Page 6 of Never Kiss Your Neighbors

“My mom is going to be so excited when I send this to her,” the woman gushes. “Could I give you guys a hug?” When they agree, she wraps her arms around first the juggler, then his slightly-reluctant friend. “It was so great to meet you! You made my day.”

When she finally scurries off toward the store, I can’t let it go. “What was that about?”

The light-haired guy smirks. “Just someone else who knew Cam from his bag boy days.”

This elicits a laugh from the juggler, who’s apparently named Cam. Maybe I should introduce myself and ask the other man’s name, but it’s likely I’ll never see them again, and that will be a good thing.

Outside of their good looks, everything about them—the juggling, the marshmallows, the fans?—is allsostrange.

“Thank you for your help with the groceries,” I say. “Should I tip you?”

Cam points a finger at me. “Good one.” He and the other man step backward, waving as they turn to push their cart away. “Have a good rest of your day.”

“You too.” I get in my car and reflexively lock the doors behind me. It’s something I always do, but it’s a very intentional action now, because I’m still weirded out by the whole encounter. Maybe I should go to a different grocery store next time.

The parking lot still isn’t crowded, so I have an unobstructed view of the men loading all of their marshmallows into the back seat of a black luxury sports car.

Hmm. The man, Cam, must have a much better job now than he did in high school. If I had to guess, I’d peg both men to be right around my age, or maybe even a couple of years younger, around 25, based on their youthful behavior, including buying a cartful of sugar.

When I turn my car on, the clock lights up on the dash. Crap, it’s already a quarter after nine, and it’s going to take about ten minutes to drive home, assuming traffic isn’t too heavy. This isn’t how I wanted to start my workday.

When I pull out of the lot, the sports car is right behind me. When I make my first turn, it turns too. I take my mind off of it for a minute to speculate about what type of work awaits me today, but when I make another turn, left this time, the car is still on my tail.

I shouldn’t have let them carry out my groceries. Just because they looked nice enough and the cashier knew them, doesn’t mean they’re decent people. Plenty of people put on an innocent facade to hide sinister intentions.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but they seem to be following me.

CHAPTER5

STELLA

Iwrack my brain to try to remember where the police station is. I’ve never been in this situation before, but I remember the advice I’ve heard: drive to a police station so your follower will abandon their pursuit.

I have no idea idea where the police station is, but I’m definitely not leading these guys back to my house.

Giving thanks that Jessie isn’t with me, I scan the road ahead and spot a small medical plaza. After giving only a brief signal, I turn into the lot, and heave a sigh of relief when the sports car drives by without following me.

I park in a spot where I can see the road, and when there’s no sign of the black car after several minutes, I pull out and continue on my way. I was probably overreacting and letting my mind run wild, but you can’t be too careful.

It’s well after 9:30 when I finally get home, and I need to let the dog out and put away the groceries before I can log in for work. The dog, who I sometimes privately call G, is a two-year-old cockapoo mix with gold curly fur. He belongs to my friend and roommate, Marissa, but she got him right after we moved into this house, and I know she did it largely for Jessie’s benefit.

He greets me with a fluffy wagging tail when I open his crate, and then he bounds excitedly toward the sliding glass door that leads to the back yard. I’ll admit I didn’t really want a dog, because I knew it would be a lot of work, and I already have my hands full with Jessie, but the little guy has grown on me.

While G does his business, I hurriedly put the groceries away, ignoring the strange feeling I get when I set the jar of strawberry jelly on the counter. I really hope I won’t be thinking about juggler Cam every time I make toast for Jessie.

Finally, I log on to my work email, and am relieved to see that nothing urgent is waiting for me. The pup scratches at the back door, and when I let him in, he gets a drink of water and curls up in the bed next to the small dining room table, where I work on my laptop.

I’m a customer service rep for Community Bean, a hugely popular and growing coffee company. My work is mostly online, where I respond to customer inquiries and issues that come in, but sometimes I take calls, and I’ve been starting to help the customer relations manager with a survey project.

The work has been fairly basic so far, but there’s enough variety to keep things interesting, and I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity. My friend Ana used to work at Community Bean, and the company is owned by her boyfriends, Jansen and Derek, whom she met when she interviewed with them.

I went to college with Ana and Marissa, and the three of us have been friends ever since, even though our lives took us in very different directions.

It’s thanks to them that my life is completely different than it was just a few months ago. I’d lived with my mom and stepdad on the other side of the state ever since Jessie was born. I appreciated being able to stay with them, but the situation was never great there, largely thanks to my mom’s drinking habits.

Arguments and disagreements were common, but when things got really bad, Ana, accompanied by her men, came and saved Jessie and me, bringing us here to live with her and Marissa.

At the time, Ana and Marissa lived in a townhome, but when Ana moved out to live with her men, Marissa, Jessie, and I moved into this house, which is closer to Marissa’s job and has a nice big back yard for Jessie. Marissa said the yard needed a dog, too.

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