Page 16 of Faking it with my Off Limits Neighbor

The journey out to Mrs. Phelps's house is a little awkward, at least for me. I just feel like I’m putting Troy out, no matter how many times he tells me that this isn’t the case. I’m not usually particularly relieved to meet a new client, but in this case, I can’t wait to get out of the truck and into her home.

I did warn Troy that I might be an hour, but thankfully, Mrs. Phelps is not much of a talker. In fact, she is brusque but knows exactly what she wants, which actually makes my job easier. We make arrangements for a second visit to discuss details, which will also give me some time to come up with ideas, and then I leave.

“I thought you were going to be ages?” Troy says when I climb back into the truck. He’s grinning teasingly at me.

“Thank you,” I say, mainly because I don’t know what else to say.

“Charlie, will you quit it?” Troy replies, pulling out into the traffic. “I didn’t donate a kidney, for goodness' sake.”

“Time is just as precious these days,” I counter.

He throws me a look, but I don’t know what it means. While there’s definitely a frown there, there’s something else hovering just underneath it.

“Is there anywhere else you need to go?” he asks as he continues to drive easily with one hand.

“I think you’ve done enough for one day, don’t you?” I reply.

“You’ve got to think logically, Charlie. If your car isn’t working, you can’t get to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or the liquor store. You know, you might need stuff.”

I give him a long look. His attention is on the traffic ahead, but my attention is on him. While I have the opportunity, I drink him in. His prominent cheekbones, his tight jaw, his slender neck, his well-formed shoulders and chest, his flat stomach. Just all of him.

He hasn’t changed much. He was nineteen when he left, so he was as grown as he was ever going to be. But now, there’s a maturity about him that I’m struggling to get my head around. He is nearly thirty, Charlie.

I know that. And maybe, if he’d stayed in Cherryville—if the changes had happened before my very eyes like they have with Milly, Kate Black, Dave Kilburn, and Sheila—I would hardly have noticed.

But it’s like Troy left Cherryville as a boy and returned as a man. A man who disconcerts me a little, simply because he’s a little calmer, he’s more put together and responsible, and he seems to have his head on straight.

But so are you.

My inner voice is not wrong in her reasoning. The difference is that I’ve spent the last ten years in my own presence. I know how I’ve changed. It’s just so very strange to see it in Troy.

But he still left you without a word.

Yes. There is that.

We get back to the house, and as Troy pulls into his driveway, I say, “Do you want to come in for a coffee?”

Clearly, my question astonishes him, because his head flies around to look at me. He’s so shocked that he rolls into the grass on the side of his driveway.

I’ll admit, the offer was not a decision I took lightly. In fact, for the final five minutes of the journey home, I battled with myself on whether to offer him coffee or not. But at the end of the day, he had just taken an hour and a half out of his day to chauffeur me to and from my client’s house. We’d also stopped at the grocery store so I could pick up a few things I thought I might need.

Coffee was the least I could do.

Troy has swiftly regained control of both his senses and the truck, and he brings the beast to a stop. Turning the ignition off, he turns to me again. “Are you serious?”

“Hang on,” I counter. “So you can offer to drive me around, but I can’t offer you coffee?”

Troy shakes his head. “It’s not that. I’m just… surprised.”

“As am I,” I reply, turning to open the passenger door. “Let’s hurry before I change my mind.”

I can hear Troy chuckling as he clambers out of his side of the truck, and a second later, we’re both walking up my driveway.

8

Troy

I’m still reeling from Charlie’s invitation for coffee as I sit at her breakfast bar. Since the welcome home party, she hasn’t left my mind, but never in a million years could I imagine myself actually inside her house. Not yet, at least.

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