Hot New Neighbor

by Sienna Chance

  “Something could have happened to him,” Heather said. “I think you need to tell the cops, El. It doesn’t sound like he’s the type of guy who would just up and dump you like that.”

  “Maybe I’ll call Alice,” I said. I was starting to feel panicky. She was right, of course. I had to consider the possibility that maybe Lucas hadn’t come home because he couldn’t come home. I picked up the phone, unwilling and unable to wait. I dialed Alice’s number and prayed that she would answer. I felt filled with relief when she did.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hi, Alice. It’s Ellie.”

  “Ellie,” said Alice. “Have you heard from Lucas?”

  “No,” I said, my heart sinking. “You haven’t heard from him?”

  “No, I assumed he was with you,” Alice said. “Have you looked for him?”

  “Not really. I’m not in the city right now, I came home.”

  “Oh,” said Alice. “Well, I’m going to go look for him. If I can’t find him, I’m going to the police.”

  “Okay, please call me if you find him,” I said. I was growing more worried by the minute. Alice hung up and I looked at Heather, desolate.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to call the cops.”

  “Hey, you were heartbroken. It’s okay,” said Heather. I nodded, but it didn’t feel okay to me. I felt miserable, desperately worried and still upset about the idea that maybe something hadn’t happened to him, maybe he’d just chosen to walk away. Lucas was a big man, a strong man—it would be hard for someone to hurt him to the point where he couldn’t get away. Still, it was a possibility, and I found myself covered in goosebumps just thinking about it.

  “Should we do something to keep your mind off it today while you wait for Alice to call?”

  I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything but stare at my phone today.”

  “Let’s just stay in and watch something,” she said. “Try to stay occupied at least. You can keep your phone right next to you.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, sinking into the couch. “I’m so sorry to drag this all here with me, Heather. I just wanted to come home and move on.”

  “I know,” she said, clicking the TV on.

  We flipped through the channels, looking for something to watch, and finally we settled on a drama that suited my dim mood. I checked my phone every few minutes, increasingly frustrated as the hours passed and how Alice didn’t call me. The entire day went by and I got nothing from her, not even when I grew desperate enough to call her back myself. I was nearly ripping my hair out by the time I gave up on watching TV and took a couple of sleeping pills, hoping they would at least knock me out so hard I wouldn’t dream about Lucas or what might have happened to him.

  I wished Heather goodnight and made my way upstairs to my room. I turned my phone up as loud as it could go, knowing it would wake me if for some reason Alice decided to call in the middle of the night. I was desperately hoping she would, yet she hadn’t by the time I fell asleep and still hadn’t by the time I woke up in the morning. I cursed when I opened my eyes and looked at my phone, wondering what the hell was happening, and why everyone around me seemed to be disappearing before my eyes.

  14

  Ellie

  A week passed and no matter how many times I tried to call, I still hadn’t heard from Alice. I stayed at Heather’s, miserable, barely living and clutching my phone at every moment. I felt obsessed and desperate, but with each day I was growing weaker and weaker. My phone rang one night at the end of the week and I picked it up eagerly.

  “Hello?” I said, praying to hear from Alice. Or better yet, Lucas. But the voice that responded wasn’t one that I recognized.

  “Is this Ellie Waters?” the man asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Officer Dopps of the NYPD,” he said. “We were wondering if you’ve seen someone recently—a Lucas Sanders.”

  I swallowed hard. “No, I haven’t seen him.”

  “You haven’t heard from him at all? He hasn’t tried to call you? We were told that the two of you were dating. You were the one who found out that his little girl was gone, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, my throat feeling dry. “But I haven’t heard from him—from either one of them—since. I don’t know where they are.”

  “Okay,” said the man. “That’s all I needed to know. If you see them or hear from them, give me a call, will you?”

  “I will,” I promised, and felt numb as I hung up the phone. That was it. There was nothing that I could do now but hope that they showed up, that I got some kind of closure about what had happened at least. There was a gaping wound within me, formed when they’d all disappeared, and no matter how many girly nights I had with Heather, nothing was going to come close to filling it. After the phone call with Officer Dopps, I realized it was time to go back home to New York. I’d spent far too long wallowing in Heather’s guest room. I needed to get back to work, to get over this and get my head on straight. It was time to move forward no matter what had happened to Lucas—I technically had no claim on him. He wasn’t mine to find.

  I left Heather after dinner one night, driving back in the dark as I had when I’d come. It was relaxing to drive at night with no distractions, and I managed to clear my head for a few hours as I drove. I got to my apartment early in the morning, and when I unlocked the front door, my landlady came out of her apartment to greet me in the hallway.

  “Hi, Mrs. Torrance.”

  She was the last person that I wanted to talk to. All I wanted to do was to get upstairs to my bed and get some sleep, restart the day later and get to work writing. Writing was the only thing that was going to take my mind off this mess, and it had been almost a week since I’d done it at all.

  “Hi, Ellie,” the old woman said. “Have you seen Lucas recently? I haven’t heard from him in over a week.”

  “No,” I said dully, making my way toward the stairs. “No, I haven’t seen Lucas.”

  “Send him over if you do,” she said and disappeared back inside her apartment. I went up the stairs, glancing at Lucas’s door before going into my own apartment. He hadn’t been home. I checked my phone to see Alice still hadn’t called. The worry started to nag at me again—I could understand Lucas and Luna going missing if he’d got back together with Maria, but there was no reason for Alice to be gone.

  I found myself looking up her address. It seemed like a desperate thing to do and I hoped it wouldn’t be too weird to drop by on her, but I was desperate. The cops and Mrs. Torrance had raised nothing but more questions and I needed answers or else I was going to lose my mind completely.

  I found Alice’s address on her photographer page and quickly got into my car to drive there. She lived in a swanky part of town, her building shiny and modern. I went inside and up the stairs to her apartment, tapping lightly on the door. It came open under my slight push, and I called out to Alice.

  “Alice?” I said, pushing the door open wider and peering in.

  I felt strange, but I suddenly got it in my head that Alice could be there and in danger, that she could need my help. Something was going on here and it could possibly be dangerous. When she didn’t answer, I crept inside. I heard a noise—faint music coming from down the hall. I made my way in that direction, my body at the ready in case I needed to run. I found where the music was coming from—there was a room at the end of the hall, the door half open.

  I looked in to see Alice with her back to me, looking up at a row of pictures hanging from pegs on a line. She was developing her film, and when I saw the pictures, my heart sank. I almost felt the wind leave me as my eyes scanned over them. They were taken through the window, and on the other side of the glass was Lucas. He had Maria in his arms and was kissing her while Luna sat at the table behind them. There were several pictures drying, showing Lucas and his happy little family. I gasped, unable to stop myself, and Alice swiveled around
to see me standing there.

  “Ellie—” she said, but I’d already turned around. I rushed out of the apartment and down the stairs, feeling her following behind me.

  “Ellie, it’s not—”

  “Stop, Alice, please,” I said, nearly sobbing as I pushed out the door of the apartment building. She didn’t follow me. I went to my car and got in, burying my face in my hands. I pulled out my phone to call Heather, not knowing what else to do. She picked up on the first ring.

  “What is it?” she asked when she heard me crying.

  “Lucas—Lucas is back with Maria. He went back to her. They’re living as one big happy family.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw pictures,” I said, shutting my eyes as if doing so would make me forget what I’d seen. “They weren’t just in the same room together. He was kissing her.”

  “Oh,” said Heather, pausing. “I’m so sorry, honey. I know how you feel about him.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t—it’s not that big a deal. He was just a stupid guy. I knew he had a wife when I started sleeping with him. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” Heather chided. “Listen, it happens to the best of us. You fall for the wrong guy, it hurts, you move on. Do you want to come back here?”

  I sighed. “No, I’m going to stay here and work. Try to forget about it.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s the best thing you can do.”

  “Thanks, Heather. I’ll call you later.”

  “Please do,” she said. “Chin up, hon.”

  I hung up, shaking my head as I started the car. My sadness was dissipating and slowly turning to anger. Not anger at Lucas or at Alice, but at myself for letting myself fall for him after what I’d been through. For a moment, I’d let myself be stupid enough to believe in the happy endings I wrote about in my stories. I knew better than anybody there was no such thing as happy endings, especially not for girls like me.

  15

  Ellie

  Two months later

  I looked in the mirror, frowning at my reflection. My hips had definitely widened, but other than that my pregnancy wasn’t showing at all. My belly was still flat when I ran my hand over it. I was glad for that—the only thing I’d decided so far about this baby was that I was going to keep it. What I didn’t know was where I was going to raise the baby or how I was going to explain who its father was one day. I didn’t know how to tell a child that I’d been left after a brief affair with a man who decided to go back to his beautiful, perfect wife.

  “What are you looking at?” Heather asked.

  I made my face blank and turned to her. “Nothing. Just some wrinkles.”

  She snorted. “You don’t have wrinkles, Ellie.”

  “Yes, I do,” I insisted, going over to sit next to her. So far, I hadn’t told anybody about the pregnancy. I didn’t want to see the look of sympathy on Heather’s face when I told her I was going to be a single mother, abandoned after Lucas left me for another woman. I didn’t think I could stomach her expression, so I kept the baby a secret for now. I was about to go on tour in Europe for my latest book, which had risen to the international bestseller list with the help of Lucas’s cover. It had gained attention from the highest literary magazines advertising romance and had sold millions of copies throughout the world. It seemed like I’d become a star overnight, but I didn’t feel like I could enjoy any of that success, not when I’d lost the one person I’d ever truly loved.

  “Are you excited about your trip?” she asked.

  “Not really,” I said dully. I hated the idea of going to book signings and speaking to the public, especially knowing that some of them would inevitably ask me about the model on the cover of the book. I’d have to explain that it was a friend who’d let me use his photos and try to leave it at that. I also didn’t like to be in front of people in the first place—I was a writer, someone who stayed behind the keyboard. That’s how I did my talking. My agent had explained to me that there would be a reading and that people would ask me questions, and after that I could leave as quickly as I wanted. I only hoped I could get through it without embarrassing myself in front of my readers.

  The trip to Europe lasted only a couple of weeks, and by the time it was over I was completely exhausted and ready to be home. Being pregnant seemed to make me tired all the time. Tired and hungry. It was getting harder by the week to hide my pregnancy but luckily the biggest thing that had changed so far was my breasts, which had swollen in size and had to be hidden under baggy t-shirts that didn’t flatter my body at all. By the time I went back to Heather’s, all my clothing was getting too tight, and I’d had to buy some baggier clothing that would hide my changing body from prying eyes.

  I spent a couple of days recovering from my trip with Heather, recounting all of my stops in various cities, the places I’d explored while I was gone. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to New York and wouldn’t have done so at all if I didn’t have papers left to sign with Mrs. Torrance to finalize my moving out of the apartment. Going back was going to be hard, I knew, but it was something that I had to get over.

  I said goodbye to Heather again and headed back to the city, this time driving while the sun was up, enjoying my last few moments of peace on the road before I had to go back to the apartment and its memories of Lucas. I still thought about him all the time and wished he were there, that Luna were there, that we could be a family with the new baby I was going to have. But it was a useless thought to have—they were happy with their own family, and I wasn’t even close to being a part of it.

  I held my breath as I pulled up to the apartment building, nervous but reassuring myself there was no way I’d see Lucas there. He didn’t even live there anymore and hadn’t since before I’d left. Still, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I would run into him, and though I knew it was silly, the part of me that wasn’t dreading it was excited just to see his face again. I shook the thought from my head and went upstairs, fumbling for my keys. I heard the elevator open just as I dropped them, and when I looked up I froze with my hand halfway to the ground.

  It was Lucas. He met my eye, held it for a long second before his face broke into a smile, one that was absolutely devastating to me. I picked up my keys quickly.

  “Ellie—”

  “No,” I said, unlocking my door and throwing it open, going inside and slamming it behind me. He knocked on the door and I could almost feel him on the other side.

  “Ellie, please,” he said softly, his voice just barely audible.

  “Go away, Lucas,” I said and listened for him to say something else. I slumped against the door, knowing he hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, waiting for me to say something. Then I heard him sigh as he turned around and went to his apartment across the hall. I held my breath until I heard his door shut, then exhaled loudly and stood up. I’d told Mrs. Torrance I’d meet her in the apartment to do an inspection before I gave her my key, and a few minutes later she showed up. I was relieved when I opened the door to see her instead of Lucas, not knowing what I would do if I saw him standing so close to me.

  I rushed through the meeting with Mrs. Torrance, trying not to make conversation with her. I didn’t want to talk about Lucas, didn’t want to ask her why he was even here when he should be with Luna and Maria. I wanted to know, but I wasn’t willing to get into a conversation involving Lucas. I couldn’t stand to talk about him anymore, not after what had happened.

  When it was time to leave the apartment, I made sure to quickly make my way down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. I was glad I hadn’t taken it before—I would have ended up stuck with Lucas in that small space, and in that case I don’t know what I would have done. It had been hard enough to see him in the first place—there was a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t go away now that his face was clear in my mind again, one that I couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard I tried.

  I went to my cottage
just on the outside of the city, by a small lake that was quiet and peaceful. I’d bought it just after my book hit its first million copies and had spent a lot of time writing there in the time since. It was a peaceful place, one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen, and I could feel myself relaxing as I pulled up to the cabin. I got out and went inside, sitting on the couch and trying to flip through the channels. Nothing helped take my mind off of Lucas and what I’d lost, especially now that I’d seen him again.

  I fell asleep on the couch with a gallon of ice cream on the table beside me, loaded up on sugar and as many old movies as I could take in order to clear my head of my troubles. In the morning, I woke up to a call from my agent. Groggily, I answered the phone, yawning as I pulled it up to my ear.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi, Ellie,” my agent, a chipper woman named Stacey Summers, said. “Listen, I’ve been getting a ton of calls lately and I just can’t put them off anymore. People want your cover model.”

  I sighed, chewing my lip.

  “I don’t speak to him.”

  “I know you don’t, but he could make it big. Do you have any way to get hold of him? Any way at all?”

  “I could give you his friend’s number,” I said, staring at the post-it on my desk that still had Alice’s number scrawled on the front of it. I didn’t really need to look at the post-it; I’d dialed the number so many times I’d memorized it.

  “That would be great,” she said.

  I promised to email it to her and hung up, then sent the email and tried to get to work. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed like I couldn’t get through it—all I could think about was my baby and the fact that it would grow up without a father, that I would have to raise him or her all alone. The thought made me miserable and bitter, and just the idea of writing anything romantic seemed completely lost to me. There were no happy endings, nothing but bitterness and pain when it came to relationships. I put my head down on my arms on the table, feeling myself break inside, feeling the tears come again for what I hoped was the last time before I could finally let go of Lucas once and for all.