Dear Neighbor: A Standalone Romance Read online

  Dear Neighbor

  Rebecca Castle

  Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Castle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Also by Rebecca Castle

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  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part II

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Also by Rebecca Castle

  SURFER TOWN SERIES

  The Surfer

  The Teacher

  The Chef

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  Dear Neighbor

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  Prologue

  Dear Neighbor,

  I don’t know how to start this letter, I really don’t. This is going to be really hard to write.

  No, I’m lying…

  This letter is practically impossible to write.

  This letter is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to put down into words.

  How do you begin to write down years of pain?

  I certainly don’t know how.

  I have been sitting here at my stupid desk for literally an hour just trying to think of all the things I could say to you - all the explanations I could write on this piece of paper - but I have come up with absolutely nothing. Zilch. The stuff I’ve written down so far? I’ve simply thrown them in the trash. There’s literally a pile of torn-up bits of paper right next to me right now. I’ve even bitten a pen because of how frustrated I’ve been, and now there’s blue ink everywhere.

  I don’t know why I wrote that. It feels like something you would find funny. Something you could laugh at me about.

  I wish I could make you laugh again. That’s when I find you the most attractive. When your lips curl up and you snort in that super embarrassing way you do. I wish I could see that again. I wish I could hear you laugh again.

  There’s a lot I want to say to you, but every time I try to write it down there just simply aren’t enough words in the English language to accurately describe what I’m thinking.

  Believe me, this letter really is really, really impossible to write.

  So. Fuck it. I’m just going to ramble on like this, and I’m just going to let all the words out in no order.

  Here goes.

  I know you didn’t expect to see me last night. I certainly didn’t. When I pictured you seeing me again it was not in that way, with me standing there with the door open like that. I thought - somehow in my thick brain – that I would make it easy for you in some way, but clearly, I was wrong. Last night definitely did not go as I intended at all.

  I know you want answers. It is completely fair that you do, I totally would if I was in your position. And, seeing as to how you reacted last night, I know there’s a lot for me to explain. I know I’m going to have to do a lot of writing here to even come close to getting you to understand what’s happened in the time since we’ve last seen each other.

  There is a lot to tell you.

  I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t expect you to, but what you’re going to read written down here is the whole truth. Everything ripped from my soul.

  My truth.

  My explanation.

  And maybe it’s enough. Maybe it can help you. Maybe it can explain at least something.

  There’s never been anyone else. There has always only been you.

  Let me confess…

  Part 1

  1

  ABBY

  Serenity was the first to spot the moving truck.

  I heard the heavy vehicle pull up outside, but I was too busy zoning out in front of the TV to pay any attention. Even the crunching of thick wheels on gravel didn’t rouse me from my potato-like existence in front of the screen. The show I was watching wasn’t even interesting - just some cheesy Lifetime film - but I was too happy being a total sloth and mindlessly munching away on a bag of spicy Doritos to care what was going on outside.

  It was only when my twelve-year-old sister scrambled from the couch and pressed her face hard against the window that I sat up and actually begun to take notice.

  “Hey, look, Abby,” Serenity called to me from the window. “There’s a moving truck outside the Smith place.”

  My sister had a slight problem fully pronouncing her THs, preferring to replace them with a lispy F. I would usually stop and try to help correct her speech, but the news of a moving truck outside the old Smith residence made me quickly jump from the couch to join my sister at the window and forget all about her dodgy pronunciation.

  I wanted to see this for myself.

  “No way,” I replied, following Serenity in pressing my nose against the glass to get a better look outside. “That place has been empty for like over a year. If it hasn’t been bought by now, then no one’s ever going to get it.”

  My sister pointed at the house next door in response.

  “Well, someone’s moving in.”

  Wow. She’s right.

  There was a moving truck outside the house next door.

  I’ll be damned. There is someone actually moving in.

  And, judging from the large size of the vehicle being used to carry their stuff, our new neighbors were probably a family.

  “I wonder who’s bought the place,” I mutter. The Smith house had seemed to be on sale for, like, an eternity. We’d watched different people come and view it over the course of the last year, but no buyers yet. Not until that day. My little sister’s excitement was rubbing off on me and now I was super curious as to who the new homeowners would be.

  “Let’s guess who they are,” Serenity said, flicking her hair back. She had it long and wavy, just like mine. She had always wanted to be just like me. And, with our same blue eyes and same dark brown hair, we practically were like twins. People always remarked that my sister was a little clone of me. Like my very own Mini Me from the Austen Powers films or something. “I bet they’re just like us.”

  “Like us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” my sister replied in her cute little singsong. “A girl my age who’s just like me. I bet they’re like us.”

  “Are you betting, or are you wishing?”

  “But wouldn’t it be cool to have a family just like us next door?” my sister asked. “Then we will have more friends. There’ll be a girl like me for me to play with.”

  I chuckled. “And what about me? Anything for me?”

  Serenity rolled her eyes. “Okay, there will be some girl for you to talk to about boys or whatever boring thing you want to talk about all day.”

  “Hey, that’s not all I talk about.”

  My sister sighed. “No, maybe you can talk about makeup as well.”

  “Well,” I replied. “I, for one, do not want our new neighbors to be like anything close to our family.”

  And I wasn’t joking. The very last thing I would want was a replication of my so-called family. I turned my head back towards the hallway, towards my Mom’s bedroom where she was doing God-knows-what.

  No way would I want anyone to have a family like mine.

  My sister, oblivious to my dark thoughts, began to jump up and down excitedly.

  “There they are, there they are,” she exclaimed, pointing at a car pulling up in front of the moving truc
k.

  “I know,” I replied. “I know, I can see them.”

  “I’m so excited.”

  “Me too.”

  My sister and I watched in rapt silence with our faces pressed up against the window as the car’s front door opened. We held our breaths as we spied the people emerging from the car. They were a middle-aged couple, a tall man with a military-style buzz cut and a short woman that stepped out. I heard Serenity practically deflate next to me at the sight of them. I didn’t know what she was expecting - or heck, what I was even expecting - but they weren’t anyone remarkable at all.

  Just a boring middle-aged couple.

  But then the car’s back door swung open, and out stepped him.

  “Who’s that?” I murmured under my breath as a young guy exited the back of the car. He was around the same age as me, eighteen. Tall, like over six feet. Skinny. With long straight blonde hair that pulled back over his ears. He slowly stepped out of the car and took a long look around the neighborhood. His face turned straight towards Serenity and me in the window. We both ducked down in a panic.

  My heart rate jumped.

  Has he seen us?

  My sister laughed. “We’re so silly,” she said.

  “Shut up,” I jokingly replied, carefully checking back on the guy. He hadn’t moved.

  He hadn’t noticed us.

  Good.

  I took him in, squinting my eyes to get a better look. He was wearing a black leather jacket. Dark blue jeans. His shoulders were slumped, and he had a general attitude about him of not giving a shit. I don’t know if it was forced or natural.

  I scoffed.

  “He probably thinks he’s a real James Dean type,” I said to my sister.

  “Who’s James Dean.”

  “Some famous actor from a billion years ago who a lot of boys try to be,” I replied. “But I’ve never seen a single guy be successful.”

  Despite my immediate distaste of the boy next door, I had to admit that there was something interesting about him. Something mysterious. Maybe his attitude wasn’t just some pose he was putting on, maybe he really did have that casual confidence and really did not give a fuck.

  Or maybe he really was just a try-hard blowhard.

  Serenity turned her gaze from him and up to me. “You like him,” she said in a mocking warble.

  “No.”

  “Yeah, you do. You like him.”

  I shook my head at my sister. “Shut up.”

  “I bet you’re scared of him,” she said, nudging me in the ribs.

  I snorted. “I’m not scared of some guy.”

  “Yep, you are. I can see it on your face. You like him and you’re scared of him”

  “Nope.

  “I bet you won’t even talk to him even if I dared you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Even if you dared me?”

  “Yep.”

  Ha.

  Screw Serenity.

  Her big sister is braver than she thinks.

  I stepped back from the window and stood up straight. “Fine then, I will.”

  “What?” My sister’s face suddenly changed, realizing I was being serious. “I didn’t dare you though.”

  Now she was concerned for me?

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, taking a step towards the door. Serenity reached out to grab my hand.

  “Don’t,” she softly pleaded.

  “Nope. You said that I am scared of him. I’m not scared of some James Dean wannabe. I’m going to say hello.”

  “What if he’s weird?” my sister asked.

  “We’re in broad daylight, Serenity, in front of his new house and his parents,” I replied. “What can he possibly do to me?”

  My sister whimpered, and I laughed.

  “What if he has a knife?” she asked fearfully.

  “You’ve been watching too many cop shows.”

  I took another step to the front door, unlocking it.

  And then, as if he were waiting for this exact moment, my stepdad suddenly apparated by my side.

  I thought he was in my Mom’s bedroom. I thought he couldn’t hear us, or hear the front door opening. I thought I was safe from him.

  I was wrong.

  For God’s sake.

  The last thing I wanted to do was deal with my Mom’s new husband.

  Cameron nodded at the front door, at my hands around the handle. “Where are you going?” he asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my sister sliding away from the window and back onto the couch, worried about the sudden appearance of our stepdad.

  “I’m going outside,” I replied, looking at my stepdad right between the eyes. He stared right back at me. I could smell alcohol on his breath.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am,” I said, raising my voice defiantly. “I am eighteen and I can do whatever I want.”

  Cameron smiled. “Not under my roof you can’t.”

  “This isn’t your roof, Cameron,” I replied with a staccato emphasis on his name. “This is my Dad’s house.”

  “Well, he’s gone.”

  Right then I wanted to scream into my stepdad’s face. I wanted to scream that my Dad wasn’t gone. No, not just gone.

  He was dead.

  But instead, I didn’t scream or fight back. I bit my lip and held my venom back. I was not ready to get into another argument with this man, especially not with my sister watching.

  I felt Cameron’s beady brown eyes flicker over my face. His horrible leathery skin was even worse close up. I wanted to get away from him. Fast.

  “The minute I finish school,” I told him. “The minute I do, I’m out of here.”

  “Good luck with that, honey.”

  I ignored him and opened the door. Surprisingly, he didn’t stop me. He let me storm out of the house. I closed the door on him.

  That was pretty tame compared to most of our interactions.

  I shook my head, emptying the built-up tension, and headed across the yard towards the new neighbors.

  They stopped and faced me.

  “Hello, I’m Abby,” I greeted them, offering my hand to the dad. He shook it with a firm grip. His back was stiff as a board, and he was immaculately groomed. So unlike his son.

  “I’m Mr. Hunter,” he replied.

  Mr. Hunter? It was like he was treating me like a kid making me call him by his last name like that.

  I shook the hand of his wife, called Mrs. Hunter according to the dad.

  No first names allowed in this family, apparently.

  Then I turned to their son. To the smoldering James Dean-wannabe.

  “This is Miles,” Mr. Hunter said, gesturing to the jacket-wearing blonde.

  I offered my hand to the guy, but he didn’t even acknowledge it.

  “Hi, Miles,” I cheerily said, ignoring his attitude.

  “Hey,” he mumbled, eyes darting around. Never focusing on me.

  That was it? A little slurred word in response? That was all he was bothered to give me?

  He was so different from what I imagined up close. He was handsome. Tanned, smooth skin. A strong jawline. Bright blue eyes and full lips.

  But my attention immediately turned to the space above his lip. A thin scar traced down from the side of his nose to his lips, only half an inch in length, but it was still very distinguishable.

  A small scar that was incredibly hot.

  My heart rate jumped again for the second time that day.

  Miles Hunter was a beautiful man.