The Nice Guy Next Door Page 4

  She looks down at our clasped hands and opens and closes her mouth a few times, unable to decide what to say. I just hope it involves the word yes, or maybe even sure.

  “I could really use a friend,” she says, and my heart sinks to my stomach. Maybe it’s too soon. She grabs a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse and scribbles her phone number down for me. “Let me know when you’re free.”

  She climbs out of the car, and I watch her walk into the library. Her gray skirt swishes around her calves that are exceptionally defined thanks to the dark-red heels on her feet.

  The door closes behind her, and I lay my head back against the headrest and groan loudly. Mr. Wilson, an old, retired history teacher, taps on my window, forcing me out of my pity party. “You okay in there, Jameson?” he asks.

  “Just fine, Mr. Wilson. How are you today?”

  “Well, I don’t have any ladies putting me through the wringer these days, so I’d say I’m doing pretty good.”

  “She put you in the friend zone? I did not see that coming,” Colby says, choking on a huge bite of pizza. It has been a part of our weekly routine for years. Once a week—whatever day works best with Seth’s and my weird work schedules—we order pizza, bring over our favorite drinks, and do man stuff, like play cards, work on someone’s house project, or sit and talk about women.

  “I was sure she was feeling something for you. Did you see how nervous she was, sitting next to you at lunch?” Seth says.

  “It was probably the gun and the taser freaking her out. A lot of people get weird around weapons,” I say. I’ve been doing this job long enough to have experienced the full spectrum of reactions to law enforcement. Some people simply stare. They try to be sneaky about it, but they never are. Older people usually thank me, which is kind but makes me uncomfortable. Others openly glare at me. I’m used to it after eight years on the job.

  “I don’t know, man,” Seth says, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Anyone want some of my pizza?”

  “Absolutely not. Pineapple does not belong on pizza,” Colby answers, disgust written all over his face.

  “Under any other circumstance you would be correct, but with the ham and bacon, it creates the perfect blend of savory and sweet.”

  “I don’t want my pizza to be sweet. I want every form of greasy protein and nothing sweet or even remotely healthy,” he says. Colby is a regimented health nut ninety-five percent of the time. He lives on vegetables and lean protein and works out daily. But all bets are off on guys’ nights. I’ve never seen a man savor a slice of pizza the way Colby does.

  “Y’all are ridiculous, but I have to agree with Colby on this one. Pineapple is a disgrace to pizza everywhere. So, are we gonna watch this football game or what?” I ask. Seth glares at both of us and reassures his pizza that he still loves it before settling down to watch the game.

  I don’t care about either of the teams playing, but I need something to take my mind off things for a while.

  It’s the Patriots and the Steelers, though. The Patriots are sweeping the floor with them, and it’s the most boring game I’ve ever watched. My phone saves me by dinging. I pull it out of my pocket, and Millie’s name pops up on the screen.

  “Dude, no phones!” Colby scolds and tries to swipe my phone out of my hand.

  “It’s my nana,” I lie. “She might need something.” I stand and walk to the kitchen under the guise of getting something else to drink before glancing at the text.

  Millie: Hey, it’s Millie! Have you decided when you want to grab dinner? My calender’s getting booked over here. (Joking.) I’m bored. Save me.

  I laugh out loud at her jokes. She’s so quiet in person that I wouldn’t have expected her to be so open in a text. I didn’t expect her to text me, period.

  “I didn’t know Nana was so funny!” Seth shouts from the living room.

  “Then you don’t know Nana. She’s hilarious! She really missed her calling as a stand-up comedian,” I shout back and then try to figure out how to respond to Millie. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a girlfriend or dated. And I’ve never dated anyone with someone else to take care of. Should I invite the sister? She’s sixteen. She wouldn’t want to hang out with two “old people.” Not that this will be a date. We’re just friends, I remind myself. She needs a friend.

  Jameson: How about tomorrow? Pick you up at 6:30?

  I fire off the text and toss my phone back and forth between my hands, waiting for her to respond. It’s taking her forever. Is she rethinking going out now? No, no. She texted me. She wants to go out. But a woman does always reserve the right to change her mind—or so my mother always says.

  My phone dings again, and I unlock my phone in record time, desperate to see her response.

  Millie: Okay, sounds great! Take me somewhere I can wear jeans and that serves burgers, please! Teenagers are stressful, and I need comfort food.

  I’m smiling down at my phone, thinking about her dealing with her sister all evening when Colby walks into his kitchen to dump his plate in the sink and grab a drink. I stand up straight and shove my phone in my pocket.

  “You sure look happy for a man who’s just talking to his nana,” he says with a crooked grin.

  “Shut up.”

  Chapter Five

  Millie

  I’m so glad Jameson agreed to take me out tonight. Lo has been a stereotypical angsty teenager the last few days. It’s completely new territory for me. I know starting a new school has been hard on her, so I’m trying not to lose my temper. Maybe I’ve forced too much change on her after an already difficult year.

  No matter what the cause of her attitude is, I need to be away from her for a little while. A girl can only handle so many scoffs, dirty looks, and slammed doors before she snaps.

  I step into the living room to wait for Jameson to arrive, and Lo is in the kitchen, drinking a soda. Her eyes narrow at me, and she asks, “Is that really what you’re wearing on a first date?” Her voice is dripping with disdain, and I count to ten in my head to remain calm.

  “It’s not a date, and yes, this is what I’m wearing,” I respond and look down at my clothes. I like my outfit. Perhaps it’s not the height of fashion for a sixteen-year-old, but I’m a grown woman. Twenty-six. My jeans are stylish enough, and my loose-fitting black t-shirt hangs perfectly from my shoulders. My long hair is pulled up with a leopard print scrunchie. It’s casual. It says, I’m going to get burgers with my friend on a random Tuesday. It’s exactly what I was going for.

  “Whatever. You should still try harder,” she says and stomps back to her room. I take a deep breath to calm myself before he arrives. My blood pressure has skyrocketed this week, and it’s only Tuesday. People are supposed to be eased into taking care of teenagers, not have it suddenly thrust upon them, right?

  Something else must be going on that I don’t know about. This all can’t be about her being late for school. She was so happy over the weekend. What happened in the two days since then?

  The sound of tires on gravel hits my ears, and I run to the bathroom to check my hair and makeup one last time. No, it’s not a date, but I still want to look good because, Lord knows, Jameson is sure to look good. I’m now convinced he’d look good in a feed sack.

  I run back out and see him stepping out of his truck. It’s the monstrous Ford F-250 I’ve seen sitting in his driveway for the last six days. It makes sense that he’d drive a massive truck since he’s a massive man. I step outside before he has a chance to come to the door, and he freezes in surprise.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to go anywhere near that house.”

  He raises an eyebrow and asks, “Is everything okay?”

  “Just an angsty teenager who won’t tell me what’s wrong with her. I ask her what’s going on, and her response is, ‘Ugh, just leave me alone.’ We’re making progress,” I joke. He nods his head, and I worry I’ve said too much. I should ease him in before I reveal how much of a train wreck my life really is. />
  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have unloaded on you like that.” I look toward the house where I know the window to Lo’s room is. The blinds are closed, but I can picture her sitting on her bed, curled up in her fluffy blanket, reading a book, and hiding from whatever is bothering her.

  “It’s okay. Come on, let’s go get you that burger, and you can rant to me about more of your problems,” he says as he motions to his truck.

  “I’m going to need a running start to get in that thing.”

  “Nah. A step comes down when you open the door.” He walks to the passenger side and opens the door for me. The step comes down, and I’m able to climb into the truck easily. I look around the huge cab of the truck and get comfortable on the soft leather seat. He scoots into the driver’s seat, and we pull out onto the road.

  “So, where are you taking me? Please tell me they have amazing fries,” I ask.

  “Bob’s Burgers,” he says, and a smile spreads across his achingly handsome face. “I would be a fool to take a woman to a restaurant that doesn’t have amazing fries.”

  “Oh, you’ve made that blunder a few times, I take it,” I say with a laugh.

  “Some of the worst dates I’ve ever been on, but I only have myself to blame,” he jokes. “But fortunately, this isn’t a date, so I’m not trying to impress anyone. If you hate the fries, I don’t have to worry about you breaking my heart for it.” He looks over and winks at me, and I have to steady my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It would be easier to be his friend if he weren’t so charming.

  We arrive at the restaurant, which is pretty dead thanks to it being a Tuesday night. Every head in the room turns to us as we enter. One woman smacks her husband’s arm to get him to look at us. I start backing toward the door to escape the attention. He takes me by the wrist to stop me and says, “It’s fine. It’s just been a while since they’ve seen me out and about with a pretty woman.”

  The hostess saves me from having to respond when she appears to show us to a table. I glance around the room as I walk. Booths with red seats and wooden tables line all of the walls. Red tables that look like they’re from a fifties diner are spread out in the center of the room. Country music is playing from an old jukebox, but not the horrible new stuff. It’s old country from the nineties and before. The waitresses are all wearing black or red t-shirts and jeans, and they chat happily with the diners. It looks like everyone here is on a first-name basis. Everyone except me.

  I sit down in the booth across from Jameson and smile, feeling relaxed. The hostess places menus in front of us, but I already know what I want: whatever burger is on that man’s plate a few feet away from me. It has bacon and avocado on it, and I need it, pronto. We order, and the waitress takes our menus, leaving us in silence.

  “What kind of stuff do you do as a state trooper?” I ask him, desperate to make conversation. He crosses his arms on the table and smiles at me.

  “I change a lot of flat tires,” he says with a laugh, and I roll my eyes. I act annoyed, but truthfully, he saved my hide the other day. It would have taken me forever to get it figured out. “I help people when they run out of gas or break down on the side of the road, work crashes, pull people over for speeding or other things. One of my favorite things to do is pick up hitchhikers.”

  “Really? Hitchhikers? Why?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. The idea of picking up a random stranger on the side of the road has always freaked me out. What if they’re a psychopathic axe murderer who wants to lure me somewhere deep in the forest—I watch a lot of true-crime videos online, but my daddy did warn me against hitchhikers.

  “I like talking to them. A lot of them are people who have fallen on hard times, and they just need someone to talk to. Something about riding in a car makes people open up, you know? I’ve noticed that when they get in my car, they seem sad, but when they get out of my car, they usually have at least a small smile on their face,” he says. It’s a sweet thought: giving people rides to help them but also knowingly giving them someone to talk to when they need it.

  I remember, when I was a teenager, Daddy would always take me out for ice cream when something was bothering me. Somewhere between home and the ice cream parlor, I would start spilling my guts out to him, and things wouldn’t feel so bad anymore. The car rides must really work. I wonder if he did that with Lo too.

  His deep voice draws me out of my musings when he asks, “What kind of stuff do you do as a librarian?”

  “I’ve only been a librarian for two days. I think ol’ Gertie, as you call her, was a little desperate for someone to hire, seeing as Tess is about to pop with that baby and not many people are clamoring to move to a small town like Waverly,” I say.

  “Well, what have you learned in the last few days?”

  “I’ll be doing story times, after-school activities for older kids, ordering new books for the kid’s and teen’s sections, that kind of thing,” I say with a shrug. He probably thinks it sounds silly with a job as important as his. I’m not saving people or stopping crime, just supplying a steady flow of free books for all of my fellow bookworms.

  “What made you want to be a librarian?”

  “I love books. I spent a lot of time in the library as a kid. A nerdy amount of time,” I say. A blush spreads across my face, remembering how big of a dork I was in high school. This guy has probably never been laughed at in his entire life. His size alone would deter anyone from making fun of him.

  “I like books too.”

  “Really? Because your friends seemed to think you had never stepped foot inside the library until the other night,” I say.

  “They don’t know everything about me. I’m an enigma.”

  A burst of laughter escapes my mouth, and heads around the room turn to look at me. The waitress comes to our table and places our food in front of us with a sneaky smile on her face. I know what she’s thinking. I know what everyone in this room is thinking. Oh, look at the cute, budding romance happening over there in the corner.

  Wrong! Just friends!

  There’s zero space in my life for romance. I’ve just started a new full-time job, I’m trying to figure out how to take care of a teenage girl without letting her know that I’m taking care of her (because she doesn’t need me—she told me so this afternoon), and I’m secretly writing a novel in whatever free time I have at the end of the day.

  I don’t tell anyone about that last part because it may very well be garbage. I don’t want to embarrass myself.

  The burger and fries sitting in front of me look greasy and delicious. I cut it in half because there’s no way I’ll be able to eat the whole thing in one sitting. I pop a French fry in my mouth and barely contain the moan begging to escape. Best French fry ever.

  “Oh, you did good, lover boy. You should definitely bring your next date here. I mean, if she eats carbs and isn’t too high maintenance,” I say, glancing around the homey restaurant.

  “I told you Bob’s is delicious,” Jameson says with a smirk.

  We spend the rest of the meal talking about our families and find that we can sympathize with each other over our MIA mother or father. He tells me about all of the mischief he and his friends got into as teenagers. Basically, if you can think of it, they did it.

  “We’re part of the reason I decided to get into law enforcement,” he says. “I have to protect the world from mischief-makers like that.” He’s funny, and it surprises me. I can picture him skulking around town behind groups of rowdy teenagers, ensuring they don’t put dish soap in the fountains or fork the perfectly manicured grass in front of the courthouse.

  After sitting in the corner booth with him for two hours, we decide it’s time to leave, but I find I don’t want to. I want to talk to him for two more hours. It feels good to have a friend to talk and laugh with. And he’s a lot easier to get along with than the emotional teen at home.

  When I get home, I knock on Lo’s door to let her know I’m home. She just yells, “I know,” thr
ough the door, and that’s the end of that conversation. Why won’t she talk to me? We've never had problems talking before. She has always come to me when she’s going through hard things. I hate that she’s shutting me out now. We are so going out for ice cream tomorrow evening.

  I go to my room to get myself ready for bed. I put on my favorite pajama pants that are covered in unicorns and rainbows. Yes, they’re ridiculous, but Daddy bought them for me for Christmas a few years back. I wash my face and put on eye cream. No idea if eye cream actually does anything to prevent wrinkles, but I figure it’s worth a shot. I’m not getting any younger. Lo has aged me at least three years this week alone.

  I glance around my room to make sure there are no ninjas lying in wait to sneak a peek at my novel in progress. I pull out my laptop and plop down on my bed to get to work.

  The two love interests have just met after she accidentally spilled a latte all over the poor guy's shoes, and the woman is completely tongue-tied in a totally cute kind of way. Not the ditzy, has-no-brain-function kind of way. Surely no one could blame her for being flustered when the most gorgeous man to have ever lived is standing right in front of her. I kinda know how she feels.

  I lay my head back against my pillows and think about how nice butterflies in your stomach feel. I wonder who pegged that term? When I met Jameson, it felt more like a stampede of wild horses. That could have been due to the fact that I initially thought I was getting hauled off to the slammer, but that doesn’t explain why I still felt it long after he explained himself, or why I felt them all evening, sitting across the table from him on our not-date.

  Lo woke up this morning determined to fight with me. Everything I’ve done from the moment we saw each other in the kitchen has been wrong, wrong, wrong. The coffee that I lovingly sat in front of her at the breakfast table was too strong. I moved her backpack off the table so she couldn’t find it. And I had the audacity to look her in the eye…