Page 51 of The Chad Next Door
The next week passes byin a blur. Part of that is because of the pain meds that really do mess with my head enough that it’s almost not worth taking them. Almost. Knowing I’m less likely to be a whiny jerk if I take them is enough of a reason to pop them in my mouth whenever Hope hands them to me. She doesn’t trust me with the bottle in case I get addicted, which I appreciate, but I’m pretty sure she has a little too much fun witnessing the tongue-loosening effects of the drugs, especially about fifteen minutes after I take them, when that effect is the most potent. She only hands me the pills when she can stick around and watch me completely lose all inhibitions.
I have vague memories of calling Micah at one point and confessing how much I love her and the twins, though I genuinely don’t remember exactly what I say to her. And she doesn’t bring it up when she tells me she and the twins are doing trivia night without me when that’s always been a thing for the four of us.
Rude. Not that I can blame them when I’m two hours away, but still. Either Micah is trying to convince me to come home, or she’s telling me that they don’t need me and I should stay in Laketown with Hope. Not knowing which it is makes me antsy.
A few times a day, I hobble out to the deck and whistle for Duke, though the forest remains as silent as ever. We don’t talk about it, especially when the kids are around, but I know he’s gone. Hope thinks otherwise, and I love that she fits her name so well, but I can’t imagine my dog would be off wandering the woods so close by without finding his way back. Link didn’t get all that far when he went off into the trees. Animal control went looking for the mountain lion to try to relocate it farther from town, but they had nothing to report about Duke’s whereabouts.
Hope decided that was a good sign. I’m not so sure.
There’s been no sign of Todd since Hope claimed she couldn’t hold it anymore and stopped to use a bathroom, losing sight of him in the process, but I’m okay with that. I’m banking on him being the coward I think he is, though I do walk Hope through the process of installing my security cameras after they come in on Tuesday. Then Hope hands me my meds and I’m useless to the world, outside of giving Hope a thorough and detailed description of the time I knocked over a display stand at the pharmacy where I worked as a teen.
For the record, Zelda seems to appreciate my drugged state as much as Hope does, saying I listen to her after school stories a lot better when I’m “silly,” and I genuinely love when the afternoon hits and she comes and sits with me for an hour or so before she gets bored. Even when I’m not newly drugged, I try to stay silly just to see her smile. Her smile looks a lot like Hope’s.
Link and I have pretty much been ignoring each other all week, not out of blame (on my end) but I think out of shared pain. I haven’t missed the way Link spends a lot of his afternoons gazing out the back window, nor how often he cries himself back to sleep after Hope has gone to bed. I wish I could tell him that it’s not his fault that Duke is gone, but every time I try, the words stick in my throat. I really don’t blame him—I blame the badger—but that doesn’t make my chest ache any less. Every time he looks at me, he gets teary-eyed.
After the kids go to bed, Hope and I talk. For hours. Yeah, okay, there’s a lot of kissing happening in there too, but talking to Hope quickly becomes my new favorite thing. She always gets sleepy too fast, and every time I walk her to my bedroom door and kiss her goodnight, the feeling that it’s not enough gets stronger. I never want to stop talking to her and sharing everything about my life, and I don’t want to say goodnight to her and walk away.
If this week teaches me anything, it’s how easily Hope carved her name into my heart and is going to become a permanent fixture there, whether this thing lasts or not.
By the time Friday hits, I can mostly walk without wincing and I feel confident that I don’t need the pain pills to keep me civil. Hope has been letting the kids take the bus to school all week, dropping them off at the end of the lane and picking them up after spending the days with me reading or searching for a remote job she can do, but Friday she has to take them to school herself because Zelda can’t decide what to wear and makes them miss the bus.
“June has been driving me crazy anyway,” Hope says when I complain about her going into town. We haven’t seen Todd on our street, but that doesn’t mean he’s gone. “She wants updates after what happened on Monday.” While the kids scramble to put their shoes on, she loops her arms around me from behind where I sit on the couch—my new permanent spot, it feels like—and kisses my cheek. “I promise I’ll be careful. I’m an expert tailer now.”
I tilt my head up until I can reach her mouth with my own. “What if I come with you? Just in case.” Hank borrowed my truck last night to pick up a new bookcase this afternoon, and I don’t like the idea of being trapped here while she’s all the way in town. “Please.”
She glances at Link, which is exactly what I expected. “I don’t know, Chad.”
She’s right. Ten minutes is a long time to spend trapped in a car together with nowhere to hide, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for that, even if I desperately want to fix things with the six-year-old.
“Give it time,” Hope whispers, rubbing my shoulders a bit. “Everything will work out. Maybe this weekend we can try to reset things and start fresh.”
She kisses me one more time before heading out, and I last maybe half an hour through a football recap before I fall asleep. (Idleness doesn’t suit me, okay?)
I wake to my phone buzzing somewhere beneath the cushions. I scramble to dig it out, grinning when I see that it’s Hope. “Miss me already?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” a male voice replies.
I nearly drop my phone. “Todd?” Then it hits me, sending a jolt of adrenaline through me that shoots me up to my feet. “Where’s Hope?”
“She’s cute, you know. A little quirky, super pushy, but I see why you like her.”
“Answer the question.”
He chuckles. “Would you relax? We’re just enjoying brunch, and she stepped away to use the restroom. I borrowed her phone since I don’t have your number.”
Does that mean they’re at the diner? Or is he just playing with me? There must be more to this man than I thought if he’s managed to get Hope to cooperate, and I can only imagine the threats he might have made. She knows exactly who he is and would have been smart enough to run if she had the chance.
“What do you want?” I growl, silently cursing Hank for choosing today of all days to do something with his literal stacks of books. I can barely walk, let alone run the five miles into town to get to Hope. Even making the trek to Hank’s house to see if he’s left yet feels like a daunting task. “If you touch her, I swear to God I’ll—”
“What?” Todd asks calmly. “You couldn’t even get me arrested when you had all the evidence in your hands.”
“Not while you were out of the country,” I growl. “Now that you’re back, it’ll only take one phone call to—”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Not if you care about your little pretend family.”
His words seize hold of my heart, squeezing so tightly that I can’t breathe. I sink back to the couch, gripping my phone so hard that it hurts. “Talk.”
“Suddenly I find myself needing a lot of money,” Todd says. “You’re going to get it for me.”
