Page 10 of The Chad Next Door
“It’s a little strange,” I say before she thinks I’m entirely antisocial. Which I am, but I don’t want to make enemies while I’m here. “I’m all set, though. You can get back to doing what you need to do. I don’t want to keep you.”
She smirks, straightening a row of garden spades. “You must not be from a small town. This is the busiest I ever get.” She gestures to the empty store. “It’s always pretty quiet, but sometimes it’s nice. What brought you to Laketown?”
Hope is going to need to buy a new window in the long run, but for now I could patch the hole with a bit of plywood and some plastic wrap to try to keep out the cold. I grab a roll of plastic and some assorted nails, moving toward the end of the store where some plywood sheets lean against the wall.
Thankfully, June doesn’t follow, even though I expected her to. “Sorry,” she says with a grin, which makes me pause. She leans her arms on top of the shelf between us. “I was like you once, and I know how hard it is to trust that no one is out to get you. I’m not going to push, but I promise you can be open with anyone in Laketown. They’ll have your back. Whatever you’re running from, you’re safe from it here.”
She heads back to the front of the store just as the door opens to let someone new in.
Am I running away? Probably. I needed a break, but I could have taken a break back in Sun City without abandoning Micah or the twins. Instead, I drove almost two hours to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, to a house that I bought for a woman I hope to never see again. I knew even before packing the truck that I would get bored.
But that’s the point. Ineedto be bored. I need to stop looking for broken things and start enjoying my life. I came to Laketown for a literal breath of fresh air, and I shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
I shouldn’t come into town anymore either if I want to avoid people asking questions. June was probably a best-case scenario, and I doubt the rest of the town will be as understanding if I want to be secretive.
“Fancy running into you here.”
The plastic slips out of my grip at the sound of a familiar voice, rolling down my leg and flying directly toward Hope with impressive speed. She tries to catch it with her foot, I think, but she ends up stepping on it. She trips forward and flails her arms to catch herself, but she knocks boxes of nails off the shelf instead. I take one step toward her before she slams into me, shoulder ramming into my stomach and knocking the wind out of me.
And maybe it’s because I can’t breathe or because I don’t remember the last time I had this much physical contact with a person, but I go down, knees crumpling beneath me at the same time my feet slip on stray nails. I land hard, losing any air I might have had left when my back hits the ground.
I won’t even mention where her elbow lands, but I want to curl up in a ball and crawl away from this menace of a woman before she punches me in the face too. A broken nose would hurt less.
“Oh my gosh!” She scrambles to get up, taking out my spleen in the process when the palm of her hand sinks into my gut.
I grab both her arms and silently beg her to stop moving. If I could breathe, I wouldn’t be so silent. I keep my eyes shut but don’t let go of her wrists until I can get in a lungful of air. Then I peek at her.
Her face is beet red as she grimaces at me, but there’s another emotion in her expression beyond embarrassment. One that I saw yesterday too. She’s trying so hard not to laugh, and it’s clearly a losing battle. The panic in her eyes tells me laughing is her default response to tense situations, which generally means she encounters those a lot. I hate that my mind immediately starts wondering why. I’m on vacation. The whole point of coming to Laketown was to take a break from reading people.
Hope isnota puzzle that needs solving. She’s a problem I need to avoid.
“Go ahead,” I grumble as I slowly release her wrists. I wince when I see the red marks I left behind with my grip, but she’s already bursting into a fit of laughter that fills the whole store even when she covers her mouth with her hand.
I slowly sit up, knowing I’m going to feel every bit of this fall tomorrow while Hope will probably be perfectly fine. She’s young enough to bounce back, plus I cushioned her fall. I’m going to have to ice and heat my back if I want to be able to move tomorrow, which has me really feeling my age. I try not to think about how I’m just a few years shy of forty, but those years keep creeping up on me.
What do I have to show for it?
“Is everyone okay?” June appears behind me, her eyes wide as she takes in the scene. “What happened?”
I’m about to tell her that I’ll clean it all up when Hope says, “It’s my fault. I scared him, and then I lost my balance trying to help.”
“I’m not sure you ever had your balance,” I mumble, though I don’t mean it. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m kind of a baby when I’m in pain, and I’m not going to be personable until I’m no longer questioning my ability to have kids thanks to Hope’s elbow.
To no one’s surprise, Hope doesn’t especially like my comment, and she hops to her feet with a chill look in her eyes. It doesn’t stop the red from spreading up her neck. “Well,” she says, tugging at the hem of her shirt with more force than necessary, “you seem like you’re fine.”
Fine, yes. A jerk for adding to her embarrassment, also yes.
She turns her attention to June, talking over my head like I’m no longer sitting on the floor in front of her. “Hi, I’m Hope. We just moved into the Keller house, and I’ve got a broken window I need to fix. Know where I can start?” All of her words come out in a single breath, like she’s eager to get through this conversation as quickly as possible. Probably to get away from me and the catastrophe that surrounds my aching body.
They jump right into a discussion about her options, and I sit there between them, growing more and more irritated even as the pain dulls. I just wanted a nice, quiet break from the world, and twice now Hope has brought nothing but chaos. Is this going to be my entire Laketown experience? Am I going to have her either sending me into a panic or maiming me every chance she gets? If that’s what I’m in for, I might as well go back to Sun City.
Movement pulls my eyes to the next shelf over, where a fluffy head of brown hair pokes around the corner and a set of dark eyes meet mine. It’s the boy, Link, and he’s clutching a handsaw like it’s the only thing that can give him a shred of happiness.
“He’s too young for a saw,” I say to no one in particular.
The women stop talking just as Link disappears like he’s been caught. Which he has.
“I don’t need you telling me how to raise my kids,” Hope says with a huff. “You clearly have no idea what it takes to be a parent.”
