Leap Year (Reconstruction Book 1), page 1
LEAP YEAR
RECONSTRUCTION SERIES
BOOK 1
A.M. ARTHUR
Briggs-King Books
CONTENTS
Blurb
Dear Reader,
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Bonus Recipe
Also by A.M. Arthur
About the Author
BLURB
Reclusive artist Russell Schar enjoys his quiet life in the big house he rents from his best friend, so he’s less than thrilled when a small family moves in next door. Neighbors and their noise do not fit into his carefully constructed routines, but as long as they stay on their side of the property? He’ll work it out.
After a series of family traumas, all single-dad Patrick Gillespie wants is to find some balance: school for his seven-year-old son, a full-time job for himself, and a stable place to live while he gets his late mother’s affairs in order. He does not expect his surly, ginger bear of a neighbor to slide right under his skin and stay there. Or for Russell to develop a fast friendship with Patrick’s son.
A mild flirtation between Patrick and Russell turns into more than either man expects or knows how to deal with. They both want to protect their damaged hearts, but sometimes it takes a leap of faith to find true love.
Leap Year is loosely connected to the Neighborhood Shindig series, but can be read independently. Content warning for discussions of past sexual abuse.
LEAP YEAR
Copyright © 2024 by A.M. Arthur
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the author.
All characters and events in this book are purely fictional and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names. No generative AI was used in the creation of this book.
Briggs-King Books
Cover art by: Morningstar Ashley Designs
DEAR READER,
Welcome to a new journey into familiar stomping grounds. Well, familiar if you’ve ventured into Neighborhood Shindig a time or four. This new series is set in Reynolds, North Carolina, and you’ll see some recognizable faces. But I’m excited to introduce you to a whole new set of characters.
Special thanks to EM Denning for dropping this plot bunny into my DMs. You are always a gem to chat with and bounce ideas off. Love to my amazing, thoughtful beta reader Eileen. I always look forward to your thoughts and critiques. And a shout-out to my niece, whose love for bearded dragons fueled Frog’s love.
A.M. Arthur
CHAPTER ONE
Every four years, for three-hundred and sixty-six days, Russell Schar woke up in the morning with a pit in his stomach, wondering what new misfortune would befall him this leap year. Every leap year for his entire adult life had dropped some new crisis or other on his head. Almost exactly four years ago to the day, fate had decided to destroy his sense of safety, his dream of being a teacher, and his ability to get through the day without pain—all in one fell swoop.
Or one well-placed stab with a switchblade.
Naturally, four days before that four-year anniversary (Russell really hated the number four), his doorbell rang and scared the ever-loving piss out of him. Not literally, thank God, or he’d have first died of sheer embarrassment, and then made it his afterlife mission as a ghost to haunt whichever unscheduled person was ringing his doorbell at ten a.m. on a Tuesday morning.
No one came to his door unscheduled. Russell knew exactly when to expect his groceries, art supplies, and takeout deliveries. And he had a big sign on the porch asking drivers to leave all deliveries inside the big plastic tote by the front door. His best friend, Angelo Voltini, knew to text or call first, and the only two times Angelo had shown up without announcing himself first had been after late-night drinking binges. Angelo was too much of a professional to be drunk on his porch this early in the day.
Russell dropped his paintbrush into a cup of water and cleanser, anger rippling through his chest at being interrupted. He was painting the glass eyes on his newest puppet and eyes were the most important part of his creations. Eyes, even fake ones, were the windows to the soul. With a stroke of his brush, Russell could make his puppets angry, curious, happy, mischievous, or a dozen other things.
Depending on who was at the door, his black and magenta winged fairy-squirrel might end up a vengeful woodland creature by the end of the day.
He wiped his hands on a cloth, turned off his magnifying lamp, and left his art room. Thumped down the wide oak staircase to the first floor in time for the bell to ring again, its gong echoing through the otherwise silent first floor. It was sometimes too much house for one person, but it had been Angelo’s first professional flip, and he still sometimes used the extra rooms to test out new design ideas. Russell didn’t care, as long as Angelo left Russell’s three claimed upstairs rooms alone.
As he approached the front door, he checked his cell phone to make sure he hadn’t forgotten a delivery. The damned thing was dark and wouldn’t wake up. Shit. His bedroom charger had a loose wire and if he jostled it during the night, it sometimes didn’t connect. Angelo picked on him about buying a new one but Russell hated wasting money to replace something that wasn’t completely useless yet.
Thankfully, it was Angelo on his porch and not some unsuspecting solicitor or local election person stumping for a city council seat. Russell hadn’t paid attention to local politics since he quit teaching, quit the PTA, and moved to the northeast side of town, away from those precious years of his life. Angelo held a cardboard tray with two cups of coffee and a paper bag, all marked with the familiar Hallowed Grounds logo.
“What did you do?” Russell asked.
Angelo scoffed and raised one eyebrow, his hips cocking ever so slightly. “I bring your favorite coffee and scones from halfway across town, and it’s because I’ve done something wrong?”
“Yes.” Best friends since their freshman year at Reynolds College, Russell and Angelo had gone through a lot in the last two decades, and he knew Angelo’s tells better than anyone. “You hate trying to find a parking place to get into Hallowed Grounds when it’s easier to use the drive-thru at Starbucks, so what did you do?”
“Let me in out of this insufferable heat, and I’ll tell you.”
“Fine, come in.”
August heat in Reynolds, North Carolina, was no joke. Overweight his entire life, Russell had never been a fan, but he hated it more and more the older he got. Angelo often said it was less the heat and more the humidity that made him want to melt when he stepped outside; Russell couldn’t disagree.
Angelo marched straight down the house’s main hallway to the big kitchen in the back. The entire thing had been carefully restored with what he called a modern farmhouse aesthetic, all white woods with black and red accents. Russell didn’t much care, as long as Angelo didn’t try hanging curtains with roosters or cheesy “Home Is Where the Heart Is” wall prints.
Russell plucked the largest of the two coffee cups out of the carrier and sipped. Just on the drinkable side of scalding, which was how he liked his coffee. He’d had a large breakfast not too long ago, so he ignored the pastry bag for now. “I’d ask why you didn’t text but my phone is dead.”
“Figured.” Angelo pulled a few packets of sweetener from the bag and dumped them into his coffee. “I did text that I was coming over. This requires the personal touch.”
“And a food bribe?”
“Exactly. I rented out the carriage house.”
Russell blinked dumbly. “What carriage house?”
“The one in the backyard.”
“Of this house?”
“How many houses do I have with a carriage house, Russ?”
“I don’t keep track of all your flip homes, Angelo. This isn’t the only historic house in or around Reynolds.”
“No, but it is the only one with potential for two income streams, and at the moment I am barely using either.”
“I pay rent.”
Angelo folded his arms, that single eyebrow still raised high.
Russell grunted and grabbed the pastry bag. “Fine, I pay utilities and internet. But I paint and design for you, that was our deal. And I make myself scarce when you want to show people this place so they see what your finished work looks like.”
“Yes, you do, and I love you for all of that, honey. But the carriage house is a fully-functional, two-bedroom apartment that I only use as the occasional crash-pad in between renovations, and it deserves a little love.”
He glared at Angelo for several long beats before the penny dropped. “Your aunt asked you for a favor again, didn’t she?”
Angelo heaved a dramatic sigh that proved Russell’s guess right. “Like I can ever say no when Aunt Rita asks me for a favor. And believe me, I told her how much you like your privacy, and your peace and quiet, but she pulled the Mom Card.”
“Low but effective.”
Angelo had been eight when he and his mother immigrated to the States from Italy, and they’d moved in with her sister Rita Fratelli, who was newly widowed with three sons of her own. The two women did their best with the four boys, until Angelo’s mother died from an undiagnosed heart condition when he was twelve. Rita continued to raise Angelo like one of her own sons, but instead of going into the family food business, he’d forged his own path with interior design and home renovation.
Aunt Rita was a formidable woman who took no shit from anyone—and was really scary when she was in a bad mood—so Russell couldn’t blame Angelo for caving to another favor.
“Please tell me my new neighbor is some elderly friend of hers,” Russell said. “Someone quiet whose biggest vice is a glass of wine and cigar on the front stoop at night.”
Angelo grimaced. “He’s a single dad with a kid.”
Russell groaned and dropped the raspberry scone he’d been about to eat onto the counter. “Fuck, really? You know I don’t like being around kids anymore.”
“You taught teenagers, not kids.”
“Teenagers are still kids, they’re just mouthier and have a lot more hormones.”
“Okay, well this one is like five or something. An actual kid-kid. The most dangerous thing about him is probably the odds of him accidentally peeing in the pool.”
“Fuck, I’ve gotta share the pool with them, too?” The best feature of this house—and the main reason Russell had agreed to live here—was the large, in-ground pool. The pool area was surrounded by a wood fence and had two gates: one accessible on Russell’s side of the divided backyard, and the other on the carriage house’s side the yard. If the new neighbor had a kid, Russell was putting a lock on his side of the pool gate.
He didn’t need anything running around his backyard larger than a squirrel or occasional rabbit.
“For like six weeks, yeah, until I close up the pool for the winter,” Angelo replied. “Plus, the dad works so it’s not like they’ll be spending all day, every day splashing around in the pool. I already told him that I have a tenant who swims every morning and evening, and that he prefers privacy when he does. The guy is so happy about the cheap rent that he’d probably agree to keep the kid muzzled if I put it in the lease.”
Russell grunted. He’d never ask Angelo to do that, even to keep the peace and quiet Russell treasured. The carriage house had a nice-sized patch of yard and kids needed to play outside. Russell had once loved being outdoors, wading in forest streams and hunting tadpoles, playing with neighborhood kids—until the bullying began. Then he stayed inside and ate his feelings.
“How did Aunt Rita get involved in this?” Russell asked, drawing on his curiosity to overshadow his frustration. He’d vent it all out later, probably on a blank canvas.
“She went to Mass with Patrick’s—that’s the tenant’s name—his mother. Patrick and his son were living with his mother but she passed away a few months ago. He’s been getting their affairs in order but can’t afford to keep her house, so he’s selling and needs a cheaper place close to the Opal Lake school district for his kid. Aunt Rita told him about the carriage house. Then she called me.”
“Of course, she did it in that order.” Aunt Rita was an expert at making promises on behalf of other people and then informing them after the fact. She’d played similar word games a few years ago to make Angelo think that having Russell move into this house had been all Angelo’s idea in the first place.
“Look, I haven’t met Patrick yet, but I did speak to him on the phone, and Aunt Rita vouches for him being a nice guy who fell on hard times. I mean, I can’t imagine being a single dad his age in this economy.”
“And what age is that?”
“I don’t know, mid-twenties or something? The point is, the lease is for six-months, and after that we can renegotiate or he can move out. It’s not a lifetime commitment for either of us, Russ.”
Russell picked a piece of white icing off the top of his uneaten scone. “It’s also not like I have a choice here.”
“Not really, but I did want to tell you personally. The last thing I wanted was for you to freak out at the sight of a U-Haul in the yard tomorrow morning.”
“That soon?”
“Yeah, his Realtor wants to have the house staged and on the market by the end of the week.”
“I’m surprised the Realtor didn’t give you first crack at buying.”
“She did but it’s not my style house.”
“Double-wide trailer?”
“Ha ha. No. It was just remodeled ten years ago, so there isn’t enough for me to do creatively. No dividing walls to rip out, no major facelift in style. Even the yard is landscaped and well-tended. I mean, I could probably do a few fixes and make a couple grand profit, but there’s no challenge in a house like that.”
And Angelo thrived on challenges. If anything was too easy, he chose the more difficult path. It was a trait Russell admired, but it had also made him want to throttle Angelo on more than one occasion—especially when it came to the people Angelo chose to date.
“Besides,” Angelo continued, “I might have a lead on a house that will be a challenge. It isn’t on the market yet, but my source says a man who was the third or fourth-generation homeowner just passed away. Older house, high-end neighborhood. If I get a good price and the house isn’t a total wreck, I could turn a tidy profit in a year or so.”
“Well, then I hope you get it.” Russell wasn’t a gambler like Angelo. He couldn’t imagine investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into buying and renovating a house, and then praying the market stayed up so he could sell at a profit. He loved seeing Angelo’s finished work before the reno went up for sale, because his friend truly had his own artistic eye, but it wasn’t the life for Russell.
He gambled on very few things, least of all his money. Money was too hard to come by some days to throw that much away at once. He’d already lost his house once thanks to a bad relationship (wrong gamble with his heart) and insane medical bills (stupid gamble with his own life).
“I guess I can deal with them for six months,” Russell grumped after taking a few bites of his scone. The sugar helped soothe some of his ruffled feathers over this unwanted surprise. “I’ll just have to dig out those noise-canceling headphones you gave me last Christmas. Put ‘em to good use.”
“So glad to hear they were a handy gift after all these months,” Angelo deadpanned. “Make sure you give them a good dusting off.” He leaned across the corner of the island and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for taking this so well. You’re a gem.”
“I also live here rent-free and am therefore kind of your bitch.”
“Good point. So be polite, please? It sounds like the guy has had a hard year.”
“I promise not to go all scary bear on him.”
“Thank you.” Angelo checked his phone. “Okay, I gotta jet. I’m meeting my contractor at the Wendell Street property in thirty minutes. Apparently, there’s something going on with the foundation that we need to talk about. I swear, I am bleeding money on renos this month.”
“Then thank God you have a new tenant at the expense of my sanity.”
He blew Russell a kiss on his way out of the kitchen. “Love you, Big Bear. Charge your phone!”
Russell flipped the bird in the general direction of Angelo’s departing backside, unsoothed by the affectionate nickname, then took his phone over to the kitchen charger and plugged it in. The charger was next to the sink, and he stared out the wide, double windows to the patio and its handsome teak furniture nestled around a gas fire pit. Sometimes he liked to sit outside at night with the fire going, mostly to enjoy the ambiance and peace of the stars above.
Beyond the strip of green yard was the pool and its still, aqua water, and past that the carriage house. The old building had been a dilapidated mess when Angelo bought the property, and he’d nearly torn it down until his contractor said the magic words: rental income. They’d gutted it, added insulation, and reinforced the original structure into a two-story, two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with parking for two cars. They’d have to share a main driveway, which wasn’t a big deal.
