Love Next Door (Lakeside 1)

“Here.” Teagan passes him the drink. “I made you a manhattan. I think you’ll like it, and it’ll settle your stomach.”

“Thanks.” Bradley takes a tentative sip. He smacks his lips a couple of times before he goes in for another one. He picks out the skewer of cherries and drains his drink in one long gulp.

Teagan and I exchange a wide-eyed look before we both school our expressions.

“Do you want another?”

I’m not sure he should have another one, but I can’t communicate that to her with him looking right at us.

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

He sets the glass on the counter, and Teagan goes about making him another manhattan, this time not spiked with drugs. Bradley makes it three-quarters of the way through it before he spills the rest of it down the front of his shirt. I manage to grab the glass before he drops it, and then he quite literally passes out, full-on drooling.

Teagan cringes. “Hmm, we probably could have gotten away with one instead of two.”

“Ya think? How long will he be out for?”

“Roughly six to eight hours, at least. Maybe more?”

“Wow. Okay.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Should we lay him down? Maybe we should put him in Grammy Bee’s bed?”

“Do you think she’ll be mad that we drugged him? What if she haunts us because of it?”

“She’s not going to haunt us, Teag.”

“How do you know?” A branch scratches the window, and she jumps. “Did you hear that? She’s in the walls!”

“She’s not in the walls. I’ve been here for weeks; there are no ghosts, and Bee would not waste her time haunting us over knocking out Bradley.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. She’s probably chilling up in heaven with Grampy, drinking heaven wine and laughing right now.”

She nods and gives me a small smile. “I wish I’d spent more time with her. You always seemed to have such a good time when you were with her.”

“I did.” I poke my brother in the shoulder, testing his responsiveness. “Hey, Bratty Bradley, you down for the night?”

He mumbles but doesn’t otherwise move.

“Wow. That must be some powerful stuff. And you take it every night?”

“I have a lot of stress. It’s hard to live up to everyone’s expectations.”

“Maybe you should focus on your own expectations for a while.” Teagan has been stuck in the middle for a long time.

“Yeah, probably.” She sighs.

“Let’s move him to the bed so he doesn’t wake up in the morning with a crick in his neck.”

“Good call. You take the top half, I’ll take the bottom?”

After five minutes of grunting and maneuvering, we finally get him into the bed. By the time we’re done, we’re both sweaty and breathing heavily, but at least he’s out of the way.

Once we have him settled in bed, my sister and I each grab another drink and take them outside to the front porch.

“So you and Dillion, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, for now anyway. I don’t think she has plans to stick around here once her brother is back on his feet, and I honestly have no clue what I’m going to do.”

“Would you stay here?”

“Indefinitely? I don’t know. I’m not sure there are all that many job prospects for me.”

“You’ll find something that works for you. You’re too talented for this one little thing to get in the way indefinitely.”

“Three million little things, you mean?”

“I’m obviously downplaying it because I’m sure you’re already worried enough. But eventually the truth has to come out, right? And anyway, I like you with Dillion. You two work, even if maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t know if that makes sense. I really like her, though. You know, when we were kids, I wanted to be friends with her, but she was a couple years older and never around. Grammy Bee once tried to set up a playdate when I was little, but it didn’t work out all that well.”

“Why’s that?”

“She wanted to catch frogs, and I wanted to play Barbie.”

I laugh. “Sounds like Dillion.”

She leans back in her chair. “I’m glad you have her here. It’s good that you’re not alone.”

“Thanks. And me too. I’m sorry about Troy. I feel bad that this happened because of me.”

“This isn’t on you, Donny. You were the excuse he used to end something that should’ve been done a long time ago.” Teagan sips her drink.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I’m okay to talk about it. I probably should have expected it. I mean, his family is so influential in our circles, and with all the stuff going on, there was too much negative attention on him, so he ended things. Of course, he only told me that after I caught him cheating on me.” She wipes away fresh tears.

“That dick. Ah shit, Teag, I’m so sorry. I would kick him in the balls if I could.”