Page 4 of Side Out

Any Man of Mine - Shania Twain

CHAPTER3

OLD MAN THEODORE

THEODORE

Bridget’s voice shrieks as she practically sashays through the front door. “Theodore! Get my bags from the rideshare! I can’t spill my coffee.”

?*Goddamnit.Here we go.

I can’t say that I’ve particularly missed her or the demands that seem to almost constantly be spilling from that hole in her face one bit.

I nod while passing her, not giving her any verbal response, and head out the door. I grab her luggage from the guy’s trunk, but when I spin around I notice that Emerson is out on their front porch dumping ice into some coolers. When he notices me he yells across the street, “Hey, neighbor!”

I give him a quick wave in return. “Hey!”

This isn’tgood.

I shouldn’t have to feel like I want—no,need—to hide Bridget from our new neighbors, but I do. I don’t want her to be disrespectful to them. And in order for that to happen, that would pretty much require her to never talk to them. Because nine times out of ten, something snarky almost always comes out, whether she does it on accident or on purpose.

I haven’t seen this woman be genuinely nice since we were kids.

My eyes land back on the house across the street, and as I further examine what’s going on, I realize it looks like they’re getting ready for… Shit.

Let’s hope, to all things holy, that whatever they’re planning isn’t going to be as big as I have a feeling it’s going to be on the first night my impossible-to-please fiancée is here.

I’ll never live that down. She is already less than impressed that we live in a college town, let alone so close to campus.

Resigned to the fact that I have no control over the situation right now, I head back into the house. Not even a foot in the door and Bridget snaps, “Theodore, I told you I was having Regina come down to decorate. Why are there already things up on the walls?”

I hate it when she uses my full name, and she knows it. She insists it sounds more “highbrow” and “respectable” than Theo.

I deadpan, “I already had the decorations here. I can only stare at blank walls for so long.” Setting her bags down by the front door, I level my stare with her as she looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

She pauses a minute and looks around. But I can see it in her demeanor. She wants to be here about as little as I want her here. And when she opens her mouth, I know what she’s about to say before she even says it. “I can’t believe we’re living on the same street as all of these college kids. We’re better than this.”

Here we fucking go.

“This is for my job. I have to be here, remember? A college town will always be a part of my life.”

She acts like this is somehow all brand-new information. Like she hasn’t known since we were teenagers this is what I wanted to do.

Growing up, our families were incredibly close. We were neighbors but not the kind you’d see in the city. No, we were the kind of neighbors that were the only two houses on the whole thirty-mile back road. And on the sides of that road were vineyards as far as the eye could see. One side was theirs, and one side was ours.

I don’t have the energy or the mental capacity to get into the nuances of the entire situation at the moment, but it’s important to know that mine and Bridget’s marriage could be the only thing that will save the longevity of our family businesses. Something that I so carelessly put on the line with my “selfishness,” or so my father says, and something both he and Bridget’s father so often remind me of.

That thought stays in my brain for the rest of the day as I listen to her complain about any and everything she can find wrong with this house.

The house of my dreams.

One that’s now the centerpiece to my nightmare of a life.

* * *

“Theodore!”

The progressively higher and higher shrieking that’s coming from the master bedroom should make me answer her, but it doesn’t. I have a dull headache from keeping my jaw clenched tight enough to crack a molar since she got here. And now the tension in the house has increased ten-fold because the house across the street has finally turned up their music to an unavoidable level.

---