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

by Claire Adams

  I was in my second class of the day, still mulling over the various different things that had happened between Johnny and me, the little scraps of accusations that had been leveled against him, when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out carefully with a sense of dread. It was Johnny again. Hey, baby, I’ve got an away game coming up soon and I can’t stand the idea of waiting so long to see you. My stomach started churning and I regretting having oatmeal for breakfast, even if it had tasted good at the time. Can I see you tonight? I miss you so much! I bit my bottom lip. How many women on campus would have cut off their own left arm to get a text like that from Johnny?

  I worried at my lip for a moment as I thought. I couldn’t just ignore it. But I had a ready-made excuse; I had told Johnny last night that I was sick. I’m so sorry, babe. I miss you, too! But I’m still feeling really bad — don’t know what I’ve got and I’d hate to give it to you. An away game — that would be a good thing for me. It would give me a little bit of time without having to worry about Johnny running into me, seeing the liar that I was. I wouldn’t have to see him for a while. I could think and figure out what was going on.

  My phone buzzed again with Johnny’s reply. Aw. I’d love to share germs with you anytime. He had added a little kiss-face emoji to the end of it. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think. If Johnny was really some kind of crazy, abusive person — if he had driven a girl to suicide — then I should be running away. But how could he be so sweet and so terrible at the same time?

  I knew that I should talk to him, that I should give him some kind of opportunity to explain the situation. He had told me in the one instance when we’d talked about Claire White — in the woods, after the girl had tried to poison my mind about Johnny on the other girl’s behalf — that there were a lot of people who blamed him for Claire’s death, even though he hadn’t done anything. The mere fact that he hadn’t been able to save her had been enough to condemn him. But the comment I’d read, anonymous as it was, had implied that there had been more to it than that. It had implied that Johnny hadn’t just failed Claire — but that Johnny had hurt her.

  I messaged back to Johnny that I just wasn’t feeling up to being around anyone at all; it wasn’t a complete lie. I felt sick. I decided that since I hadn’t managed to actually absorb anything of the lesson, it would be better off to skip the rest of my day’s classes. I emailed my professors and told them that I was too sick to attend and that I had spent half the night in the bathroom. One or two of them emailed back as I was waiting for my class to be over, telling me to definitely keep to the dorm as they would rather not catch whatever it was that I had and that if it lasted longer than a day or two, that I should visit the campus nurse to get looked over.

  I left my class the moment the professor called a halt for the day and hurried back to the dorms, not wanting to run into Johnny or anyone I knew. I just wanted to get back into the quiet and relative peace of my room and to try and think about how everything had managed to go so completely wrong with my college career not even a full semester into it. I put my bag down as soon as I was safely in the room and pulled out my laptop.

  I’m not sure what possessed me to start looking things up. Not things about Claire White exactly and not even things about Johnny exactly, but just questions about the kind of person who could drive someone to commit suicide. I Googled “sociopath characteristics” and opened a few tabs, flipping between them, and became more and more alarmed the more I read. Marked readiness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict into society… That could be Johnny saying that people were blaming him for not being able to save Claire; but then, he wasn’t blaming others — he was just explaining. If I could believe him. Sociopaths tend to lack symptoms of nervousness and agitation and tend to have a great deal of superficial charm and intelligence... That sounded like Johnny! He never seemed to be nervous, he was always charming, and he was definitely smart.

  I saw that sometimes psychopath was used interchangeably with sociopath and started further down the rabbit hole of research. Psychopaths are often able to make quick decisions without agonizing over the outcomes…they tend to be assertive, even aggressive… Johnny certainly was assertive and even aggressive on the ice; he never seemed to hesitate when it came to decision making. When a psychopath engages in criminal behavior, they tend to do so in a way that minimizes risk to themselves. They will carefully plan criminal activity to ensure they don’t get caught, having contingency plans in place for every possibility. If Johnny was guilty — if he had some part in Claire’s suicide, he had definitely prevented himself from being caught. I started to wonder if the other boys who had been caught had been Johnny’s “contingency” plan, his way to get away with it. Another article said, Psychopaths tend to focus on the positive. Psychopaths don’t take things personally; they don’t beat themselves up if things go wrong, even if they’re to blame. And they’re cool under pressure.

  I tried to decide, objectively, if I had seen any evidence of the negative sides of Johnny’s possible sociopathy; he hadn’t done anything cruel to me. He hadn’t been abusive to me. I thought about the way he acted on the ice and about the look of enjoyment in his eyes when we’d been going down the trail through the middle of the woods. Had that been because I was scared or because he was anticipating the surprise of showing me the stars? That certainly had been an impulsive date idea. Could I really say that he had shown a “callous unconcern for the feelings of others?” Or that he had “A very low tolerance to frustration?” I hadn’t seen it, but I realized that he and I, in spite of having sex a few times, hadn’t really spent that much time together and I hadn’t really seen him in many situations that would make a person frustrated. He had been so comfortable and unconcerned about meeting my parents, and he hadn’t even minded my mom being rude to him. My mind was spinning and I couldn’t help but think that Johnny had to be — just had to be — some kind of sociopath.

  Chapter Four

  I was on the verge of a full-blown meltdown of epic proportions, reading all of these things about sociopaths and psychopaths and trying to decide which Johnny might be; the consensus amongst the psychological community was that sociopaths were made by circumstances while psychopaths seemed to have some kind of difference in their brain from birth. I was shaking, unable to close the tabs on my browser, unable to think of anything but what might happen the next time I let Johnny convince me to go on a date with him, when he might take me out into the woods again. Instead of s’mores, cider, a crackling fire, and making love, he might kill me. Claire White killed herself, I told my mind firmly. But do you really know that? Wouldn’t a psychopath make it seem like suicide?

  I was dwelling on this point, my heart pounding in my chest, imagining all the ways that someone could make a murder look like a suicide to get away with it when I heard the door to the dorm open. I looked up, half-expecting to see Johnny there, knife in hand. Instead it was Georgia and I was almost as frightened by her coming in as I would have been of Johnny showing up. I quickly closed out all of my tabs, trying to get rid of any evidence of what I was searching for and the answers I was trying to find. In my haste to close everything, the laptop started to slip off of my legs and I barely caught it before it tumbled to the floor.

  “You look like my brother when I walked in on him jerking off to ‘Lesbian Flower Shop Five,’” Georgia said as she came in, grinning at me and shaking her head. “What, did Johnny send you pictures of his cock?” I blushed, shaking my head.

  “Nah, nothing like that,” I told her, hearing the tension in my own voice. Georgia stopped on her way to her side of the dorm room, frowning. She looked at me more closely.

  “What’s going on? You look like you’re about to throw up.” I shrugged, swallowing down the nausea I was feeling and trying to force my heart to slow down in my chest.

  “I just haven’t been sleeping much lately,” I said, looking do
wn at the keyboard. I glanced at Georgia. She set her backpack down and sat down in the chair next to the couch were I was, watching me more heavily than even my mom would when I pretended to be sick to get out of school.

  “I ran into Johnny earlier,” Georgia said slowly. “He’d said you were sick…also said that he was glad I had taken care of you last night.” I blushed. I should have told Georgia about my cover story, but I hadn’t had the opportunity. “Of course, I just went along with it. I mean, if somehow you’re tired of hanging out with him now that your parents approve…”

  “Oh God, they do,” I said, shaking my head. I remembered how approving they had been. How charming Johnny had been. Somehow it all seemed so much more sinister with their approval — with the way he had buttered them up, talking to my dad about hockey, answering my mom’s impertinent questions without batting an eyelash, being just as funny and sweet to them as he had been to me ever since I’d first run into him in the dining hall.

  “Why is that a bad thing? I would have thought you’d be happy to have a boyfriend your parents wouldn’t come after you for.” Gigi’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly is going on, Becky? I mean, you were over the moon about Johnny just a few days ago. What happened?” I bit my bottom lip and worried it between my teeth for a few moments, trying to decide what to say. I didn’t want to lie to Georgia about the situation, but I couldn’t think of what the truth was. I didn’t know what the truth was. I didn’t know if I was out of my mind or if Johnny was.

  “Nothing. Nothing is going on. At least, not that I know of,” I said, correcting myself. I didn’t know — that was the problem. I had no hard proof one way or the other what Johnny’s involvement in the suicide had been or what it hadn’t been.

  “Come on, Becky, tell me the truth,” Georgia said, looking at me sharply. “You don’t go around telling gorgeous guys that you’re sick and have to stay away from them if everything’s fine. Do you think he’s cheating on you or something?” I shook my head. I felt my eyes burning.

  Before I knew it, a huge sob worked its way up from the pit of my stomach and I pushed the laptop away, tears streaming down my face as the enormity of what was going on in my life crashed over me. Everything I had been so happy about was turning into complete shit. “I…don’t…know…what to do…” I managed to say in an almost-howl as more and more sobs hiccupped out of me. Georgia stood up out of the chair and came over to the couch, pulling me into a tight hug as I continued to cry.

  “Shh, Becky, it’s okay. Just tell me what’s going on. It’s not that stupid girl from the game is it?” I shook my head, for a moment not even able to talk. I took a few deep, shuddering breaths.

  “So,” I said, still trying to get a firm hold of myself. “When I got home the other night from the dinner with my parents, something was bugging me about the whole…Claire White thing.” Georgia’s eyes widened.

  “I thought he had answered your questions about that,” she said, frowning slightly. I explained what I had found, late at night – how I had found the original news article we’d both seen, about the memorial page for Claire White and the implication that a bunch of boys had gone to jail over her suicide. I told her about the anonymous comment about Johnny. Somehow, in my wandering, meandering story, I found myself saying, “And I was reading about sociopaths and they’re really charming at first and they’re not nervous or anything and really smart…” I shook my head and tried to take a deep breath, knowing that I was sounding crazy.

  “Becky, this is… kind of a lot to take in,” Georgia said, smiling slightly. “I get why you’re avoiding him. If I was convinced that my boyfriend was some kind of girlfriend-killing maniac, I’d be a little less than thrilled to be around him, too.” I had told her about my nightmare. “But nothing you’ve found so far is, like…proof that Johnny was actually involved. Maybe the anonymous comment was someone who hates him. You don’t know. And I mean, he’s never been even a little bit mean to you. He obviously cares about you.”

  “But…but…” Georgia shook her head.

  “Honestly, I mean, even if he is a sociopath, it’s not like he’s going to kill you outright for asking him about it. In fact, he’d probably just tell you. And you’ll have your answer.” I laughed in spite of myself. “You owe it to him to give Johnny just a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. Just a little bit. He’s always been good to you. He deserves a fair trial, not a Google conviction.” I smiled weakly. “Just ask him more about the Claire White thing and see what he says.” Georgia hugged me tightly and then we shifted onto the topic of her date the night before; it had been a big success, and she was looking forward to maybe seeing the guy again. I was able to put my misgivings aside, for a little while at least, to think about something other than Johnny and whether he might be a homicidal maniac.

  We talked until I was completely calm once more, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about what she had said and about what I had read. She was right; if Johnny really did have some kind of antisocial tendencies, it would definitely show — wouldn’t it? He would probably come up with some way to justify driving his girlfriend to kill herself. If nothing else, I had to hope that he would be willing to tell me a little bit more about the situation. I had to hope that he would be a little more open. Of course, I would have to be careful about how I asked. I couldn’t just flat out go “Hey, so Johnny, are you a sociopath?”

  Gigi and I went to the dining hall and grabbed some dinner. She was compassionate enough to go along with my lingering uncertainty about the risk of running into Johnny before I was ready to talk to him. She agreed to go along with my cover story of being sick. We joked about it a little bit before going down for our dinner, with Georgia coming up with absurd expressions of shock and dismay, over-the-top descriptions of how I had been draped over the toilet, puking my guts out. At least, I thought, if any of my professors asked Georgia about it she’d be able to cover for the classes I’d skipped earlier in the day. I was still tired, still anxious, and still confused about the whole situation, but I had to admit to myself that Gigi was right. I wasn’t going to get the answers to the questions I had from the Internet. I would have to get them from Johnny himself. I would have to trust that he cared about me and that he was willing to tell me the truth.

  The problem was I didn’t know if I could trust him at all.

  Chapter Five

  After dinner, I gave more thought to what Georgia had said. We had talked a little bit more about it when we came back with our food. “It’s pretty obvious to me that he has, like, really strong feelings for you. I think he’ll tell you what’s going on,” she said. I wasn’t sure I could trust to his feelings as much as Georgia thought I should, but I didn’t really have much choice.

  I felt weird — skin-crawly, jittery, nervous — as I walked across campus. I had managed to get a quick shower at Georgia’s insistence and had pulled my long blonde hair back into a sloppy ponytail. I certainly wouldn’t be in any shape or condition to go out, but I wasn’t planning on going anywhere I would need to look impressive. My stomach flip-flopped inside of me as I walked along the pathway, looking around. There was some kind of deep-down paranoia that I’d run into the nasty girl who had poisoned the well of my mind against Johnny. But if she’s right about him, then shouldn’t you be grateful that she told you? But then, I thought, that same girl was obviously into Johnny. She had flashed him, she had flirted with him. Obviously, she was only interested in getting me out of the way so that she might have a chance with him.

  The security lights came on across campus one by one, illuminating little blue-white circles on the pavement. In between, darkness was descending, and I went between not being able to see at all and being able to see my own figure far too clearly. It wasn’t cold yet; it was still late summer. But I could feel the tinge of approaching autumn in the air. I was hyper-aware of everything around me — the sound of some girls laughing on their way back to the dorms on one of the parallel sidewalks, the buzz of a la
te summer beetle a few feet away from my ear. I caught movement in the corner of my eye and my heart pounded until I realized it was one of the campus police.

  The frat and sorority houses were so far away from the dorms that I almost regretted walking. But if I had convinced Georgia to drive me over to the Phi Kappa house, it would be weird; and I couldn’t really ask her to stay outside while Johnny and I had some lengthy discussion. It was better by far that I had walked the distance, no matter how nervous it made me.

  Frat row was weirdly quiet and for a moment — caught up in my own paranoia and anxiety — I felt like I was a walking horror movie trope, the girl going down the dark, quiet street, just ripe to be snatched by some psychopathic killer, some slasher out for revenge on the world because some girl turned him down for a date or something. You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. If there was a serial killer on campus killing girls, then there’d at least have been an alert about it.

  I finally came to the Phi Kappa house and took a deep breath. Somewhere inside the sprawling place, Johnny had to be sitting around, doing something. It occurred to me to wonder that there were no parties going on; the frat looked so different when it was quiet like this, when everyone was inside, when half the campus wasn’t piling in to drink and dance and make out with each other. I walked up the walkway and climbed up the three steps to the front door. I heard a cheer from inside — shouts, some comments, some laughter. Running underneath that I could hear the dull roar of the TV.

  I took another deep breath and lifted my hand. It felt numb, like a heavy wooden block at the end of my arm. Just get it over with, Becky, I thought firmly. It wasn’t as though putting it off would make me less anxious or get me answers any sooner. I knocked quickly three times, biting my bottom lip to suppress the instinctive little yelp of fear that rose up inside of me. For just a moment, the urge to run away — to dart off of the porch, down the walkway, and try and get down the street as quickly as possible before someone came to the door — came over me. I swallowed against the tight, dry feeling in my throat and told myself that I was being ridiculous. No one answered the door; I knocked again, harder, finally regaining feeling in my hand. My knuckles ached from how hard I knocked. There was a shout inside of someone telling someone else to go get the door.