Good Girl Next Door: A Steamy Small-Town Romance (Jetty Beach Book 6)

by Claire Kingsley

Ah, fuck. “Yeah, that was Becca. She’s… she’s a friend of mine.”

  “A friend?” Dad asks. “Is that all?”

  “Yeah, that’s all.”

  Dad raises one eyebrow at me, but doesn’t press the issue. This is one time I’m grateful for his emotional repression.

  “All right, son, I’ll let you get back to your day.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I head back to my car and get in. At least I cleared the air with Dad. That was weighing on me more than I realized. Now that he and I are good—and I know he’ll let me help him out—I can quit worrying about him.

  I consider not going home. It’s still early, and I don’t have anything going on today. But I don’t want to sit at home, listening to Becca through the wall.

  Maybe I need to get out of town for a little while. Put some distance between us. I could just head out to the highway and drive—see where I end up. That actually sounds pretty good, but I should run home first and grab some clothes.

  My plan seems like a great idea, until I turn onto my street and see a fucking moving truck outside Becca’s apartment.

  Oh, fuck. My chest constricts and my back stiffens. She can’t be moving. There’s a beige Lexus parked next to her car. It must be her parents. If they’re here…

  Oh my god, she is moving.

  I’m feeling panicky, my lungs tight like I can’t get enough air. I pull into my parking spot and glance over at the truck. A couple of guys are sitting in the cab; the driver is on his phone. There’s a part of me—the crazy part, obviously—that wants to walk up to the truck and tell them there’s been a mistake. They aren’t needed today. Pay them for their time, and get them out of here before someone starts hauling Becca’s stuff out of her apartment. And then…

  What? Tell Becca she can’t move? That would go over well.

  I go inside, but I’m restless. The property manager hasn’t called to say she gave her notice, but it’s the weekend. Maybe it was a last-minute decision. Voices drift through the wall from Becca’s side. I can’t hear what’s being said, and I’m not such a dick that I try to eavesdrop. I assume they’re over there packing.

  I hate feeling so fucking helpless. She asked me to leave her alone, and I have. I kept hoping she just needed time—that any day now, she’d knock on my back door and want to at least talk. But she’s leaving.

  And I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.

  Pacing around my apartment isn’t getting me anywhere, but my idea to go out of town has already lost its appeal. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Getting drunk tonight at Finn’s pub is about the only thing that sounds halfway decent, and even I realize how pathetic that is.

  I head upstairs to take a shower. A few seconds after I turn on the water, I hear Becca’s shower through the wall. Because of course she’s taking a shower at the same time as me. It’s impossible not to imagine her: Water streaming down her body, her skin flushed pink from the heat.

  Thinking like that is not helping. But I’m not even tempted to get myself off. I just stand there, letting the water pour over me, wondering if anything will fill the hole in my chest.

  25: Lucas

  I take a seat at the bar and nod to Finn. There are quite a few people in here tonight—most of the tables are full. Finn is busy pouring drinks, so I glance at my phone while I wait.

  I look up just as Becca and Juliet come from the direction of the restrooms.

  Oh, shit.

  What is she doing here? I figured she would have left with her parents by now. She must be spending one last night hanging out with Juliet before she leaves town.

  Becca’s eyes meet mine and she looks away quickly. She heads straight for the front door. “Sorry, Jules, I have to go.”

  “No,” I say as she passes me. “Don’t. I’ll go.”

  She doesn’t look back, just shakes her head.

  “Becca, I didn’t know you were here. You don’t have to leave. I will.”

  And she’s out the door.

  Amazingly, Juliet doesn’t glare at me. She looks at me with something that might be pity. I think that’s worse.

  “I’m going to go with Becca,” she says to Finn.

  He leans over the bar and kisses her before she follows Becca out the front door.

  “You look like shit,” Finn says once Juliet is gone. “I’ll be right back.”

  He pours a few more drinks, then comes back and slides a glass across the bar to me. His shitty day special. I haven’t needed one of these for a while. I nod to him and take a sip.

  “So, you want to talk about it?” he asks.

  “There’s not much to talk about,” I say. “I didn’t think things would get complicated with her, but I guess that’s me being an idiot.”

  “What was actually going on with you guys?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug.

  “You don’t know?” he asks. “No wonder she broke up with you.”

  “She didn’t break up with me,” I say. “Because we weren’t together.”

  “First off, friends can break up too,” Finn says. “And second, yes you were.”

  “We weren’t,” I say, pointing a finger at him. “She and I agreed to that.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you agreed to,” he says. “You weren’t just friends.”

  I know he’s right. I’m not that stupid. “Fine, we weren’t just friends. But I don’t understand how this got so out of control.”

  “That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently it isn’t,” I say. “But, by all means, enlighten me.”

  “You fell for her,” Finn says.

  Before I can answer, Finn has to go take care of another customer. I stare at my drink. I did fall for her, didn’t I?

  Shit.

  Finn comes back and leans against the bar, wiping his hands on a towel. “What was with the just friends thing, anyway? Why not just date her?”

  “Do I actually have to answer that?”

  “Is this really all about your ex?” Finn asks. I don’t answer and he seems to take that as leave to keep talking. “Look, I get it. You got hurt. So when you moved back here, you figured you wouldn’t put yourself in a position to be hurt again. That’s why all the out-of-town girls. No relationships, no ties, no complications. No chance of getting hurt. Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And you thought you could have the same thing with Becca.”

  “I knew Becca was different, but I thought we could handle it. She didn’t need a boyfriend, she needed a guy friend to do cool stuff with. And yeah, to fuck her brains out sometimes. What was so bad about that arrangement?”

  “What was so bad about it?” Finn asks, punting the question back to me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass,” Finn says. “You had to have known it couldn’t last. What did you think was going to happen when she met someone else?”

  My lungs constrict. “Wait, did she meet someone else?”

  “I don’t know, but the fact that you’re about to panic over it should tell you something,” he says. “What I mean is, if you weren’t willing to commit to her beyond being friends, what did you expect to happen? Is she supposed to just keep being single and sleeping with you on the side? Come on, man, even I see how that was going to turn out. Especially because your feelings got involved. And hers did too.”

  “I don’t know. She said it was just a game and she can’t play anymore.”

  Finn leans against the bar. “I know you were trying to keep from getting hurt. That’s fair. But at some point, you had to have realized you have feelings for Becca. Why didn’t you just tell her?”

  Because if I admitted I had feelings for her, she’d have the power to hurt me. “I didn’t want to get involved with a girl again. Not like that.”

  “But you did anyway,” he says. “Regardless of what you called it.”

  I take another sip of my
drink. “I don’t know what I expected.”

  “Well, at this point you need to ask yourself what you want,” he says.

  “Beyond getting shitfaced and making you take me home later?”

  “Yes, beyond that,” he says. “Although I can help with that too.”

  Finn leaves again and I down the rest of the drink. What do I want? If Becca came back in here and said we could go back to what we were before, would that be enough? Would I want to be her friend, spend time with her, and leave it at that?

  Because Finn is right—what happens when she meets someone who wants more?

  Becca isn’t going to stay single for the rest of her life. She’s a family girl. She wants the whole package—the ring, the pretty wedding, the picket fence. Probably babies. I’ve seen her with kids. It would be stupid for her not to have her own. I know that would make her happy.

  She’s going to meet that guy—the one who will give her everything she wants. She deserves that guy. That life. She deserves to be happy.

  I stare at my empty glass, marveling at how fucking awful I feel. I thought I’d hit rock bottom after Valerie left me. At the time, I didn’t think anything could be worse. I was devastated. I thought my life was over.

  This is worse.

  There’s an ache in my chest that won’t go away. Becca gutted me when she told me she couldn’t see me anymore.

  The worst part is, I know it’s my fault.

  Finn’s right, I absolutely fell for her. I was so afraid of letting it happen again—so afraid of being hurt—that I kept that line drawn between us. We crossed that line over and over, but I insisted it was there. Yeah, we crossed it sexually, but I don’t think it was the sex that broke us.

  At least, that isn’t what broke me.

  She broke me. She got in, under my skin, into the core of who I am. Into that place I’ve kept locked up tight since my last breakup. She did it softly, nestling her way in with her smiles, her laughs, with that sweet pink flush of her cheeks. With the way she’s so fun to be around. The way she bites her lip when she’s nervous. The way she can be so brave when she feels supported.

  All I was trying to do was keep from getting hurt again. And the very thing I did to protect myself is exactly what’s killing me now.

  I let my head drop to the bar and rest it on my arm. Fuck, I’m the world’s biggest idiot.

  “Want another?” Finn asks.

  I glance up at him. “What do you think?”

  “If you get trashed, you have to wait here for me to get off work before I can take you home.”

  “Good,” I say. “I don’t want to go home.”

  Finn leaves and comes back a few minutes later with another drink. He passes it across the bar and scrutinizes me for a long moment.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I don’t know if you want to hear this.”

  I take a swig of the drink. “Lay it on me, brother. At this point, I have nowhere to go but up.”

  “I just think sometimes you have to let love ruin you,” he says. “It’s going to fuck you up, but you have to let it.”

  I raise my glass. “Well, ruin me it has.”

  “So you admit it?”

  “Admit what?”

  Finn leans against the bar. “That you love Becca.”

  I did just admit that, didn’t I? Fuck. “You tricked me into it.”

  He laughs. “You do love her. You love the shit out of her, and you have for a long time now. You realize the solution is simple, right?”

  “If I realized that, would I be sitting here in your stupid pub, drinking?”

  “Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean you’re ready to do it. But honestly, man, this is not complicated.”

  “Once again, enlighten me.”

  “Tell her.”

  I take another drink without looking at Finn.

  “Come on,” Finn says. “I bet that’s all she wants from you. She just wants you to love her. You already do. So why the drama?”

  “Multiple reasons,” I say. “But mostly, I don’t know if I can do that again.”

  “Lucas, I’m going to level with you,” he says. “If you don’t think she’s worth the risk, then let her go. It isn’t fair to her to string her along anymore, so staying away from her is the right thing to do. Let her move on. And I hate to tell you this, but that probably means your friendship is over. It’s not like either of you can hit the rewind button and pretend the rest didn’t happen. She needs to be able to go forward and find someone who’s right for her.”

  I scowl at the bar, unable to look Finn in the eyes. What he just described feels like hell. It’s the worst thing I can imagine right now. No Becca in my life. Ever. She’d be gone, and eventually with someone else. I fucking hate that so much I almost want to punch Finn in the face for saying it.

  “But,” Finn says, and stops for a dramatic pause that makes me think the face-punch might be warranted no matter what. “Maybe you can’t imagine that life. Maybe the very idea of it is pissing you off so much you want to hit me right now.”

  I look up.

  “See?” he says. “I think you know she’s worth the risk. You’re just afraid to admit it because it means you might get hurt again. But come on, man. It’s Becca.”

  I stare at my drink. “It doesn’t matter at this point anyway. She moved out today.”

  “She did what?” he asks.

  “You heard me,” I say. “She moved. I saw the truck this morning, and I think her parents were there too. I figure they came down to move her back up to their place.”

  “Dude, I don’t think she moved.”

  I look up at him. “What?”

  “I don’t know why there would have been a moving truck, but if Becca was moving away, Juliet would have been flipping out. And I had lunch with all of them before Becca’s parents left, and no one said anything about moving.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Hold that thought,” Finn says. He has to go wait on customers again, so he leaves me alone, brooding over my drink.

  She’s not leaving? The surge of hope that pours through me is enough to freak me out a little. Hope for what? That I can keep torturing myself by listening to her through the wall?

  Or do I have hope that this can have a different ending?

  I hate living without her. It doesn’t matter that I planned to avoid falling in love with someone. I went and did it anyway.

  If only I’d been honest with myself—and her—I could have avoided this bullshit. God, I should have told her the night of her parents’ party. It doesn’t matter how messed up it was to see Valerie. I should never have let that woman get under my skin. What happened between us was a long time ago, and I’m an idiot if I keep letting the past rule my future.

  And let’s be honest: There’s some poetic justice in knowing the cheating bitch who broke my heart is with the douchecanoe who broke Becca’s.

  I push the rest of my drink away. I’m not getting drunk tonight. I don’t know if I still have a chance with Becca, but I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering. If she doesn’t want me, it will hurt. But losing her forever would be worse.

  24

  26: Becca

  I glance at the clock, wondering what time it is. It feels too early for me to be awake. Sure enough, it’s not even five-thirty in the morning. Why did I wake up? I have the vague notion that I heard a noise. I lie in silence for a long moment, but I don’t hear anything. It must have been a dream.

  Just as I roll over to go back to sleep, I do hear something. I’m sure of it this time.

  My heart skips and a jolt of adrenaline races through my veins. Is this me being scared of nothing, like usual? Or is there actually something—or someone—downstairs?

  I’m wide awake now, and I won’t be able to go back to sleep. I strain, trying to listen. I don’t hear anything, but that isn’t helping to slow my pounding heart.

  What I should do is check
. I should walk downstairs and look around. I’ll see that nothing is wrong, and I’ll be able to relax and go back to sleep for a couple more hours.

  But what if someone is down there?

  I glance at my phone. I could call Lucas. Even though I haven’t seen him in a while—other than running into him at the pub last night—I’m sure he’d come over and check for me if I asked. I gave him an extra key a long time ago, and I didn’t ask for it back. I could lock myself in the bathroom and wait while he does a once over of the whole apartment. Then I wouldn’t have to do it. He might even be awake. Working on East Coast time means he’s always up early.

  I blow out a long breath. No, I have to handle this. I’m going to get up, walk downstairs, see that my apartment is empty, and go back to bed. I don’t need anyone coming to my rescue. Especially Lucas.

  Just in case, I grab the baseball bat my dad gave me out of the closet. Yes, it has a pink handle. I swear, everything my dad buys me is pink. But it’s big and heavy, and if there is someone there, I’ll be ready for them.

  I swallow hard and hold up the bat while I tip-toe down the stairs. My heart beats faster. A sound comes from the kitchen, and I stop dead in my tracks. Oh my god, I think there is someone down there.

  My palms are sweaty and my limbs feel jittery. I can’t believe this is actually happening. I force myself to take the last few steps down. There’s a clink against the counter top and I bite the inside of my lip to keep from screaming. A shadow moves in the dim light coming from the front window.

  Oh my god. Holy shit. Oh, no.

  I hear another sound—a footstep. I raise the bat and take the last few steps to the kitchen.

  The dark form of a person is next to the counter. I raise the bat and swing it as hard as I can, aiming for his head.

  “What the fuck?”

  The person ducks, and I miss. I bring the bat around for another shot.

  “Becca!”

  I recognize his voice, so I pause, blinking at him. “Lucas?”

  “Holy shit, is that a bat? You almost hit me.”

  My hands twist on the handle. “Lucas, what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”