Movie Monday
It’s early afternoon when you finally have most of the moving boxes inside your new house and only two left in the car. Swiping the sweat from your brow and stretching your aching back, you head back towards the car standing in the driveway to get the remaining boxes.
You’re rummaging through the back of the car, searching for a few items that have fallen out of a box and slid to one side or the other, when a voice pipes up from behind you.
“Are you new here?”
You jump in surprise and hit your head hard against the ceiling of the car. Rubbing your head with muttered swearing, you move back out of the car to look at the person. Or, actually, at the boy.
“Oh, hello,” you say with a small smile, before grimacing as you realize that you’d cursed in front of a young kid. “Uhm, yes, I’m new.” You look around and notice that there’s no grownup with him.
“Where are your parents?”
The boy points at the house just to the left of yours.
“Oh, so I guess we’re neighbors now,” you grin, introducing yourself to him.
The boy opens his mouth to probably give you his name, before he stops to consider you for a moment. He looks towards his house with a worried glance.
“Dad says I shouldn’t talk to strangers, but-”
“Oh, of course. He’s right. I’ll just come and say hi later, yeah?” You pick up one of the boxes to finish what you’d been doing, but the boy twists his mouth in thought before he looks towards his house again.
“Dad also said that it’s nice to help people.” He crosses his arms decisively and nods to himself.
Chuckling, you look inside your car and nod towards the last box that has the word towels written on it.
“If you really want to help without getting in trouble, then let’s do this: You bring this to the porch, and then you go straight back home. What do you say?”
The boy grins and nods, leaning into the car and grabbing the box. You close the trunk and lock the car, then lead the way to your house.
“Alright, you can leave it just here, and I’ll pick it up later. Thanks for your help.”
The boy smiles, looking proud of himself.
“Off you go now before your dad sees you here.” You jerk your head towards the boy’s house with a light laugh and lean against the door jamb.
Jumping down the steps and waving, the boy shouts, “Later” and runs over the lawn to his home. You watch until he’s inside before doing the same and start putting things away.
Several hours later, you are sitting completely exhausted in your new living room. Your bigger furniture, like couch, bed and so on, had thankfully arrived a few days earlier with a moving company, the people working for it helping you to put everything in its place. You still have a lot of heavy enough things to put here and there, however. Some of your friends had helped to pack, but you’re on your own today, and you’d never realized just how many books you own.
Dragging yourself into the kitchen to get something to drink, you spot the Tupperware full of homemade cookies that a friend had given you before you’d left this morning. Staring at it as you have some water, you decide to bring a few over to your little neighbor as thanks and a way to introduce yourself to his parents. Grabbing a smaller container, you put half of the cookies into it and head outside.
Once you’re at the neighbors’ door, you ring the bell and wait, tapping your fingers against the plastic of the container in slight nervousness. You put a smile on your face as you hear footsteps approaching, and the door opens a moment later. Your mouth opens to greet the person, but no sound comes out of it after your eyes have taken in the man in front of you.
He’s wearing a green shirt that highlights his trained body, over a pair of sweatpants that hang low but not enough to be called indecent. His hair is cropped short on the sides and slightly longer on top, looking good with the stubble on his cheeks and thick eyebrows.
“Can I help you?” The man asks after you’ve been silent for too long, an eyebrow lifting curiously.
“Oh – uh – I – Hi – um – Hi – I’m your new neighbor?” You stutter away.
“You don’t seem so sure.” His lips turn up in light amusement, picking up on the way you ended your sentence on a question.
You giggle awkwardly and promptly want to hit yourself with the container at the sound. Could you get any more embarrassing?
You clear your throat. “I’m your new neighbor,” you state this time, throwing a thumb in the direction of your place. “I just didn’t expect to find you-”
You manage to cut yourself off before you embarrass yourself even more with what your brain wanted to have you say. I just didn’t expect to find you so attractive.
“Find me?” The man tilts his head to the side, frowning.
Trying to think fast, you thankfully find a good enough reply.
“Er, yes. I meant that I was expecting to see your son – at least, I think he’s your son? He talked about his dad so… Anyway, a boy – he was really nice – he-”
Stopping you in your renewed word vomit, your name gets called before the boy from earlier appears at the side of the man.
“You know each other, Trey?” The man asks, frowning down at the kid, who grimaces, realizing that he gave himself away.
“I’m so sorry, it’s my fault. He just wanted to help me move in the last box, and I agreed. He didn’t come in, I promise. He didn’t even give me his name. Please don’t be mad at him,” you ramble apologetically. “I just wanted to come over and introduce myself and bring these to say thank you.” You tentatively hand the cookie container to the man, who takes it after a moment with a small nod.
“Okay, bud, you take them inside while I chat, yeah?”
“Can I have one, Dad?” Trey asks, giving his father a pleading look.
“After dinner… What do we say?” The man says as Trey nods and starts walking away.
“Thank you!” Trey exclaims with a wide grin and runs off.
“Thank you,” the man repeats, turning back to you and giving you a friendly smile. Alright, so you might not have blown it. Yet.
“No problem,” you smile, before introducing yourself again.
“BJ,” he replies, extending a hand for you.
“BJ,” you repeat with raised eyebrows as you shake his hand, taken aback by the name, before cringing at your tone. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just didn't – it’s unusual and-”
BJ waves your concerns away with a hand – a large hand, you can’t help noticing – and laughs in amusement, the sound making you relax and smile.
“It stands for Bradley James, but I don’t like it.”
“I guess that any man would prefer BJ,” you say without thinking, but the way BJ barks out another laugh takes away your embarrassment and makes you grin instead.
Both of you are quiet after the laughter slowly stops, but it’s not uncomfortable. BJ stares at you for a moment and ducks his head with a small smile after you’ve grinned at him at his perusal.
“Right… Guess I should let you get on with dinner, then.” You take a step back, remembering Trey waiting inside.
“Yeah.” He’s silent for a beat. “You wanna join us?”
“Oh, uh… I don’t want to intrude, I-”
“Nah, come on. I’m sure that Trey would like it too. It’s usually just the two of us or my mom.”
“Oh… alright then.”
You want to groan at yourself as your brain jumps on the implied detail that BJ seems to be single.
In any case, Trey is happy that you join them, asking you question after question about where you are from and what you’re doing and who made the cookies. He’s cute, and you’re having fun, but the way BJ listens in carefully and watches you doesn’t go unnoticed by you either.
Pittsburgh might truly hold the new beginning you’ve been looking for.