did. She could. In fact, she had. She’d been a promising law student. She’d wielded pompoms in high school and knew which fork was the shrimp fork at dinner. Somewhere amidst all of the rules and regulations and cans and can nots…. Something in her had cracked. She’d been sitting in one of her law classes supposed to have been taking notes on some case study or another and she’d found herself looking around the room at the people and wondering where all the brightly colored artwork was or why all of the students looked the same. It was so different then what class was like when you were five. There weren't any fun educational pictures at all. It was like this was the room you went to...to die, and that was when she couldn’t breath. The walls had closed in on her and that feeling of slowly sinking into deep water filled her. She’d ran out of that room and had never looked back at normalcy again.

‘Yes well, maybe this is the sequel. Where the hobbit gets what's coming to it.’

Blinking at him, it crossed her mind that he may have never quite seen the movies or read the books about hobbits. Why would anyone want to see something bad happen to the hobbits? They were adorable. They ate carbs and went barefoot and lived in the hobbit-holes in the Shire. It all sounded pretty idyllic to Evie. She’d live in a hobbit-hole in the shire and go barefoot. Raising an eyebrow at him, she cleared her throat, “You’ve settled it. We are going to have a Lord of the Rings night with popcorn and my Orlando Bloom blanket...It’s been decided and I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Achilleas had officially been adopted by the hobbit next door.

It’d been a long shot that the water sprayer would cause him to halt, but he had and she felt her body relax momentarily. Maybe, she wouldn’t end up wearing cupcake after all. His too-blue of eyes darted from her to the water sprayer and back up before his brows knitted together. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ The corner of her lips slowly lifted into an entirely evil, ‘take-no-prisoners’ sort of smile. He really underestimated her, didn’t he. ‘Your kitchen will get all wet.’ Hazarding a quick glance around the kitchen it was cut short when he took half step towards her and the water sprayer came back up the small half an inch it’d dropped when she’d relaxed.

“I needed to clean the kitchen anyway,” She shrugged. Evangelina had closed her eyes for half a second while she’d shrugged taking her eyes off the target for just the length of a heart beat and when she opened them again, he was almost on top of her.

“Aaaaaaauuuuggghhhhh---” The slip of a woman yelped, her hands instantly and without thought pulling the trigger on the water sprayer but it was all too late. The sugary cupcake hit the top of her head at the same moment she was jerking backwards scrambling to get away from those long arms of his. The sprayer burst water from its nose hitting him in the chest at full blast but as she jerked backwards the end of the sprayer shot north hitting him squarely in the cheek and bouncing off his ear.

Close only counted in horseshoes and hand-grenades, her plot at distraction only momentarily caught him off guard. She smiled, causing puckish dimples to appear in her cheeks, “It was a gag gift from one of the other stewardesses,” She gave a small shrug, “But don’t let it be said that I am a possessive mistress. A guy really doesn’t get to say very often that he’s laid under Orlando Bloom, so I suppose I could share for an evening.” Evie couldn’t help spinning just a tiny bit of wickedness into the conversation.

Her guard had dropped for only the slightest of moments as her thoughts had drifted as he sprung on top of her smashing cupcake in her hair. It served as proof that you couldn’t trust a man who drank green smoothies. She wasn’t sure if it had been the feel of the frosting in her hair or him lunging at her that had triggered the tightening of her hand around the stainless steel water nozzle. The force of the water had knocked her back just a little causing it to shoot from his chest to graze his ear like a bullet made of water or something. It was a scene from the old west playing out in her kitchen.

Her eyes slammed shut as she tried to aim the water more directly at his large body. You’d think it’d be easy to hit someone who took up the majority of her kitchen… But it turns out you have to be able to look at what you’re aiming at if you hope to actually hit it.

‘God..fuck turn that off!’ Achilleas sputtered words didn’t immediately register in her mind, but at least they got her to open her eyes. Oh boy! It was entirely too unfair how some people looked like a drowned ally cat when they got wet and some of them… they looked like Poseidon coming out of the sea. Her hands went slack and she managed to stop spraying him with water.

Bright, awake, blue eyes blinked at her in shock as he stepped forward and took the water nozzle from her hand. Dumbly, she let it go, her body going slack a little. She had the odd urge to giggle like a schoolgirl at him but managed to curb it as he spoke.

‘I...honestly thought you were bluffing.’ Dragging up her sheepish brown eyes to look up at him, she’d honestly thought she’d been bluffing too. But maybe that was one of those things better to be kept to herself. ‘But now I’m all wet.’ She smiled and looked away at that. There was a distinct possibility he wasn’t the only one. A snigger made it out of her lips as she looked up at him again, “Yeah, I have that effect on all my hot neighbors.”

Her body tingled with electricity as she leaned herself against the kitchen counter between him and the sink trying to appear as nonchalant about all of this as she could. ‘You got a little something in your hair.’ Evie’s breath stopped and her mouth went dry. She had something in her hair? How does one forget they are wearing half a cupcake on their head? But she knew the answer, it was because her mind had moved on to more delicious things in her kitchen. She swallowed, ‘Want me to rinse it off?’

Was, ‘Oh, God. YES, PLEASE?’ The wrong answer to this scenario? It wasn’t cute or witty or something intelligent, but it still was better than her course of action. Instead of saying anything, she enthusiastically nodded her head. He could rinse any part of her and she’d probably responded that way. His chest was too close for her to be able to remind herself that he was on the rebound and that she was emotionally unavailable… if you wanted to listen to the garble that your therapist had to tell you.

She blinked again. No, she had to snap out of this. This was bad. Bad Evie. Bad! Looking sideways, she stared at the refrigerator on the other side of the kitchen. You have smelly cheese that’s been in there six months… Ah, there it was… her sanity came back and her blood chilled just a little. That smelly cheese always did it. Clearing her throat a little, she slipped out of reach from him and smiled again, “Guess it’s my turn for a shower.” Her gaze drifted to his left pec and her lips widened, “You got a little frosting smudged there.” Reaching out with her finger, she wiped it away and stuck it in her mouth glancing up at him before she pivoted to leave the kitchen. “Extra kitchen towels are in the drawer to your left… I’m going to go get this frosting out of my hair.” Silk shorts swished away from him with a little extra confidence. She was a damned stewardess… She knew how to walk away.

Had she not been clear enough about her intentions? Evie sat on the edge of the large clawfoot tub wearing nothing but a smile, her hands bracing her on each side of her hip. She’d been sitting there at least ten minutes waiting for him. Her only explanations were he was either gay, which she had already suspected… or he’d never had to work for a girl, not that she was really trying to make him work… Or, he just wasn’t that into her. That thought stung a little bit. She didn’t have the sort of face you’d see gracing the cover of a magazine but she’d always thought she was a solid 7… or 8. She could pass for a 9 if she spent all day primping. Striking but not quite stunning and what points she’d lacked in her appearance she’d thought she’d always made up for in character and an adventuresome nature.

With a sigh, she stared down at her pink painted toenails and curled them into the champagne colored shag carpet bathroom rug. She spent enough time in hotels with all of her traveling to have grown to hate white. Every hotel seemed to feature white sheets, white towels, white shower curtains, and white rugs. Somewhere it had stopped feeling crisp and had started feeling clinical. The champagne was close to white but there was a warmth to it. It felt more homey and less like she was just stopping over for a night. Perhaps that was why her house looked the way it did, too? She spent so much time away and living out of a suitcase that when she was home, she wanted it to feel like a home. She didn’t want stainless steel, organized pantries, or bookshelves that had an appropriate number of books per shelf. She wanted something that felt lived in… something that felt like her.

Twisting, she flipped on the switch to let the water warm before she stepped in and used the super duper massage nozzle to get the job done. That quiet little voice in her head was mumbling under its breath about not needing to use the super duper massage nozzle if her hunky neighbor had scratched her itch. It wasn’t that she slept around that often, but her very hunky neighbor was a solid 15 on that 1-10 scale of hotness. He’d been wet, shirtless, and all together too close to her not to stir up hormones. She was human after all and quite red-blooded if she did say so herself. The water blew out of the pipe in a noisy spurt that seemed to echo her sentiments. Standing up, she contemplated locking the door. It’d serve him right if he decided to come up her after all this time of her waiting only to find a locked door. But the other part of her was caught on the flip side of that… if he came up would she care that he’d made her wait? That was an easy enough answer. No.

With a last sad sigh, she stepped into the shower to wash her hair and find a bit of relief for the ache that he’d generated. The frosting came out easier than that glitter from that party a couple of years ago, and the massage nozzle didn’t let her down. Slumped against the shower wall, she closed her eyes letting the returned nozzle spray down on her for a few moments longer before she reached over and slowly turned the nozzle off. At some point she would have to go downstairs again and awkwardly face her new neighbor… up until that point she’d been the friendly, flamboyant, if not slightly kooky, neighbor girl. But, what pride she had left had been reserved for this exact moment. Reaching for her towel, she stepped onto the rug and dried herself off before wrapping the towel around her small frame and moving to stare at herself in the mirror. So what if you came onto him and he decided to stay downstairs and clean your kitchen… instead of ‘cleaning your kitchen’.

In the mirror she stared at her slightly too large of eyes for her face and a mouth that didn’t quite pucker the way the actresses did. She turned slightly, nope, Kim Kardashian didn’t have to worry… Evie wasn’t going to steal her bootyliciousness. Not that she could really see them well in the mirror but she did have nice legs, for being no taller than she was, she’d always had rather long legs in direct comparison to her body size. Her boobs were caught somewhere between stacked and not having to have a bra on when she went out in public. Reaching up she groped them and pushed them up and turned a little in the mirror, a good push up bra could do wonders for her she decided. Her hands came down to the sink and she leaned into the mirror as she gave herself a pep talk. “Come on, you know if you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis then your ambition isn’t set high enough.”

“He might be hot but if it weren’t for the height regulations your legs could have been Rockette legs,” She muttered to herself, reaching over to snap a towel off the nearby rack and start to pat her hair dry. “You are fierce, Evangelina. Get control of yourself.”

Finishing up in the bathroom, she paddled her bare feet back to her room and closed the door with a thud that could have probably been heard in the kitchen. Dressing in a pair of black yoga capris and a forest green tee shirt that read, ‘Good Morning, I see the assassins failed again.’ She pulled her wet hair up into a ponytail to let it swing. Something about the swish made her feel… peppier. Maybe it was a throwback from cheerleading… maybe it held some sort of secret magical power that made her irresistible. It was hard to say for sure.

After a few more minutes she bounced peppily back down the stairs and into the kitchen with her perfect stewardess smile. It was like a pageant girl smile only if you looked hard enough, you could see it was slightly bitchier and definitely more authoritative then a beauty pageant smile.

to a halt as she stepped into her kitchen, she felt the smile transition into an open mouthed gape. He’d actually cleaned the kitchen. The smell of spring rain scent disinfectant spray caused her to blink. He really didn’t have to clean her kitchen. It was after all her fault he was in the state that it was in. She pulled her eyes away from the kitchen, even though deep down she knew it’d been months since it’d been as clean as it was right then, to look at him. He was standing there with a cupcake in his hand, dish towel over his shoulder and looking like any woman over the age of 20’s wet dream. For fuck’s sake! She wanted to stamp her foot and throw a temper tantrum. She’d spent more than enough time upstairs psyching herself up to come down here and face him and this… this is what he had done.

‘Peace offering.’

She pasted on her stewardess smile and stepped forward to take the cupcake, “You really didn’t have to clean my kitchen, you know. Thank you.” She pulled the wrapper free on a corner and took a bite of the cupcake getting frosting in the corner of her mouth and on her chin. Wiping away the one on her chin, she licked her thumb and felt her eyes narrow at him slightly as if she were reexamining him. “Are you sure you aren’t gay?”

Evie was still in shock as she took the cupcake from him as she surveyed her kitchen as he spoke. ‘I’m sorry, I hope it wasn’t too presumptuous. There was water all over the floor and….cake mush.’ Shifting a look to him, “You are apologizing for cleaning my kitchen and I am standing here debating on asking you to marry me.” She joked in amazement giving a small shake of her head. “I can work around the green smoothies. If you keep cleaning my kitchen.”

She couldn’t believe she’d just let that question slip out and instantly regretted it. As much as it bruised her ego, there was always that he simply just wasn’t that into her. Shoving the cupcake he’d offered her into her mouth all at once, it was as if her jaws had unhinged to allow it to be crammed, or mostly crammed into her mouth. She needed something to keep her mouth busy if she was going to go around and say dumb things that she’d only instantly regret.

‘Is it only gay guys who clean? I just..I don’t know, I don’t do very well with mess I guess.’ She could hear it in his voice, it was a mixture of hesitation and incredulousness. Blinking her eyes, she chewed on the cupcake thankful that it was evident she couldn’t answer him with her mouth full. Even if he had of been gay, she’d have considered marrying him if he’d clean her kitchen… Who wouldn’t want their kitchen cleaned? Wait. She blinked again, was she talking about her kitchen or the house’s kitchen now?

Swallowing the last bits of cupcake she licked the icing off her fingers carefully and moved to the refrigerator to open the door and pull the milk out and set it on the counter. Before, glancing over at him, “I don’t really know. All of the guys I’ve known aren’t really bothered by a mess…” Looking around her kitchen again, “But maybe it’s that I know the wrong sort of guys.” Clearing a crumb of cupcake out of her throat she pivoted and stood on her tiptoes to open a top cabinet and retrieve two glasses for the milk. Turning back around, she sat them on the counter next to him as she took a moment to lean against it and stare up at him.

“Oh, Karen Buller would have most definitely called the cops on you.” Her lips turned up as she flashed him a quick smile before pouring them each a glass of milk. “I am sure you broke at least 10 of the HMA’s rules before you knocked on my door.” Holding out a glass to him, she shrugged, “Listen, what are neighbors for if not to let you in when it’s pouring down raining outside and you’ve locked yourself out of your house.” The sparkle of amusement in her eyes flashed as she lifted her own glass up and took a small sip to wash the last remains of cupcake down.

Lifting her glass up to him in a mock toast, “Maybe Prison would have been kind to you. You could get a tattoo and flirt with a pretty jailer who’d sneak you cigarettes and playboys. Join a chain-gang and sport the stripes.” She paused and hummed to herself, before smiling puckishly up at him again. “You make that fantasy sound pretty good. I’mma have to add that to my list right along with ‘sexy school teacher’.”