I left my kids and sister to chat with my new neighbor in hopes that they could repair some of the damage I’d created with just two interactions.
Part of me felt extremely sorry for Ben for having to put up with me. I didn’t know what had come over me. Sure, grief and depression ruled most of my moods these days, but I at least tried to put on a show for the rest of the world. I’d managed to stay polite and cordial to almost everyone else in my life, except for a select few, and those people had deserved every last bit of my ire.
Ben Tyler didn’t deserve ire or anger or bitchiness or anything else unpleasant. He had been nothing but nice since we crashed his pool and his morning. Still, there was something about him that just bothered me.
I snuck a peek through the frosted paned glass in my front door once I’d slipped inside. Emma laughed hysterically at something Ben said and he seemed absolutely captivated by her smile.
I wanted to be happy they had hit it off. I should be grateful she could represent my family with her own kind of charm, but I wasn’t. Irritation and frustration bubbled inside my stomach and spread out through my arms and legs hotly. I didn’t understand all this animosity for a man I’d just met.
And I hated that I let it get to me and affect what could be a perfectly comfortable relationship as neighbors.
Emma was still smiling when they said goodbye to Ben at the mailbox and turned back to the house. He watched her walk away from him, holding a letter absently in between his long fingers. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as he clearly checked out her obviously swaying ass.
My sister, the hottie with the body.
But then his eyes flicked up to the house and I realized I had been standing there spying on them. I jumped away from the window and sprinted up the stairs. I now had only fifteen minutes to get through my shower and do something manageable with my shoulder length hair. I couldn’t let Emma down again.
She did so much for me. Allowing her to get to her study group on time was the very least I could do. Besides, I desperately needed a shower. I needed to wash away the sweat and grime from my run and the weirdness and angsty feelings Ben Tyler seemed to bring out of me.
I tried to convince myself that having a neighbor in that house would be a good thing. He’d offered help and I knew without a doubt at some point in the future, hopefully far future, I would need it. I needed too much these days.
I just hoped by the time I had to ask him for it, I could get over whatever hostility I felt for him and could treat him with the grownup respect I should naturally have.
Or, at least not snarl every time I got within six feet of him.
Chapter Four
I finished buckling Jace in his five-point harness and pointed a finger at Lucy. “Stop screaming.”
She didn’t.
I pushed my hair out of my face and let out a frustrated sigh. We were late. Again. Only this time it was worse than usual.
I shoved Jace’s blanket at him and wiped some of his tears away with it before hitting the button to close the door on my super-sleek minivan. I threw myself into the front seat and jammed my seatbelt into place.
The two kids screamed out their protests in a serious show of inflexibility and willpower. My head pounded with a nasty headache and my stomach churned with the task ahead of me.
I rushed out of the garage, careful of the side mirrors, and down the long, slanted driveway. Once on the street, I shoved the gearshift into drive and the engine gave a jolt of protest.
I didn’t have time to care. And I really didn’t have time to pacify my screaming children. With my eyes on the road, I pushed the right buttons and breathed a slow sigh of relief when I heard the screen slide into place behind me. The movie I’d listened to for approximately seventy-seven days straight turned on and the banshee shrieking died down.
I gave my new neighbor’s house an assessing glance before focusing on getting out of the neighborhood. I hadn’t seen Ben Tyler in almost a week, not since I’d returned his towels. He’d kept to himself after the day we met and I’d been too busy to notice. Over the weekend I thought we might run into each other, but he hadn’t made an appearance and I decided to be thankful I didn’t get another opportunity to make a jackass of myself.
The drive to the elementary school only took fifteen minutes, but we were already fifteen minutes late. I was supposed to be there right now.
Shit.
I had a meeting with the school counselor. I was sure she expected me to be late, but that didn’t make me any less stressed. I hadn’t been the best about getting places on time before Grady died. Now that I had no help getting out of the house or into the car, my punctuality had become a joke.
I sometimes tried to analyze why it was so much harder now than it was before. Even when Grady was alive, he hadn’t helped me get the kids to school. He had to leave for work almost an hour before the kids got up. And I always picked them up by myself too.
Somehow the absence of his normal absence made everything worse and my occasional-tardiness had evolved into a perpetual inability to arrive anywhere on time.
Even though Grady hadn’t helped me before, everything was just harder now. It didn’t matter what. Putting mascara on felt a thousand times more difficult than it ever had, or getting dressed, or hell, even getting up. I just couldn’t manage the way I used to.
I kept waiting for the day everything would snap back into place for me. Sure, there were things that would always be hard, always require more effort on my part without my husband by my side. But getting out of the house or up in the morning or those small things that had been mine in the first place should just happen like they always had.