Whoop-de-freaking-do.
“So you’re sure you want to keep doing this? You really think you can beat me in this game?” The semi-ominous undertone in his words almost makes me chuckle.
Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. “Yeah, Nate. I’m sure.”
“Well then”—he pulls an unaddressed envelope out of his back pocket—“don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Seriously? What is this, a strongly worded letter?”
I snatch the envelope out of his hands and rip it open. I pull out the letter, and as I read, my amusement quickly transforms into barely concealed rage.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask as I read through words like HOA violation and tree removal and unapproved landscaping, but it’s when I see the fine that I truly lose my mind. “Two hundred dollars? Are you kidding me?”
Sure, I sprayed him with the hose and called his shirt loud, but this escalation of offenses is as ridiculous as it is unwarranted.
“Actually . . .” He leans in closer, clearly not valuing his life, as he points out the text near the bottom of the letter. “If you read right here, you’ll see that the first fine is two hundred dollars. But if you don’t remove the tree by the date listed, the HOA will be forced to issue another fine at a greater value.”
“Nate,” I try to reason with him. I know he doesn’t like me, but he’s the one who said he respected my parents, and they’re who this will affect in the long run. “My dad had me plant that tree for my mom. You cannot ask me to dig it up. She’ll be devastated. Don’t do this to them.”
“It’s not me.” He feigns innocence and the condescending smirk on his face widens. “I’m just presenting this to you on behalf of the homeowners’ association.”
“You came to my parents’ barbecue for official HOA business?” The hold on my temper finally slips. “How about you take this letter and shove it up your H-O-A-hole!”
I scrunch up the letter into a ball and aim it at his face, but he easily dodges it.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He bends over and picks up the paper, taking his time to straighten it out before handing it back to me. “But I have a deal to make with you, should you choose to accept.”
I don’t want to play into his stupid little game, but I also don’t have spare money lying around to keep paying fines. Plus, I already feel like such a burden on my poor parents, I can’t be responsible for costing them more money or losing the tree.
“What?” I look around, grateful to see nobody’s bearing witness to this exchange. “Spit it out already.”
He was always as dramatic as he was pompous. It’s too bad certain things don’t change with time.
“Move,” he says like this is some small and easy request. “I’ve made a life for myself here. I’ve created a community that values me and my contributions. I don’t need some bitter girl from high school causing scenes everywhere I go and making others question my character.”
“Hold on one second. Let me get this straight.” I raise my hand in front of me and close my eyes. I inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth just like my therapist taught me, only to find out the bitch lied because I’m still mad as hell. When I open my eyes and see Nate still standing there, looking like he won something, red colors my vision. “You can’t handle running into me on your little walks and your precious ego is worried some people won’t like you? So you’re blackmailing me through the freaking HOA?”
It’s so absurd that I almost laugh. As a screenwriter, I worked tirelessly to come up with plots and ideas that would make people laugh or cry or scream. But never, and I mean never, could I come up with something as truly and utterly ridiculous as this.
Some of the cockiness fades from his demeanor, but because he’s Nate, he doesn’t back down.
“It’s obvious you hate it here,” he says. “You’ve always thought you were better than us. So why don’t you just take this as your next excuse to leave?”
Now, if I were thinking clearly—which I’m not—or concerned in the slightest about Nate’s feelings—which I’m also not—I might notice the way his angry words could be masking a deeper hurt and insecurities. But I don’t, and Nate is in large part to thank for that.
“You think I want to be here?” The rhetorical question drips with acid as it falls out of my mouth. “You think I left for LA as soon as possible only to return at nearly thirty to live with my parents for fun? Do you really think if I had literally any other options, I’d be standing in the backyard of my childhood home, arguing with you? Come on, Nate. I may not like you, but even I know you’re smarter than that.”
“Well then, it looks like you have quite the dilemma in front of you.” He shoves his hands into his khaki pockets, rocking back onto the heels of his shoes. “But what was that advice you gave me earlier? Oh, that’s right. Don’t start none, won’t be none?” He pauses, taking a step closer. “Looks like round two goes to me.”
He aims his bright smile at me, winking once before walking away. My hands curl into fists so tight, I can feel the sharp sting as my nails break the skin of my palms. I watch him walk away, trying to think of anything at all to say so that he doesn’t get the last word, but I come up empty-handed.
He may have won this round, but that was because I didn’t know we were playing dirty. Now that I know his game? He better watch out. Because unlike my queen, Michelle Obama, there’s nothing stopping me from going as low as I can.
Chapter 6
He’s leveraging the HOA against me!” I shout in the middle of Ashleigh’s sparsely decorated living room with Ruby on speakerphone. “Who even does that?”
As soon as Nate left, I abandoned the barbecue and spent the entire night staring at the HOA violation notice, frantically googling the consequences of not paying. I mean, really, it’s a made-up system for bored, power-hungry people to feel a slight sense of superiority. What could they really do?
Well, as it turns out, a lot.
Beyond the amount of fees piling up, I found horror stories of liens being put on houses, and—in some cases—forcing homes into foreclosure. Between this news, the steak, two different potato salads, cupcakes, and three glasses of sangria I had at the barbecue, I thought I was going to vomit. I stayed up all night doomscrolling and plotting all the ways I would seek revenge against Nate.
He really thought he had me.
But luckily for me, my best friend is a kick-ass lawyer who’s willing to roll around in the mud with me.
“He’s not leveraging the HOA against you,” Ruby’s semi-distracted voice bursts through the speaker. “He’s blackmailing you and that is a literal crime.”
“Are we sure this isn’t some big misunderstanding?” Ashleigh asks from the kitchen. Her calm and sweet voice is a nice change of pace from the warpaths Ruby and I are on. “Maybe he was just joking and trying to get a rise out of you. I can’t see him really taking this feud of yours to the HOA. It doesn’t seem like him.”