The Nice Guy Next Door

by Haley Zaragoza

  I’m insane. My imagination needs to calm the heck down. This doesn’t sound remotely like the life I want or envision for myself. A long time ago, I decided I would be a strong, independent woman. Instead of a man, I’d surround myself with friends. But I’m seeing now that it could be a lonely life. Friends have families of their own and the many commitments that come along with that.

  Lo will eventually graduate and move out on her own. And where will that leave me? Lonely and pining for the man next door who could have been mine if I’d only taken the chance? The problem is, I don’t actually know what I want anymore, and that’s the scariest part of all.

  “Why are you so determined not to love me? What is so wrong with giving your heart to someone?” he asks in a gentle voice as if he’s afraid I’ll spook and run away, which is not an unfounded worry. Everything inside of me is telling me to retreat.

  Leave! Save yourself!

  I force myself to stay on that sofa beside him and look him in the eye when I say, “Because you’ll break my heart…or I’ll break yours, and I don’t want to do that.” I can feel the tears pricking my eyes, threatening to expose the depth of my emotions.

  “Well, we don’t have to break each other’s hearts if we don’t want to. We could stay together forever,” he suggests with a laugh.

  “Right, like that’s going to happen.”

  “Why do you doubt me? Why do you doubt the possibility of what we could have together?”

  “All relationships end in heartbreak. Someone either decides to leave or someone dies. Either way…heartbreak. I’ve had enough of that in my life. I don’t want any more.”

  “So, you’re going to choose to live in fear then?” he asks as he runs his hands through his hair in frustration, leaving it standing up all over the place. It looks cute, which makes me even angrier with him.

  “I’m not living in fear. I’m protecting myself,” I say and stand up from the couch, not wanting to be anywhere near him.

  “Sure, okay. Life is hard, and no matter how much you protect yourself, you’re still going to go through hard things. It’d sure be easier to do that with someone who loves you by your side. All you’re doing is lying to yourself.”

  Lo and Eilleen come into the room, beaming from ear to ear. They sense the hostility in the room, and their smiles fall instantly.

  “Should we come back in a few minutes?” Eilleen asks.

  “No, everything’s fine,” I say and rush over to Lo. “You look so beautiful. Daddy would love this dress on you.”

  “I feel like a princess. Now I just need an old, enchanted castle to run through,” Lo jokes, trying to ease the tension. I glance at Jameson and see the side of his mouth hitch up.

  “You look gorgeous. You’ll be a heartbreaker, just like your sister,” Jameson says, and then he leaves the room. Eilleen and Lo watch him walk out and then turn their attention to me, waiting for me to explain what’s going on.

  Heartbreaker? Me? Far from it! I’ve never been in a relationship long enough for a man to think it’ll lead to something serious. To be honest, I haven’t even dated in years. The only man to ever tell me he loves me is my daddy.

  I don’t like that he’s implying that I’m breaking hearts right and left. Or does he mean that I’m breaking his heart? No, he couldn’t mean that. I’ve been up front with him this entire time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jameson

  It’s the day of Lo’s homecoming dance, and I’ve convinced my mom to come over and do Lo’s hair and makeup. She agreed immediately. There was actually no convincing involved. I’ve never seen Mama so excited about anything. I’m worried that she’d kidnap Millie and hold her hostage if she thought that would convince Millie to marry me and give her an armful of grandbabies.

  Millie might be angry with me when I barge in with my mom in tow, but once she sees Lo’s excitement, I think she’ll forgive me. I hope, anyway. She’s still pretty mad at me from our discussion last week. We’ve barely talked. There have been a lot of awkward waves and stilted “good mornings” shouted across the yard.

  My mom has all of her gear in her hands like she’s about to go to work on a troupe of performers. How much makeup and hair tools could she need for one girl? She’s tiptoeing across the yard like this is a covert operation for the CIA.

  “Mama, we’re going to knock on the front door. We’re not breaking and entering,” I explain to her.

  “Right, of course.” She tries to act natural, but she looks insane. What am I saying? She is insane.

  I ring the doorbell, and Millie answers with a look of surprise on her face. She has bobby pins between her teeth and a can of hairspray in her hands. There’s some kind of brown and black substance on her hands and cheeks. She looks shell shocked and like all of the beauty products in her house have exploded on her.

  My mom takes a long look at her before she steps forward and says, “Hey, sweetie, I’m here to help.” She pats Millie on the shoulder, and Millie breathes a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, thank goodness. Follow me,” she says and grabs my mom’s arm to pull her back to Lo’s room. I’m curious about what has made her suddenly so receptive to help, so I follow her back to the room.

  I peek around the door frame, and the sight I’m greeted with is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in all of my thirty-one years of life. Millie has made Lo look like one of the people from the Hunger Games movies. There’s so much color on her face, and her hair is too big. Lo glances at me and mouths thank you.

  “I know this is Texas, sweetie, but hair should never be that high to Heaven,” Mama says, and Lo breaks down into a sob. “Shh, honey. We’re gonna get you all fixed up, and you’ll be absolutely stunning. Just look away from the mirror for a while.”

  Mama hands Lo some kind of wipe that Lo uses to take off her makeup. Millie comes to the door and says, “Thank you,” while wrapping me in a tight hug. All has been forgiven. I nod my head and turn to go back to the living room to wait for the big reveal.

  I see a pile of mail on the counter, and my curiosity gets the better of me. Surely her mail would have her real name on it. The top pieces are just sale papers and junk. Nothing with a name on it. The next is Lo’s. I’m about to flip to the next piece when Millie walks out and shouts, “What are you doing?” She runs forward and snatches the mail from my hands.

  “It’s not what it looks like! I just wanted to—”

  “Find out my real name!” she interrupts. She’s very perceptive.

  “Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like,” I say with a cheeky grin. She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously and then walks into the kitchen to grab another stack of mail. She runs back to her room, stashes the mail, and runs back, expecting to find me snooping again. I’ve plastered on my most innocent expression while lounging on her couch that still has the faint smell of skunk in it. If the smell weren’t burned into my nostrils, I might not notice it. I’m starting to think I’ll never escape the stench.

  Millie plops down on the couch next to me and curls herself into a ball. She pulls a blanket onto her lap even though it feels like it’s at least seventy-five degrees in her house. I’m starting to sweat.

  “I don’t know what you had to do to get your mom to come over here, but I really appreciate it. Those YouTube videos I watched were very deceiving,” she says. Her hands tremble as she fiddles with her blanket, and I wonder if it’s because she’s upset about almost ruining Lo’s homecoming dance or because she’s nervous with me.

  “I didn’t have to do anything to get her over here. She jumped at the chance,” I say, and the skeptical look on her face is almost comical. She can’t believe that someone would want to do something nice for her for nothing in return. “Mama likes you a lot,” I add.

  “I like her too. She’s hilarious and sweet,” she says.

  A few minutes later, Lo and Mama walk out with huge smiles plastered on their faces. Millie jumps off the couch and gasps loudly. No words come out o
f her mouth. She’s stunned silent by how beautiful her little sister looks. Mama did a simple hairstyle and a more natural makeup look on Lo. She’s a beautiful girl naturally. She doesn’t need a lot to enhance it.

  “Well, I better get going. I have to get ready for a date!” Mama says, and it feels like my head just did a full 360. In all my life, I’ve never seen my mom go out with a man. She’s always been so focused on working, raising me, and now helping Nana and Pops around their house. She’s never even hinted at the slightest interest in a man. I’ve felt a little sorry for her being alone in her house since I moved out a decade ago, but she’s never seemed sad about it.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Jameson. I’m not so old yet that I can’t find myself a good man,” she says in a snarky tone.

  “No, no. I just thought you wanted to be alone. Kind of like Millie here,” I say. Millie smacks my arm lightly and then crosses her arms over her chest in discomfort. Maybe I shouldn’t have added that jab at her. She’s just forgiven me for our last squabble.

  “It’s not that I wanted to be alone. It’s just…dating has always been scary, you know? Especially after being abandoned with a baby. But life gets lonely, and I don’t want to live the rest of mine in fear,” Mama says. She gives me, Millie, and Lo each a quick peck on the cheek and heads out to fall in love. And she will. Once Mama sets her mind to something, she does it—of course, after thinking through all possible outcomes. It only took her thirty years to come to this decision.

  Lo has just left for the dance with her friends. Millie was the typical parent figure and insisted on silly posed pictures that had all of the girls in a fit of giggles. Lo rolled her eyes but secretly loved every second of it.

  “I wish my dad was here to see her. She looks so beautiful,” Millie says.

  “He’d be really proud of you,” I tell her, because even though I didn’t know her dad, I still know it’s true. Any parent would be proud of all that she has accomplished, and hearing someone say it would do her a world of good. She’s so hard on herself.

  “You really think so?” she asks. She scrunches her mouth to the side and stares at her hands in her lap. That look makes me want to take away every single one of the worries weighing her down and give her the world. After all she’s been through, she deserves the world.

  I nod my head and say, “I do.” She leans over and hugs me around the shoulders but then decides a simple hug isn’t enough. She cuddles up next to me on the couch, and everything feels right in my world. This is where she belongs.

  “Do you want to order a pizza and watch a movie with me?” she asks.

  “It’s like you’re reading my mind.”

  Forty-five minutes later, our pizza has been delivered—Hawaiian pizza for her and Meat Lover’s for me. We tried to just order one pizza for us to share, but after a heated argument about whether or not fruit belongs on pizza, we had to agree to disagree. She and Seth should hang out so they can share pizza…but not too much. Wouldn’t want him stealing Millie away with his overly flirtatious personality and boyish good looks. I’ve heard what all the women say about him.

  Now, we’re scrolling Netflix, and Millie is doing her best to convince me of the merits of some nineties historical movie called Ever After. Supposedly, it’s a Renaissance re-telling of Cinderella, and it’s “the greatest movie of all time.” I’m not convinced.

  “I’ve been trying to wait to watch it with Lo, but she’s so busy with school, her job, and her friends now. She doesn’t have time for me anymore,” she says in a sad voice. She’s trying to work the pouty lip to get me to agree to this sappy chick flick. Sadly for me, it has proven effective.

  Millie situates herself right next to me and digs into her pineapple-infested pizza. I make gagging sounds as she takes a massive bite, and she elbows me in the ribs. She does a little dance as she chews and says, “It’s like my taste buds are having a party. Yours are really missing out over there.”

  At this moment, the only thing I want to taste is her mouth. She takes a long drink of water and stops as still as a statue when she sees me watching her. “What?” she asks with a nervous giggle.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Millie

  Jameson’s watching me with a look I can only describe as ravenous. It sends my blood boiling. He places his untouched plate of pizza on the coffee table in front of him and then leans forward to take mine from me. I really want more of that, but if this is heading where I think it is, pizza can wait. It can wait all night.

  He places his hand at the nape of my neck and leans his forehead against mine. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but think about Jameson getting his lips on me.

  He leans down and gently presses his lips to mine. It’s slow, teasing, testing. I’ve spent months fighting my attraction for this man, and right here and now, let it be known that I, Millie Parker, repent. I’m positively going to combust if this man doesn’t kiss me like he means it.

  He loops his free hand around to my back and pulls my hair tie from the end of my loose braid. He runs his hands through my long, wild hair and then digs his fingers into my hair as he cradles my head in his hands. He deepens the kiss, and my soul is screaming finally!

  This is no longer a sweet, innocent kiss. It’s an explosion of emotions that have been held back and reeled in for months. It’s teeth and tongues clashing. I’ve never been kissed like this before.

  Jameson pulls away, and my mouth tries to go with him, but he holds me firmly in place. I open my eyes and see him grinning ear to ear.

  “Why no more kisses?” I ask.

  “I think it’s best if we stop,” he says in a gravelly voice I’ve never heard from him before. He doesn’t want to stop. It’s written all over his face, and his body is coiled as tightly as a viper ready to snap. Well, good. That makes two of us.

  I lean forward and say, “I don’t want to stop,” but he leans back against the arm of the couch to put more space between us. Ouch.

  He grabs a throw pillow from the floor and places it between us as some kind of barrier. I take it and throw it back on the floor. He places his hands on my shoulders and looks me squarely in the eye.

  “Millie, just a few days ago, you told me you don’t believe in love. That you have no plans to ever be in another relationship. I have very real feelings where you’re concerned, and I can’t be a fling for you. I need you to think about what you want, and if that’s me, then we can continue this,” he says, gesturing between the two of us.

  I nod my head and allow him to place a barricade of pillows between us. It feels very juvenile, but whatever helps him feel better, I guess. He hands my plate of pizza back to me and turns the movie back on. I don’t see any of it. My taste buds are no longer partying. All I can think about is Jameson and his pillowy lips.

  Two weeks go by, and I see Jameson every single day. If he doesn’t invent some reason to come over to my house, then I think of something that I need to borrow from him. I see him more than I see Lo now, and she lives in the same house as me.

  I can’t get enough of him, and it would seem the feeling is mutual. Today is Halloween, and he just texted me to ask if I wanted to come over to his place to hand out candy. He was supposed to go to some party with his friends, Seth and Colby, but the person throwing the party came down with a violent stomach bug.

  Millie: Sure! I have a bag of Laffy Taffys I was going to hand out.

  Jameson: Ew. You have to get the good stuff. Full-size Snickers, or it’s a waste of time.

  Millie: Excuse you. I love Laffy Taffy. You get candy and comedy.

  Jameson: Laffy Taffy jokes are the worst. I’ve never laughed at a single one.

  Millie: Liar.

  Jameson: I’ll bet you that you can’t get me to laugh at any of their jokes tonight.

  Millie: You’re on!

  * * *

  I arrive at Jameson’s house at 6:00. A lot of the little trick-or-treaters are already out and about with their parents.
I love handing out candy on Halloween and seeing all the cute costumes. The toddlers dressed up as animals are my favorite.

  I knock on the door, and when Jameson answers, I say, “Hey, Jameson, how do you get an alien baby to sleep?”

  He groans and says, “I don’t know. How, Millie?” He acts annoyed, but I see the smile he’s holding back.

  “You rocket!” I burst out laughing because that’s a great joke. Someone working for Laffy Taffy needs a raise.

  “Oh my gosh, come inside. I don’t think anyone heard that truly terrible joke,” he says as he pushes me inside and looks around to make sure there are no neighbors within earshot of us. Fun sucker. In a totally mature move, I stick my tongue out at him and drop my bag of Laffy Taffys on his entry table.

  I sniff the air, and I’m greeted with the beautiful smell of bacon. That’s it. Jameson’s perfect. I walk over to his kitchen and see a plate of bacon, so I do what anyone would do and swipe a piece.

  “Hey, that’s for the grilled cheese!” he says. He runs into the kitchen, wraps his arms around my waist, and carries me to a barstool on the opposite side of the counter.

  “Bacon in a grilled cheese?” I ask, highly intrigued.

  “It’s delicious. It’s going to ruin you for all other grilled cheeses.”

  Jameson slices some fancy loaf of bakery bread and slabs enough butter to clog my arteries onto each slice. He layers cheese and bacon between the bread and drops the sandwich on a skillet. It sizzles, and my mouth waters as I watch the cheese melt and ooze out of the sides.

  A few minutes later, he places the sandwiches on plates and sets one in front of me. I pause before I take a bite and say, “Jameson, what do you call it when a dinosaur crashes their car?”

  He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me with an exasperated expression.

  “Come on, play along!”