Falling for the Girl Next Door

by Tera Lynn Childs

  “I missed you, too, fartinator.” I squeeze him as hard as I can. “There hasn’t been a single incomprehensible conversation in my presence since we left.”

  I release my hold on Dylan and turn to see Mom and Dad sharing an awkward half-hug. Dad has never been much for public displays of affection.

  His phone rings. He checks the screen. “Sorry,” he says, already moving away, “I need to take this.”

  The look Mom gives him could melt steel.

  Dad has always been a workaholic, but I never realized how absent he really was until Mom and I moved to Austin. It’s weird to think I didn’t really notice his absence even with half a country between us. It’s the same as always, only without the occasional disapproving looks across the kitchen counter.

  But he’s here now. And so is Dylan. Our family is back together, even if only for the space of a few days.

  It’s my mission to make it permanent.

  I’m going to spend the entire time Dad is here making sure he never wants to leave me, Mom, or Austin again. This airport reunion is only the beginning.

  “Come on,” I say to Dylan, roughing up his hair as I walk past him. “Let’s go find your bag.”

  Dylan decides to crash in a sleeping bag on the floor in my room, rather than take the bed in the guest room Mom offered him. I didn’t even know we had a sleeping bag.

  Then again, I didn’t know we had a guest room. I knew there was another bedroom across the hall from mine upstairs. I figured it was just a room for storing all the stuff Mom keeps buying.

  I’m glad Dylan opted to stay in my room, though. It’s nice to roll over in the morning and see his normally over-animated face in peaceful bliss.

  He’s snoring softly and probably dreaming about all the sweets and treats Mom offered him last night after dinner out at Abbey Road. If she keeps feeding him like that, he’ll have diabetes before break is over.

  I should probably leave him alone. He looks so calm and happy. I should let him get as much sleep as his growing body needs.

  But…he is my little brother and he has tormented me on a regular basis since he learned how to talk.

  It’s like a sisterly duty that I pay him back.

  I lean out over the edge of my bed.

  “OMIGOD DYLAN WAKE UP!” I shout at the top of my lungs, right above his head.

  He bolts upright, narrowly missing my nose with his skull, and looks around for whatever emergency is racing through his sleepy mind. Probably something to do with a robot uprising or a lab experiment gone wrong.

  Or being chased by a herd of tween girls. I seriously have no clue what goes on in that noggin of his.

  “Morning, munchkin.” I give him a sweet smile.

  He looks at me, eyes wide and face bright red. At first his forehead wrinkles up in confusion, but as realization dawns, his expression softens.

  “Are you trying to kill me?” He groans and flops back onto his pillow.

  He’s trying to sound angry, but he’s fighting a grin.

  “Maybe,” I say with a bright smile. “Did it work?”

  He flings his arm over his eyes. “Definitely.”

  My bedroom door flies open and Mom bursts in.

  “What happened?”

  I turn my innocent-looking grin on her. “Nothing.”

  Her eyes narrow, but the moment she sees Dylan passed out—or pretending to be passed out—on my floor, she smiles.

  “Up to your old tricks, I see.”

  She used to get so mad when Dylan and I fought, even if it was only play fighting. I never saw her more upset than when we were chasing each other around the brownstone or getting on each other’s nerves to the point where fists and tears started flying.

  Now, she seems just as amused by our antics as I am.

  What a difference a few months makes.

  I toss back my covers and scoot to the edge of my bed. “Can you take me to the grocery store?”

  After a long session of recipe triage last night, with Dylan’s very opinionated input along the way, I have finally narrowed down the menu for tomorrow night’s dinner. I’ve managed to find vegetarian versions of everything I think people might traditionally expect to eat at Christmas dinner, except for the ham.

  But Mom has ordered a ham that she’s going to pick up later today, so I don’t have to worry about satisfying the carnivores.

  Mom holds up her hands, which are covered in bright yellow gloves. “I am on a mission to clean. Why don’t you ask your father?”

  I nod.

  “Come on, idiot brain,” I tell Dylan, nudging him in the ribs with my foot as I walk past his make-shift bed. “You’re coming with me.”

  He pulls a blanket up over his head and grumbles something unintelligible.

  “You have five minutes,” I tell him. “Or there will be consequences.”

  I leave him to wonder what exactly those consequences might be and head for the master bedroom to find Dad and ask him to play chauffeur on my grocery mission.

  Only he’s not in the master bedroom. The bed is perfectly made and it smells faintly of lemon.

  Mom’s cleaning operation has already swept through here.

  I check around the rest of the downstairs, thinking maybe he’s already up and working. But he’s not staring at his laptop at the kitchen table or taking a call on the back porch.

  I finally give up on the downstairs and head back up. Maybe he’s set up a temporary office in the guest room.

  I open the door quietly, trying not to disturb him if he’s at work.

  He’s not. He’s asleep.

  He’s snuggled up under the floral comforter and snoring like a chainsaw. At first I think maybe he moved up here to catch some more winks when Mom’s cleaning brigade entered the master suite. But then I see his garment bag open on the floor.

  My parents haven’t seen each other for months. And on their first night back together, they slept in separate bedrooms? I’m not entirely sure why, but this makes my stomach clench.

  Are they having a fight? Maybe Mom is still mad about the Thanksgiving debacle. Maybe this is her way to punish Dad for that. I wouldn’t exactly blame her if it was.

  “Hey, Dad?” I ask gently.

  When he doesn’t stir, I step up to the bed and gently shake his shoulder.

  He comes awake with a snort.

  “Sloane? Good morning,” he says, blinking up at me. “What time is it?”

  I check the clock on the nightstand. “Eight-thirty.”

  He nods and rubs at his eyes.

  “Can you take me and Dylan to the grocery store?” I ask. “I need to get some things for tomorrow night.”

  He nods again. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  I run into Dylan in the hall. “Get a move on.”

  He looks at me. “You’re not even dressed.”

  “I will be by the time you’re out of the bathroom.”

  He smirks, but doesn’t say anything.

  Oh yes, the race is on.

  As I start for my room, he rushes to the bathroom. I beat him downstairs by two minutes.

  “You’ll never be faster than me,” I tell him with a smile.

  “You cheated,” he complains. “You locked me out of your room.”

  I shrug. “House rules.”

  “This should cover the groceries.” Mom hands me some cash. “If not, your father can cover the rest.”

  I am just stuffing the bills into my back pocket when I hear Dad coming down the stairs.

  “No, I told you that was a deal breaker, Elaine,” he’s saying into his phone. “If they want to play hardball on that, we will walk away.”

  While the person on the other end of the call responds, Dad gives Mom a quick peck on the cheek and then grabs the keys off the counter. Dylan and I exchange a look that says, Same old Dad.

  I wave goodbye to Mom and hurry after Dad to the car.

  Grocery shopping with Dylan is an adventure, to put it mi
ldly. I spend half the time trying to keep him from throwing every single item of junk food on display into our cart. If it’s fried, sugared, or just downright disgusting, he totally wants it.

  After his third attempt to sneak in a giant package of beef jerky—ew, just ew—I ban him from putting anything in the cart.

  He makes a pouty face, but in the end we make it out without me having to duct tape his hands to his waist. And I keep the total within the budget of the cash that Mom gave me. Which is a good thing, because Dad was still on the phone when we got to the store, so he stayed in the car to finish his call.

  Which, of course, he isn’t finished with when we emerge from the store with arms full of reusable grocery bags.

  Or maybe he’s on a new call. They all kind of blend together after a while.

  “Hold on, Andrew. I have an incoming.” Dad taps a button on his earpiece to switch calls. “Howard, I’m in the middle of a crisis. Can I call you back?”

  Whoever is on the other end of that call must agree, because Dad taps the button again and goes back to his original call.

  Sometimes Dad’s life seems to be a never-ending string of always-urgent phone calls.

  Since the car’s GPS system is programmed to lead us home without me having to point left or right at every intersection, I decide to sit in the back with Dylan. Far be it from me to pass up an opportunity to torture my baby brother in an enclosed space.

  But as I slide into the back seat, Dylan looks so…I don’t know, sad maybe? I can’t torment him when he looks like that.

  “Hey,” I say, nudging him, “what’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

  “Come on. You look like someone deleted all your high scores.”

  He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks down at his lap and squeezes his lips together.

  I lean down close so I can whisper, “You can tell me anything, you know. No judge.”

  With a jerk of his chin, he gestures at Dad in the driver’s seat.

  My brows drop low over my eyes.

  “That was his lawyer.”

  I shrug, as if to say, So? Dad has a lawyer. He talks to him. What’s the big deal?

  Dylan’s voice is so soft than I can barely hear him as he says, “His divorce lawyer.”

  “I—” My jaw drops and my mind races so fast I can’t finish a sentence. “That—He’s—You’re wrong.”

  He has to be wrong. Right?

  With watery eyes, Dylan looks up at me and shakes his head.

  No. No way. This isn’t possible. Mom and Dad have always had a somewhat strained relationship. I mean, between them both being workaholics and successful professionals, that doesn’t leave much time for romance.

  But they’re…them. They’ve been married for more than twenty years.

  “You’re wrong,” I say again. “You misunderstood something.”

  “I’m not stupid!”

  That outburst gets a stern look from Dad in the rearview mirror.

  “I know you’re not.” I pat Dyl on the knee to reassure him. “But maybe you just—”

  “Nadia isn’t a nanny.”

  “What do you—”

  “She’s Dad’s girlfriend.”

  My stomach drops to the floor. Dad’s girlfriend?

  Part of me is screaming that Dylan is wrong. He overhead something and misinterpreted it. There is no way Dad has a girlfriend. There is no way he and Mom are getting divorced. No way.

  But Dad was sleeping in the guest room.

  Maybe, just maybe, Dylan is right.

  I sink back against the seat and stare straight ahead, unseeing. My mind is a jumble of thoughts, and I can’t make myself focus on just one.

  This must be what shock feels like.

  As Dad follows the GPS directions back to our house, Dylan and I sit in total silence. If Dad knew us at all, he would know that something was wrong. Dyl and I are never silent.

  I reach over and take my baby brother’s hand. I’m not sure whether I’m reassuring him or myself, but whatever happens, we’re in this together.

  As soon as Dad pulls into the driveway and puts the car in park, Dylan leaps out and races for the front door.

  “Hey!” I halfheartedly shout after him. “Help me with these bags!”

  Dad holds his hand over his phone and whisper-yells, “Sloane!”

  “Sorry,” I whisper back.

  But I’m not sorry.

  I climb out of the car, leaving Dad to finish his stupid call while I start hauling grocery bags out of the trunk. Can Dylan really be right? Can Nadia really be Dad’s girlfriend? Can Mom and Dad really be heading for divorce?

  Can my life really be getting this much worse?

  I am just setting the last bag on the driveway when I hear Mom’s voice.

  “I see your brother is helpful as always.”

  I don’t want her to know anything is wrong, so I look up and give her a did-you-expect-miracles shrug. She glances into the car and frowns at Dad.

  I know she disapproves of his constant work. It’s caused more than a few heated arguments and tense periods in recent years. When we were still in New York, she was always trying to get him to take a break, take a day off and make a trip out to Montauk or something.

  He always said if he didn’t do his job we couldn’t afford a trip to Montauk.

  From the look on her face right now, she’s annoyed that he’s continuing his workaholic habits here in Austin.

  Or maybe this is something more. Maybe this isn’t Mom’s ordinary anger. Maybe this is in-the-process-of-divorce anger.

  Have I been so blind I couldn’t see this happening? Were there signs before Mom and I left New York? Or is this just happening since we moved?

  Oh god. Is this my fault?

  Maybe things were fine while we were all under the same roof, but once Mom and I moved to Austin—because of me—things fell apart. Whatever guilt I felt about splitting our family into two just exploded times a thousand.

  I busy myself with the groceries. I’m still trying to process all of these thoughts, and I don’t want Mom to know that I know. At the moment, I can still dismiss this as a misunderstanding. I don’t want to look in her eyes and see that it’s true.

  I’m not sure I can handle that.

  By the time she joins me at the back of the car, Mom’s ire is gone and her smile is back in place, which means I can smile at her in return.

  “It looks like you bought enough food for an army,” she says.

  I heft a pair of bags onto my shoulders. “No. Just three growing boys.”

  She laughs as we drag my haul into the house. My guilt makes my load feel ten times heavier.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maggie’s office door was open when Tru got there on Sunday afternoon.

  She said she didn’t usually see patients on the weekends, especially not that late on a Sunday, but for him she had made an exception. Clearly he was so screwed up she didn’t want to risk him going too long without seeing her.

  That boded great for his chances of recovery.

  “Come in, come in,” she said when she saw him hovering in her doorway. “I’m just trying to… Oh, got it!” She pushed back from her computer and looked at him. “Sorry, I was on a particularly tough level of Candy Crush.”

  Tru stepped inside.

  “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

  They made their way to the armchairs. Tru collapsed into the one for the patients.

  “I’ve been better,” he said.

  In truth, he really was finally starting to feel better. He had been better. But he’d also been much worse.

  “Any big plans for the holidays?”

  Maggie was the queen of the casual question. She asked as though she only had a mild interest. But he had a feeling that every word out of her mouth, from big plans to Candy Crush, was somehow calculated as part of her therapy.

  She may look the part of a distracted hippie, but there
was some serious strategizing beneath the surface.

  “My parents and I are going to the neighbors’ for dinner tomorrow night.”

  Maggie nodded and scribbled. “Tell me about these neighbors.”

  He gave her the short answer about Sloane and her mom—his mom’s friend from college and her daughter, recently moved from New York.

  “The daughter,” Maggie said without looking up from her notes, “how old is she?”

  Tru tensed. He tried to keep his response neutral. “My age. We go to the same school.”

  Maggie’s eyebrows went up. “Do you get along?”

  Tru ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to bring Sloane into this. She was the only good thing in his life. He didn’t want Maggie digging into their relationship.

  “Yeah,” he said, again trying for neutral. “I guess.”

  Maggie set her legal pad down and leaned forward over her crossed legs.

  “You seem hesitant to talk about her,” she said. “What’s her name?”

  Tru leveled a cool look at Maggie. “Sloane.”

  “You like her?”

  “It’s…complicated.”

  Maggie gave him a soft smile. “All the best things in life are.”

  She didn’t say another word, just sat there looking at him with wide, expectant eyes. Waiting for him to answer a question she hadn’t asked.

  He held the stare-down for as long as he could. But Maggie was obviously the stare-down champion of the world. Tru didn’t stand a chance.

  “We were going out, okay?” he finally blurted, just to end the painful silence.

  “Were?”

  “Yeah, were. As in the past tense of are.”

  “Did you break up recently?”

  “She isn’t the problem, here,” Tru snapped. “I started drinking years before Sloane showed up in my life.”

  The stare-down recommenced.

  Finally, Tru answered, “When I realized I had this problem”—he gestured at himself, indicating his reason for being there—“I told her I thought we should take a break until I got myself fixed.”

  Maggie still didn’t say a word. What did she want from him? He answered her question. He couldn’t answer any more until she asked one.

  He felt his jaw clench tighter and tighter the longer he waited. He was afraid he knew what she would ask next, something about Sloane and whether she was a bad influence on him.