Ready to Fall (A Second Chance Bad Boy Next Door Romance)

by Anne Connor

  I haven’t been to Alec’s house to see the baby since I’ve been gone, even though I planned on it. I’m her Godfather, so I should be around more. And I will be, now that I’m able.

  Cindy appears at the doorway of the house with her little girl on her hip. She looks a little haggard and run down.

  Inside, I can hear the TV on too loud. Through the window I can see Alec sitting on the couch in the living room. The scent of dinner cooking follows Cindy out of the house.

  “Smells amazing, Cin,” I say, kissing her on the cheek. The little girl claps and puts her chubby little hands out to me.

  “Uncle Travis!” Her eyes light up as Cindy rocks her off her hip and holds the child out to me. I hook my hands under her arms and take her, holding her at arm’s distance.

  “Are you helping your mom cook dinner, or are you just sampling everything?” I tease. She has what looks like grape jelly on on her mouth, making her look so childlike and innocent. I want her to stay like that. My heart clenches up as I pull her in and give her a kiss on the cheek, giving her my hand as she wraps her fingers around my index finger.

  “Come in, please,” Cindy says, holding the door open behind her. I cross into the house and realize that it’s started to fall into disrepair, like mine has. I have a good reason for not being able to keep my place in good condition; I wonder what Alec’s excuse is.

  I look up at the ceiling near the staircase and see a split in the plaster. It’s been patched with electrical tape and painted over with a sloppy coat of white veneer.

  “You need me to do some quick fixes around here?” I ask, looking back to her. I don’t make it obvious that there’s something wrong with their home; I don’t want to insult her, and the place is tiny and neat, so I can tell she’s trying.

  Alec comes over to us, a cold bottle of beer in his hand. He claps a hand onto my back and shakes his head.

  “I’m on it,” he says. “I just haven’t been able to get the supplies I need. Have to get the truck out of the shop first so I can do my haul.”

  The house is old, just like most of the others in this neighborhood. It’s one neighborhood over from where Daisy and I live, and it’s a little bit tougher over here. There’s fewer dads in the homes and more moms who are doing their best to keep everything together. Alec and Cindy are from here, and neither of them had the luck of having both parents around for them.

  “You still at the garage?” I ask Alec.

  The little girl wiggles her fingers at me and I take them softly, pretending to bite at them. She giggles and swats my hands away.

  Alec squares his shoulders toward his daughter and takes a sip of his beer. His gaze is distracted. I’ve seen him drunk, and he isn’t right now. But there’s something going on behind his eyes.

  “Let me get back to working on dinner,” Cindy says as I give her her little girl. She puts the little girl on the ground and she waddles into the living room where she has a few coloring books and crayons set up on the coffee table. Cindy shoots Alec a raised eyebrow as he pushes a hand through his hair and scrubs the side of his face with an open palm.

  Together, Alec and I move into the living room. He pulls a cold beer from the coffee table and cracks it open with the bottle opener he’s had on his keyring since high school.

  “I say something wrong?” I ask, taking a long swig.

  “I’m between jobs right now,” he sighs as we take a seat on the couch together. The air outside is brisk, the fall air enveloping the house. There’s fog starting on the corners of the windows as the warmth inside the home competes with the cold air outside.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I ask. “Maybe we can go visit the garage together next week. Power in numbers.” I take a sip of my beer. “Grovel together.”

  “You haven’t gotten something yet either?” he asks. I’ve only been home for a few days, but he’s right. I could have started looking before I was released. There’s a lot of programs to reduce recidivism rates, and I didn’t take advantage of any of them. Then again, I don’t want to flip burgers or bag groceries. I want to be back in the garage, working on engines. That’s what always made me feel powerful, made me feel like I had control.

  “I’m serious,” I say. “We should go to the garage together.”

  “Imagine us really doing that,” he says. “It might not be a crazy idea.”

  The little girl picks up two crayons and brings them over to me like they’re a gift.

  “Crazy!” she says, giggling.

  “Who is crazy?” I say, bending down to take the crayons.

  “I don’t know,” she says sweetly. She teeters back over to her coloring book and plops down.

  I feel Alec looking over at me, even though I’m still observing the little girl playing. My heart and head are filled with confusion. I know I couldn’t have let him go down for what happened, not with his little girl in the picture...but I gave something up, too. And worse, I hurt my girl.

  But my resentment isn’t toward Alec. Not for one fucking second. I made my choice. I may have felt that I had no choice in the matter, but I did. I chose to pay him back for all the goodness he’s given me over the years.

  “What is it now?” I ask, my eyes sliding away from the little girl, over to Alec. “You want to tell me how I have to clean out Dad’s place and sell it?”

  “No, man,” he says, shaking his head. He takes another long pull of his beer. “You should take the time you need on that. You shouldn’t be in any hurry to sell, if you decide to sell at all.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What about her?” Alec gets up and grabs two more beers from the coffee table, flicking their caps of easily and handing one to me. I’m conflicted about drinking in front of the little girl, but she doesn’t know the difference. It would be worse to drink in front of a teenager, I reason.

  “What about her?” I repeat.

  My heart clenches. It’s a good question.

  What about her?

  “You might want to keep the house so you can move her in,” he says casually.

  I huff out a laugh and shake my head.

  “I don’t need to be living next door to her old man forever. Having him breathing down my neck for the next fifty years. Jesus.”

  He wants the best for her, but I shudder when I imagine him checking on my every movement.

  If he knew what was best for her, he would get out of her ear.

  But it isn’t his fault. He doesn’t know how happy I can make her.

  How happy I do make her.

  There’s no way for anyone to fucking know.

  “You really do want a life with her, don’t you?” Alec asks. His voice is softened at the edges. He’s a romantic. He always has been. He’s always asked me questions about her. He’s always asked me questions I haven’t even asked myself yet.

  But this isn’t one of them.

  I know the answer to this question.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I do. I do want it.”

  “And you want to give your kid what you didn’t have yourself.”

  I feel my fist clench up involuntarily and I close my eyes. He knows how to push my buttons. It’s not something I talk about a lot. It’s sure as fuck something I haven’t explained to Daisy. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. I don’t want her to know the whole story. If she did, she might judge me the way her father does.

  But he’s right. Alec’s absolutely fucking right.

  “You know there’s a reason why you’re my best friend,” I reply. “It’s because you know about all my demons and you’re my brother anyway.”

  He puts his hand on my shoulder and looks down at his daughter. He’s saying nothing, but he’s thanking me for what I did for him.

  But it wasn’t just for him. It was for me, too. I may not be innocent, but I’m not good, either. Now that I’ve served my time, though, I hope it’ll be enough for Daisy.

  She doesn’t know what makes me bad. All she knows is wh
at her parents have told her.

  Stay away from him, I’ve heard her father say to her. After my dad left, her dad’s voice went from caring and calm to nervous and slightly on edge.

  I couldn’t protect my mom from illness. I couldn’t protect my mom from what my father did to her. When he walked out on us, I should have been able to keep them together. But I couldn’t.

  But I won’t stay away from Daisy. I won’t do what he says. Not now.

  Alec takes a swig of his beer. He and I look like we could be actual brothers. Real blood, instead of just friends.

  “Hey,” he says. “How was it in there?”

  My chest tightens when I hear his question. I haven’t talked about this yet, to him or to anyone. Not really. I told him we were allowed to go outside when I was there, but I haven’t said anything about being inside those walls.

  “It was lonely,” I say. “But it wasn’t that bad. I’m lonely now, too.”

  He grunts and nods, taking another swig of his beer.

  Entering the cold white brick room wasn’t so bad the first time, and it wasn’t so bad the last time, either.

  After Dad left, entering my own fucking house was difficult. After Mom passed, my house didn’t feel like home anymore.

  So I guess that’s why having that foreign place be my home for a year wasn’t all that fucking difficult. At least I didn’t have to face the empty rooms of my own home. At least I didn’t have to remember the echo of voices. Every room was the same, anyway: empty.

  Part of the loneliness was my own choice, though. I could have written to her. I could have called. I could have asked Daisy to come see me. I wanted to, but for her sake, I wanted to let her come to me. I didn’t want to let her know I still wanted her. If she wanted to reach out to me on her own, she fucking could have.

  She didn’t, though. But all hope wasn’t lost. She didn’t give me back the ring before I went away. She could have. She had the opportunity.

  She gave it back when I got out. She gave it back after she saw me again.

  Was she waiting to give it back the whole time I was away?

  If she just wanted to be rid of it, why did she have it with her that night? Why’d she carry it with her like I used to?

  I saw the way she looked at me the night she put it back into my hand.

  I felt the way she warmed to my touch.

  And I heard my name on her lips he other night, filling the air around us. Saying yes as I took her.

  As I made her mine.

  Daisy

  Our town is land-locked. There are rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, but to get to the ocean you need to drive to the Long Island Sound off the coast of nearby Connecticut or the beach in Queens or Coney Island.

  Sometimes I forget that, though. Travis used to bring me to the lake at his friend’s summer home. The lake was big enough that if I didn’t let my eyes wander to the horizon, sometimes I’d forget I wasn’t at the ocean. If I looked just a little farther, though, I’d remember where I was. I’d remember I was at a lake surrounded by trees, and I’d be able to walk the perimeter of the whole lake in just a few hours if I wanted to.

  But I never wanted to. I wanted to stay by Travis’ side, and he’s what made my world feel bigger than it was. If I focused on him, I’d forget that I was just at a small lake. He’d make me feel like I was at the beach and the ocean was there right in front of me. If I could traverse the ocean, I could find myself in another country, another world. He made me believe I could go anywhere, do anything.

  When he left, my world became small again. He never reached out to me. I waited. Every day, I went to the mailbox at the end of our driveway and looked for a letter from him. I didn’t look for my name on an envelope, I just looked for his handwriting. I didn’t need to see my name scrawled on the thick white paper with a stamp in the corner. I just needed to see his messy chicken-scratch to know he was thinking of me.

  But the letters never came, and there was never a phone call.

  But I didn’t reach out to him, either. I could have, but I didn’t.

  I don’t know why things changed after his dad left. I don’t know why they had to change. My father started distancing our family from his. It made sense at the time, but now when I think back on it, it feels almost cruel. Maybe my dad made us into bad neighbors. I don’t know. I don’t know what he was thinking. He’d never tell me. All he’d tell me was that Travis wasn’t the kind of boy he wanted me to be with. I can understand why he’d say that now.

  He was never in any trouble, not really. But he wasn’t a pillar of the community, either. He drove fast and he smoked and he pulled his curtains closed tight in the morning sometimes. I don’t know what he was doing behind that window, but sometimes I’d watch. I wasn’t looking at anything, but I’d watch, waiting for something to happen.

  And he was best friends with Alec. Alec went to our school and lived in a nearby town, but it wasn’t as nice a place as ours. A lot of the homes were older, or worse, newer but foreclosed on. There were a lot of vacant properties. There still are.

  It never seemed fair that an accident of birth could trap someone and limit their opportunities. Still, my dad always said it wouldn’t be good for me to get mixed up with any of them. It’s why he wanted me to go to college in the city. It’s why he wanted me to have a career in law enforcement. I wanted the same career, but I thought of it a little differently from the way he did.

  I wrap my legs up under me and put my pen and notebook down on my nightstand. I’m trying to schedule my interns for a training session on how to enter parking tickets in our new software system, but I can’t focus. There are too many moving parts because of their conflicting schedules. It would be easier if we could just hire a couple of part-time assistants with reliable hours, but these kids should be given the chance to get some real-world experience.

  Still, this can wait for tomorrow. I can’t focus right now.

  I get up and pad over to my window.

  I thought seeing him again would break me. But it didn’t. I was already broken. There’s nowhere for me to go but up, now. There’s nothing for me to do now but heal.

  I still don’t understand why he did what he did.

  But he told me I couldn’t have saved him. Still, I don’t know if I believe that.

  My curtains are drawn wide open. I can’t see him because his curtains are closed tight. Maybe he isn’t home at all. I peek down to his driveway, where the fall leaves are beginning to pile up. His car is there, but he could be on one of his walks.

  I watch his window as his curtains start to sway. A corner peels back, and then I see him slowly open the heavy blue fabric.

  He smiles and waves. The boy next door is a criminal now, but I can’t help my heart from beating a little bit faster.

  If I believed my dad, I’d have thought he was always a criminal. Maybe he just hadn’t been caught yet.

  I feel my cheeks heat as I wave back softly. I want to cover myself up, grab my robe from my bed and throw it around myself, but I don’t. All I’m wearing is a little pair of shorts and a tank top, but I want him to see. I want him to see me, just as much as I want to see him.

  Swallowing thickly, I step forward toward the window sill.

  I can keep telling myself that he’s the same person he was a year ago, but when I see him across our yards now, I realize that he isn’t. The realization comes to me all at once, and strangely, it makes him seem all the more attractive. He says nothing, and just waves again. It seems silly, almost, the way he is waving to me. It’s the kind of thing you do when you’re just saying hello to someone for the first time. We said our hellos so long ago, and I don’t even remember the first time we met.

  His smile has changed. There’s a sadness there. His lips perk up at the corners, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Those blue eyes...they’re still the same. I can see them from here. They’re illuminated in the moonlight, and even though I can’t see the flecks of
gold laced through them, I know the glow is still there. I haven’t had a chance to gaze into his eyes and look for all the answers to my questions yet. I need to, though. I crave it. Just like I crave his body and his lips and his mind. And his words...all of him.

  I never stopped. I never stopped dreaming of him; I never stopped loving him. I know he didn’t stop thinking about me, either.

  But I still have those questions. I have the questions that make me mad, and angry, and made me feel crazy all at once. The questions that confuse and vex me, that I feel I have the answers to somewhere deep inside me.

  I could search his eyes for the answers. But his eyes are different now, and I don’t know if I can find the answers on my own anymore. I need his help. I need him to use his words to help me find what I’m looking for.

  My heart is racing, and when I realize it, my fingers come up to my lips. He smirks and looks down, and when he does, the muscles in his chest flex. He might not know exactly what I’m thinking, but he knows what I’m feeling.

  Hell, I don’t even know what I’m thinking. All I know is that I still want him.

  I still want him…

  He disappears from the window as he slowly walks off to the side, and I groan to myself as I hear my phone ding. I walk over to grab it from my bed, hoping for and dreading a text from him all at the same time.

  Let me take you for a drive, the text from Travis says.

  Where are you going to take me? I shoot back.

  I see him come back to the window. He has his backpack on and his army green jacket his father bought him from the army surplus supply store years ago before one of the hiking trips I went on with his family.

  He doesn’t reply to my text. Instead, he disappears again and I see the light inside his room flicker off.

  I still have so many questions I need answered. And he’s starting off by not even responding to my very simple question.

  Where is he going to take me?