The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Small Town Romance (Soulmates Series Book 3)

by Hazel Kelly

  “I know.” She dropped her head and stared at her pale hands. “And I have to live with that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You still don’t get it. I’m the one that has to live with it. Not you. Me. Every day.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? And all this time you could’ve come after me?”

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you try harder?”

  “I was doing the best that I could.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “That’s bullshit. I don’t care if you were a young mother. My whole childhood was a disaster. Don’t you get that?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you were expecting me to say, but I can’t pretend I think it’s okay for you to show up out of nowhere and act like you didn’t fuck everything up.”

  “I know I fucked everything up,” she said, her hands shaking. “And I’m sorry. There are no words that can express how sorry I am. All I can do now is hope you never know the kind of sorrow I feel over the choices I made.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “And if you want to hear that I feel bad, rest assured I do. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since you walked out that I haven’t felt bad.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “And not just because of Ricky, who you were right about. Or the booze. Or the things you had to see and do because I was your mother. I know most of it was stuff you never should’ve been exposed to, much less at that age.”

  I sat back and let the understatement wash over me.

  “But all I can do is apologize and tell you I’m doing my best to get better.”

  I let my head fall to one side.

  “And I’m well aware that it won’t be easy, that it will be a long time before you trust me again, a long time before I can say anything nice to you and have you believe it-”

  “Good.”

  “And if you decide the best thing for you is to never see me again, I’ll respect that,” she said. “Just like you respected my right to not see you-”

  “I never respected your right to not see me. I thought you didn’t know where I was.”

  “Fine. Add that to my list of transgressions,” she said. “The point is, I just want you to be happy and healthy and loved, and I don’t want you to think I ever wished anything but those things for you.”

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what to say, tried to guess what I should do-

  “Have you finally found happiness with that boy next door?”

  I dropped my hands and fixed my eyes on her. “He’s not a boy. And you don’t get to know about him.”

  “I already know about him. I’ve known about him since the beginning.”

  “Well you don’t get to know any more. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, which makes the two of you oil and water.”

  “It sounds like he really loves you,” she said. “And why wouldn’t he? You’re a beautiful young woman.”

  “I forgive you, okay. Isn’t that what you want? I forgive you,” I said, standing up. “But you don’t get to pretend you know me, you don’t get to pretend you love me, and you don’t get to be part of my life.”

  She stood up.

  “I’m glad you’re better, but I didn’t need you before you showed up yesterday, and I don’t need you now.” I opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  She leaned against the doorframe, her face strangely sad and happy at the same time. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  And as I walked away, I could feel her eyes on me.

  But I didn’t look back.

  Chapter 32: Connor

  I was worried about her all morning, but it was hectic at the office, and I couldn’t even grab a few minutes to check on her.

  Plus, I didn’t want to smother her. She would come to me when she was ready to talk.

  In the meantime, I focused on treating a spaniel who’d ingested rat poison, giving some immunizations to a litter of puppies, cutting the balls off a St. Bernard, and removing a cancerous tumor from a rescue dog.

  Needless to say, I was plenty distracted.

  But when the phone rang, I lunged for it. “Hello.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Dave said. “You got fifteen minutes to share some burritos? I got an extra with my coupon card and-”

  “Sure,” I said. “Swing by the office.”

  As soon as he hung up, I texted Laney. “How did things go?”

  She responded a few minutes later. “She’s addicted to ice chips and her ex is in prison. Also, she’s sorry.”

  “Well that’s something.”

  “Something is right,” she texted.

  “You want to talk?”

  “Later,” she said. “I have to go tear Helly a new one and then apologize.”

  “Should I even ask?”

  “No.”

  “How about I run you a bath after work?” I typed.

  “A bath full of wine?”

  “I was thinking rose petals, but wine is easier and cheaper.”

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll make dinner.”

  “Only if you’re up for it.”

  “It’s going to be Frosted Flakes,” she said. “Don’t get excited.”

  “Too late. Also, you’re the best roommate ever.”

  “Prove it to me with your dick later, and I might think you mean it.”

  My thumb sped around the screen. “There you go again being such a good roommate.”

  “Don’t forget the wine.”

  I was relieved to see she was feeling a bit better, or at least, more animated than the numb woman I’d carried from the couch to the bed last night. I just hoped her jokes were proof of progress and not a side effect of her feeling increasingly fucked in the head.

  Though my gut told me it was probably both.

  After I made sure there were no more animals that needed violated, I met Dave at the picnic table in the field beside my office.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I said as I sat down across from him. “I was genuinely having one of those days when I was in danger of forgetting to eat entirely.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea what that’s like. I plan all my days around food.”

  “Unless the gangs get on top of you.”

  “Right,” he said, sliding a wrapped burrito towards me. “So what’s new?”

  “I asked Laney to move in with me.”

  “No, seriously,” he said, unwrapping his lunch.

  “Seriously.”

  His face dropped. “Did you really?”

  I nodded and took a bite.

  “Why the hell would you do that?” he asked, pulling two cans of soda from the takeout bag.

  “Because I love her, man. And I didn’t want the woman I love living next door with her voodoo obsessed grandma when she could be relaxing at my place and making it feel like a home.”

  “Not smart.”

  “Oh please,” I said. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t see this coming.”

  He fixed his eyes on me. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

  “I don’t get why you’re so resistant to me letting her back into my life? Is it that you can’t bear the thought of sharing me? Are you jealous?”

  “That’s it,” he said, popping his Coke open. “I’m jealous.”

  “No, really. What’s your deal?”

  “My deal is that you can’t trust her.”

  “Of course I can.”

  “How can you be so sure?” he asked. “Love and trust aren’t the same thing, ya know.”

  “But you can’t have one without the other.”

  He cocked his head. “You can apparently.”

  “I trust her.”

  “Are you telling me that you’re one hundred percent confident that she’s not going to break your heart again?”

  “I’m not saying that,” I said. “But only because relationships don’t work like tha
t. Only sociopaths are ever one hundred percent confident about what other people are liable to do.”

  “Whatever. Are you at least sure she loves you?” he asked. “That you’re not just convenient for her? That you aren’t hearing what you want to hear and ignoring the rest?”

  “Did you come here to piss me off?”

  “No,” he said. “I came here to bring you a burrito. Because I care.”

  “Right.”

  “But you reminded me about something Amber said the other day-”

  “Which was?”

  “She thinks Laney needs to learn to love herself,” he said, taking a big bite.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He swallowed. “She said you can’t love someone else until you love yourself, and she thinks Laney still has some demons.”

  I clenched my jaw. “First of all, no one loves themselves as much as your wife loves herself.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So it’s ridiculous to hold other people to that standard.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My wife is not vain.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Your wife has been the reigning Miss Vanity for the last ten years.”

  “That’s not even a thing.”

  “Only because it would be boring for everyone else.”

  His mouth fell open.

  “Second of all, I’m not going to second guess my relationship based on a bunch of shit Amber read on a mommy blog.”

  “You don’t know that’s where the idea came from.”

  I craned my neck forward. “I know it wasn’t from a book.”

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “I’m saying I don’t care if you get it, and I don’t need your support.”

  He tightened his grip on his soda.

  “All I want is for you to be happy for me because I’m doing well,” I said. “But if you can’t find it in your cholesterol clogged heart to do that for your best friend, then I can go without.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my cholesterol.”

  “Whatever,” I said, shaking my head. “In the beginning, I understood you looking out for me, but now that my relationship has clearly become some weird topic of discussion for you and Amber, I don’t really appreciate it anymore.”

  “Hey,” he said. “That’s not fair. We’ve been really welcoming to Laney.”

  “Have you been, though? Or have you only invited us to stuff because it gives you something to gossip about? Oh look at poor Connor walking into the black widow’s web.” I pressed my hands against the table. “You don’t even fucking know her, okay?”

  “I know her enough to know you should’ve thought twice before inviting her into your home.”

  I cocked my head. “If you think I didn’t think about it more than twice, you’re an idiot.”

  “I didn’t come here to piss you off, remember?”

  “Well you have,” I said, standing up and lifting my legs over the picnic bench. “You’re supposed to be happy for me. You’re supposed to be supportive. Like I’ve been of you since you were pissing yourself at sleepovers.”

  “That only happened twice.”

  “Once is all it takes to get a reputation.”

  “Hey- I have been there for you,” he said, standing up and resting his knuckles on the table. “I’m the one that was there to pick up the pieces the first time, remember?”

  I shook my hands in front of me. “Don’t you get it? I don’t care if she breaks my heart again. Loving her is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

  He sighed.

  “If she spent the rest of her life breaking my heart, I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “And I don’t give a shit if she has demons. All I care about is being someone she can count on.”

  He sat down and put his head in his hands.

  “And that’s my business,” I said. “So you can keep your opinions to yourself from now on.”

  “Fine,” he said, lifting a hand towards me without lifting his face. “I will.”

  “Good. And for the record, Dave, I’m the one that has to forgive her for what happened before. Not you. Me. And I do. So let it go. It’s in the past. And she’s my future,” I said, walking off. “Whether you like it or not.”

  Chapter 33: Laney

  The incense hit me like a wall when I opened the door.

  “Helly?” I said, coughing.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” she called.

  I made my way through the thick smoke and closed the sitting room door behind me.

  “What the heck?” I said. “You can’t even breathe in there.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to breathe in there if I didn’t cast out the bad vibes either.”

  I furrowed my brow. “The bad vibes?”

  She turned her back to me and filled the kettle in the sink. “Some woman came in yesterday, cussed everyone out of it, and left an invisible blanket of nastiness over everything, which dulled my crystals and made the cushions suck like leeches.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She glanced at me disapprovingly as she set the kettle on the stove, turning the knob until the clicking sound of the gas stopped.

  “I’m not proud of the way I spoke to you.”

  She shook her head. “And to think I’d been bragging to your mother about what a fine young lady you’d turned into before you arrived.”

  “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said. “But only because I’m not in the mood to treat another room with incense right now.”

  I sighed and rested my hands on one of the kitchen chairs. “Don’t you think you owe me an apology, too?”

  She craned her neck back. “For what?”

  “For secretly keeping in touch with my mom all this time and not telling me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if you wanted to know.”

  “That’s irrelevant. I had a right to know.”

  She folded her arms and leaned a hip against the counter. “Your right was to have a safe place to grow up, and that’s exactly what you got from me.”

  “And before?” I pulled the chair out and sat down. “Why didn’t you come get me earlier? When you knew how bad things were?”

  “I tried,” she said. “When you were really little, I tried. But your mom wouldn’t accept help, and she was even less interested in hearing reason.”

  “You could’ve made her get help.”

  She cocked her head. “Don’t be naïve, Laney. You can’t make people do things before they’re ready. You of all people should know that.”

  I tilted an ear towards her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you know the heartache that comes to people who want their loved ones to be ready for things they aren’t.”

  I swallowed.

  She sighed. “Anyway, I tried. But it’s hard to stand by and watch your own child destroy themselves through addiction. And when you’re grandfather fell ill, I couldn’t split my energy anymore.”

  “How long have you been telling her about me?” I asked, crossing my legs.

  “Since you first came here.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Did she ever write back?”

  She hugged herself and dropped her eyes for a moment before lifting them again. “Only when she moved, and then it would only be to inform me of her new address so I would keep telling her how you were doing.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “She’s been writing more since rehab, though.”

  “About what?”

  “Mostly about the things she had to do there and about the memories that came back to her once her mind began to clear. She also apologized for some things that happened before you were born.”

  “How much does she know?” I asked as the kettle started whistling.

  “About you?” she asked, turning off the burner.

  I nodded.

/>   “Tea?”

  “Please,” I said. “Blackcurrant, if you have it.”

  She made two teas and brought them over to the table, setting them on the stone coasters I’d laid out.

  “Well?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “I never shared anything you told me in confidence,” she said, bobbing her tea bag. “I never shared your feelings or anything. I only told her facts, really.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how your grades were and what you wore for Halloween and prom. And I might have told her about how mouthy you were the summer I suspected you lost your virginity.”

  “Grandma!”

  She shrugged. “What? Your mother did the same thing. I think a lot of women get bolder once that’s happened. I did.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  “It’s true,” she said. “I figured if I was old enough to invite a penis into my vagina, I didn’t have to take any shit from anyone anymore.”

  I stared at the table. “I’m going to pretend you never said that.”

  “Fine. And I’ll pretend you never drew the same conclusion.”

  I groaned and leaned back in my chair. “How could you tell her those things when I didn’t even know if she was alive?”

  “Because you didn’t want to know,” she said. “You never even mentioned her.”

  “Still.”

  “You were becoming a woman, Laney. That’s hard enough without having to take on your mom’s troubles.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  She groaned. “In that case, I wish I’d mentioned it when you were a teenager. Back then it would’ve been a treat for you to agree with me on anything.”

  “I apologize.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “That’s how I knew I was doing an okay job with you.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I didn’t want you to be a yes woman. I wanted you to have spirit, convictions, and an opinion. You didn’t always make it easy for me, but I knew you were only being bold because you were growing up and finding your own way.”

  “You still could’ve told me recently,” I said. “Now that my pathetic excuse for teenage rebellion is out of my system.”

  She dropped her chin. “Can I be honest with you, honey?”