Page 1 of Faking it with my Off Limits Neighbor

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Charlie

My hands grip the steering wheel, and my eyes are as wide as saucers as I gawk through the windshield of my BMW. In fact, I’m pretty sure I must be having a hallucinatory experience.

Maybe it was those mushrooms you had at lunch.

I ignore my inner sarcasm and continue to stare, mesmerized, hardly believing what I’m seeing. It’s getting dark, but there are just some things that are unmistakable, right? Like your mom, or your best friend, or a dancing bear. Okay, it’s not a dancing bear, but it might as well be. At this moment, my eyes are not deceiving me. I know what I’m seeing.

The reason I’m so gobsmacked—why my head is turning like it’s on a swivel—is because the man walking down the street of our small town at this very second is supposed to be in Paris. Which you may think is no big deal; okay, he’s no longer in Paris. The thing is, this same man broke my heart before he left. Oh, and did I mention I haven’t seen him in ten years?

While I can hardly believe my eyes, they’re usually honest; I know I’m not hallucinating. The evidence is right there on two legs in front of me. Troy Heaton, my best friend’s brother, is back in Cherryville. All six-foot-one of him. So stunned am I that I can’t peel my eyes away from him.

That is, until I suddenly feel a sharp bump. Spinning my head around to look where I’m supposed to be going, I discover that I’ve not only mounted the curb, but I’m also about to take out old Mrs. Burton with the grill of my car.

“Oh, my Lord,” I screech, yanking on the steering wheel.

With another sharp bump as the tires come off the curb, the car is once again where it belongs. On the road, not the sidewalk. I swipe my long black hair out of my face; with my heart thumping and the picture of Mrs. Burton waving her cane at me in the rearview mirror, I grip the wheel with all the strength my hands can muster. So tightly, in fact, that my knuckles are white.

Still, I can hardly comprehend what I’ve just seen. I mean, if the Grim Reaper appeared right now—which, with the way I’m driving, could quite be a possibility—I would be less surprised than I was by seeing Troy wandering down the main street.

Breathe, Charlie.

I take a huge gulp in and a slow breath out. And then another. And then another. Nope, my pulse is still going a million miles an hour.

I’ll be honest; I’m not easily shocked. I mean, I run my own business in interior decorating. If you could see some of the houses I’ve been invited to, or worse, what the clients actually want me to do to make them better, you’d understand. But at this very second, the reaction I would have to garish drapes and psychedelic wallpaper pales in comparison. I’m still struggling to trust my own eyes. And my sanity. I’m sure Mrs. Burton is feeling exactly the same way.

What I cannot comprehend is why Milly—my best and closest friend, I might add—hasn’t mentioned anything. We talk nearly every day. If we don’t actually talk, like on the phone, we text each other. Surely she knew her brother was coming home. Home to the town he abruptly scampered from without a word just over ten years ago.

The last I heard—which was a while ago, because Milly doesn’t speak much about him in my presence—Troy was living it up in Paris. He was working in a restaurant over there, doing some cooking or something. No doubt not caring a whit about any of us back here. On occasion, I have imagined him with a beautiful new woman on his arm every night of the week.

Aren’t all women in Paris beautiful, or is that just what Marie Claire magazine would have us believe?

To be honest, there have been times when Troy has entered my thoughts, like after Eddy and I broke up, and I realized I had wanted him to be more like Troy than Eddy. Otherwise, I’ve pretty much been getting on with my life without giving him much consideration. Troy left me. Why should I care what he’s doing halfway around the world?

That changed about five minutes ago.

It’s at this juncture, as I turn onto the road that leads to my house, that a horrible thought—in fact, several horrible thoughts—rush through my panicked mind.

What if he’s finally settled down? What if he’s finally found the one? What if he’s brought her back here to marry her?

Breathe, Charlie.

But all the deep breaths in the world are not going to help me with this one. You see, Troy Heaton was my first love. My high school crush. The man who stole my heart. While Eddy was my one serious relationship since his departure, like I said, he wasn’t Troy. No one ever could be. Thankfully, I’m on my own now. Just the way I—

“What the devil is that?”

I’m now approaching my house, but I can’t see it because there’s a huge truck in the way. In fact, it’s parked right in front of my neighbor’s house. I take my foot off the accelerator and slow down to a crawl. As I pass the truck, I look at the massive letters written on the side. Harvey’s Movers.

Why is there a moving truck sitting on my road? More to the point, why is it sitting outside the house next door to mine?

It takes a second. And then I gasp.

“No, no, no, this cannot be happening.”

Believe it. It’s happening.

The house beside mine has been empty for months. It has had a rental sign up in the front garden, but there haven’t been any takers. We live in a small town, and while Cherryville is cute, it’s miles from anywhere. People aren’t rushing to move here, if you know what I mean. I like it, but then again, I grew up here.

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