The Player Next Door: A Novel

by K. A. Tucker

  “You too.” He disappears into his house.

  For the first time since I moved in, I am deliriously happy that Shane Beckett is my next-door neighbor.

  Twenty-One

  I study myself in the full-length mirror as the nervous flutter that’s been swirling in my stomach since this morning stirs again. This outfit might be too upscale for the Patty Shack. It’s a casual split dress—a soft cotton-spandex blend in army green with short sleeves and a round collar—but coupled with jewelry and wedge heels, it could easily work at a ritzy downtown restaurant. Maybe jeans would be more suitable for the greasy diner. But I want to look good. Desirable.

  I shiver as déjà vu washes over me. I’ve lived this moment before. In a different home, as a different person—when I was seventeen and getting ready for my first date with Shane. I didn’t know him at all then. I know him now.

  At least, I hope I do.

  A sharp knock sounds on my front door, ending any opportunity left to test another ensemble.

  My body is tense with a mixture of emotions—excitement, nervousness, worry, uncertainty—as I head downstairs, grabbing my purse and keys along the way.

  The sight of Shane on my doorstep, in dark-wash jeans and a black, long-sleeve cotton shirt that hugs his powerful shoulders, makes my body hum with anticipation. I haven’t seen him since Sunday night—less than forty-eight hours—and yet somehow that has felt like three times as long.

  My smile is genuine and broad. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” One appreciative rake of his eyes tells me I chose well with this dress. “You look really nice.”

  “Thank you.” We both linger. Are we supposed to kiss? Have we reached that point already where we kiss at the beginning of a date? I mean, he had his face buried between my legs three days ago. I feel like we’ve skipped a few steps.

  I want to kiss him.

  He’s staring at my lips, and I’m sure the urge is mutual.

  He inhales sharply, as if catching himself, and takes a step back. “Ready?”

  Disappointment pricks me—why am I waiting for him to make the first move?—as I pull my door shut and lock it. “Surprised you didn’t use a key this time.” I hid the spare beneath a rocking chair, in case I ever lock myself out.

  “I told you I only had the one.” He pauses. “I can take it back, if you want.”

  “I’m not a senior citizen with balance issues, and you haven’t earned the privilege of having a key to my house yet.”

  “Yet …” He bites his bottom lip, taking in my face, my hair, my dress. “You look really good tonight.”

  I smile. “You already said that.”

  “Did I?” He swallows hard. “We should probably get out of here, then.”

  “Before we can’t?”

  “Something like that.” When his eyes lifts to meet mine again and I see how they’ve darkened, I know he’s not kidding.

  A part of me—who the hell am I kidding, all of me—would like to forget dinner and head back upstairs to pick up where we left off.

  With a deep exhale, Shane takes another step back. And another. He holds out his hand. “Come on.”

  “How can you not remember Philpott’s tests? They were brutal. Dean and Steve nearly got kicked off the team because of their grades in his class.” Shane glowers between a bite of a french fry. “His multiple-choice questions were impossible. There’d be six options and at least one trick question buried in there. You couldn’t guess your way to a right answer.”

  “Huh. Maybe that’s why I don’t really remember. I didn’t have to guess. I knew the answers.” I take a long, obnoxious slurp of my vanilla shake.

  Shane chuckles. “Oh, that’s right, you were a big nerd, weren’t you?”

  “No. I was just smarter than you football meatheads,” I say with a wink. I was a big nerd—hello, mathlete champion, two years in a row. I lean back in the booth and take in the interior of the Patty Shack for the hundredth time. The nostalgia of being here on a date with Shane again hasn’t faded yet. It probably helps that the owners haven’t changed a thing, aside from perhaps a fresh coat of Pepto-Bismol-pink paint on the walls. The same teal-blue stools line the black-and-white-checkered bar, the same vibrant metal Coke and state map signs dressing the walls, the same red-and-white-striped, faux-leather booths welcome diners. Booths that are still a touch too narrow, giving patrons little legroom. I never appreciated how wild and vibrant the colors in this place were back then.

  Mom always loved a good greasy breakfast after a night of drinking. We came here dozens of times while I was growing up. But it was just a fun, fifties-style diner to grab a burger or a cheap plate of eggs and bacon and drop a few quarters into the old-time jukebox in the corner.

  Then Shane and I had our first date, and everything changed. The memories tied to the Patty Shack changed. After we broke up, I couldn’t hear the chime of the door without thinking of him. And then I spotted Shane and Penelope sitting in a booth, hand in hand, and I stopped coming here.

  “What’s so funny?” Shane asks, and I realize I’m smiling.

  “Nothing. Just …” It’s easy to forget how consuming and volatile emotions can be at that age. When I was in the midst of that heartbreak, I couldn’t think of anything but Shane; I couldn’t imagine how I would ever move on. Looking back, it seems so melodramatic now. But my world was smaller, my experiences limited. “Didn’t we sit somewhere around here, that first night?” I ask casually.

  “It was this booth. Why do you think I picked it?”

  I know it was this booth, but I’m surprised he remembers.

  He smiles through a sip of his Coke. “I told you, I remember a lot from that summer.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like …” His beautiful eyes drag over the diner’s tacky metal pendant light as he searches his thoughts. “That night, you didn’t know there was bacon on your burger until you bit into it and you looked like you were going to puke. Or cry.”

  I laugh through a wince. “My anti-pork phase.” I’d watched a late-night documentary on pig slaughterhouses six months before that and had sworn off all support of the industry. “I’m over that.”

  “I figured, given the full frying pan of it in your house that weekend.”

  “That was more Justine’s doing.” She could be a bacon spokesperson for the amount of it she eats. “What else do you remember?”

  “You loved Dr. Pepper.”

  “Still do, but I’ve cut out soda.” I wave the glass of water to prove my point.

  His gaze flickers to my fingers with the act. “You loved wearing black nail polish but you’d always pick at it.”

  I groan, absently fumbling with my freshly manicured nails that I did myself last night. “Light as a Feather” the color is called—white, but with a gray undertone.

  “And you get insanely competitive when you play Jenga.”

  He’s referring to that night at Phil Moaz’s house, when it was pouring rain outside and someone had the bright idea to get into the games cupboard. “What was the point? They were all so drunk, they couldn’t stack the blocks right to start,” I declare with indignation, earning his laugh.

  I like reminiscing with Shane about that summer, now that bitterness over the aftermath isn’t invading my every thought.

  Does that mean I’m finally letting go?

  He glances around us, checking the other tables. It’s Tuesday night—only three are occupied and none of them nearby. Still, he lowers his voice. “And I remember that cute little dress you were wearing on our first date.”

  I frown, vaguely recalling the casual pale-pink floral sundress I’d settled on. It seemed perfect for the summer. “What about it?”

  He reaches across the table and steals a fry from my plate, having finished his. “The material was so thin, I could see your panties through it.”

  I gasp. “You could not!”

  “Yeah, I could.” He grins devilishly. “They were dark. Navy blue or black, I c
ouldn’t tell, but I made a bet with myself that they were black. I was hoping to find out.”

  I can’t remember what color panties I was wearing that night. He could be lying. Something tells me he isn’t, though. “So, you’re telling me you were a pervert back then?”

  “Then … now …” His grin widens. Beneath the table where his legs stretch out, his knee rubs against mine.

  The simple contact sends a shiver running through my entire body. “And there you were, pretending you were the perfect gentleman.”

  He shrugs. “Hey, I didn’t expect anything, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hoping for it.”

  I grab one more fry before I push my plate aside, my stomach full. “You never did find out.”

  “No, I did not.” He laughs. “First time I’d gotten nothing more than a chaste good-night kiss since I was fifteen.”

  “Were you disappointed?” I ask somberly.

  “Not for a second. It gave me something to look forward to.” He wipes his face with his napkin and, finished with eating, folds his hands on the table in front of him.

  I feel the impulse to reach across and collect his hands in mine. But I remind myself that we’re two old friends out for dinner, catching up on life. Friends don’t hold hands.

  The server, a cute teenage girl with a fresh face and a long, brown ponytail, comes to collect our dishes. “Anything else?” she asks, her chocolate brown eyes lingering on Shane. She can’t be more than seventeen. Does thirty-year-old Shane have as much appeal for a girl her age as the seventeen-year-old version did?

  He gives her a perfunctory, polite smile. “Yes, the lady would like an ice-cream cone. Vanilla, please.” When my mouth opens to cancel that order, he gives me a look. “Don’t even try it. You love the ice cream here.”

  I eye my emptied milkshake. I do love it. It’s creamier than most.

  And if Shane thought he could throw around all these casual little tie-ins from our first date to make me swoon … he was right.

  “So, yes?” The server lingers for two beats and, when she is sure the order won’t be changed, she trots off.

  “This is nice, huh?” He rubs his triceps as his focus wanders.

  I peel my admiring gaze from the veins—even his veins are attractive—along his forearms and follow his line of sight to the bulletin board and the familiar orange flyer that takes prominent space in the center.

  “So, ‘Hunky Heroes for a Night,’ huh?” I tease.

  He chuckles. “It seems it’s turned into part of the job description.”

  “Just like posing half-naked for a calendar?”

  That get a sly smile in response. “What am I supposed to say? It’s for charity.”

  “I guess. Especially when you’re the big-ticket item.”

  His eyebrow arches.

  “Becca told me.”

  He nods, as if that makes sense. I’m beginning to think Becca might be a known source of gossip around town. “So, how many of these auctions have you been a part of now?”

  He leans back in his seat, frowning in thought. “Five, I think?”

  “Just a regular American gigolo, then.”

  “Stop.” But he’s laughing as he gives me another soft knee bump. This time, I return the affectionate nudge, stretching my leg out to press against his inner thigh.

  A muscle in his jaw ticks.

  I stifle the smile threatening to escape. I forgot how much I enjoyed teasing him. “Anything weird happen on those auction dates?”

  He lets out the softest sigh, as if to compose himself. “Nah. It’s not like that. Luigi ran it until he died. Now Route Sixty-Six hosts. Either way, it’s the same every year. I pick up the winner and we go to dinner at the restaurant. One year, the winner didn’t even want dinner. She was this seventy-six-year-old grandma who just liked the rush of winning an auction and was happy to donate to charity. I don’t think anyone bids with the hope of getting more than dinner.”

  “You should maybe ask your chief about that,” I murmur through a sip of my water.

  “Who? Cassidy?” Shane frowns curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “My mother won him last year.” I give Shane a meaningful look.

  He shakes his head and laughs. “Cassidy and your mom did not hook up that night.”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “I told you. That’s all an act with her. She strings men along but she doesn’t actually go home with them.”

  “Yeah, I shared an apartment with her for eighteen years and I beg to differ.”

  “Maybe she used to,” he concedes. “But now it’s a game for her. And Cassidy isn’t that kind of guy.”

  The way my mom lays it on? “Please. You’re all ‘that kind of guy.’”

  “I’m not that,” he says evenly. When he meets my doubtful gaze, he amends more softly, “Not anymore. People fuck up but they also change. It’s not fair to hold them to one standard forever when they’re trying to be better. And listen, I get that Dottie’s never going to win any Mother of the Year awards and why you have a skewed view of men, but we’re not all like that. At least, some of us try not to be.”

  This conversation has gone from flirtatious to bordering on a therapy session, one delivered in lecture form by a father figure.

  “You’re right. People can change. They do change. I’m sorry.”

  He inhales and then, after a moment, nods as if accepting my apology.

  “So …” I draw circles over the table’s smooth surface as I search for a way back to our earlier conversation. “Nothing weird at the auctions, then.”

  He scratches his jaw in thought. “Well, there was that one time the winner asked me to be the entertainment at her daughter’s bachelorette party.”

  My eyebrows pop. “And, by entertainment, you mean …”

  “Let’s just say she was hoping I’d show up wearing my firefighter gear and leave without it on.”

  “This mom tried to hire a stripper for her daughter through a charity event?” My mouth gapes. Though, a part of me can’t blame her. I’ve been to more than one bachelorette party with male strippers, and none of them were appealing. Apparently, those of Chippendales quality are outrageously expensive. To hire a guy who looks like Shane, whether he has any skill in the actual art of stripping, would require a huge budget that the average bridesmaid doesn’t have.

  “She offered me extra cash on the side too,” he adds with a shrug.

  I wait a few beats until I finally have to ask, “Did you do it?” There’s accusation in my tone.

  “Fuck, no!” he scoffs, laughing. “It’s not my thing.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. The calendar and auction, I can maybe get on board with, because it’s for charity. But having a boyfriend who got paid to get naked for hordes of thirsty women …

  A boyfriend. That’s the first time I’ve thought of Shane in that context in so many years. We’re not there yet. We’re just seeing each other for now, I guess? And, if we’re taking this slow and keeping it a secret, when will we venture firmly into official label territory?

  “Dean was busting my balls to do it, though,” Shane says.

  “I’m sure they would have been more than happy to have him sub for you.”

  Shane’s brow knits together.

  Right. I hit on Dean in front of him. “I have zero interest in him, by the way,” I assure Shane as I silently admonish myself. Tonight’s the night for sticking my foot in my mouth, apparently.

  Thankfully, the server arrives and hands me my cone, and I take the opportunity to steer away from that topic. “So, do you like doing the auction?”

  He waves a hand absently. “I don’t not like doing it.”

  Shane’s gaze is on me as I savor the first taste. I haven’t forgotten his admission, about the ice-cream cone and the restroom.

  He gives his head an almost indiscernible shake before continuing. “Like I said, it’s for a good cause and if I can help that way, why not? We raise so
much money. I love going out to buy all the gifts and delivering them to the kids in the hospital around Christmas. Seeing them smile makes it worth it …” His voice trails. “You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”

  My tongue pauses midswirl around the top of my ice-cream cone. I wasn’t, actually. I was enthralled listening to the white knight highlight his good deeds. But now that he’s drawn my attention, now that I see the way his eyes track my tongue and how his lips have parted, I’m acutely aware of my teasing. “Doing what?” I take another long, slow lick around the top. I think about doing the same to a specific body part of Shane’s, and my throat goes dry.

  Now, I know exactly what I’m doing.

  So does Shane. “Glad to see you’re enjoying it so much,” he says, clearing his throat.

  “I would enjoy it. I mean … I am.” I offer him a sly grin.

  He curses under his breath as he slides out of our booth. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask innocently.

  His smirk is half humor, half resignation. “That soda went right through me.”

  “You’re going to the restroom again?” I holler after him, obnoxiously loud. “But you just went!”

  He shoots a warning glance over his shoulder and I respond with another lick of my cone that makes his jaw tense. Taunting him is too much fun.

  My eyes are glued to him as he strolls to the back of the restaurant, admiring his broad shoulders, his ass, his stride, his everything.

  When I turn back, Madame Bott is standing over me.

  “Jesus!” I yelp, jolting in my seat from shock. My ice-cream cone topples out of my hand and lands on the table’s smooth surface.

  “Hello, Scarlet,” she says in that reedy voice.

  “Hi,” I stammer. “I didn’t see you come in.” Did she materialize from thin air? Where the hell did she come from?

  “I don’t imagine so. I noticed you when I arrived to pick up my order, but you seemed enthralled in your conversation.” Her attention drifts toward the back to where Shane just disappeared, and her eyes narrow. “He looks familiar.”