How to Not Fall for the Guy Next Door: A Sweet and Humorous Romance

by Easton, Meg

  Paige nodded. “He had been so happy because he thought that meant he didn’t have to do the MRI he was dreading. All the information I had given him—diet, doctor, medication, everything—was wrong.”

  She shook her head at the memory, and they both chuckled.

  “It was funny, sure, and we all had a laugh, including the patient I accidentally sent home and the one I was supposed to discharge. But as I went home that night, I just kept thinking, what if it had been a patient who needed a lifesaving medication before we managed to get them back in? Or one of a million things that could’ve been just as devastating? The list of ways that could’ve gone so wrong kept piling up in my head, keeping me awake all night long.

  “The truth was, my sleep-deprived brain very well could have caused a major catastrophe. The thought sickened me. The next morning, I called my supervisor and let her know that I needed a longer leave, and I didn’t go back for another five weeks.”

  “I never knew that was the reason why you decided to stay home longer. I figured it was because of Emmie.”

  “That’s because I felt very damaged and that I didn’t deserve to be a nurse. I was embarrassed and I asked Garrett not to say anything to anyone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She looked over Ian’s shoulder and smiled, so he turned to see Garrett come out from the door leading behind the pin deck, holding his bowling ball over his head like it was a trophy and he had just won the Super Bowl.

  Then she met Ian’s eyes again. “Do you think I should’ve quit after that? That it was a mistake too big to ever be a nurse again?”

  “No!” Was she thinking about quitting? That felt so wrong. Being a nurse was so much of who Paige was. “You’re amazing at what you do. Garrett tells me all the time about how much your patients and the entire hospital staff love you. It would be a tragedy if you let that one choice define your entire career and made you quit.”

  She met his eyes for a long moment, and then said, “Right. Just like it would be a tragedy if you let one relationship define the rest of your life and keep you from developing a meaningful relationship with someone else.”

  Then she stood up to go congratulate her husband on his successful bowling ball retrieval, leaving Ian on the bench, feeling like he just got hit with a semi-truck of truth that he wasn’t sure he was ready to accept.

  10

  Addison

  Addison had just finished a four hour walk-in pantry job at a client’s house and headed back to the inn. The massive jobs were the most satisfying, but the quick ones here and there were fun and gave her the boost she needed to tackle the big things.

  And she had a massively big thing starting tomorrow. A client in a mansion in Lake Oswego wanted her to organize both the husband’s and wife’s office spaces, a craft room, four bedroom closets, a toy room, and a family room, and she had planned to spend a full eight days at their house. She had already met with the client to assess and make a list of all the organization products they would need to accomplish the monumental task. She had ordered them from her favorite supplier, but the shipment had been delayed and she had worried it wouldn’t arrive in time.

  But she had gotten a text that all the boxes had been delivered to the inn just before she left the client’s house. She couldn’t wait to open them and get everything organized to start on the house tomorrow morning. Not only was organizing the supplies one of her favorite parts, but getting everything ready before starting was essential to the job going as smoothly as a job that big could go. She even grabbed lunch at a drive-through in Gresham so she could get started on it the moment she walked in her front door. With as much stuff as she ordered, it would probably take every table in the dining room to get it all figured out.

  She saw Ian’s truck in his driveway even before she’d even come around the bend in the road enough to see the inn’s sign, and she smiled, even more happiness building up in her chest. Sure, the truck meant that he was home, which meant he was close to her home, but it wasn’t like she was going to see him. So she really just smiled over simply seeing his truck. Ridiculous. She shook her head as she turned off the road and onto the inn’s long driveway.

  The fact that she had a hard time finding a parking space in her own eight-car parking lot was her first clue that a lot was going on at the inn. Still, though, she wasn’t quite prepared for the chaos she found when she opened the front door.

  All the boxes of supplies—all twenty-eight of them—were stacked in the lobby. Two little kids dressed like monkeys, who looked like they were probably three or four, were pounding their plastic dinosaurs on the terrain of the multi-level box tower. She had no idea who the kids were, so she just waved and said hi. The loudest sounds were coming from the family room, so she walked to the left and poked her head in the double-wide doorway.

  Bex must be filming her Sterling Sisters segment, because all four of her sisters were seated in a semi-circle, each one talking before the previous one quite finished. All of her sisters’ kids who weren’t old enough to go to school yet were running around the room, laughing and squealing and screaming, like they were trying to prove that their moms and aunts could stay cool under chaos.

  Interestingly enough, that didn’t even explain who the kids playing dinosaur on her boxes were. Movement from the other side of the lobby in the doorway to the kitchen and dining area at the right caught her attention, so she left the chaos of the family room, stepped over all the boxes and little kids dressed as monkeys in the lobby, and headed to, hopefully, a more serene kitchen.

  The room was so full of people and things that it took a moment to make sense of what she was even seeing. Every single table in the room was filled with something, and three kids and half a dozen adults were all moving nonstop at the end of the room opposite the kitchen. From the kitchen, Peyton waved and flashed her bright smile, and shouted out, “I can’t stop stirring, but come over.”

  Bewildered, Addison headed back to the kitchen end of the room. Peyton held the arm out that wasn’t currently whisking some kind of sauce on the stove and gave her a hug. “A little crazy in here, huh? I am making a week’s worth of meals for a family of six, because tomorrow morning, the mom is going into the hospital to have a baby—child number five, if you can believe it. And if anyone needs a week’s worth of meals already prepared, it’s them, for sure.”

  A week’s worth of food for six people. With the kinds of meals that Peyton made, it made sense that every burner on the stove had a pot on it, and every bit of counter space was taken up with food, cutting boards, and bowls of things in progress. The big table that they ate on was filled with different-sized food containers, all with their lids neatly next to them, all of them labeled, some of them filled.

  “And Timini?”

  “Oh, remember that client who was doing the extravagant production of The Wizard of Oz for preschoolers? They wanted a photo shoot of the kids wearing the costumes. And, of course, there are a ton of last-minute alterations to make. She’s even had to sew an emergency lion’s tail. She’s so fast, it’s unbelievable. Anyway, that’s why her sewing machines and fabric is everywhere. That woman in the yellow shirt is the client, and the one in navy is the photographer. Obviously, I mean she is the one with the camera. The other three are moms of the kiddos.”

  Timini was trying to get four kids and a dog—Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto, who were all in the same shot—looking perfect, while the photographer and the client were trying to pose them, and the moms were trying to get them to stay doing what they were supposed to be doing and not be distracted by the dog yapping like crazy. She definitely had her hands full. With as introverted as Timini was, when this was all over, she was going to crash like a toddler on the car ride home from a playground after having been hopped up on sugar, sunshine, and friends for too long.

  “What about you?” Peyton asked as she moved the sauce off the burner and started cutting some vegetables. “What’s on your schedule fo
r the rest of the day?”

  Addison glanced the direction of the lobby, then raced forward and caught Dorothy’s basket that one of the kids from the photo shoot had thrown, saving the container of mashed potatoes on the table that it was heading for. She tossed it back to Timini, who seemed to notice her for the first time and called out, “Thank you!”

  Then she turned back to Peyton. “I need to open all those boxes in the lobby and get everything organized. Some pieces will need to be put together, and then they all need to be organized by which day I’ll need them.”

  Peyton grimaced. “At least the lobby’s still available.”

  Addison nodded. There was a free room upstairs where she planned to put them, but it wasn’t big enough to open and assemble all twenty-eight boxes of supplies and still have room to organize. So really, the lobby was her only option.

  When she got back to the lobby, the two monkeys were climbing on the boxes like, well, monkeys, and the boxes probably weren’t strong enough to hold them. So she convinced them that empty boxes were more fun for their dinosaurs, and gave them the cardboard boxes as she opened them. And she was right—the cardboard boxes were more fun. Fun enough that the half dozen she’d given over to the kids had drawn the half dozen kids from Bex’s family and the other four kids from the photo shoot.

  And, apparently, the lobby was also the “staging area” for the photo shoot, so they were soon joined by the moms of the photo shoot kids and a whole lot of noise. Everyone was trying to direct kids and adults alike, even though none of them could really tell what anyone was saying. And the louder they got, the louder Bex and her sisters in the other room seemed to get to be heard over the din.

  The lobby was so full that Addison didn’t even have space to open another box. She was worried if she started carrying things upstairs that all the chaos would follow her, so she just did her best to step over kids and boxes so she could get to all the items she had opened and move them to the top of the check-in counter, all to the tune of kids shouting and making dinosaur, monkey, lion, scarecrow, and tin man sounds, adults directing, and cardboard boxes shuffling. Then she stacked the unopened boxes in a tall, even stack, so they wouldn’t resemble a mountain terrain or steps, hopefully making them less enticing to climb on.

  She crossed her fingers that all the supplies in the boxes would be safe, and then she took the first opening in the crowd to escape down the hallway to the back door and went outside.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, most of the noise disappeared, and she collapsed against the stone wall of the inn, feeling like she just escaped from a stampede at the zoo. Maybe finding the bulk of her roommates at a Creative Women Entrepreneurs seminar hadn’t been the best idea ever.

  She glanced across the beautifully mowed grass to the always open gate separating the inn’s yard from Ian’s, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to go through that gate and see if he was in his shop. From what she’d noticed, he was gone to sites a good four days a week, and the weekdays that he was home, he was usually working in his shop.

  But no. That was a very bad idea. She wasn’t ready for a relationship, so she needed to keep her distance and focus on something else. Like the weeds in the flower beds that needed pulling, or the blackberry bushes that were encroaching along the back fence.

  Because somewhere along the way, she’d realized that she wasn’t ready to open herself to a new relationship for more reasons than just worrying it would be a rebound date. She was also not ready for the probable rejection. For letting a guy know that she liked him, only to be turned away. She had experienced it way too many times in the ten years she’d been dating, and it was painful every time.

  It struck her then that the reason she ultimately broke up with Matthew was for the same reason. He hadn’t rejected dating her or even becoming an item. His rejection was more subtle, so she hadn’t recognized it. But he had rejected her every time she wanted to do anything that would progress their relationship into something less casual. Or do something outside of their usual takeout Tuesdays and Saturday afternoon hike or bike ride followed by a movie. He rejected her wanting to build a life with him. Or spending more time together, talking about life goals together, or even just talking more.

  Then, while eating Tuesday takeout one day, instead of talking about what they were going to do Saturday like they always did, she had said she needed to buy a new coffee table, and asked if he wanted to go shopping with her on Thursday. A Thursday, of all days. Apparently, either coffee tables or Thursdays were Matthew’s kryptonite, and he said they were going too fast, that he wasn’t ready, and that he didn’t know when he ever would be. After just over two years of dating, seeing her a third time in a single week to shop for a coffee table was moving things too quickly.

  So in the end, it was the constant rejection that made her break things off with him. And now, standing in her backyard, she realized she wasn’t ready to face that again. Weeds and blackberry bushes were definitely the better option. She marched right over to some nearby weeds and yanked them out just to prove her point. The goal right now was to figure out what she wanted in life and if moving to Quicksand and starting her own business was the right thing to do.

  But as she pulled more and more weeds, she kept seeing Ian’s shop out of the corner of her eye, and she started to wonder what it looked like inside.

  And, okay, maybe what he looked like as he worked inside.

  He was probably wearing a t-shirt, and those muscles she saw when he was mowing were probably straining his t-shirt as he worked.

  And with as much care as he seemed to put into everything she had witnessed him do, he was probably making beautiful things that were practically works of art made of wood. And his eyes were probably there, looking amused, and waiting to draw her in and make her forget how to form sentences.

  Before she even realized what was happening, she was through the gate separating their yards and halfway to his shed. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stop in and see him. After all, she hadn’t been stalking Matthew on social media, hadn’t thought of what he might think of her dating again, and hadn’t hoped he’d send her a text, letting her know how he was doing. So she was good. No rebound issues at all.

  She heard sounds of a saw for a moment before it shut off, so she raised her hand to knock on the door, imagining the moment of him opening it, a smile spread across that beautiful face, and her heart practically floated.

  Then she pictured what his face would look like if he didn’t want to see her, and her heart felt like fragile glass that was plummeting toward the ground, about to shatter, and she changed her mind. This really was a very bad idea. She turned around without knocking and headed straight for the gate and an escape back into her own yard.

  11

  Ian

  Ian had just shut off his band saw and was brushing the sawdust off a beautiful piece of oak when he thought he heard something. A quiet knock? Just footsteps? He didn’t think so. Maybe his subconscious picked up on a shadow or something, because he suddenly felt like someone was at his shop door. It was probably nothing, but he went to the door anyway.

  When he opened it, he saw Addi walking away, and she was almost to the gate to her yard. “Addi!” She turned around, and from the blush on her cheeks, he guessed that maybe she had been at his door, but had left without knocking. “Want to come in?”

  She glanced toward her house before looking back his direction. So she was clearly still hesitating. But she had walked all the way to his shed, so at least part of her wanted to come in. And a big part of him really wanted her to. He pushed the door open all the way so if that part won out, she’d have a clear path.

  She shook her head and chuckled as she walked toward him. “You, Ian, must have supersonic hearing. I swear I hadn’t made a sound coming up to your door.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? It’s my superpower.” It wasn’t his superpower. Especially because all the noise from the saw he had just been runni
ng was still making his ears ring. But claiming that was better than claiming what might’ve actually happened—that he was so in tune with her that he could practically sense her nearness.

  “Welcome to my shop,” he said as he motioned to it all. Addi walked slowly around the space, looking at everything as she went, her eyes seeming to fall on each thing without missing any. He was suddenly dying to know what thoughts were going through her head.

  “It’s different than your grandpa’s shop. More... airy.”

  Ian nodded. “I had to tear it down and rebuild before I could move all my equipment here—it wasn’t up to code anymore. That wall back there, though, is finished with all the wood from his shop, and everything hanging on it is from my grandpa.” It was the best part of the space. His grandpa had taught him so much every summer that the man deserved an entire wall as a shrine. By the way Addi smiled while taking in all the details, she agreed.

  She asked for a tour, so he showed her everything. He figured she was just asking to be polite, but when she asked more questions about everything, he started telling her about the name of every saw, sander, and machine.

  “I never knew you were interested in this kind of stuff.”

  She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, and it made him notice just how great her shoulders were.

  “Back in Amarillo, I designed storage solutions, and I worked with manufacturing pretty closely. We mostly made our pieces out of plastics—the kinds of things you’d find at Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond, so it was basically nothing at all like what you do here. It’s just interesting to see the difference between that and what you use for woodworking.” She ran her fingers along the piece of wood he’d cut moments before she showed up at his door. “Your finished product is a million times prettier. What are you making with this?”