New neighbors Andi and Hayden don't get off to the best start - and neither do their dogs. When the hostility between their pets, Bart and Rosie, leads to noisy barking, Andi and Hayden must solve their pet's tension or risk eviction from their apar...
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Andi laps around her ice cream cone, licking up, down, and sideways. Like a woman on a mission, she makes sure to swirl her tongue across everything: the peanut butter cups, the fudge, the chocolate chunks. When coated in cream and toppings, she retreats her tongue into her wide smile, clamping her silky lips.
I'm unable to take my eyes off every movement.
And not just the movements of her skillful tongue that swirl a hoard of R-rated thoughts they shouldn't, but every movement. The excited glimmer in her eyes, the pep in her bouncing boot, the tight dimples creasing her cheeks. She looks so happy and light, bubbly even, almost as if she could float away.
The permanent waves crashing on her shoulders have receded, and she hasn't stopped pouring ideas into her notebook. The book rests against her crossed legs, a blurring pen in one of her hands and the other gripped around her dwindling ice cream cone. From the wheel to the ice cream stand to our bench at the edge of the boardwalk, her hand has been on fire. Even as it turned dark and the mesh of colorful lights became our sole illumination, she kept going.
I had an inkling this would spark something in her. I saw the way she enjoyed the beautiful scenery during our first night here and how she ate that everything-hotdog with a smile. They were the only times her shoulders loosened, and she looked like she could breathe. I suspected she needed to get out of her own head, clear it, soften it, and then attempt to think if she wanted to stir an idea. Not push herself so goddamn hard that she needed to clear her head as a means of getting away from the stress of work.
And I was right. The little grump-princess came up with an idea. A good one.
A melted drop of Andi's rocky road plucks her notebook, so she halts her speedy pen against the paper. "Shit," she curses, dropping her pen to swipe a napkin from the space between us. She's quick to dab it over the brown glob at the corner of her notes.
Taking a bite of my peanut butter chip, I widen my smile and watch her hurried clean up under the pier lights. It's only seconds before she returns to her notes like she never stopped. Light waves slosh below us, cut through by laughter and thumping footsteps, but more than anything, the crisp glide of Andi's never-stopping pen.
After plopping the last of my cone in my mouth, I swallow and swipe a napkin of my own. "Andi," I say, wiping my hands.
"Yeah?" she replies, not looking up from her book.
"Can I take your picture?"
That hooks her attention.
"What?" she says, staring directly at me for the first time in a while. "No."
"You look good right now." Good isn't the right word, but there might not be one. It's like she's glowing and bursting with radiance, and if I thought she looked like that in previous moments, now we're on a whole other level.
