The Dream Guy Next Door: A Guys Who Got Away Novel Read online

  I get what’s coming to me. A flummoxed what on earth are you talking about look. It’s paired with the waggle of one eyebrow. Then a lift of the other one. “You feeling okay there, Mom?”

  I nod, my throat tightening. I reach for my coffee, take a hit of the life-sustaining beverage, and try to speak past the knot. “I’m lucky because I’ve known you since you were born.”

  “Well, duh. You gave birth to me. Of course you’ve known me since I was born. That’s kind of what being a mom is.” She snags another piece of egg.

  “But some parents don’t get to know their kids their whole life.”

  A solemn look crosses her eyes. “Is this going to be a sad conversation where you tell me that you’re sick or that someone has died?”

  “No, God no.” I reach for her shoulder, squeezing, then squash the notion that seemed to bring such fear to her voice immediately. “I just mean some parents don’t know for a while that they’ve had kids.”

  She breathes a sigh of relief, but then her brow pinches in confusion again. “What do you mean?”

  “It happens.” And since Liam’s story of fatherhood isn’t a secret, I say, “That’s the case with Liam and Ethan. Liam didn’t even know he had a son until Ethan was more than six years old, and his mom brought Ethan to him because she had cancer.”

  Her eyes glisten. “Oh, that’s so sad. And hard. That sounds really hard for everyone. And weird too. I’m sorry about his mom.”

  “Me too. But it also made me realize something. I’m so glad I’ve known you your whole life.” My voice trembles. “I’m glad I didn’t miss any of it.”

  My daughter smiles at me in the most genuine, wonderful way. In a way that hooks into my chest, that knocks the air from my lungs. That makes me realize that your heart truly does beat outside your body when you have a child. That all your emotions are both stored in the container of your heart and spill over it at the exact same time.

  “But I don’t remember that much from when I was younger,” Wednesday adds, tilting her head and screwing up the corner of her lips, lost in thought. “But I think I was happy. I’ve always been happy, right?”

  My smile stretches to the edges of the world. I run a hand down her soft hair. “That’s another reason why I’m lucky. You’ve always been a pretty happy kid.”

  “I don’t think it’s just luck. I mean, look, I like you,” she says, like it’s no big deal, when it’s the biggest deal. “You’re cool. You’re a good mom. That’s why I’m happy. And Dad is a good dad, even though I don’t see him much. I talk to him a lot. We text all the time. And he was a good dad when he was here.”

  The lump in my throat expands to the size of a golf ball. “Vince is a very good dad.”

  She takes another bite of her eggs, then a drink of her coffee, since she’s already on the sauce. “Even when you and Dad weren’t really crazy about each other, I was still mostly happy, I guess, because you guys were never jerks to each other. Some of my friends who have divorced parents—their parents can be jerks. Yelling at each other, treating each other badly. But you and Dad were never like that. You were just two people who weren’t really right for each other.”

  It is amazing how much a child can see.

  We think we can fool them. We think, as parents, by spelling words out loud before they can read, by whispering, by slapping on false smiles, that we can shield them from the truth. But children are always so much more astute than we think. That’s why I’ve never wanted to fool my daughter. I’ve always tried to be open and honest with her because that’s how I want her to be with me. “No, we really weren’t right for each other.”

  She picks up her plate and walks over to the sink. “Is this your way of telling me you’re right for Liam?”

  I blanch, whipping my head around to look at her as she sets down her dish. “What are you talking about?”

  She rolls her eyes, an even bigger eye roll this time, as she returns to the table, grabs my plate, and takes it to the sink too, rinsing both. “Mom. Do you think I don’t know what you did last night?”

  I sputter, a cartoon character running in place in midair. “You know?”

  “Aww.” She gives me a sarcastic look that works particularly well coming from a fifteen-year-old. “It’s so cute how you don’t deny it. Also, I don’t want any details, but it’s so obvious that you’re hot for him.”

  I slap my hands over my ears. “Oh my God, please stop.”

  She points at me, laughing. “No, you stop.”

  I lower my hands. “Also, please know this is not my way of telling you that we’re seeing each other.”

  “But you are seeing him?”

  Am I? I don’t know how to answer that, so I say nothing.

  She’s undeterred. “Look, here’s the deal. He seems like a cool guy, and Ethan’s kind of cool too. I mean, for, like, an almost ten-year-old. His birthday is soon, so we need to get him a card or a prezzie.”

  “We do. We’ll go shopping soon.”

  “And maybe we can get that cat soon too?” she asks, waggling her brows.

  “The cat?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Ripley.”

  I snap my fingers. Of course. The Ripley plan. “Fine, we’ll look for Ripley soon.”

  “Soon, as in this month or this decade?”

  “This month,” I say, laughing.

  She gives me a thumbs-up. “I’m holding you to it. Also, just go date Ethan’s dad, okay?”

  “You’re hilarious. I wasn’t asking permission to date him.”

  She yanks her head back, going full reality show oh no you didn’t. “Well, you should ask permission to date him, girl.”

  I laugh. “Is that how it goes now? I have to ask permission to date someone?” I move over to the sink and load the plates into the dishwasher.

  “You haven’t seen anyone since Dad. You haven’t even gone on a single date,” she says, once more proving my point. Kids don’t miss much. They are sponges. They absorb all we say and do. “These things don’t get past me. I have eyes and ears.”

  “I made you that way. Eyes and ears,” I say, since sometimes teasing is easier.

  Grabbing the elastic on her wrist, she loops her hair into a low pony. “I’m just saying, I know you haven’t been with anyone. So this is kind of a big deal. And I know that you guys like each other.”

  When she says that, my stomach flips. A brand-new smile spreads across my face. My eyes, I’m sure, are lit with sparklers.

  She points at me with wicked glee. “Look at you. Just look at you. You’re so pathetic, it’s adorable. Just go out with him.”

  And I answer the question I didn’t earlier. “I kind of am seeing him, but it’s not that simple, sweetie. We want different things. That makes it hard. He wants a bigger family.”

  She cringes. “More kids?”

  I nod. “Yeah, and I feel like I’m on the homestretch. It wasn’t easy being pregnant at twenty-one. But I did it. I made it work. I made us work.”

  “You did make us work. A baby would be . . .” Her nose wrinkles. “Weird?”

  “Kind of weird,” I second.

  Her lips purse, and she swallows harshly, like she’s the one with the grapefruit in her throat. “But there’s no reason you shouldn’t just enjoy it in the meantime, then.” She pastes on a grin. She sets a hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eye, and says, “I’m glad I’ve known you my whole life.”

  I have no choice. I crush her in a hug and tell her I love her a million times until she heads to school.

  I wave goodbye.

  I don’t think I was looking for permission from my daughter. I definitely don’t feel like I needed it.

  But sometimes that’s what kids do. They give you their permission anyway.

  I’ll take it. I’ll definitely take it.

  21

  January

  That’s what we do.

  We see each other.

  Every day.

  On the one hand, it�
�s because we’re neighbors.

  On the other, it’s because we’re dopey, happy, smiley new lovers.

  In the mornings, as Wednesday heads to school and Liam and Ethan hop on their bikes, I give him a grin that says both We are cats who ate the canaries and I like you so very much. He flashes a smile back at me that says I’m happy to see you and also, I want to see you naked.

  So much is said in our silent stares, but nothing is hidden because our feelings are written in our eyes and expressions.

  In the evenings, we find ways to spend time together.

  Sitting on the porch swing and talking while eating ice cream.

  Popping over for a late-night rendezvous.

  He helps Wednesday with a science assignment.

  I help Liam fix his dryer.

  A week after our first night together, once Ethan goes to bed and Wednesday does the same, I do that thing that makes me feel like a teenager. I slip next door to see the cute guy who lives there. We giggle as we head to his bedroom, but that still doesn’t feel like enough distance from the other rooms, so we duck into the master bathroom.

  He lifts me onto the marble vanity, wedges himself between my legs, and then stares at me, heat in his brown eyes. There’s desire there, and endless affection in his words when he says, “I thought about you all day.”

  “You’re just trying to get under my skirt again,” I tease.

  “Oh yes, I am absolutely dying to get under your skirt, but I also thought about you. I thought about fucking you. I thought about the way you smiled at me this morning. I thought about having dinner with you again. I thought about all those things.”

  My heart does a wild loop the loop. “I like seeing you,” I confess, and it feels good to get it off my chest.

  “You enjoy meeting me like this in my bathroom?”

  “I do. I kind of like meeting you anywhere,” I say, amazed that it’s so easy to speak the truth to him. It’s so simple to be honest about all these burgeoning feelings.

  I don’t know why. Maybe because we both know the score? We both know I’m not his Ms. Right.

  But I am his Ms. Right Now.

  He ducks his head against my neck, burying his face there, pressing his lips to my skin, traveling up to my ear, and giving me a kiss that makes me tremble all over. “I want to do all those things with you. I want to have dinner with you and take you out and walk around town, but right now I really want to be inside you again.”

  “I want the exact same thing.”

  I wrap my legs around him, tugging his pelvis against me, sliding my hands around his neck and bringing him close. I kiss him hard and hungrily. He glances down at my dress and runs a thumb over the fabric of my skirt. “You’ve taken to wearing sundresses around me.”

  “I’m a fast learner.”

  “You are indeed,” he says, sliding open a drawer and reaching for a condom.

  He kisses me, deeply and thoroughly, with so much passion that I am panting and gasping. I’m sure he can tell that it won’t take me long.

  Breaking the kiss, he slides off my panties, and I push down his workout shorts, his boxers too. I run a hand along his thick, hot length, savoring the velvet-smooth feel of his skin, how his eyes close, and then squeeze shut. Then the small groans he makes, the noises that rumble from him as I stroke.

  But not for long.

  On a sexy, needy moan, he stops my hand, opens the condom, and rolls it on. He brings himself between my legs, teasing against my wetness. I set my palms behind me on the bathroom counter, bracing myself on them, angling my back so my breasts push up, and giving him the perfect angle to fuck me hard and deep.

  In seconds, he’s all the way in me, and I am lost. I am lost in the sensations that whip through me. And the connection that I feel with him already.

  And as he fucks me harder, the way I like it, because he’s already learned how I like it, everything feels like it’s happening so soon.

  But it also doesn’t feel soon at all.

  Because I remember all we said that first night. From the second I met you, I wanted to kiss you.

  And that’s attraction, that’s connection.

  But the wanting intensified before we touched, grew stronger as I got to know him, and it combusted the night we came together.

  It’s fire now.

  It’s become this. The way we fit. The way I wrap my arms around his neck, bring him close, and kiss the hell out of him as he thrusts inside me. And it’s this too, him whispering in my ear, “God, you feel so fucking good, love.”

  Love.

  It’s simply a British term of endearment. It doesn’t mean anything more than honey or goddess or babe. But I love that it came out of his mouth only in the heat of the moment. That he’s not the type of man who throws love around with abandon.

  It’s almost like a sweet, dirty foreign language, reserved for me. And I use it with him too, in my own way, telling him, “I love when you fuck me, Liam.”

  “Yeah? You like it when I’m deep in you? When I take you hard?” He brings a hand between my legs, stroking my clit, rubbing me right where I want him. Pleasure twists in my belly, blooms, then radiates through my whole body as I dig my nails into his back, wrap my legs tight around him, and groan, “I’m coming.”

  “Come with me, love.”

  There it is again. That word.

  We could become so much more than sex.

  But maybe we already are.

  That Friday afternoon, he gets off work early.

  I do too, and I wait on the edge of town by the train tracks. The sun is high above my head as I rest my hand above my eyes, watching for him. A gorgeous man walks toward me. If I thought my heart thundered before, it does even crazier things now. It’s like a drum beating loudly in my chest, jackhammering in my ears. When he sees me, he comes right up to me, cups my cheek, and kisses me.

  We wander along the train tracks like two lovers in a movie, walking into the afternoon sun as we talk about the town, the women, my friends, our businesses.

  It feels like this could be ours.

  That we could have these walks, these talks, these kisses.

  That’s the trouble. Everything feels so possible with him.

  22

  Liam

  The thing about new relationships is that when they’re good, they’re so, so good.

  And infatuation—it does this thing to you.

  It scrambles your brain, works its way around your heart, and makes it so all you want is to see the other person.

  I start something I never did much in New York.

  I take lunch breaks.

  I have a little more free time here, but I also have the red-blooded motivation to step away.

  The first week we’re together, we grab all the time we can. Sometimes January swings by, picks me up in her truck, and we drive. We go to the train tracks, and we sit and make out in the front seat. Then we talk. We talk about growing up in Duck Falls and Lucky Falls.

  We talk about college, about our twenties and thirties, about New York and California, San Francisco and the town in Surrey where I lived before becoming an American citizen.

  That makes her laugh—that I’m a citizen.

  “Why is that funny?”

  “Because you still have your accent, so you seem British to me.”

  “Do you want me to get rid of it?” I joke.

  “God, no.”

  “You only want me for my accent.”

  Shrugging, she slides a hand up my shirt. “It is a nice feature.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I kept it,” I whisper. “All the better to seduce you with.”

  I learn about some of her favorite books, and how she has a thing for women’s fiction. She eats up stories about modern women living their lives, facing challenges. I tell her about the science articles I like to read and the books I listen to that keep my brain fresh. We talk about the world and what we want for it. We chat about how we love when the trees are green, the
air is clear, and it feels like Mother Earth is exhaling peacefully.

  Sometimes we drive past the wineries, admiring the rolling hills, January’s hand wrapped in mine as we talk more. I’ll tell her about a patient that came in, and she’ll tell me about a client on a project she’s working on, how she’s kicking ass and beating Big Beams Construction like the badass businesswoman she is. And then I’ll tell her a story about Ethan and something funny that happened at school, and she’ll share one about Wednesday.

  I learn more about Alva and Missy, and I tell her about Oliver, Summer, and Aunt Jane.

  It all feels so good. But it also feels like it could be too good to be true.

  I try to let myself just enjoy it. To give in to whatever magic is happening, to the moment, to all of these moments that are winding together. Only I can’t help but worry about when they are going to unravel and how much it’ll hurt when they do.

  But it doesn’t always hurt. Sometimes it just feels good.

  It’s Friday again, and I have two hours free in the middle of the day, and she does too. At her house, we have lunch, and then we make love in her bed as the sun streams in through the window. This time we don’t use a condom because we’re both safe and we’re both clean, and it feels absolutely incredible to pull her on top of me, to slide my hands up her body, to feel her taking me with no barriers.

  Her hair fans around my face as her gorgeous body swivels, sways, moves up and down my length. Her lips fall to mine, and she tries to kiss me, she tries so damn hard, but soon she becomes lost in the pleasure.

  The kisses turn sloppy. They become groans and moans and pants. Then they turn into whispers and words like . . .

  Feels so good.

  Never been better.

  Love this.

  We’re coming together and falling apart.

  After, as we lie next to each other, naked and hot and tangled on the bed, I run a hand down her side. “This seems like it’s been more than just a few times.”

  “It does.”

  “At the risk of stating the patently obvious, I like you so much.”