Page 3 of The Ex Next Door
She really needed to work out more.
“You’re doing fine,” her mother said. “You’re got this! Just a few more feet.”
Amy pushed and got a few more inches. The kids were of no help whatsoever, not that she blamed them. They wanted to pretend they were helping.
“All right, I can’t stand it anymore,” said a deep voice Amy couldn’t see from her angle with the box blocking. “I’ve been watching, and I know you can do it yourself, but for the love of God, please let me help. I beg you.”
Then he stepped into her line of vision.
Declan Sheridan.
He looked as he always did, a bit like a Greek god if you mixed him up with a Major League Baseball player. Tall, built, tan, blond. Golden. Hotter than a flapjack fresh off the grill.
Surely her mother hadn’t calledhim. Amy could take a lot of humiliation, but this was too much to bear. Almost the very last person she wanted to see her in this predicament.
Her high school ex-boyfriend.
“What areyoudoing here?” Amy pushed a stray hair from her sweaty face.
“What do you mean?” He hooked a finger, pointing to the house next door with an Astros flag waving in the breeze. “I live next door.”
Chapter Two
Declan Sheridan could handle unpleasantness. He’d lived through plenty in his thirty-plus years. Tragic Dallas Cowboy losses, Houston Astros slaughters, his own rather tepid MLB career, girlfriends slapping and cursing him out, his father breathing down his back, his mother’s drastic matchmaking and his brother, Finn, moving out six months ago, just when he’d come to depend on him to help with the rent.
But he was not going to watch Amy push that behemoth of a box another second. Nope.
Not going to do it. That was final.
He’d been watching from his window since the moving van pulled up, surprised to see Amy hauling boxes into the house next door. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was happening. He was a bartender at the Salty Dog and was practically a central deposit for all rumors and gossip. Everyone spilled their guts to him over a cold beer. It was all over town that Amy and Rob had divorced. Still, what a loser not to at least be here to help his kids. At least she hadsomehelp, in the form of Lou and Moonbeam But a pair of sixty-somethings, one of them with a bad back, were not going to get this done.
No need for formalities. They knew each other well even if it had been some time since they ran in the same socialcircles. Amy had been married and was raising a family. Her friends were other soccer moms.
“Move aside, Amy,” Declan ordered. “You’re in my way.”
“I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t need your help.”
“Oh, yes you do.”
But if she wouldn’t move out of his way, this could be difficult.
She was still just as pretty as she’d ever been, a smatter of freckles across her pert nose, her dark hair pulled up in a ponytail. She was his age but looked younger today wearing no makeup and a baseball cap.
“Let him help.” This was from Lou. “You know I’d do it if I could.”
“Mom, I’m tired,” her little boy said, taking a seat on the grass and pulling out a tuft of it.
Her little girl was already sitting on the porch step with a book. Smart kid.
Moonbeam stood beside Lou, arms crossed, eyes blazing, clearly wanting to throttle Declan. But also possessing a keen understanding that they needed his help here. No matter what she thought of her daughter’s first boyfriend.
“Ask yourself whether you’d let anyone else help you right now. Anyone that isn’t me.”
That landed with her. There was only one reason she didn’t want his help. He was the ex, and she was projecting her disdain for her current ex on to him. In addition to being a bartender, Declan was an armchair psychologist. Came with the job.
“Fine,” Amy said. “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it.”
“I don’t mind at all.” He forced a smile.
