Page 8 of The Chad Next Door
Problem is, if I don’t ask him, it means I’ll have to hire someone to do it, and something tells me that won’t be cheap. I don’t know the odds of someone in Laketown being able to do it—but how hard can it be?—which would mean getting someone from Coleville, the nearest town with a population greater than a thousand, which is almost an hour away. Maybe I could ask Aunt Phoebe if she has a recommendation in Furley? (Also an hour away, by the way.) My goal is not to bother her if I can help it, even if she told me I can ask for anything.
It’s hard to ask someone for help when they pretended you didn’t exist for most of your life.
Grizz whistles that clear and piercing whistle again—how does he do that?—and the dog comes running back, plopping himself right at his master’s feet. Maybe it’s just me, but seeing the way Grizz has such a handle on the animal is weirdly attractive. Don’t get me wrong. I am fiercely independent when I can be and don’t need a big strong man to fix all my problems for me. But when most of my life has been filled with spineless cowards, seeing a man take charge with confidence has me on the edge of swooning.
“Hope, why are you washing your hands so long?”
I jump, splashing myself with frigid water. “Because I was really messy,” I stammer. “Is Link still sleeping?”
Zelda shrugs as she finishes off her second roll. “He’s probably looking next door just like you are.”
Well, it’s time to die of mortification. Thankfully, odds are extremely low that Grizz will ever hear that I spent a good three minutes watching him this morning. At least, he won’t unless I ask him to help with the furnace.
Zelda keeps talking as she reaches for a third roll. “The dog’s name is Duke. That’s what his collar said. He’s really nice.”
Oh good, I can rest easy knowing I’m a dog stalker, not a man stalker. Grizz never needs to know. Ugh, I cannotkeep calling him that. It sounds like a stupid nickname a frat boy came up with, no matter how accurate to his personality it seems.
“Finish up your breakfast,” I tell Zelda, pulling myself away from the window to reduce temptation to keep watching. He’s probably inside at this point anyway. “I’ll go get your brother, and then we need to go to the grocery store before we run out of peanut butter.”
Sure enough, Link is perched at his window. He’s pulled the bed directly against the far wall so he can sit and look outside. For as long as I can remember, he’s always been fascinated by animals, but Bailey never let him have a pet because she worked too many long nights and wouldn’t have been able to help take care of anything. But during our long phone calls, when she was stuck at the office and I was up cramming for a test or writing a paper, she would go on and on about how many animal facts he knew. We had to sell most of his books along with the house, but I’ve been thinking I need to get him an encyclopedia app or something so he can still learn more if he wants to.
“Whatcha looking at, bud?”
He doesn’t turn away from the window, but he gives me a shrug. It’s better than nothing.
I hesitate in the doorway, but he seems to be a little brighter today than he’s been since I picked him up from Child Services. So I take a chance and sit on the end of his bed with him, watching him as he watches Duke play tug-of-war with Grizz. He looks so much like Bailey. He has her upturned nose and her rich brown eyes. His brown hair is lighter than his mom’s, with a bit of wave to it while hers was always stick-straight, but there is no arguing that he’s her son.
Sometimes, when I study the kids like this, I wonder what their dad was like. Bailey never talked about him, even when I asked, but I know he wasn’t great. He couldn’t be if he left her right after he found out she was pregnant with Link. With the way Bailey skirted around my questions after she told me she was having another baby—basically when she was in labor—I’ve wondered if Link came as a result of something more sinister than I’d like. Bai was already thinking about leaving him, whoever he was, and I get the sense that he forced himself on her. It would explain how she got pregnant so quickly after Zelda when I know she was already overwhelmed with one kid. She wouldn’t have chosen to have another baby.
Not that Bailey regretted getting Link. She always fiercely loved her children and was the best mom in the world to them.
It’s a lot to measure up to.
“I heard his name is Duke,” I say, shaking away the bad feelings and focusing on the kid who is now mine. That part is never going to change. “What kind of dog is he?”
He glances at me, giving me a look that says I’m clearly stupid for not knowing. You would think, with how quiet he is, he would be the sweet one, but he shares Zelda’s disdain. I wonder if they did this with Bailey too or if they only dish it out to me.
“Oh right, he’s a golden retriever, isn’t he?” I roll my eyes as if it’s silly that I forgot. “Hey, I’ve got some breakfast ready, and then we need to go to the store before we all starve.”
“I could stay here.” He says it so quietly that I barely hear him, but I’m overjoyed that he says anything at all.
I ruffle his hair. “Nice try, kiddo, but I can’t leave you here by yourself.” I can see he wants to argue, so I give him a nudge. “Get dressed and come get some breakfast.”
By the time Link has swallowed one whole roll—technically it’s more than he ate last night—Zelda is practically begging to get out of the house. She says it smells like an old lady, which isn’t wrong. If we get a sunny day any time soon, we’ll have to air the place out and hopefully get rid of the stale perfume smell.
The drive into town only lasts ten minutes, but for a girl from the heart of Tampa, that feels like forever because there’s nothing but trees in between the first house on our lane and the edge of town. And ‘town’ can barely be called that when it’s made up of a single main street and a few offshoots that all have cutesy names like Strawberry Street and Blueberry Lane. It’s a pretty adorable town, if I’m being honest. It’s just so different from what I’m used to, and it will take a while for it to sink in that this is nowmytown.
“What do you guys think of Laketown?” I ask as I pull up in front of the tiny grocery store on Main Street.
“I miss Orlando,” Zelda says without hesitation.
Okay, I would miss Orlando too if I lived that close to Disney World, but we’re here now, and I’m not going through all the trouble of buying a house somewhere else. The only reason I could get this one was because Bailey had amassed enough equity on the Orlando house that I had a pretty good down payment ready to go. (A month ago, I didn’t even know what equity was. Look at me adulting all over the place!)
“Well,” I say as I climb out of the car, “maybe you can learn to love Laketown as much as you loved Orlando. Besides, think of all the fun we can have on the lake as soon as summer comes.”
“Oh, honey, there’s no lake in Laketown.”
I spin around to face the owner of a sweet and feminine voice, finding a woman with soft gray hair and the kindest green eyes I’ve ever seen. She smiles at me, filling her face with deep wrinkles, before holding out her hand.
