Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends 3)

She locates my driveway and pulls in, crawling to a stop and putting the car in park, eyes roaming the yard.

Unbuckling the seatbelt, I grab the leftovers from dinner tonight—the ones Mom put in containers for me—from her back seat and pull at the door handle.

One foot hits the cement driveway, but I find myself turning my head to glance over my shoulder and ask, “Want to come in?”

Immediately I want to facepalm myself. Why the hell would I ask her to come in? And for what? So we can awkwardly stand in silence?

Say no, say no, say no.

“Sure, I guess I could, since I have nothing else going on.”

Sure, you guess? Since you have nothing else going on? A backhanded statement if I’ve ever heard one. I grunt as I make my way to the garage door, punch in the code and wait for it to rise, duck underneath to get inside, Chandler nipping at my heels.

Just as I’m turning the doorknob to the right, Chewy hopping up and down on the other side, the one voice I did not want to hear calls out, into the dark.

“Hey Mr. Wallace!”

I halt with my hand on the door, paralyzed, then spin on my heel. “Uh. Hey Molly—what’s up?”

My next-door neighbor is waltzing into the garage, brazen as you please, holding a plate of what appears to be chocolate chip cookies, shit-eating grin splashed across her bratty face.

“I just saw a car pull up and thought you’d be hungry.”

Liar.

She saw an unfamiliar Jeep and decided to be nosey and come on over, uninvited.

“Uh, thanks—but we just ate.” I pat my stomach. “We were just at my brother’s for dinner and we’re stuffed.”

At the mention of a ‘we’, Molly’s eyes go to Chandler, who’s smiling back at her graciously, most likely waiting for an introduction since that would be the polite thing for me to do. Introduce them.

But I don’t.

Molly takes it upon herself, sticking out the hand that’s not holding the plate of cookies. “Hi, I’m Molly. You must be Chandler—no offense, but I’ve seen you on the news.” She pumps Chandler’s outstretched palm vigorously. “I’m Mr. Wallace’s house sitter and official dog walker.”

“House sitter?” Since when? “Dog walker is more like it, though I don’t know about official—Molly is not my house sitter.”

The teenager shrugs. “Tomato tomahto.”

“You’re not.” I beg to differ, but she isn’t having it, determined to stick her nose into my business.

“Eh. Agree to disagree.” She flounces her nose in the air, flipping her hair.

“Stop doing that.”

She ignores me completely.

Molly scoots around us both and pushes through my laundry room door, setting the plate of cookies on the washing machine and bending to greet Chewy before I can think twice about it. “There’s my pretty boy! Want to go for a quick walk? Yes you do! Yes you do!” The leash is fastened to the dog before I can object, Chewy the beast already zipping past us from whence Molly came.

That damn kid!

“One of these days I’m going to strangle her,” I grumble, picking up the discarded cookies, plucking one off the plate and popping it into my mouth, whole. I chew, complaining through the crumbs. “Honest to god, she’s been coming over constantly, like she’s my mother.”

Chandler laughs. “Did it occur to you that she may have a crush on you?”

I laugh at that, flipping lights on as we walk from room to room and enter the kitchen. “Uh, no—the kid does not have a crush on me. She acts like I’m her dad or her older brother. And she’s really bossy.” Plus, I’m pretty sure she knows the code to get in the house, even though she hasn’t said anything about it.

To busy myself—because I haven’t had an actual woman in my house other than Hollis, my mother, and my friends’ girlfriends and wives (on the very rare occasions when I entertain, which is never)—I grab two wine glasses from the bar and snag a bottle of red from the rack.

Pry the cork out, relieved it’s an easy task, and pour us both a small glass.

Hand her one and raise mine. “Here’s to surviving a night with my family.”

Chandler laughs again. “I had fun. Who wouldn’t? Y’all should have a reality television show.”

Y’all.

God I love Southern accents.

Too bad she’s not actually Southern…

“A reality TV show? Do you have any idea what a monster my brother would be if he had a camera in his face and an audience? He’d be unbearable to live with.”

Jesus, I cannot even imagine what Buzz would be like if he had cameras on him, filming his every move. He’s already a showboater—I don’t want to know how he would behave with more motivation to be…funny.

Once, when we were in middle school, he entered the talent show and did stand-up comedy, which meant he basically made fun of me the entire three minutes he was up on stage.