I don't remember when my story started, exactly. I could say it was the first time I washed the dishes, or perhaps the first time I opened the curtains, or maybe even the first time I bothered to glance out that clear window…

But let's say it started from the beginning, eh? The day I moved in? After all, I've heard the beginning is always a good place to start.

The only thing going through my mind was how heavy the dull cardboard moving box was and how my back was aching something chronic. Exhausted, I stooped to the back of my old Chevy and pulled up one of nearly twenty moving boxes, using a final spurt of energy to shove it to the rotting door of the quaint old house I had purchased two months ago.

Yes, it was a quaint old house in a quaint old town where I started my quaint old job as the local journalist – far from the shining dreams I'd had as a fourteen year old, hoping to meet the love of my life and be whisked away to some far, romantic island where I would be the fame of the news and media world and he'd be some big shot athlete. Back then, I thought I would become "Lily Hale", the star anchor of that one show that everyone watched and have enough money to swim in it. Now, the single-bedroom, single-bathroom, at-least-I-have-a-kitchen white house was the best I could afford with my meager savings and shitload of college loans.

I heaved a sigh, a big effort as I'd spent the entire day trying (and failing) to move in, and turned to pull in the last, and despicably large, box off the sidewalk, only to be distracted by the first sign of life I had seen all day.

A large red Mustang, shiny from an earlier wax perhaps, rolled up to the curb, parking just inches from the fender of my car. Standing there, looking like an idiot, panting just to hold the box in an upright position, wearing an old, ratty shirt, Nike shorts, and the most worn tennis shoes ever, I watched as my neighbor lazily exited his car and walked up the pathway to his house.

And maybe it was the heat, maybe it was my exhaustion, or maybe it was my naïve little brain trying to set me up for some heart-breaking trap, but all I noted was how goddamn fine he looked that day, with his tall, willowy form and wavy chestnut locks, wearing a cute pair of sweats and a Playboy Bunny tee-shirt. He paid neither attention to me nor any to my ogling, as he crossed his front lawn and unlocked his front door, flicking his pale brown hair out of his eyelash-framed eyes.

Just as he was about to enter his house, though, one foot wedging the door open and his hand still on the doorknob, he twisted a bit to survey my scatter-brained mess of luggage and cargo shipped for the house and looked directly at me.

"Those boxes sure do look heavy, sweetheart." If I wasn't so disgruntled by his cold manner (and to a new neighbor, at that!), the smooth, velvet tones of his voice would have registered in my brain and melted me into a puddle of ooze.

But he was gone, his last word of "endearment" dodging over his shoulder and around his closing front door. I stared at the lined oak door, 140404 Serenity Drive, as I processed my first meeting with my new neighbor, Window Boy.