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

fine,” he said. “Just
make sure you believe it by nine o’clock Monday morning.”
     

 
    Flashback: Laney
     
     
     
     
    My first day of high school was
the first day the contents of my lunch were ever a surprise.
    I told my grandma that I could
make my own lunch, that I’d been doing it since I was in second grade, but she
insisted.
    And there was a real note inside,
written in her flowing cursive. It said she loved me and hoped I was having a
nice first day of school.
    It might’ve made me cry if I
weren’t so good at not showing weakness, sadness, and anything else bullies
could smell that might make me a target.
    I was used to getting picked on
enough at home. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that shit at school.
    But inside I was crying, crying
and thinking about all those fake notes I’d written myself over the years so
other kids might believe I had normal parents, too. Parents that didn’t shout
and break things and piss themselves.
    I chose to sit alone that day.
    Making friends wasn’t a priority
for me then. I suppose it never had been. Surviving was all that mattered. Surviving
and making sure Grandma Helly and my teachers liked me so I’d never have to go
home.
    And I was ready to dine alone,
too. I had a pretty book Helly gave me and, thanks to her note, I had a
bookmark.
    However, it was surprisingly hard
to concentrate on the words with the hostile sounds of the unfamiliar cafeteria
going on around me.
    But I did my best, taking bites
as I turned the pages.
    And then everything changed.
    Because the last thing I was ever
expecting happened.
    A handsome boy sat down across
from me. “Hey,” he said, popping his soda open.
    I lifted my eyes from the page
I’d been rereading for the sixth time.
    He had sun kissed blond hair and
blue eyes that were a much darker shade than mine. “Whatcha reading?”
    “ I Capture the Castle .”
    “Never heard of it,” he said. “Is
it any good?”
    “I don’t know. I just started
it.”
    “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
    I furrowed my brow and studied
his face. “Should I?”
    “I live next door.”
    “Oh.”
    “We’re neighbors.”
    “Right.” I prayed silently that
he wouldn’t ask me any of the questions I didn’t want to answer, any of the
questions that made me want to sit alone in the first place- like why I moved to
Glastonbury and where I came from.
    I didn’t have answers to those
questions that I liked, and the truth certainly wouldn’t do. I could hardly
tell this fresh faced, obviously loved kid that I was here because my mom’s
boyfriend broke a beer bottle over my arm when I got between them during a
fight.
    I couldn’t say I arrived with a
suitcase that had nothing in it but a box of perfectly sharpened colored
pencils, three pairs of clean underwear, and a duckling stuffed animal I still
slept with like a two year old.
    He’d look at me like I was a two
headed liar.
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Laney.”
    “I’m Connor.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “You want to walk home together
after school?” he asked. “Since we’re going the same way?”
    “Sure.”
    “Cool,” he said. “I’ll meet you
by the flagpole.”
    “Okay.”
    “You doing anything on Friday?” he
asked.
    I took a bite of my sandwich and
covered my mouth with my hand. “Like what?”
    “A few of us are gonna go down to
the lake and have a bonfire.”
    I squinted at him. “Why are you
telling me this?”
    He swallowed the second to last
bite of his sandwich. “I thought you might want to come. Since you’re new and
don’t know anybody.”
    “Oh.”
    “Well?”
    “Can I think about it?”
    “Yeah, sure.” He tossed the last
bite of sandwich in his mouth.
    There was something refreshingly
unaggressive about him, something gentle, something that made me feel
comfortable enough to lean forward so I could hear him better.
    “Do you like lizards?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “Cause I have one,” he said.