Read The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Small Town Romance (Soulmates Series Book 3) for Free Online

nearly as easily as mine.
    But with a little practice, I got
the hang of it.
    I remember the first time she
came for me. I remember how it felt to feel her charged body clench around me
and melt. I’d never felt so alive, so sure in my purpose, so confident in my
abilities as a man.
    I admit I walked a little taller
after that.
    For four years, I embraced every
single way she changed me.
    And I watched her change, too.
When she first moved to Glastonbury, she was effectively in pieces. Not that
she was to blame.
    In middle school and junior high,
when my parents were supporting every goddamn sneeze I successfully caught with
a tissue and writing embarrassing little notes for my lunch bag, she was going
through hell.
    It was bad enough early on for
her, having a drunk for a mom who didn’t even know who her real father was,
much less where he might be found. But when her mom’s boyfriend started getting
out of line, she did everything she could to stay out of the way.
    There wasn’t an after school club
she wouldn’t feign interest in to keep from going home.
    But soon the guilt of not trying
to protect her mom ate away at her, and she started spending more time at the
house. God knows she had the scars to prove it.
    She was thirteen when she found
out she had a grandmother living a few states away. She begged her mom to leave
with her, begged her to acknowledge what a bad guy her boyfriend had become.
    Instead of hearing her out, her
mom called her names she could never bring herself to repeat.
    She got on a bus the next day.
    And I think that’s why I was
drawn to her. Because she gave off this energy that only people who are
survivors give off.
    It sounds crazy, but even though
she’d seen more darkness than anyone I’d ever met in my thirteen years, she
still managed to cast more light than I ever thought a person could.
    And I basked in it every second I
got, grateful for every corner of her soul she bared to me.
    That was only one of the reasons
I’d love her forever, though at the time I was falling, I didn’t realize what a
curse that love might become.
    My phone buzzed in my pocket, and
I reached for it without lifting my head off the ancient Yankees pillowcase.
    “Evening friend.”
    “Billy Porter was a great call,”
Dave said. “The mayor loved the idea. Even the stupid sump pump bit.”
    I laughed and sat up. “Brilliant.
I hope you took credit for it?”
    “As if I’d give it to you.”
    “Good.”
    “I also inquired with the town
council about the basketball court.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
    “They said there’s a small pot of
money that’s supposed to go towards the renovations, but they don’t have anyone
to oversee the project.”
    “So it’s been on hold.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “For three
years.”
    “Wow.”
    “So I put your name forward and
said you were the guy to talk to.”
    I craned my neck forward. “Come
again?”
    “You can thank me later.”
    “Why would you do that?” I asked.
    “Because you’re the guy for the
job.”
    I furrowed my brow. “How do you
figure?”
    “Because, stupid, that park is
where Bark in the Park used to be held.”
    “I remember.”
    “So when we throw a grand
re-opening of the park,” he said. “We’ll tell everyone to bring their pets.”
    “Pets don’t play basketball.”
    “I’m aware of that,” he said. “But
I bet the grateful parents of basketball playing kids would be impressed to
know that there’s a new vet in town who loves kids as much as he loves
animals.”
    “So, basically, you didn’t want
the job.”
    “I’d love to do it myself, but
between the kids and the gangland warfare, I’ve got my hands full.”
    I sighed. “On a scale of one to
ten, how much did you commit me to this?”
    “You have a meeting with the
mayor next week.”
    “Christ, Dave.”
    “Someday your children will thank
me.”
    I wrapped my hand around my
forehead. “I can’t believe you did this.”
    “That’s