“Then I bet you’ll love it.”
The attendant takes her seat by the door while Ethan settles in with his AirPods and a game on his phone, swiping across the screen in hot pursuit of candy, or boxes, or gems, or other absurd things.
I pop on an audiobook on the science of sleep.
Soon, we’re soaring into the sky.
As the jet reaches higher, I repeat in my head, New experiences, new people, new chances.
Even though this move is about my family, those words still resonate with me.
That’s where the true awareness comes in.
An awareness of what I’m choosing to step into, and what I’m choosing to leave behind.
After years of being devoutly single, and then a few more of being a devoutly single dad, I’ve decided to embrace a particular aspect of this move—a brand-new chance.
I’m ready to date again.
Dare I say, I’m ready to find the one. To settle down.
Call me a unicorn.
I’m the guy who’s looking to get hitched.
Maybe I’ll find her on the other side of the country.
3
January
That fine Saturday in August when the hottie moved next door
* * *
I can frame a door, work a power saw, and build a cabinet. Call if you need someone to fix a sink, repair a pipe, and change a tire.
I’m wired for the practical.
I’m not a swooner.
My brain doesn’t go upside down when I see a handsome man. I don’t faint over muscled arms or chiseled jaws, and I don’t melt over buttery British voices and GQ faces.
I did the whole swoon-over-a-pretty-boy routine with my ex, and that was a mistake akin to installing a toilet without connecting the pipes (awesome child notwithstanding).
I learned my lesson, so I refuse to flutter my lashes or hump a hottie’s leg.
Especially when he’s my new neighbor.
But giving him a welcome gift?
I should have thought of that sooner.
It would be terribly rude if I didn’t pop over right the hell now with a welcome-to-the-neighborhood basket of goodies.
After I close the front door behind me, I set my boba tea on the bright orange coffee table—a flea-market find that I painted with Alva. I take a deep, fueling breath, snapping my fingers, trying to think.
I need to give him a gift. What do we have handy?
Think, think, think.
Wine?
That’s always safe . . . unless someone is an alcoholic.
Some of the honeysuckle soap I made last week?
That could work, but will he suspect I’m secretly saying, You smell?
Maybe something from my garden? Cilantro? Arugula? Tomatoes?
Who doesn’t love tomatoes?
“How about you offer to hammer anything he needs nailed? That could be your welcome gift,” Wednesday says as she heads to the kitchen and drops her plastic cup in the recycling bin. Grabbing mine, I follow suit. “Or there’s a half-full bottle of fancy mustard in the fridge,” Wednesday adds. “Offer him that.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.” I grab a pretty wicker basket from the counter, remove the loaf of bread in it, then grab some scissors.
“Are you going to frolic over there with your basket like the Easter Bunny?”
“No, Spawn. I’m going to give him some cilantro and daisies.”
“Nothing says ‘Welcome to the neighborhood’ like the most-hated garnish and the nastiest-smelling flowers,” she says.
I shoot her a sharp look. “Wrong. Everyone knows sunflowers are the stinkiest flowers.”
“Oh! You’re right. Those are gross.”
I scurry across the kitchen to the back door.
“Why are you acting like you’re about to run a race?” she calls out.
I snap my gaze back to her as I dart onto the doormat. “Because,” I say, flapping my free hand, “we have a new neighbor, and we have to give him something.”
She follows behind as I rush to the garden in our yard. “So you’re giving him . . . vegetables?”
I shoot her a look. “Everyone loves fresh veggies.” I kneel beside my garden beds, snipping some cilantro, setting it gently in the basket, then adding some radishes. Radishes are making a comeback. I’ve seen them all over the menus at both fancy hipster restaurants and cheap hole-in-the-wall joints.
“No,” she says. “Everyone loves peaches. Everyone loves cookies. Not everyone loves veggies.”
I flap my arms around, gesturing to the yard. “Well, I don’t have cookies or peaches.”
“Maybe get some, then?”
“I’ll start with veggies. He can make a salad.”
“Awesome. Radish salad sounds delish. Let me know if I can have some too.”
“You’re now banned from salads for your impudence,” I say, and snip some daisies too.
She pumps a fist. “I’m going to make sure you hold to that promise. Also, Dad didn’t love veggies,” Wednesday points out.
I point at her. “No, he was allergic to them. Big difference. Tomatoes gave him hives.”
“Cilantro gives me nightmares.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “If that’s the worst of your nightmares, consider yourself lucky.”
“If I never eat cilantro again, I’ll consider myself very lucky,” she retorts as I pluck some radishes.
“You don’t eat cilantro at all. You refuse anything that includes it. And with panache too.” I launch into an imitation. “Thanks, but I’m going to decline the cilantro-lime rice. Also, I believe radishes are the new black.”
Wednesday shakes her head. “No. Candy is the new black. Boba is the new black. Black is the new black. Radishes are the new brown.”
I set the flowers in the basket alongside the veggies, then I stand and tilt my head. “The new brown?”
“As in, no one’s favorite color.”
“Mark my words. He’ll love the radishes.” I leap up the steps, Wednesday on my tail.
“I’m going with you just to laugh when he crinkles his nose at them.”
I roll my eyes, stop at the sink, wash the radishes, dry them, then line the basket with a blue checkered cloth. After setting the radishes and the cilantro in next, I snip the stems of the daisies, find a piece of string, and tie it around the flowers. Then I reach for a bar of honeysuckle soap and add it to the mix.
“Voilà.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I leave the gift on the counter for a moment. “Be right back.”
Hurrying down the hall, I hightail it through my bedroom and pop into the bathroom, where I check my reflection and smooth my brown hair.
I am not in the market for a man. No way, no how, not at all.
But one should look one’s best when meeting the new neighbor.
That’s just common courtesy.
I tuck a strand of loose brown hair behind my right ear, touch up my lip gloss, dust on some powder, and finally peer left, then right. I run a hand along my neck.
I’m thirty-seven, so my neck is still . . . mostly smooth. My forehead though? I could go for Botox if I wasn’t terrified of needles. I rely on self-administered Bangtox instead, so I finger-comb my hair over my forehead.
“Ready,” I say softly to my reflection. A tingle dares to rush down my chest, heating me up, and I blanch.
What was that?
I set a hand on my chest.
I barely got a good look at him. I cannot be having a reaction to my neighbor already.
I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.
I ignore that tingle. No, I do better than ignore it. I tell it to go the hell away and never come back.
There. That’ll teach my body to have reactions to sexy neighbors with swoony voices that I do not, cannot, will not swoon over.
I turn on my heel and leave.
But not before I duck into my closet, yank my T-shirt over my head, and pull on
a pink V-neck.
Well, pink is my favorite color.
I head to the kitchen to grab the basket. “Shall we?”
Wednesday peers up from the couch, eyeing me over her phone. “I’m a pawn in your scheme.”
“And how’s that?”
“You’re just using me to make it look like you’re not totally checking him out.”
A blush crawls up my cheeks. “I’m not checking him out.”
She wiggles a brow. “Tell that to the jury.”
“Also, you offered to come along,” I say, as I hoist the basket on my hip and grab a hammer from the orange table. Just in case Wednesday was right.
We head out the front door, and I let the screen door fall behind us with a resounding click.
I don’t need to tell anything to a jury, because the judge of me knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I’m not totally checking him out.
I’m slightly checking him out.
And I cannot wait to tell my friend Alva all about the sexy man next door.
4
Liam
All things being equal, Ethan is pretty content here.
First goal accomplished.
Wait.
“Content” is the wrong word.
“Jazzed” might be better, since he’s conducting a full inspection of the pool.
“I need to go swimming noooooooooooow,” he announces, bending over the edge and dipping a hand in the water. I desperately hope this—the fun he’ll have swimming with me, and soon with his cousins when they come over—will help him love his life here and not miss what he had in Florida. It’s a life I know little about, but one I imagine was full of endless hours in the water.
“How about later instead of now? We should go talk to the movers, make sure they know where to put everything.”
“Fine, but later I want to swim. Please.”
“And you will, Dolphin,” I say.
He makes a Flipper sound as I usher him back into the house. We stayed at my parents’ place last night so we could arrive here rested and ready to meet the movers. I stop to chat with them now, and they tell me it’ll be about twenty minutes to assemble the beds they brought in, so they’ll be busy for a while.
I thank them, stopping to grab a picture frame from a box—simple, shiny metal, but I’d recognize it anywhere. I set it on the coffee table. A pang of longing punches at my chest as I look at the shot of Ethan with his arms wrapped around his brown-and-white cattle dog from years ago.
What was that day like? How often did he hug that dog? Swim with her in the ocean?
Things I’ll never know. A chance I never had.
I tap the photo out of habit, maybe for luck, maybe as a reset to clear away the longing I feel when I look at it.
We head out the front door so I can make sure I’ve grabbed everything from the rental car.
I stop short when I glance next door.
The realtor mentioned there’s a kid living there. Seems there’s a kid and a mom—a logical deduction, since most minors do require parental care.
And this mom looks positively hot as . . .
Wait. Settle down.
I shouldn’t look at my neighbor like that.
I should not stare at her trim figure. Her short jean shorts. Her pink T-shirt. Her waves of chestnut hair.
I focus on the kid.
I gesture to the girl heading down the steps. “See? There are even kids next door. This is perfect.”
My son tilts his head and sends a what are you talking about look my way. “Dad, she’s twenty. She’s not a kid.”
I arch a brow. “Twenty? I’m pretty sure she’s not twenty. I bet she’s eleven,” I say, peering at the young lady. I mean, eleven is possible, right?
I wave, and they both wave back, and I do not stare at the mom. I do not watch as she walks down the stone path in their front lawn, a sway to her hips, a soft smile on her face. I do not gaze at her every step.
“On what planet is she eleven?” Ethan asks as they come closer.
“The planet of eleven-year-olds?” I toss back. Fine, maybe he’s right that she’s not eleven.
But she’s not twenty.
“Look, all I’m saying . . .”
As the pair turns toward my house, I swat his arm, stand up straighter. “They’re coming over. Act normal.”
“You act normal,” he hisses.
“I’m always normal.”
“You’re so not normal at all,” he counters.
This kid. I swear, I don’t know where his cheek comes from.
As I wait on the porch, I do my best not to drink in the sight in front of me.
Because my new next-door neighbor is a fox.
And sexy neighbors are incredibly off-limits.
Sexy neighbors are at the top of the list of forbidden fruit, right along with employees, friends of your sister, and ex-girlfriends of your mates. I’ve never set foot in any of those dangerous territories, and I don’t intend to start now.
“Hi there,” she calls as she heads up the path, and I walk down the steps to meet her.
Them.
Both of them.
“Hello there. Nice to meet you, neighbor.” I pat myself on the back for sounding thoroughly amiable and not at all like a guy in a bar chatting up a luscious lady.
Her smile is radiant, highlighting the constellation of freckles that covers her nose and her light-blue eyes that sparkle.
Damn, she’s quite pretty close-up too.
I extend a hand, and we shake. “Hi, I’m Liam. I just bought this house. Which I suppose is obvious because I am moving into it. Because that’s what you do with homes you’ve just bought. You move into them.”
Okay. Yeah, that’s blatantly obvious too.
I swear I’ve spoken to women before. I’ve spent most of my twenties and plenty of my thirties speaking to women. I don’t know why it’s suddenly weird to speak to this woman.
Maybe it has something to do with the tattoos running down her arms. Or the work boots on her feet. Or the hammer in her front pocket. Of course, a hammer shouldn’t make it difficult to speak to a woman, but it does make me curious. “In any case, it’s nice to meet you.”
She smiles, a grin that should be gracing toothpaste tubes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too. I’m January. This is my daughter, Wednesday. She’s fifteen, going on twenty.”
Ethan shoots me an I told you so look as I shake Wednesday’s hand then introduce my nearly ten-year-old.
Ethan shakes hands with both women, then says to Wednesday, all tough, “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I wasn’t going to offer to babysit,” she says. “I have a job.”
“Cool. Just letting you know,” he says, acting so nonchalant. “What’s your job?”
“I’m a hacker. I hack into my neighbors’ accounts.”
January’s jaw drops. “Wednesday.”
Her daughter grins wickedly. “Sorry. Just kidding.”
January sets a hand on Wednesday’s shoulder. “She’s a little sassy. A little sarcastic.”
“Fortunately, we’re fluent in sarcasm,” I say.
January wipes her free hand across her forehead. “Whew. We are so not hackers. But we are vegetarians, so I brought you a few things from our garden.”
Peering into the basket, I catch sight of radishes, and I flinch.
Ethan smacks my arm, chuckling.
January’s brow knits, and her daughter laughs. “I told you,” Wednesday whispers. “The new brown.”
Ethan points at me. “He hates veggies.” He peers into the basket. “He hates radishes the most.”
And the lovely brunette winces. “Shoot. Really?”
That’s a cringe. That’s most definitely a cringe.
“He really, really hates them,” Ethan says, digging me deeper into the hole.
Wednesday raises a hand. “I told her. No one wants veggies as a gift. Especially radishes or cilantro.
”
“Do you hate cilantro too?” January asks, the cringe factor still high.
“It’s not that I hate cilantro, per se,” I say, trying for diplomacy.
“He thinks it tastes like soap. And it does,” Ethan says.
“I like soap,” I put in, as if that makes things better.
“Soap is good,” January says.
Wednesday smiles and offers Ethan a hand for high-fiving. “But who wants to eat soap?”
“Not me,” he says, then points to the back of the house. “I have a pool. Want to see it?”
“Sure.”
In seconds, they disappear, heeding the siren call of chlorinated water as I stand on the porch with a basket of veggies I won’t eat and my sexy new neighbor with her work boots, tattoos, and that smile I want to kiss off.
But I won’t.
Because she is off-limits. Kissing the smile off of one’s neighbor’s face isn’t neighborly behavior at all.
“Sorry about the radishes,” she says. “I guess they are the new brown, rather than the new black.”
“I completely appreciate the gesture though,” I say warmly, so she’ll know that flinching at the first sight of radishes isn’t what defines me as a person.
“There are flowers in there too,” she offers. “And a bar of homemade soap.”
“Because I smell?” I deadpan.
She chuckles. “I was worried you’d say that.”
“Oh, I can take a hint. But as I mentioned, I do like soap.” I peer into the basket, a smile tugging at my lips as I spot the daisies. “Ah, my favorite flowers. My mum likes these.”
“And the flowers remind you of your mom. I’m batting zero today,” she says, a little forlorn.
I furrow my brow. “I like my mum. So it’s a compliment.”
“Oh.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No? Yes? I don’t know.”
I laugh. “Sorry. The gifts are lovely.”
She laughs and gives an easy shrug. “Most men don’t admit to liking their moms. Also, you can feed the radishes and cilantro to the local raccoons if you’d like.”
“Actually, raccoons are also not the best market for offerings of cilantro.”
“They’re not?”
The Dream Guy Next Door: A Guys Who Got Away Novel Page 4
