The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Small Town Romance (Soulmates Series Book 3) (17 page)

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 that. 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?”

“Umm yeah.” I craned my neck forward. “This whole conversation
is about how I wish you’d started being more honest with me ages ago.”

She squinted at me. “Based on how little compassion you’ve shown
yourself lately, I wasn’t convinced you could handle any more love in your
life.”

“That woman doesn’t love me. And it’s not love she wants to give
me. It’s guilt and shame and disgrace. Like it’s always been.”

Helly shook her head. “It’s love, Laney. And it may be her own
brand, but no one can make you feel any of those other things without your
permission.”

I swallowed.

“Ever since you came here with that Care Bears suitcase, you’ve
only had one real obstacle to happiness, and it’s been yourself.”

I pursed my lips.

“Not Henry. Not your boss at the diner. Not all those people who
didn’t give you those covetable jobs in the art world right out of college.
It’s only ever been you getting in your own way.”

“Jesus. Tell me how you really feel.”

“Frankly, it’s the only concern I have for you and Connor.”

“Okay, I was being hypothetical there,” I said, pulling my
teabag out of the mug and putting it on the saucer. “But now I have to hear the
rest of it.”

She clasped her hands on the table. “I worry that you aren’t
happy enough in your own skin yet to accept the love he’s capable of giving
you, the love he’s ready to give you.”

“That’s not your concern.”

“No,” she said, pinching her teabag in her fingers and setting
it beside her mug. “Just my opinion.”

“I don’t want you to write my mom any more letters.”

“I’ll do what I want, Laney.”

“Not about me, at least. Please. I’m not comfortable with it.”

Helly leaned back in her chair and wrapped her thin fingers
around her mug. “I’ll agree to that on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you keep in touch with her yourself.”

I shook my head. “How can you ask me to do that?”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m asking you to think about it.”

“I don’t even know her anymore,” I said. “And I didn’t like her
when I did.”

“She’s changed.”

“So you say.”

Helly lifted her mug. “It’s obvious when you read her letters.”

“Which I haven’t.”

“I’m happy to give them to you,” she said. “If you want.”

“You have them?” I asked, a lump forming in my chest.

“Of course I have them. She’s your mother.”

I bit the side of my lip.

“I figured a day might come when you’d want them.”