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

by Anne Connor

  We make our way down to the hall to my office. I sit down at my desk and Molly pulls the door closed behind her, sitting in the chair across from mine.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. About what I really want. And I don’t want to be an editorial assistant at some paper. It’s a great opportunity, and I liked it, but I never took the time to slow down and reflect on what I wanted. Maybe in a year, after doing something else, I’ll decide it’s what I want. But it’s not what I want right now.”

  “Oh, really? Drew Anderson is right again?”

  “Hush. Don’t you want to know what I do want?”

  “Of course I do, baby.”

  “I want to write features. Human interest stories. Profiles for magazines, about people and places that are interesting to me.”

  “So you’re going to work at a magazine instead?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to get the scoop. I don’t want to work at a newspaper. I want something lasting, something that endures, something that takes a long time to build and a long time to read. Not something that is here one day and gone the next.”

  “Oh, that reminds me of something. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. I just need to grab something from my brother.”

  Molly

  We leave Drew’s office in his Mustang and take the tunnel into Queens and stay on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway until we are in my neighborhood. He drives fast and he moves fast, and it’s one of the many things I love about him. He balances me out. I’m so deliberate and careful, and it’s refreshing to have an alternate point of view to bounce things off of. Just thoughts, ideas.

  For example, it takes me forever to pick out the kind of ice cream I want. Drew just goes in and grabs the one that looks the best. He knows what he wants. It’s sort of a talent of his.

  “I thought you said you wanted to show me something,” I say as I stretch my legs out of the car when we finally park outside my building.

  “You thought correctly.”

  “Here, though? Why are we here?”

  “Because I want to show you something, like I said.”

  We amble along to the corner, taking our time. The sun is high in the sky, and I know that he has to get up to his mom’s house this afternoon to help her show the property to some prospective buyers.

  “See anything you like?” he says when we get to the corner.

  “I’m...not sure, Drew. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes. I do.” I turn to look into his eyes. “Of course I trust you.”

  “Finally! Now, follow me.”

  We turn the corner onto a narrow, tree-lined block. I recognize the block. He takes my hand and guides me a few more steps forward, until we’re outside the house we visited that night of our first date. The open house.

  “Oooh! Are we going to pretend to be that couple from Pennsylvania again?”

  It’s a little bit of a bittersweet feeling. It would be fun to pretend I’m someone else again, but I thought I was through with that. I’m ready to be the person I always wanted to be. The person I didn’t realize I was on my way to becoming. The person Drew Anderson, of all people, helped me to be.

  “Molly, if you’ll notice, there are no For Sale signs out here anymore.”

  He pulls out the box he made for his mom back in woodworking class, and opens it before I have a chance to respond.

  Inside are two keys.

  “Drew? What is this?”

  I take both of the keys out of the box and hold them. They’re cold and feel soothing in my warm palms. I press them into my skin until I feel the outlines sink coolly into my flesh. I can’t believe what’s happening.

  “Don’t get greedy. One of those is mine.”

  “You...what?”

  “Yes. Exactly what you’re thinking. But only half is yours. I swear, you and my brother both.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I sit down on the edge of the top step to steady myself.

  “What don’t you understand? This is for us, Molly. When I met you, I knew I liked you. And spending all this time with you? It’s been the best six weeks of my life. I’m not asking you to move in with me. Not exactly. There’s actually two units in here, and we have the option of keeping them together or separate. One of the units is for you, and one of them is for me. It’s fifty-fifty.”

  “Drew, I really just need one promise from you.”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  I try not to grin. I’m giddy with happiness and excitement. The possibility of me and Drew Anderson being together feels so new, and so right.

  “Drew, I need you to promise that if this is really going to be fifty-fifty, that you won’t automatically take the good half. We should negotiate that. Figure it out together.”

  “You have a deal, ma’am.”

  Epilogue

  Molly

  I take the For Sale sign down from the front of Drew’s mom’s house. With all of the upgrades Drew’s done, the house has sold in just a few weeks.

  Rich doesn’t think it’s the upgrades that sold the house. He thinks it’s the heart of the place that sold it, and that the upgrades were just an added bonus.

  I’m not sure who’s right, and it doesn’t matter. There’s room for all of it inside the house, and the new owners are a young family from the city, excited to move in and give their two sons a backyard and a place where their dogs can run around.

  “Honey, you don’t have to do that,” Drew says, jogging up next to me and taking the sign from me.

  “I want to. You already put so much work into fixing up the house. And selling it.”

  “Yeah,” Eric says as he exits the new screen door Drew installed. “I bet you never thought you’d use that broker’s license again, huh?”

  “Nah, I thought I’d left that all behind. Traded in my small-town deals for bigger fish. But it’s good that I had it.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real Renaissance man,” Eric quips.

  After we moved into the Brooklyn brownstone, Drew was able to rent out my former unit in the building to another young professional. It happens to be Mrs. Martinez’s granddaughter. I usually go over to Mrs. M.’s place on Wednesday nights for pasta with her and Anna, and afterward, we always catch some old sitcoms on TV.

  Drew always comes to pick me up and drive me home with him, even though I’m just traveling a few blocks. He likes to drive his car in Brooklyn. He says that it gives him an opportunity to slow down and take in the neighborhood on his way back from the weekly meetings he, Sarah, and Eric have every Wednesday night while I’m at Mrs. M.’s for dinner.

  Drew’s still learning the neighborhood, and even though owning a small residential building is a step backwards for him in a lot of ways, he loves being able to get his hands dirty and help out around the building.

  He’s even installed a garden out front, which some of the older tenants have adopted as their space, spending their time there, puttering around, playing chess for hours in the afternoon and tending to their flowerbeds.

  Drew told me it would be a way to upgrade the building without changing its essence.

  On Thursdays, I have my mom and dad over for dinner at my and Drew’s new place. They’re happy that I’ve quit my job at the paper, and even though they were always proud of me for setting goals and following through on them, they’re even happier now that I’ve decided to take a little bit of a risk and start a blog featuring stories about the people and places that make my neighborhood great.

  It’s not a full-time living for me yet, but now I don’t have to pay rent. And anyway, it’s growing, and I like working for myself and being my own boss. I’m hoping to use the blog as a jumping off point, and look for a job at a magazine in a few months.

  “Should we keep this For Sale sign as a souvenir and put it in our house, Mol?” Drew asks, holding it up with pride.

  “Yes, take it with you,” Drew’s mother says as she com
es down the stairs and takes in the sight of the house.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually doing it, Ma. You’re actually moving to Florida after all these years.”

  “I’m happy about it,” Rich says, putting an arm around Mrs. Anderson. “Our condos are going to be in the same development.”

  “It’s a good thing, too. If I ever need a light bulb changed, I’ll have my guy over in minutes.”

  “That’s what good neighbors do,” I say, beaming at Rich and Mrs. Anderson.

  “You’re a good neighbor, Mol,” Drew says, looking down at me.

  “You’re a good neighbor, too. I still can’t believe you bought the building,” I say.

  “I can believe it,” Drew’s mom says. “No matter what crazy thing Drew does, it’s never shocking. He has a proven track record of doing outrageous things, and making them seem natural.”

  “Like taking over the job at Rich’s building,” Eric chimes in. “I mean, I thought that he needed to get his head examined when he told me what he was doing. But it actually made sense.”

  “You know what else makes sense?” Drew asks, taking out the box he made in woodworking class, the box he presented the keys to the house to me in.

  He bends down and puts a knee on the ground. Thank goodness he’s wearing old jeans and not one of his suits.

  Wait, what the hell?

  I try to apply logic to the situation. In one second, I’m gaming out every eventuality in my head. I’m predicting what’s going to happen, and I’m trying to figure out if what is occurring before my eyes is real.

  That’s one of the things I learned in journalism school. How to be careful. How to be prepared. How to predict the degree to which a source will be reliable.

  Oh, crap. Who am I kidding? I was overly cautious and too careful long before I ever wanted to be a reporter.

  I feel like I already know what he’s going to do. Ever since he told me how important that little keepsake box was to him, I’ve imagined that he would propose to me some day, put a gorgeous ring inside it and ask me to be with him for good.

  I can’t apply logic to this. It defies all that. The who, what, where and when of the situation don’t matter, because everything is blotted out by how I feel. Everything hinges on the why.

  I guess I never thought my wish would materialize so quickly, but the way my heart is beating out of my chest makes me unable to dwell on how crazy it is and just feel my emotions - and how right it feels.

  “Drew, really?” I ask as he holds the box in both of his hands, his green eyes flashing, all of the people who are most important to him standing behind him.

  “Yes, really. It’s not like me to take a long time to make decisions. And I know that sometimes I should slow down and take everything in. And Molly,” he says, slowly standing up and slipping his hands around my waist, pulling me close, “that’s what I’ve learned from you. I always said that I wanted to go to New York City and make something of myself. It was my goal. And I reached it. But there was always something missing. It was heart. It was you. You’re kind. And pure. You give a shit about people. I know that. I’ve seen it. And I need more of that in my life. For good.”

  “I thought you had something that you wanted to ask me, Drew,” I say, weaving my fingers through his.

  “That’s right. I wanted to know if you’d like me to pick up a six-pack of beer from this really nice brewery that just opened up in town. Now that you like beer, and all.”

  Eric snorts and laughs from the porch behind Drew, as his mom slaps her hands down at her sides and rolls her eyes.

  “Ask the lady the question, Drew,” Rich says. “I thought you were this direct, to-the-point guy.”

  “Right,” he says, getting down on his knee again. “Molly, this is for you. Marry me. Be my better half.”

  “Not better. Fifty-fifty. And yes, Drew. I will. I’ve learned a thing or two from you, too, you know.”

  He gets up and swings me around in the air. When I finally touch down again, he parts my lips with his and slips the ring onto my finger mid-kiss, just like it’s belonged there all along.

  THE END

  About the Author

  I’m a New York City native with a deep and border-line obsessive love for pizza, wheat beer, and bad boys who are good guys.

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