Page 5 of The Ex Next Door (Charming, Texas #8)

W hen Rob hadn’t arrived, or called, and it was close to noon, Amy broke down and called him.

“Hey, Ames! Whassup?”

God help her, he sounded like an overgrown frat boy lounging poolside. If she recalled, having only seen the place once, the apartment complex had a pool. She was pretty sure Rob had chosen it for that reason alone.

“What’s up ?” Amy hissed. “Where are you? The kids are waiting.”

“That’s today?” A splash in the background. “I thought it was next weekend.”

“No, Rob. You knew we were moving in yesterday when you had to pull a late one at the office. But this is your weekend.” She lowered her voice and walked out of the living room into her bedroom to shut the door. “I assumed you’d at least take them today. They really want to see you.”

“Aw, damn. Unfortunately, I already made plans.”

“Cancel them. They miss you. These are your children .”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Amy. Ease up on the hostility, ’m kay?”

“You haven’t even seen hostile from me. Keep it up, and you will.”

The way Amy had always looked at the world, if you hurt her children, you hurt her .

There was zero degree of separation. The mama cub came out in full force.

It was actually better for someone to hurt her rather than one of her children .

Hurting her child was like ripping out a piece of her heart, then trampling on it and expecting her to be fine with it.

She’d always thought this sort of thing would come into play with a class bully or mean girl and not their own father.

But if it were up to her, Rob would not hurt their children any more than he’d already managed just by being himself.

“If you had let me finish , I would have explained that I’ll cancel my plans and pick up the kids. It will take me about thirty minutes to get there. Have them ready and waiting for me curbside, ’kay?”

“Better yet, why don’t I just throw them to you in the car as you swing by? All you have to do is open the door and slow down a bit.”

“That’s not funny . I don’t want to waste any more time, that’s all. I’m already late. Besides, if I come inside they’ll want to give me the grand tour and we’ll waste more time.”

She wanted to scream that it was his fault he was late today, his fault she was unpacking her entire life, his fault her children had to live in this cottage without their father.

His fault for everything . But she wasn’t going to go down that road.

She refused to become a bitter woman. Rob hadn’t cheated on her, at least. Best to look on the bright side.

“Daddy’s on his way!” Amy said cheerfully, for David’s sake.

He’d gone into somewhat of a funk when Rob hadn’t shown up earlier, shuffling around the living room and kicking empty boxes. Naomi, for her part, had curled up with a book.

“Why is he late this time?”

Her little boy sounded bitter, and there went another slice of her heart.

“Oh, you know how it is. Traffic, probably.”

Rob had decided to rent a place thirty minutes away in Houston, as if he wanted to put more distance between him and his family.

“Yeah,” David huffed. “Traffic.”

“Should we wait outside?” Naomi sat up, sliding a bookmark into place.

“If you want to. It’s a nice enough day, not too hot. We’ll wait outside on the porch together.”

And that’s where Rob found them forty-five minutes later.

“Hey, kiddos! Let’s go get us some pizza!” Rob said, swinging open the passenger door.

He was dressed in board shorts, dark shades that hid his eyes, a loose T-shirt and sandals, and didn’t look like anybody’s dad.

This was very likely his intent. Amy wore the yoga pants she practically lived in, a dab of smeared peanut butter across her T-shirt, hair in a ponytail, looking every bit the harried mother of two.

David and Naomi ran into his open arms.

“Daddy! We missed you.”

“Aw, I missed you too, Pumkin’.” Rob patted Naomi’s head and fist-bumped David.

“I think you should give Mommy a big hug because she worked really hard yesterday,” Naomi said with the honesty only a nine-year-old could manage.

“That’s okay.” Amy held up her palms. “I didn’t mind.”

“Mommy’s fine,” Rob said dismissively. “She’s stronger than you know.”

“Yeah, but good thing our neighbor helped us,” David said. “Because you weren’t here.”

“Little dude, I would have been, but I had to work. You know how it is.” The kids buckled up, then Rob shut the rear passenger door and surveyed the house behind her. “So, this is it, huh?”

“It’s all I could afford.” She crossed her arms.

It might be small for all three of them, but she felt protective about the rental her mother had located in town.

It was in an older but quaint neighborhood, with working-class people who struggled for everything they had.

Sometimes Amy wished she hadn’t gone straight from college to marriage and motherhood.

She’d been privileged to stay at home with her children, but it had always been her intent to get her teaching credentials once the kids were in school.

She never got around to that, and now she’d never worked outside the home.

Her last job had been as a waitress in college.

“Well, I’m up for a raise, and things will be better when you get a job.” He tapped the hood of his car.

“I have an interview tomorrow.”

“Oh, hey, good luck!”

A strange sensation pulsed through her. She seemed to be talking to a stranger, and not the man she’d lain next to in bed for years. The man whose children she’d birthed. The man who’d gone down on one knee when he asked her to marry him and cried when she’d said yes.

What happened to that man?

“Of course, once I get a job, we’ll need to pay for childcare. I’ll let you know how much it is.”

Rob frowned. “How much is that going to cost me?”

Amy stiffened. Rob complained about every penny he had to give Amy since he decided he didn’t want to be married anymore.

“I don’t know. How much is the safety of your children worth?”

Rob sighed, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I better go.”

“Yes, you better.” Shame hit her, the feeling she’d crossed a line she promised she would not. Unfortunately, she was bitter. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“It will be late, around nine.”

Amy spent the rest of the day unpacking. In the late afternoon, Mom came over with new princess sheets she’d purchased for Naomi’s bed and soccer ball sheets for David’s. They set up the beds, decorating the rooms the way they’d been at their home.

After her mother left, Amy appraised the work they’d done. This would never look like the home she’d left and even if it did, her children were too smart to be fooled. From now on, their lives would be different.

Her house was so close to Declan’s that she heard his front door slam shut around dinnertime that evening.

She looked out the window and there he was, walking to his truck, dressed nicely in slacks and a blue button-up shirt.

A sense of melancholy hit her hard and fast, a swift and distant memory of their prom night many years ago.

No matter how hard he played baseball, Declan cleaned up well when he had to.

He’d been dressed in a tux the night of their prom, a black one with those shiny shoes.

Classy and handsome. She’d worn a hideous yellow dress that at the time seemed cheerful and bright. Lord knew what she’d been thinking.

Declan thought she was beautiful anyway, or at least that’s what he’d said.

“I love you, Amy,” he’d told her that night and sounded so sincere she believed him.

She allowed herself to briefly wonder what her life would have been like if she’d married Declan Sheridan. They might have gotten back together if she hadn’t been so hurt and proud that she refused to listen to anything he had to say.

But there was no world in which she could ever regret being the mother to David and Naomi.

Sometimes, she understood Rob’s nostalgia for the old days when they were young and carefree. They’d been parents for so long their youth seemed far away. But if Amy closed her eyes and focused, she could almost feel those days again, and they didn’t seem so distant at all.

* * *

Right before Declan pulled into his driveway around midnight, he noticed Amy next door. She sat on the porch swing, barefoot, staring out into the dark blue sky.

He shut off the headlights, and Amy stood and moved to the front door.

“Don’t go inside on my account,” he called out.

She shook her head. “I’m not. It’s just…time.”

He strolled over, jangling his keys in his fist. “What are you doing out here? Is something wrong?”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know… You just moved in.” He shrugged and stopped at the bottom step to the porch. “Did everything go okay with settling in? I know you didn’t want me to help with anything else, but—”

Amy blinked. “Why would you be concerned with that?”

“Amy.” He sighed. “You’re going to have to get used to my being neighborly.”

Clearly, she wasn’t the Amy he remembered from their teenage years.

Yeah, that was a long time ago, but his Amy was cheerful and fun.

She wore yellow and every bright color under the sun, her long, dark and curly hair always falling loose around her shoulders.

You’d catch her smiling far more than frowning, moving more than sitting, and he’d loved her like crazy. He still remembered that.

This new Amy seemed older than her age, and he’d bet she hadn’t smiled at anyone other than David and Naomi in a long while.

“I’m sorry. In my old neighborhood, everyone minded their own business.”

“Well, now you’re in my neck of the woods.” He pointed to her and winked. “Your business is my business.”

She almost cracked a smile. “That’s not true.”

“Whatever. Learn to live next door to a concerned ex-boyfriend.”

“I don’t know if I can. Your being concerned about me is throwing me back a bit too many Thursdays.”