Fiance Next Door

I lift my glass to my lips and gulp down its contents in one go. The liquid blazes down my throat and I welcome the burn and the hit of the alcohol, but it doesn’t make my problem go away.

I can’t leave Aster Higgins alone and I can’t have her. What on earth am I going to do with her?

Chapter Three ~ This Can’t Keep Happening

Aster

“I don’t know what to do with him,” I confide in Peggy as I drive us home from the supermarket where she helped me shop for a month’s pantry staples. “He just keeps popping up.”

“Well, it’s a small town.” Peggy turns to the rearview mirror and puts on a fresh layer of her lipstick, an intense fuchsia shade that complements her dark skin. “Plus you do realize you live next door to each other, right?”

How can I forget? Just this morning, I glanced over the fence in the backyard and Mason was there, having coffee in a white tank top he was nearly bursting out of. We should have built a wall.

I shake my head. “He shouldn’t have come back.”

“It’s his sister’s wedding,” Peggy points out. Then she twists her body in her seat so she’s facing me. “Why do you have a problem with Mason Burke?”

“What?” I focus my eyes on the road. “I don’t have a problem with him.”

“You just said you don’t know what to do with him,” Peggy says. “And that you wish he wasn’t back.”

I shrug. “I just wish he’d leave me alone.”

“So you’re avoiding him. Why are you avoiding him?”

“I’m not. I just don’t want to see him.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

My mouth hangs open as my brain freezes.

Good question. Why does Mason Burke’s presence bother me so much? Let’s see. One, because I haven’t seen him in ten years. I don’t know this man anymore. He’s a stranger with a beard, muscles and a humongous amount of confidence. Two, because I’ve just discovered that he can see into my room from the attic, and I caught him looking, which means he knows a lot about me. He probably knows more about me than I do about him. That’s not the kind of person you want to hang out with. And three – and I think this carries the most weight – because the last time we talked to each other, he kissed me and I slapped him. Needless to say, that didn’t go well. It was so bad, actually, that Mason left town the same day and never came back.

Until now. Now, all of a sudden, he’s back. I don’t know if he remembers what happened, but if he does, then he probably hates me. Why shouldn’t he? I said I hated him. I actually didn’t. I was just so shocked by what he did, and maybe a little offended by some of the things he said, that I blurted that out. Maybe I should apologize?

Maybe that’s why he bothers me. Because I feel like I owe him an apology.

“Because I said some mean things a long time ago.”

Peggy’s eyebrows furrow. “Like what?”

“Just… mean things an eighth-grader would say.”

“Yeah. Like what?” Peggy asks persistently. “I’m only curious because I’ve never heard you say anything mean.”

“Really?”

“You’re not mean, so maybe what you said wasn’t mean. You just thought it was.”

“It was,” I assure her.

“So what was it? And while you’re at it, tell me why you said it, because I know you would never try to hurt someone else.”

“Wow.” I look at her. “I never thought you considered me a saint.”

“Just tell me what Mason did.”

I feel like I should. It’s about time I told someone what happened, and Peggy is my best friend now, maybe the only friend I have left. Still, I can’t bring myself to tell her about my first kiss. I don’t know. It just feels so… private.

“He said some mean things, too.”

“Okay. So why do you feel like you should apologize?”

Another good question. Why should I feel bad? Mason was the one who said a lot of insensitive stuff, and to top it all off, he kissed me without warning just to shut me up.

“You know what? You’re right. I don’t owe him an apology.”

She faces forward in her seat. “I must say I’m surprised, though. I didn’t think you and Mason were close.”

“We’re not.”

“Wasn’t it Leander you had a crush on?” Peggy asks.

True. It was Leander I was always happy to see, Leander who I liked to play with when I was five, who I liked making lemonade for when I was seven, who I gave a Valentine’s Day card when I was eleven, whose name I’d scribble on the edges of a book, whose picture I had on my first phone.

Leander Burke. The older brother. The football prodigy. The darling of the crowd. I think every other girl I know has had a crush on him at some point. I just thought I had the biggest crush on him because he was my neighbor.