Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Adrian

Dammit! “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I peered through the crack in my blinds at the couple of trucks pulled up next door and the dozen or so men milling in the front yard, drinking coffee, eating doughnuts, and making entirely too much noise with their chatter and laughter.

I’d gotten lucky when the people next door put their house on the market and moved out immediately thereafter, but they hadn’t had a lot of foot traffic or received any offers. It wasn’t surprising. With the woods on the outskirts of the rest of the neighborhood, our two houses were a little removed from the cookie-cutter feel of the rest of the homes as trees surrounded our backyards and butted up against the right side of my house. It might freak some people out, but I loved the peace and quiet.

New neighbors meant noise and, heaven forbid, people who might want to talk to me. My cell phone vibrating on my desk drew my attention, and I let the blinds close as I went to answer the phone. “What?” I barked.

Josh, my best friend, snorted. “Hello to you, too.”

“Sorry. I’m annoyed. Someone’s moving in next door.”

“That’s great, Adrian,” he said. “Maybe they’ll be cool.”

I rolled my eyes. He knew I didn’t care about cool. Hell, he knew I didn’t particularly care for people. Unlike him. Josh was personable, sociable, and the life of the party. He’d never met a stranger. Why he was still friends with me was beyond my comprehension.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he said.

“How did you—never mind. Did you need something?”

He sighed loudly. “Can’t I want to call and check in on my best friend?” I didn’t dignify that with a response, and he chuckled softly. “Okay, okay. Halloween’s over, so it’s time to start thinking about the holidays. What are the chances I can get you to fly out here for Thanksgiving or Christmas?”

He’d gone off to college on the west coast and never come back. With him, went my minimal socializing. “About the same as last year,” I said.

“Adrian, it’s not good for you to stay locked up in the house all the time. Come on. There’s nothing keeping you there, so come see me and Missy. We’ll eat good food, go for walks on the beach, and if you come for Christmas, we can go to look at lights. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s like you don’t know me at all,” I grumbled. He hadn’t listed one thing I enjoyed. I ate out of necessity, I considered any type of walking physical activity, aka as exercise—which ew—and Christmas lights? Really? I didn’t celebrate the holidays. At all.

He snickered. “It’s because I know you that I’m calling.”

Grunting, I made my way back to the window and peered through the blinds. A red SUV pulled up to the curb in front of my house. “Oh no,” I said softly.

“What’s wrong?” Josh asked.

I watched in horror as a petite blonde woman emerged from the other side of the vehicle holding the hand of a little blonde girl. She opened the back passenger door, and a little boy jumped out. One of the men who’d been carrying boxes separated from the rest of the pack and strode briskly toward the trio with open arms. The kids took off running in his direction as he dropped to one knee and embraced them.

“It’s a family,” I choked out.

Josh barked out a laugh. “Oh no,” he mocked. “With kids and pets and everything?”

“You shut your mouth.” I hadn’t seen any animals, but weren’t children bad enough? They squealed and made noise and threw their stuff all around. “What am I going to do?”

“You could move back into the apartment complex.”

I sucked in a harsh breath. “Why would you suggest such a horrible thing? That would be even worse.” The only thing I’d hated more than living with my mother, or in an apartment complex, was living in the dorms in college. I’d worked hard to earn enough money and get a good enough IT job to rent this house so I’d be left alone.

“Exactly. You managed to find the most remote rental while still being in town. One little family must be better for you than a variety of people, so count your blessings. Not that I think it’s healthy,” he ended on a mumble.

“What the…” I said as I watched the lady give the man a quick hug, then hug the children and get back into the SUV.

“What? What’s happening?”

“She’s not staying,” I said as I watched the man pick up the little boy, grab the girl’s hand, and walk back toward the house. He moved with quick, excited steps. He was at least six foot two, so his long legs ate up the distance back to his own front door quickly, and they disappeared out of sight.

“Maybe they’re not her kids.” That didn’t seem right. The way the kids clung to her for a moment as they said goodbye made me think she was their mom. Not that my own mother had ever been very maternal, but they’d had that dynamic that I’d seen between Josh and his mom. “Or maybe she’s going back wherever they moved from for more stuff.”

Dropping the blinds back into place, I headed for my desk and sat down. “Who knows? As long as they don’t bother me, I don’t need to know the details.” Even if I was a little curious.

The man had been seriously hot, with his brown hair hitting the hem of his shirt in the back and his muscular frame. The lady hadn’t been hard on the eyes either. At least they’d looked like they got along so there shouldn’t be any screaming mama drama out front if they were the children’s parents.

“So what’s on the agenda for you today? You’re not working weekends anymore, right?”

“No, no help desk bullshit for the weekend.” Thankfully. Working for a help desk meant having to interact with customers throughout the week, and I was exhausted by Fridays. I didn’t enjoy peopling in any fashion, but remotely was a tad easier. “I’m going to get some studying in.”

“Man, I’m so proud of you. Getting your cybersecurity certification is a good plan. The growth trajectory is awesome.”

Feeling the buzz I always got when I thought about my new career plan, I distracted myself and Josh from talking about the holidays or the new neighbors as I told him what I’d learned in my online classes since the last time we spoke. He didn’t really give a crap about cyber security, but he was a good friend, and so he listened until I ran out of words, and we hung up. I promised to call him again soon if I changed my mind about visiting him for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we both knew I wouldn’t.

I learned long ago that life was easiest when I didn’t allow myself to have expectations revolving around the holidays. I’d never had an idyllic movie-type family in my life. Josh and his parents had always encouraged me to join them, but I had a feeling it would depress me more to see people living out something so foreign to me like it was normal. Yeah, better to just be alone.