The Nice Guy Next Door Read online

  I have four of the ten points needed to win, while he has eight. He’s grinning at me like a maniac while I take my turn. He’s trying to not so subtly tell me that I have no chance here, and he would be right. I have nothing in my hand that will help me, but I just can’t finish my turn and let him win. I adjust the cards in my hand yet again and then look at the board. Nope. Still can’t do anything.

  “Okay, I’m taking these,” he says and grabs the dice from the floor in front of me.

  “I didn’t say I was done,” I grit out through clenched teeth.

  “You’ve been staring at nothing for five minutes.”

  “Oh please, it has not been five minutes.”

  “You started your turn at 7:56, and it is now”—he raises his arm and looks at his watch—“8:01… So, you’re right. It hasn’t been five minutes. It has been six,” he says.

  “I’m thinking,” I argue. It’s ridiculous and childish, I know. But I cannot accept that he’s about to win. It’s just a board game. Don’t blow a gasket.

  “Yeah, thinking about how sad you’re gonna feel when I beat you right now,” he gloats. I give him the nastiest look I can, and the man laughs. He rolls the dice and plays his winning moves…and the hand of Satan comes upon me, because I throw my cards at that man’s arrogant face. He flinches a little in surprise before bursting out in a belly laugh. I cannot believe my ears.

  “We’re playing again,” I demand and begin straightening up the board. I am certain that this is my chance to destroy him. He’s too arrogant. He’ll never see it coming. I am quickly proven wrong. He does have the decency to look a little worried this time.

  “No, no, no! You’re cheating! I know you’re cheating,” I yell as I reset the board yet again. He really doesn’t want to play again, but I hold him hostage by blocking the entrance of the blanket fort. Granted, it is just blankets. He can escape any time he wants.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks as we start the third game. I glare at him until he relents and plays the game.

  He wins again in the fastest game of Catan I have ever played, and this time, he looks downright tortured by his victory.

  “Get out,” I say as calmly as I can muster. It’s taking every bit of self-control I have to not flip the game board over.

  “Millie, are you serious?” he asks with barely contained laughter in his voice.

  “Don’t you dare laugh right now.”

  “This is hilarious. And you’re really cute when you’re angry,” he says. I look at his face and see the glint in his eye. He’s not supposed to find this cute. He’s supposed to be shaking in fear. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him out of the blanket fort—okay, he comes willingly. He's a foot taller than I am and a good one hundred pounds heavier. There’s no way I’m dragging him anywhere. He’s walking backwards as he lets me push him back toward the door.

  “Millie, come on. It’s just a game. It’s supposed to be fun,” he pleads with me.

  “That was not fun. That was a massacre. Good-bye!” I say right before I slam the door in his face.

  He has the audacity to knock on the door and ask for me to grab his wallet and phone off my kitchen counter. I retrieve them and shove them onto his chest before closing the door in his face for the second time.

  “Goodnight. I’ll see you later,” he hollers through the door.

  Before going to bed, I open my laptop and make a few quick changes to the hero of my novel. I was right with my first assessment of his character. He is an arrogant turd. I scatter smarmy looks throughout the chapters I’ve already written. I’m sure everything’s a total mess now, but I’ll fix it all tomorrow when my head is less muddled. I close my computer and lie down in my bed, assuring myself that I have every right to be angry.

  However, I wake up in the morning, knowing that I completely overreacted. I can never face him again. I’m going to be that crazy neighbor who has to peek out the window to make sure he’s not outside every time I need to leave my house.

  If I see him in the grocery store, I’ll have to hide behind the tall display of sodas. He’ll eventually forget all about me. Someone will mention the librarian, Millie, to him, and he’ll ask who?

  No, I can’t let him forget me, but I do want him to forget about my tantrum last night. If not forget, then at least forgive. I go to the kitchen to whip up a batch of cookies for him. Eilleen gave me the recipe for some of the cookies she brought to the book club a few weeks ago. I bought the ingredients but never made them. I guess groveling to my neighbor is worth giving up the delicious cookies I was looking forward to devouring.

  I mix up flour, eggs, butter, and sugar into a thick dough and then pour in dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. I roll the dough into little balls and drop them onto the baking pan. Into the oven they go, and ten minutes later, I have perfect cookies that are not for me. Well, he can spare one measly cookie. I take one from the pan and take a huge bite. It’s hot and delicious, and I’m even more reluctant to part with the rest. I pat myself on the back for my baking prowess.

  I let them cool for a few minutes before putting them onto a plate. I write him a short note, leave them in front of his door, and then play ding-dong ditch. Yeah, I’m trying to apologize, but I still can’t bear to face him.

  Chapter Ten

  Jameson

  It’s really early on a Saturday morning. Why is someone ringing my doorbell? This is my only day to sleep in. I crack my eyes open and get myself into a sitting position. Can’t answer the door in my underwear, so I throw on a t-shirt and sweats. When I open the door, there’s no one there, but what I’m greeted with does bring a smile to my face.

  A plate of my favorite cookies is waiting for me. I pick up the plate and notice the paper underneath. My heart pounds, wondering if the insane stalker is attempting to poison me with cookies. Strange tactic, but okay.

  I carry them into my kitchen and unfold the paper. In huge, bold letters are the words I am mortified. My fears are erased, and I grab a cookie and eat most of it in one bite. Millie can bake. These taste exactly like Nana’s.

  I scoop up the plate of cookies, slide my feet into the sandals by my front door, and walk across the yard to Millie’s house. I imagine her pacing in her living room, worried about what I’m thinking about her. It pleases me that she cares what I think. It gives me hope that something real could develop between us.

  She cracks open her door so that I can only see a sliver of her. “Did you come to return the cookies? You don’t forgive me?” she asks. Her voice sounds tortured at the thought of me not forgiving her.

  “I came to share the cookies with you. It’s no fun having dessert for breakfast when you’re alone,” I reply. She opens the door fully, and I see the blanket fort still standing in the living room and the mess from her baking in the kitchen. She hugs me around the waist, and I hug her back while trying not to spill the cookies all over her floor.

  “Can we have a redo in the blanket fort? I want to have happy memories of it.”

  “Sure. Let’s actually watch a movie like we were going to yesterday,” I suggest.

  We climb into the fort and spend an eternity scrolling through movies. She likes historical stuff and romantic comedies. I like westerns and war movies. The first movie that we can both say we enjoy is a John Wayne movie: North to Alaska. I never pictured her for someone who likes John Wayne. This only adds to her cool points. John Wayne is my man.

  We start the movie and munch on cookies until our stomachs protest. My stomach is miserable from way too much sugar first thing in the morning, but I wouldn’t change anything about this moment. Millie scoots closer to me as she laughs at something ridiculous in the movie.

  She cuddles up beside me, and I hold my breath, afraid that if I move or make a sound, she’ll move away. After a few minutes, I find myself relaxing, enjoying her laughter and soft touches. I wrap my arm around her and snuggle her closer.

  Toward the end of the movie, Lo trudge
s into the living room in a sleepy haze and stops dead in her tracks when she sees us in the blanket fort. “Oh my gosh, did you sleep here last night?!” she screeches. Millie jumps up, destroying the top of the blanket fort, and assures her sister that I most certainly slept in my own house last night.

  The finality in her voice is annoying, as if she would never consider anything happening between us. Less than a minute ago, she was cuddled into my side, and now she’s laughing at the thought of being with me. Her behavior says one thing, and her words say another. She’s giving me whiplash.

  I stand up from the floor and make my leave so that Lo and Millie can have this discussion without me. It’s uncomfortable listening to Millie list off the reasons she and I will never happen when not a single one of her reasons is true for me.

  “Let me get this straight… You catch her checking you out every chance she gets, and she was all over you this morning, but she claims that y’all are just friends and she’s not interested in a relationship?” Colby asks an hour later at the gym.

  “Yeah. It makes no sense, right?”

  “It’s clear what’s going on here,” Seth says as he grasps my sweaty shoulder. He quickly removes his hand with a disgusted face and wipes it on his sweat towel. “She’s using you for your body.”

  Colby and I roll our eyes and ignore Seth’s comment. “Listen, I think she’s more interested than she wants to admit. Maybe she has commitment issues,” Colby says.

  The theory would make sense. I’ve heard her say she doesn’t have time for a relationship and that she can’t handle the complications of one right now. They’re both weak excuses. If you ask me—which no one has—she’s scared of something. But what?

  “Didn’t you say that her mom abandoned them when she was a kid?” Seth asks, reading my mind. A parent leaving could cause a lot of trust issues. Why did her mom leave? I don’t remember her ever mentioning it. Did her parents fight a lot, leaving her to think that all relationships are like that? Perhaps she saw only the worst side of love and none of the good.

  I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen the results of a long, loving relationship. My mom was left to raise me without my father, of course, but Nana and Pops have been happily married for over fifty years now. I want what they’ve had together, and I’ll settle for nothing less. It’s why I’m thirty-one and still single.

  It’s not that I haven’t been looking for someone or I have impossibly high standards. I’ve known that every woman I’ve dated doesn’t make me feel the way Pops feels about Nana. I was never impatient, waiting to talk to her again. My heart didn’t pound when I saw her. I didn’t get stupidly nervous around her.

  I feel all of that around Millie and more. When I look in her eyes, I want to give her the world.

  But what kind of world could I give her? One with a threat lurking around every corner? The current situation with my stalker is never far from my mind. She shouldn’t have to deal with all of that. She’s been through so much already. She needs someone with a drama-free life. A man who can make her feel safe and protected—not someone who brings the danger home with him.

  As much as I hate to admit it, it’s probably for the best that we keep some distance between us—at least until I put a stop to these threats.

  Chapter Eleven

  Millie

  It has been four days since the awkward blanket-fort incident, as Lo and I refer to it. We should come up with a shorter name. I allowed myself to get carried away with Jameson. I mean, nothing happened…or at least, not much happened. It was just innocent cuddling. It was enough to send him running for the hills, though.

  He hasn’t spoken to me since that all-too-fateful morning. All I get from him now are polite waves from across the yard. I thought I had a real friend here, and now I’ve gone and ruined it. Did he think I was coming on to him? Now I know: ask before you lay your head on someone’s shoulder and hug their arm…their very toned arm.

  I tried to talk to Tess yesterday when I was at her house, but she kept getting distracted with baby Riley (completely understandable!), and then she fell asleep in the middle of our conversation. I ended up entertaining her three-year-old, Lily, for a few hours while she and Riley napped.

  I now semi-understand why she’s so tired. Lily has so much energy. She never stops moving or talking. She demanded that I participate in all of her games, and she gave me a play by play of every single thing she did.

  I fell asleep from exhaustion as soon as I got home yesterday, and I only had the one kid. I can’t imagine doing all of that while holding a baby.

  I’m gonna try Hannah next. I’ve been circling the front desk all morning, but Gertrude suspects something’s up and won’t take her beady eyes off me. She has a sixth sense for people not working.

  When 11:45 rolls around and I still haven’t had a chance to talk to her, I ask her to go to lunch with me. We go to the diner in town, and it’s packed with every citizen in Waverly. I don’t want to discuss my personal life with a hundred listening ears nearby just waiting for the next tidbit of gossip, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  We’re seated at a table right smack dab in the middle of the dining room. Couldn’t the diner gods have at least blessed me with a booth along the wall?! Is that really too much to ask for, Diner Gods?

  Hannah groans as she looks at the table next to us. The table is full of middle-aged women with their heads all leaned into the center of the table. They have darty eyes, and they’re speaking in hushed tones. A woman with a face full of caked-on makeup and that hairstyle that says I’d like to speak to the manager (you know the one) looks at me and gasps loudly. All five of the others’ heads turn toward me, and they sit up straight. Suddenly, they’re all very busy drinking their sweet tea and eating their food.

  “I’m not cut out for this town,” I tell Hannah as I sit in my hard chair and brush a few crumbs off the table.

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s just Shandi and her posse of busybodies. They used to be really cool when they were in high school. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the world has moved on while they have not,” she says loud enough for them to hear her. I applaud her moxie. I hope she doesn’t go missing later, though, because the queen bee looks murderous.

  We order our food and make small talk until the gossip squad pays and leaves the diner. After an epic stare-down as the women walk out, I lean in and say, “Okay, I asked you here because I have to talk to someone about—”

  “Is it about Jameson avoiding you?” she interrupts me mid-sentence.

  “Well, yes. How did you know?” I scrunch my brows and ask.

  “Everyone is talking about how y’all haven’t been speaking. Was it a fight?”

  “How do people know he’s avoiding me?” I ask. It has only been a few days. In a normal universe, that wouldn’t be long enough for anyone to notice any rift between us. Is he going around talking about me? Oh, if he thinks he’s going to get away with bad-mouthing me for one little cuddle, he’s got another thing coming.

  I will get revenge for this. I’ve never been the vengeful type before (because I’ve never had a reason to be), but I’ll come up with something horrible, like filling his truck with packing peanuts or Saran-wrapping it…that’s not exactly villainous. I’ll have to keep thinking about this.

  “What is going on in that mind of yours?” Hannah asks in a worried tone. I sit up straight and plaster on my most innocent smile. She only looks more concerned now.

  I’ve never been a good liar, and I can’t act to save my life. I never got away with anything as a child because of it. If I did something wrong, Daddy knew in ten seconds flat because it was written all over my face. I eventually just started fessing up before he found any of the evidence. I was an easy child to raise.

  “Has Jameson been going around telling people about how I tried to cuddle with him?” I ask. I cover my face with my hands and groan. This is what my life has come to: a town gossiping about my desperate need for hugs. Wha
t’s so wrong with laying your head on a man’s shoulder? Paul Anka seemed to like it back in the day.

  “What? No…” Hannah says. She bites her lip in between her teeth to keep herself from laughing. “Is that why y’all are avoiding each other? You got a little too touchy feely for the man and scared him away?” She’s full on laughing now, and people are starting to look. I don’t know how to take this.

  I should not have to deal with this. I had real friends in Harris before we moved. Friends who would be just as appalled by this situation as I currently am. Friends who would not—okay, they probably would laugh a little. Or a lot. Just not to my face, which isn’t exactly a good thing now that I’m really thinking about it.

  Hannah’s not a bad friend, and I guess I can’t blame her for laughing. It is ridiculous that I scared a grown man away with a cuddle—assuming that that is indeed why he’s avoiding me. He hasn’t even given me a chance to explain that I wasn’t trying to come on to him. I still view him as a friend—a really handsome friend who makes it extremely difficult for me to concentrate when he’s around, but that’s beside the point.

  My phone rings obnoxiously from my purse. Normally, I’d ignore it for now, but I see that it’s Lo’s school. My mind immediately starts reeling with ten different scenarios of why they’re calling me. She could have fallen down a flight of stairs, choked on a grape at lunch, or she’s failing all of her classes.

  I walk out of the diner as fast as my short legs will carry me as I answer the call with a chipper, “Hello.”

  “Is this Ms. Parker?” the woman on the other end of the line asks in a severe voice. I don’t like the vibe she’s sending me through the phone. It’s like she’s judging my guardian capabilities without having ever met me.