Daddy Next Door - The Complete Series Box Set (A Single Dad Navy SEAL Romance)

by Claire Adams

  We were looking around for a table, our trays loaded up with food, and I noticed the girl who had been so hot for Johnny the previous week, the one who had given me such a disgusted look at the party, watching us. I tried to shrug it off and pretend like I hadn’t even seen her, but the moment that Georgia and I sat down, she came over to our table, looking sulky and almost angry. “Can I help you with something?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Up close, she was—I had to admit—every bit as pretty as me, with red hair instead of blonde, and big brown eyes.

  “I just thought I’d offer you some advice,” she said, smiling unpleasantly. “I mean, you’re a freshman, so you probably wouldn’t have heard.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Go on then,” Georgia said.

  “I heard things are pretty hot and heavy with you and Johnny,” the girl said, leaning in and not quite sitting down at the table with us.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I responded. I couldn’t quite make myself pick up my fork—I wanted to be ready if she was going to try and start a fight over him.

  “Johnny’s a low-down player and everyone knows it,” the girl said, flicking her fingers in a gesture of dismissal. “I just thought you’d like to know that he’s trash.” I laughed.

  “Didn’t stop you from flirting with him, did it?” the girl’s dark eyes blazed.

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up like Claire White.” I stared at her in confusion. Who the hell was Claire White? She grinned—looking pleased with herself that she’d confused me. “Just something to keep in mind.” The girl walked away, not even giving us a second glance.

  “Who is that?” I asked Georgia. She shrugged.

  “Ignore it—she’s obviously just another jealous slag.” I dug my phone out of my bag and pulled up Google, putting the name in. As the search results loaded, I put the phone down between us on the table and frowned, impatient for the answer. Claire White, Promising College Student, Found Dead in her Dorm… a picture showed a good-looking girl, probably around the same age as me, and in the text under the headline, I saw that she’d committed suicide. Georgia and I looked at each other in confusion. What the hell did that have to do with Johnny?

  BREATHLESS #2

  Chapter One

  In spite of how distracted the girl at lunch had made me, I knew I didn’t have any choice but to go to my afternoon classes. Georgia told me not to think about it, to give Johnny a chance to explain it if there was anything to explain, and I went on my way, headed to classes.

  But I almost thought that I might as well not have bothered; as I sat there in class, telling myself over and over again that I had to focus on what was going on, what the professor was saying, I kept thinking about Johnny, about the stupid girl, and about Claire White. The implication was that Johnny was somehow involved in this other girl’s suicide; why else would the stupid girl from the dining hall even bring it up? But how was Johnny involved? If it was a suicide, how could anyone else really be involved? I wondered—was it some kind of thing where Johnny had bullied her? Or had he done something else?

  I pushed aside the idea that Johnny could possibly have done anything directly to make someone kill themselves. I had known—not well, but a little bit—a girl in high school who had committed suicide. She hadn’t been able to take the pressure from her parents, she hadn’t been able to take the pressure from the school we went to, and someone had spread the rumor—after she had died—that she had been a lesbian as well, but I never knew if there was any truth to it. As far as I had ever known, people committed suicide for deeply personal reasons. Sure, bullies could push them do it, but the idea of Johnny bullying anyone was absolutely absurd. He was so sweet, so kind and nice, I couldn’t think of any way that he could even possibly be capable of that kind of vileness.

  I remembered that he was playing an away game that night; I couldn’t even ask him what the situation was, or what his connection was to this Claire White girl. I went from one class to another still thinking about it; still worrying about how I could get the information I wanted. I genuinely didn’t want to doubt Johnny; I wanted to just ignore the stupid girl’s comment, and pretend I had never heard it. I wanted to totally put it out of my mind and assign it to spite because she was clearly into Johnny and me clearly—at least for now—had him. I tried telling myself that over and over, and it didn’t help. Who was Claire White? What did her suicide have to do with Johnny? Could I even ask him?

  I decided as my last class of the day was in progress that the only thing I could do to get at least a little bit of peace of mind was to text him. He was probably on the bus, or maybe in whatever city the game was happening in. He wouldn’t be able to call me, and obviously I couldn’t ask him the question that weighed on my mind the most, but I could have some contact with him, I could get some reassurance. It occurred to me that I also had no idea when he would even be home from the game—and I had no idea who else I could ask without betraying my total lack of knowledge. I didn’t even really know where he was playing, what school our team was up against.

  So sitting in class, I sent Johnny a text. Hey, babe, thinking of you! How many days until you come back to me? I kept my phone in my lap and waited throughout the rest of class to hear from him; I got a buzz that nearly made me jump out of my seat—a totally unrelated text message from one of my high school friends, sharing an inside joke we’d had. I tried not to be disappointed, but I couldn’t help but feel like I would rather my friend have thought of the joke after I’d heard from Johnny. I forced myself not to text Johnny again. I was not going to be the kind of girl who couldn’t trust her boyfriend when he was away from home. Is he even my boyfriend? The thought shocked me. I realized that I had been taking things much more seriously than anything that had happened gave me any right to do.

  I somehow managed to get my notes written down, and I absorbed maybe one word out of every five that the professor said in the lecture, and I knew that it was going to be just as bad as it was my first week. It had been so much easier to deal with when everything had been good and I had had no knowledge of Johnny having anything like a past. I had had a brief moment of complete ability to concentrate on my work, on the classes I had. I would have to work harder. I would have to put any thoughts about Johnny—good and bad alike—aside whenever I was in class, or I would doom myself to failing half my classes; I would never have to worry about my English or Writing classes, and Introduction to Academic Life I would have to put actual effort into failing in order not to pass. But Math, and a couple of the other required freshman classes, I would absolutely have to learn how to pay attention.

  I tried not to read anything into the fact that Johnny hadn’t replied to me as the class ended; if the bus was full of rowdy college boys, if they were all hanging out and roughhousing on their way to their away game, then he probably wouldn’t have heard my text or even noticed it. He probably wasn’t even thinking about his phone at all.

  I reminded myself that we weren’t even technically serious—we’d had one real date, and just because I’d slept with him and just because he’d told me it meant something to him, it didn’t mean that he even considered himself my boyfriend yet. Let’s be real, he’s a frat boy and an upperclassman, I thought bleakly. Hold onto him for a month if you can and then you can start worrying about whether or not he’s your boyfriend. I scolded myself for thinking more about Johnny than he really deserved after only knowing him for a couple of weeks at the most; he probably wasn’t thinking about me at all—and I couldn’t be mad at him for that. It wouldn’t be fair to him to expect him to be as involved as I was—not when he’d probably been with a slew of girls. I didn’t mind the idea of him being with other women before me, as long as he wasn’t with them still. I remembered the nasty girl from the dining hall and the party telling me that Johnny was a well-known player.

  I had just about convinced myself that I wasn’t going to even think about it anymore as I was walking across campus, headed bac
k to the dorms. I’d eat a snack, maybe watch some TV and get some studying done, and then I would see if there was any way that I could find out when Johnny would be back. I was thinking that there had to be a way to ask Johnny what his connection was to this Claire White girl without making him think I was being nosy or accusing him. As far as I knew, the girl was just trying to scare me off of a guy she had privately decided was “hers.” I started feeling better, thinking that I would just ignore her comments and move on with my life; I would have to get used to girls being petty and jealous about Johnny.

  I spotted the girl from the dining hall was I was nearing the dorms, talking to some of her friends while they all wandered from a class or somewhere else on campus. I had no idea what they were talking about before I got close to them; they were all relaxed, from what I could see as I came up behind them. The girl glanced up at the sound of my feet on the pavement behind her and grinned, as nastily as I had ever seen anyone smile in my life. “Have you talked to Johnny-boy yet?” she asked me, calling out as I skirted the group of them, trying not to even look at her. I felt my cheeks burning with a blush. “I bet Johnny is just so excited to tell you all about it!” The other girls in the group with her laughed, as if it was the funniest joke in the world.

  I hurried past them and had to swipe my card at the front entrance twice to get it to read properly. I was so shaken by their incredible meanness, by their rudeness—even if she had it out for me, what right did that girl have to dredge up someone else’s tragedy? I hurried up the stairs, not even bothering to wait for the elevator. The girls—if they were going to one of the other dorms—would have had to have passed through the freshman girls’ dorm building, and I didn’t want to give them an opening to make fun of me again.

  It wasn’t just the fact of them making fun of me that made me feel so panicky; it was the worry that they might know something about Johnny that I didn’t. Something awful. What if it turned out that he had abused that poor girl, and that was why she committed suicide? What if—and this really lingered in my mind as I ran up the stairs to my floor—what if it hadn’t really been a suicide at all, and somehow that girl knew about it, even though it wasn’t common knowledge? How well did that girl even know Johnny? If she really had worries about Johnny’s involvement with some girl’s suicide, why would she flirt with him? And was her issue with me, or was it with Johnny?

  I got to my door out of breath and with my heart still pounding in my chest. I fumbled with my keys in my nervous hands, nearly dropping them. Chill, Becky. They don’t know where you live. They probably stopped even thinking about you as soon as you were out of sight. I forced myself to take a deep breath and finally managed to unlock the door to the room, dropping my backpack down on the floor next to the couch before throwing myself down onto it, turning the TV on and putting on one of the series that I liked.

  I stared at the TV and pretended to watch, even though I knew I’d just have to re-watch the episode again later. My mind was spinning around in my head. I pulled my phone out of my bag, hoping against hope that Johnny had texted me and I had just managed to miss it. There was nothing there, and I found myself questioning the situation between him and me, between Johnny and the girl Claire, and the nasty, rude girl who had told me about Claire White. She’s just being a bitch because Johnny is interested in you, I told myself. If she really thought he was a terrible person, why was she trying so hard to flirt with him the other night? I couldn’t think of a good reason—but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. My fingers itched to text Johnny again, but I forced myself not to. If I sent him a dozen texts in a day without him responding to even one of them, I’d look like a lunatic. Instead I read through his older texts to me, reminding myself of how sweet he was, how funny and kind. Surely he couldn’t have had anything to do with a girl who had killed herself.

  Chapter Two

  I was still brooding over the issue of Claire White and Johnny and the cruel upperclassman girl who apparently had decided to make it her personal goal in life—or at least for the semester—to ruin things between me and Johnny, when Georgia came in from her last class of the day. She looked just as cheerful as ever, humming to herself as she came through the door, practically bouncing to the side of the dorm where her room was and right back out to throw herself into the chair. “Why so glum, chum?” she asked me. I shrugged.

  “It’s just what that stupid girl in the DH was saying about Johnny,” I replied, frowning. I picked at imaginary lint on my jeans, embarrassed even that I was admitting to the fact that it had gotten to me. “On top of that, when I was coming back from classes, I ran into her again—with a bunch of her friends.” I told Gigi about the girl’s taunting, about how her friends had laughed.

  “She’s just a jealous bitch,” Georgia said, shrugging it off. “And probably you’re hungry, which is why you’re taking it so hard. Come on; let’s go to dinner.” I told her about texting Johnny and how he hadn’t responded; Gigi laughed.

  “I’m not losing my mind over him,” I protested. “I just wish he’d find a moment to check his damn phone, so I can relax a little bit.” Georgia shrugged again.

  “I think you’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt,” she said, sitting back in the chair. “I mean, he’s a really nice guy. He was even nice to me at that party and he didn’t have to me; I wouldn’t have blamed him if he only paid attention to you all night. But he made sure I had a drink, and he got me involved in the conversation. That’s not the kind of guy who’s just being a player.” Georgia considered for a moment more. “Besides—remember all those girls who were wrapped around him hanging on his every word? As soon as he saw you he walked away from them. Obviously you mean something to him—or he would have just come along whenever he felt like it.”

  I had to admit that she was right. “Ugh,” I said, shaking my head. “I do not want to be one of those stupid girls who gets her head all twisted around by some guy just because he’s hot and nice…and an incredibly good lay.” Georgia smirked.

  “Granted, you had been deprived for what—a year? You were hardly going in with realistic expectations. It would have been great even if it was really mediocre.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Trust me; I know the difference between good sex and bad sex.”

  “Yeah, but do you know the difference between good sex and mediocre sex?” I couldn’t think of anything to say to that—it was such a weird question that I just laughed. “I rest my case. Come on, Beck—let’s grab some food and you can put Johnny Steel totally out of your mind for at least an hour.” I considered it.

  “Nah,” I said finally. “I’m going to stay here and enjoy moping over the fact that the first guy I’ve had sex with in over a year is too busy to check his phone and might have been involved in someone’s suicide. You know, like the good English major I am.” Georgia laughed.

  “Careful; I don’t think they refund your housing fee if you pull a Sylvia Plath,” she said, standing up finally. “Besides, you’ve got Greenpeace to look forward to. Don’t ruin that over a guy who’s probably not even that bad.” She grabbed her purse and was out the door a few moments later, calling out to someone down the hall to wait up.

  For a while after Georgia left, I did indulge myself in brooding over Johnny, covering all the ground I had the entire afternoon, ever since the girl—I should probably find out her name—had told me about Claire White. What the hell had Claire White’s suicide had to do with Johnny? I went back and forth in my mind, wondering if I should just decide that the girl was being the kind of snotty, jealous ass that would put doubt in someone’s head just to see a potential relationship crash and burn, or whether she had actually known Claire.

  It just didn’t make any sense; if she had had any concern at all about Claire White, why would she have been flirting with Johnny before? I had mostly settled on the idea that she had just been trying to get into my head and make me doubt Johnny, to remove what she saw as competition. But then—she could have stuc
k with just calling Johnny a player. If he really was, and if she had any proof of it, wouldn’t she have given me a list of names of different girls he had slept with? I frowned in thought as I stared at the TV, unable to work it out. If she was just trying to get some competition out of the way, why would she pick on the story of a girl who committed suicide? Why would she imply that I would follow in Claire White’s footsteps, just for having dated Johnny? It didn’t make any sense at all. I wondered if Claire had somehow had something to do with Johnny romantically. If she had killed herself over the fact that he was cheating on her. That would make the story make the most sense—though I thought to myself wryly that if Johnny ever cheated on me, if we got to the point where we were that serious, I would kick him out of my life, rather than take my own.

  My fingers itched to pick up my phone, to text Johnny again. But I told myself firmly that all that would accomplish would be to make me look like a crazy, unhinged person who assumed she was in a serious relationship with someone she’d slept with once. And here I thought that relationships in college would be so much simpler than high school. It was only two weeks into my first semester in college, and I was already having trouble focusing in class. I had spent the first week of classes distracted by the possibility that Johnny was into me, and now—unless I got some kind of control over myself—I was going to end up spending the second week of classes just as distracted, but this time with doubt instead of interest.

  Just as I was reaching the point where I was getting tired of my own stupid brain, my phone vibrated against my leg, my ringtone cutting through the sound of the TV. I jumped, my hand fumbling for the phone, and nearly dropped it onto the floor trying to turn it over to look at the screen. I half-expected a call from my mom, or from one of my friends—and I irritably thought that maybe Georgia had told someone about my moping and this would be a concern-call from one of my dorm-mates. Instead, I saw Johnny’s name and number flashing, and I immediately tapped “accept.”