Page 27 of The Chad Next Door
“This weekend feels like a perfect time to do some investigating,” Hank suggests, and he seems just as excited about the idea as I am. As if he can sense my confusion, he chuckles and shakes his head. “Occupational hazard. I’m a mystery author, and men like Chad Briggs are fascinating to me. He’d make a good main character, don’t you think?”
He’s already become a main character in my life, and that’s without knowing anything about him. “Yeah, he would,” I agree.
“The quiet and mysterious mountain man full of secrets,” Hank says, “reluctant to let anyone into his heart.”
I know he’s just speculating, but it feels so spot on that I can’t help but ask, “Why do you think that is?” One second Chad is flirting with me, and the next he’s closing himself off and running away, and he smiles so rarely that there has to be some underlying pain in there somewhere. Maybe he just needs reasons to smile, but maybe something in his life has taught him that there’s no point in being happy.
Hank shrugs. “I’m totally guessing here, but if I were writing a character like him, he would be closed off because he’s been burned before. Maybe recently. Not many people are good at opening their heart again after a loss. He could still be licking his wounds.”
Anyone who gives up a guy like Chad is an idiot, but if Hank is right and someone hurt him, I want to find her and punch her in the nose. And then thank her because now I have a chance to fall for him because it brought him here to Laketown.
The kettle whistles, and Hank gets up to finish the tea for me. (Probably a good idea; I’ve never been known for making good tea.)
“If you were writing his book,” I say before I can stop myself, “what kind of love interest would he have?”
Grinning, Hank gives me a look that says he knows exactly what I’m fishing for. “Someone who challenges him and isn’t afraid to tell him what to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Hope
The power goes out aroundeight o’clock, which is a lot later than I expected. At Chad’s insistence, I spent the afternoon curled up in the armchair with a book, while he and Hank kept the kids entertained. I’m not sure how Hank got roped into it too, but both men seemed more than happy to play Candyland and lose at Mario Kart over and over. The kids got to help make dinner, and they even helped clean up after we were done, something they’ve never done at our house even though I’ve tried to teach them how to do dishes and wipe down the counters. Chad makes cleanup with kids look easy.
When the lights flicker out, Chad doesn’t give Link a chance to get worried. He immediately turns on a lantern and asks the six-year-old to help him light the fire while Zelda climbs onto Hank’s back and decides they are adventurers exploring a deep and dark cave. It’s like I’m living in a dream, and I wish I had more than words to express to Chad how grateful I am that he had the foresight to bring us over here. I can’t imagine what it might have been like over at my house, where a hole in a window would have us freezing our butts off, even if I’d managed to make a fire. I don’t have a fancy gas-powered lantern I can light to keep things comfortable and bright, and I would have gotten tired of entertaining the kids long before now.
Chad’s tired. I can see it in his eyes and in the set of his shoulders, but he hasn’t stopped once. I know I need to rescue him and give him a break, but I can’t stop watching the way he’s so good with Link even though Link hasn’t said anything since the spider incident last night. Chad explains the proper way to build up a fire so it will keep burning long into the night and keep everyone warm, and he lets Link hold the lit match, keeping a careful eye on him so he doesn’t burn himself. He grins when Link’s eyes light up at the same time the logs catch fire, and my heart swells as I watch them.
Not long after he gets the fire going, Chad gets a call that immediately wipes the smile off his face. “Micah?” he says as he answers, and he moves over to the far side of the room. “Are you okay?”
Nerves settle in my stomach when his expression tightens, growing more tense the longer he listens. Is something wrong? Who’s Micah?
“Hey,” he says gently. “Hey, breathe, okay? You’re okay. Take a deep breath with me. There’s my girl.”
A sharp pain forms somewhere under my rib cage. I’m making assumptions, and I really shouldn’t, but suddenly I don’t want to know who Micah is or what she means to Chad. Old girlfriend?Currentgirlfriend? A daughter he has hidden somewhere else? Does his second home hold a second family? Maybe that’s why he’s so set up for a family. Maybe he has one waiting for him in Sun City and all of this has just been him being nice.
“Tell me what you’re working with,” Chad says, his voice low.
I shift my focus to Zelda and hope she can distract me enough that I’ll stop jumping to conclusions. “How about a dance party?” I ask her; she looks like she’s growing tired of the explorer bit.
Her face brightens as she drops from Hank‘s shoulders. I know she used to have dance parties with her mom all the time, but we’ve been so busy trying to get things packed up and moved and unpacked that I haven’t had any time to do anything like this. “Yeah! Can I choose the music?”
I unlock my phone, and together we find a dance mix that has all her favorite songs. We hit play right as Chad ends his call, and I’m grateful to Hank for asking the question I’m too scared to:
“Everything okay?”
Chad nods, though his face says otherwise. “My sister’s stuck in the storm too, apparently.” I immediately feel stupid for assuming the worst about who Micah might be, especially because he seems so worried. “She’s at a closed lodge about an hour away, and I guess there’s a whole tour bus of people that have taken shelter there.”
“The lodge is closed?” Hank says, frowning.
Chad shrugs, rolling his shoulders a bit as if he’s trying to rid himself of some of the tension that has shown up since his phone rang. It doesn’t seem to be helping. “I guess her company is doing a grand reopening for the lodge next week, so they were there for a planning meeting. She’s…she doesn’t do super well on her own. She’s trying to take care of everyone, but it pushed her into a panic attack. She needs… I need to…”
He has his phone to his ear again, and I hear him say hi to someone named Blondie before he disappears down the hall and shuts a door behind him. I glance at Hank, who shrugs before joining Zelda’s dance party and giving me a look that says I should go check on Chad.
I give him a few minutes—mostly because I’m nervous about interrupting when he’s clearly stressed—and then I pad down the hall and knock on his door. He grunts, which I take as a sign that I can enter, and I find him sitting on the edge of his king-size bed with his face in his hands.
“Everything okay?” I ask, even though I know it isn’t. I settle myself next to him and put an arm around his broad shoulders.
He looks over at me, his eyes full of worry in the dim light coming from the hall. “I hate that I’m stuck here,” he says, and then he winces. “I don’t mean… I’m glad you’re here. I meant…”
