The Player Next Door

Is this how it’s going to be between us from now on?

I may have been confused about what I wanted before, but I know for a fact that I do not want this. Maybe Shane is right. I am too complicated.

I feel Dean watching me. I force a smile that is no doubt stiff. “So, I guess I’ll see you around?” Not at Route Sixty-Six on Friday night if Dottie Reed is going to be there, though.

“Sounds good.” Dean takes the first step, then pauses, his gaze veering to Shane’s house again. “You know, he was pretty pumped when he heard you were coming back to town.”

I’m not sure if hearing that makes me feel better or worse. “I don’t think he’s that happy about it anymore.”

Dean chuckles. “Just give him some time. He’ll come around.”

“You mean before or after his date?” Is he still going out with her after our big blowup? After that kiss that buckled my knees?

I’m fishing for information and the amused look on Dean’s face says he knows it. “Don’t worry. He’ll get bored with her.”

So, Shane is going out with her.

“That does not make me feel better.” When is Shane going to get bored with that beautiful, playful blond? After six months of screwing like rabbits? I’ll bet Susie is simple and straightforward. I’ll bet she has normal parents and an ordinary life. She knows what she wants, with no crutches, no emotional obstacles, no confusion.

She wants Shane and, while they may have dated before, unlike me she’s not hung up on their failed high school relationship.

Good ol’ uncomplicated Susie Teller.

If Dean can sense my internal distress, he doesn’t let on, his bright blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “When he does come around? Maybe don’t give him such a hard time. He’s actually one of the good ones.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if I’m ready to take your advice.”

He shrugs. “I never said I was one of the good ones.”

“No shit.” I throw a playful punch into his arm to soften the blow. He did help me today.

His footfalls are heavy as he heads down the stairs, carrying the large metal dolly in one hand as if it’s weightless. “Hey, that thing with your mom … if it makes any difference, I was so drunk, I don’t know how I got it up—”

“Nope. Doesn’t make a difference at all.” I’m sure my horror shows on my face with the visual that is playing out in my head. “And we are never going to mention it ever again, right?”

He grins sheepishly. “I stuck all the warranty paperwork and the manual inside the oven. You should pull it out now, before you forget and turn on the oven with it in there.” He pauses. “Unless you want this stove to act up too, so Shane has to come running here—”

“Oh my God, that was a real fire!” My cheeks flush. Do they seriously think we staged it? Is that what Shane thinks?

He winks. “Have a good week.”

“And we didn’t call you guys. One of my alarmist neighbors did,” I holler after him. If I ever find out who …

Alone in my house again, I venture into the kitchen to pull out the manual Dean tucked into the oven—so I don’t forget and inadvertently start another fire while preheating the oven. “What the …” A Polson Falls charity firefighter calendar is included in the stack of papers. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” I cringe as I flip through the pages of grinning men striking awkward poses and in various stages of undress—three I recognize from yesterday, none of them particularly fit but all handsome enough in a burly away, I guess. It’s as mortifying and cheesy as I anticipated it would be and, by the fourth month, I’m laughing. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to do?

And then I reach July, and my jaw drops.

There’s Shane, leaning against the red fire truck, wearing only the bottoms of his uniform, sooty fingerprints marring a powerful chest and a thick pad of abdominal muscles. There’s nothing cheesy about this picture.

The way he’s staring at the camera makes me question why the hell he didn’t go the modeling route instead of rescuing domestic animals from trees. Who was lucky enough to leave those fingerprints all over his body?

Just the thought of having that task has my skin flushing.

“It’s all fake. Airbrushed.” I stuff the calendar into a drawer, along with all thoughts of a future with Shane, the ache in my chest hollow.

Eighteen

I step back to appraise my work.

Yes, I think a periwinkle blue bedroom is the right choice, I surmise with relief. And I’m only halfway through the first coat. A splotchy, uneven coat in poor lighting. I began edging as soon as I walked through the front door after work and have been toiling away since, partly because I want this room finished, but mostly to distract myself from the knowledge that it’s Wednesday night and Shane is out with beautiful, blond, uncomplicated Susie Teller.