Double Lives

Chapter 1

A new neighbour was moving in next door to Jay Halstead. A woman with a sexy, raspy voice. That was all he knew so far because she was the other side of the head high wooden fence between the gardens, and Jay was on the opposite side of his own garden, leaving him unable to see over it.

"It's a fairly good size for a garden. Needs a lot of work, but that's not a problem," the woman was saying to someone. "What do you think, dad?"

Dad. The woman's dad might be moving in too. Or he might just be helping on moving day.

"Dad, are you going to stand there all day?" That came not from the woman next door, but from Jay's ten year old daughter Clementine. Adopted daughter technically, but Jay saw no distinction. Never had, never would. Clementine was a light skinned African American girl with wavy brown hair that she almost always wore in little pig tails, almost always under a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. Baseball was something that father and daughter both loved. Right now, they were both wearing a baseball glove each, tossing a ball back and forth for pitching and catching practice. Jay had held the ball for longer than necessary, causing his daughter's impatience.

"Sorry, Clem," he said, before throwing her a ball that she caught low, about knee height. "Well done."

"That was a low one," Clementine said.

"Slider," Jay bluffed, covering for the lax throw that he had made while still trying to listen to the conversation going on next door.

"It wasn't a slider. There was no sideways movement on it."

Jay smiled. Clem had such in depth knowledge of baseball for her age that he sometimes wondered if she was borderline autistic. But he did his best to nurture her interest, hoping that she might have some kind of future in the sport. "Okay, throw me a slider then."

"I don't have a slider. All I can do is fastballs or changeups."

A changeup was thrown with the same action as a fastball, just slower. Clem threw him one, which had no problem in reaching him. For her age, she good strength in her pitching arm.

"I'll have to show you how to pitch sliders. Or cutters." Jay threw a ball that curved away from Clem's right hand. She almost caught it, but it glanced off the end of her glove and sailed up and over the fence, into the new neighbour's garden.

"Dad! That was nowhere near me!"

"It was a cutter, sweet pea. I did get too much on it though. My bad. Let's see if we can get the ball back."

Jay walked up to the fence and looked over it. The first sight he got of his new neighbour almost took his breath away. Wearing tight black leather pants, she had her back to him and was bending down to pick up the baseball from the overgrown grass of her lawn, showing off a mind-blowing peach of an ass. What a first impression, he thought.

When the woman stood up, baseball in hand, and turned around, the second impression Jay got was as nice as the first. She was beautiful. Perfect bone structure, gorgeous eyes, and a smile that almost killed him. She was stunning.

'Dad' was nowhere to be seen, apparently having just gone inside the house.

"Hi," the woman said, approaching the fence. "This almost hit me."

"I'm really sorry. It was totally my fault. I threw a cutter that my daughter couldn't reach. She accidentally tipped it over the fence. Thank you," he added as she handed him the ball.

"Daughter?" the woman asked. She looked over the fence and saw Clem. "Oh, hey!"

"Hi," Clementine said politely, smiling.