The Promise (Neighbor from Hell Book 10)

by R. L. Mathewson

  “Tell me,” Reed said, even as he couldn’t help but wonder how badly she’d fucked up this time.

  He’d never understand how someone so bright could fuck everything up so badly. She was always saying the wrong thing, screwing up, getting into trouble, and making everyone’s life a living-

  “What it’s like to be an obligation.”

  Chapter 12

  “Dr. Miller’s office,” Mrs. Weathers said in greeting a few seconds later, making Joey rethink her plan since she wasn’t exactly Mrs. Weathers’ favorite person.

  Again, not that she could blame her after what happened sophomore year, but…

  Now was not that time to reminisce about the good old days, she reminded herself as she forced herself to focus.

  “I was just calling to see how Dr. Miller was doing,” she said, really hoping against hope that Dr. Miller had come through the unfortunate incident unscathed and was willing to overlook the fact that she may have accidentally destroyed his life’s work.

  Again, by accident.

  “Oh, he’s doing so much better. The doctor says that he’s going to be fine!”

  “Thank god,” Joey said as her shoulders sagged in relief.

  “But unfortunately, someone sent the poor man roses this morning and they have to keep him for another night. Can you believe someone would do that knowing that he’s allergic to flowers?”

  “No, no I can’t,” Joey murmured weakly, deciding that perhaps now wasn't the best time to ask if he’d liked the flowers that she sent.

  “He’s going to have to stay in the hospital for another night,” Mrs. Weathers said around a sniffle.

  “That sounds horrible,” Joey mumbled, biting back a groan as she resigned herself to making another apology.

  This time without the flowers.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot to ask who was calling,” she asked while Joey stood there deciding that perhaps she should call back at another time before this got awkward.

  “I should probably just go now,” Joey said, nodding to herself as she hit the end button and placed the phone back on the charger by the bed before she dropped her face into her hands and groaned.

  “What the hell am I going to do?” she couldn’t help but wonder as she fell face first onto Reed’s bed only to sigh heavily when the man that she couldn’t seem to get rid of decided that he wasn’t done tormenting her yet.

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” Matt said as he joined her on the bed with a bowl of strawberry ice cream and an iPad even as she couldn’t help but wonder if now was the best time to make her escape only to immediately dismiss the idea since the last time hadn’t ended well.

  Then again, if she’d known that Reed was pacing the hallway she never would have opened that door and she sure as hell wouldn’t have tried to make a run for it. She’d barely made it to the stairs before he’d had her thrown over his shoulder and was carrying her back to his room. She hadn’t bothered trying to wiggle her way out of his hold since she knew better.

  She’d learned that lesson the hard way when she was seven and Reed had taken it upon himself to save her from a group of very angry fifth graders determined to have a word with her after she’d miscalculated the trajectory of her volcano experiment and turned everything within a fifty-foot radius an interesting shade of orange. In her defense, she’d explained exactly how volatile volcanoes could be during her ten-minute presentation before she’d hit that button, but they’d all ignored her warning.

  Except for Reed.

  As soon as her volcano exploded, he’d had her thrown over his shoulder and was carrying her toward the gym doors while she’d done her best to wiggle her way to freedom so that she could figure out what went wrong. He hadn’t been prepared for her to lunge, but then again, she hadn’t really been prepared for that metal folding chair to break her fall. After that incident, she’d learned to stay still whenever Reed felt the need to take it upon himself to throw her over his shoulder.

  “Didn’t we agree that it would be in your best interest for you to run for your life?” Joey couldn’t help but ask even as she had to admit that she was relieved that it was Matt instead of Reed interrogating her right now. Then again, since Reed was probably on the phone with Jackson at this very moment, she should probably be using this time to come up with a plan to save herself from her brother’s idea of help.

  “I felt that you weren’t really committed to following through with any of those threats,” Matt said, shifting to get more comfortable.

  “I chased you with a stick,” she pointed out, wondering if she could use Matt’s unexpected arrival to her advantage and leave before the crazed man that had thrown her in here was able to follow through with his threat and lock her back in the downstairs’ closet.

  “It was a small stick.”

  “It had a pointy end.”

  “It barely left a mark,” the little bastard said as he reached over and patted her head.

  “Go. Away,” Joey mumbled as she blindly reached over and grabbed a pillow so that she could curl up into the fetal position and stare aimlessly out the window, sighing pathetically every so often with a sniffle here and there as she wondered how she kept screwing up her life.

  “Can’t,” the little bastard that was determined to piss her off said as she laid there, wondering how she was going to get through the next year with absolutely nothing to do.

  God, she was bored already, she thought as she absently noted Reed’s incredible scent coming off the pillow and found herself snuggling closer to it as she rolled over onto her stomach. For comfort purposes only, she told herself as she stared out the window, wishing that she had a class to teach or a paper to grade. She hated downtime, always had and always would. She needed something to do, something productive so that she could stay busy and keep her mind off the fact that she’d probably destroyed her career.

  Granted, there really was no question about it, she thought, frowning when she felt something cold placed on her ass. Blinking, she looked over her shoulder and-

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” the little bastard that was using her ass as a coffee table, said.

  “About?” she mumbled into her pillow, wondering if a politely worded apology and a basket of chocolate dipped strawberries would make up for the fact that she’d ruined someone’s career.

  Again, not that she’d done it on purpose.

  “What you’re going to do during your sabbatical since you’re selling the house,” Matt said as she felt him shift on the bed next to her.

  “I’m supposed to write up my research,” she mumbled into the pillow, really wishing that she had the house to focus on instead.

  “Okay, so do that,” Matt said as he reached over and gave her head another one of those patronizing pats that were going to get him maimed.

  “Already finished it,” she grumbled, really wishing that she’d stretched it out, but once she’d figured out what was wrong with the research that she’d been sent, she hadn’t been able to wait.

  “You’re on sabbatical for a year, right?”

  “Unfortunately,” she mumbled, turning her head so that she could continue staring out the window.

  “Okay, then take a class.”

  “Too late. The semester’s already started,” she mumbled, really wishing that she’d known that they were going to put her on sabbatical so that she could have planned to do something more productive than laying here, staring out the window, and wondering how she was going to survive the next year without losing her damn mind.

  “Where are you planning on staying?” he asked,

  “Hotel,” she mumbled, not really looking forward to living out of her suitcase for a year.

  “So, you’re going to travel?”

  “No,” Joey mumbled because she really didn’t think that was an option right now. That and she felt that she should be free on the off-chance that they changed their minds and let her come back early, and she was really hoping that they change
d their minds.

  “So, you’re planning on pouting and moping for a year until you get your job back?”

  “That’s the plan,” she said with a heavy sigh, wondering if she should settle for a regular room or splurge for a room with a view of the parking lot.

  “Then why don’t you stay here after your house sells?” Matt suggested and as much as she would love to, she couldn’t.

  “That’s not really an option,” she pointed out.

  “Why not?”

  She shifted so that she could point at the reflection glaring at them from the doorway. “Because he’d probably kill me in my sleep.”

  *-*-*-*

  “Have you lost your fucking mind?” Reed couldn’t help but ask as he released his hold on the back of the little bastard’s neck and shoved him into his office. He threw his bedroom door one last look to make sure that the little pain in the ass wasn’t trying to sneak out again before he closed his office door halfway and leaned back against the wall so that he could keep an eye on his bedroom door.

  “Most likely,” Matt said with a careless shrug as he dropped into the large armchair by the desk. “You’re not going to kick her out, are you?”

  “No, I’m not going to kick the little pain in the ass out until I know what’s going on,” Reed bit out with a glare at the annoying bastard who had somehow managed to sneak past him and made it into his room without him knowing.

  “Then what’s the problem?” Matt asked, frowning in confusion as he gestured lazily around them. “She needs a place to stay and we have plenty of room. Plus, you need to find someone to replace Miss Dawson.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Matt asked, frowning.

  “She’s a fucking nightmare,” he said, rubbing his hands roughly down his face.

  “She’s fucking adorable,” his brother said with a heartfelt sigh that was going to get him killed.

  “She’s a menace,” Reed said still trying to figure out why he was doing this.

  He’d barely survived one night with her. There was no way in hell that he was going to be able to handle a year with her living under the same roof and there was no fucking way that he was hiring her. He’d lose his fucking mind if he had to deal with her every day.

  “She can’t be that bad,” Matt said, already looking bored and for one very good reason.

  He’d been too young to fully understand how lucky they were to have survived Joey Lawson the first time around. While Reed had spent most of his time trying to avoid the little pain in the ass and making sure that no one followed through with their threats to strangle the little brat, Matt had been too busy annoying the shit out of everyone to care.

  “Because she’s an annoying pain in the ass that destroys everything in her path,” Reed explained with a heavy sigh because he didn’t need this right now.

  He considered sending her Jackson’s way, but he had too much shit going on with work to keep an eye on his sister. Plus, he tended to overreact when it came to his sister. They didn’t have any relatives and Reed sure as hell wasn’t sending her to her father. It would be a cold day in hell when he let that piece of shit near her again. That left her with her friends, and something told him that wasn’t an option or she wouldn’t be here. That meant that whatever had sent her back here had to be bad, he realized even as he tried to tell himself that it was none of his business. But if she was in trouble…

  Shit!

  “Did she tell you why she came back?” Reed asked, hoping that whatever trouble she’d gotten into was going to be an easy fix.

  Matt shook his head. “She didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask,” Reed guessed, biting back a curse.

  “It wasn’t my place to ask,” his brother said with a shrug, earning a glare, which had his brother’s lips twitching. “You glare a lot when she’s around.”

  “Which is just one more reason why she shouldn’t stay,” he said, wondering if there was any way that he could-

  “She has nowhere else to go,” Matt said and before he could respond his brother said that one thing that guaranteed that he didn’t have a choice. “And you promised Grandma Lawson that you would look after her.”

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Reed bit out, wishing like hell that he hadn’t made that promise.

  “Why not?” Matt asked, looking genuinely confused as Reed rubbed the back of his neck, still trying to figure out why her comment had bothered him when they both knew that she was right. She was an obligation. For the next year, whether he liked it or not, and he really didn’t like it, it was his job to keep her out of trouble.

  “You won’t even know she’s here,” Matt promised.

  “Trust me, I’d know,” Reed said when a thought occurred to him. “We don’t have any extra beds.”

  Matt shrugged it off. “I’m sure that we can find something in the barn. Until then, she can sleep on the couch,” he said, which meant that she was going to have to stay in Reed’s bedroom.

  “She can’t stay,” Reed said hollowly, trying not to think about what it would be like to have her back in his bed.

  “You can’t throw Jackson’s little sister out and we both know it,” Matt said, but he really could, he decided even as he tried to figure out the best way to do it when his brother stressed, “She has nowhere else to go.”

  “Besides,” the little bastard said before he could respond, “you need the help.”

  “I have it under control,” Reed said, trying not to think of all the paperwork waiting for him, the meetings, phone calls, and all the interviews that he had with kids barely out of college filling up the rest of his week.

  “Doesn’t she have a master’s degree?” the little bastard asked, earning a murderous glare and making him wonder why he’d promised his mother that he wouldn’t smother the little bastard in his sleep.

  “She has two Ph.D.s, but I’m still not hiring her,” Reed said, shaking his head because this wasn’t fucking happening.

  “Why not? You’d be able to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble,” Matt pointed out with a satisfied sigh and for a moment, he was actually tempted to say yes.

  “Where is she going to stay?” Reed asked, hoping to distract his brother while he tried to figure out what he was going to do about her.

  “She can sleep in my room,” the little bastard said, drawing his attention to the smug little bastard looking way too fucking pleased with himself. When Matt caught the murderous expression on Reed’s face, he rolled his eyes and sighed heavily with a, “Fine. I’ll set up your old room.”

  “You mean the room right next to mine and the one that shares my bathroom?” Reed asked before shaking his head and saying, “No fucking way.”

  “Fine,” Matt said, trying to bite back a smile, “then she can use the old guest room.”

  “You mean the one right next to yours?” Reed bit out as he checked to make sure that his bedroom door was still closed before he returned his attention to the little bastard.

  “The very one,” Matt said, making him glare.

  “No.”

  “Technically it makes the most sense since she’s my guest,” Matt explained innocently.

  “Is that what you’re going to tell Jackson?” Reed asked, noting the way that Matt slowly nodded and said, “Your old room it is,” before Reed sighed heavily and pushed away from the wall, deciding that it was time to get some answers.

  Chapter 13

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Making as many bad choices as humanly possible,” Joey couldn’t help but admit as she hung there, squeezing her eyes tightly shut while doing her best not to think about the ground rushing up to greet her and really hoping that the large man that hated her would pull her up for old time’s sake.

  “I can see that,” Reed murmured, but something, mostly the fact that he left her hanging from the window, told her that he really didn’t.

  He did, however, grab her by the back of her pan
ts just in case the window that was currently keeping her pinned in place decided to finally budge and released her for what promised to be a very memorable experience.

  “Why don’t we have a talk?” Reed asked as she hung there, really wishing that she hadn’t leaned out so far.

  Then again, she really wished that she’d known that someone had removed the old rose trellis before she’d come up with this plan. She should have just walked out the door, but since that hadn’t ended well the last time she’d figured that her best bet was to sneak out the window, make her way next door, find her keys, and leave before the large man currently dragging a chair closer by the sounds of it, could find her.

  “When did you remove the old trellis?” she asked, hoping to change the subject before he started asking questions that she’d really rather not answer.

  “It’s on the other side of the house,” he said, making her groan as she tried to shimmy back inside only to give up a few seconds later when nothing happened. If only her feet reached the floor, she thought with a sigh as she resigned herself to hanging there at the mercy of her brother’s best friend, who wasn’t exactly fond of her.

  “Why are you here, Joey?” Reed asked, ruining all of her hopes and dreams that he would just let her leave.

  “Tried to escape,” she said before following that up with, “Any chance that you’d be willing to let me up before I pass out?”

  “No,” he said, making her sigh as she hung there, regretting so many things. “Why do you think you’re an obligation?”

  “Because I am,” she grumbled.

  “I see,” Reed murmured thoughtfully, “and you feel that way because…”

  “Because it’s true,” she said with a shrug and a sigh as she opened her eyes and quickly closed them at the reminder that she was deathly afraid of heights, which of course was another reason why trying to escape by climbing out of a second story window really hadn’t been the best decision.

  “And that’s the reason you don’t want me to call your brother and tell him you’re here?”