My Beautiful Neighbor (The Greene Family Book 1) by Piper Rayne (phonics reading books TXT) 📕

stomach and I’m pretty sure… yep. “I’m gonna be—”

I throw up right beside a tree.

“Oh look, the same as Savannah back in the day,” a man says to his red-haired wife as they walk by.

“She looked prettier doing it.” The woman laughs and he bends to kiss her.

“For sure.”

She slaps him. “Seriously, Colton, how did we not learn from them?”

They continue walking and I stare on at how happy they are—until another explosion of vomit races up my throat.

A guy comes out of the bar and hands Jed a water.

“I should make you suffer.” Jed opens the bottle and hands it to me.

I gulp down half the bottle and sigh. I haven’t gotten drunk in fucking ages.

“Take my truck, Adam. I’ll drive him home in his,” Jed says.

“Why?” Adam asks.

“Because when he pukes again, it’ll be in his own truck.”

We drive home as Jed continues to lecture me about addressing my issues. He goes on and on about how I’m being ridiculous when it comes to Presley, but I don’t wanna hear it.

“Okay, mister one-night stand.” I roll down the window for some air. It runs through my hair and I get why dogs do this. It feels like heaven. Not like when I’m deep in Presley, but nice.

I cringe when I think the word nice. I can’t believe I said that to her after we had sex.

“We’re not the same. We have two very different fucked-up problems. And I don’t have one-night stands, I just don’t do relationships. It’s different.”

“And I don’t either.”

“You do. You’ve been in a relationship with Presley for however long you’ve been messing around with her. You’re just pretending you’re not and torturing yourself in the process.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say. He slams on the brakes and I fly forward, hitting my head on the dashboard. I hold my head. “Jackass.”

“Still haven’t come to your senses yet, huh? Should I slam them again?” He does, but this time I’m prepared and get my hand on the dash before my head slams into it.

“Ha,” I say, and he waves me off.

We pull into the driveway and I see that her light is on. Jed puts the truck in park, and I stare at the window.

“I’ll see you later,” I say.

“Don’t go up there tonight,” he says and exits the truck.

I open my door and hop out, and Adam almost runs me over when he drives up in Jed’s truck. I step back fast. “He almost killed me.”

“No, he didn’t.” Jed is there, blocking the stairs to go up to Presley’s.

“Come on. I want to go up there,” I whine.

“Why? One reason other than sex,” Jed asks, crossing his arms.

Adam tugs on my shirt. “Let her be tonight.”

Do they know something I don’t? “What am I missing?”

“If you’re going up there for a piece of ass, you gotta turn around and go home. Shower, sober up, and see her in the morning,” Adam says.

“What? Did something happen?” I step closer, but Jed pushes his chest into mine and I fall back onto my ass.

“Just tell me,” I say to Adam.

He looks at me then at Jed before his gaze lands back on me. “You might’ve ruined your chance. You really hurt her.”

“How… I mean, she told you that?”

“Everyone knows. Where the hell have you been the last few days?” Jed yells, not moving from his bodyguard stance.

“Are you fucking her now?” I say to him.

Jed narrows his eyes and outright glares at me. “We’re not going through this again. She doesn’t want me, and I think I have a proven track record that I don’t take your girl.”

“She’s really not mine,” I sulk.

“She could’ve been, but you fucking ruined it.”

God, can Jed just chill the fuck out for a hot second? So I flipped out for a few days.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. Nothing good is gonna come from you going up there now.” Adam nudges me toward our house.

I look one more time at her door, but what my brothers are saying make sense. Tomorrow I’ll make amends with her.

I’m not in my house for five minutes before I crash face-first on my bed and pass out.

The shop door opens and my mom rushes in, her arms wide open. She wraps them around me and squeezes so tight, you’d think I’d been declared missing.

“Hey, Mom,” I say.

She draws back and places her hands on my upper arms. “What? What happened?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just nerves.”

Lie. Lie. Lie.

The fact is, tonight is the duo night and I’ve done all the planning with Jed. Cade has made excuse after excuse not to come to the meetings. I’m not an idiot—he’s dodging me after we made love. I almost offered him an out right after I came out of the bathroom and he had his pants on. But I’m done with that. If he wants to break it off, he can come here and tell me himself.

“Is this about the boy?”

“What boy?” I stopped telling my mom about boys after Lincoln because I realized I didn’t want her opinion to tarnish my own.

“That Cade boy you were always talking about. He owns the brewery, right?”

I guess I divulged more than I thought I did. “He does. We’re doing a duo night with them tonight. It’s a big thing in this town.” I pick up one of the beer-and-books markers Jed had made that says which beer goes with which book.

“Oh, this is cute. I should do this for the girls in my book club except it would have to be with wine.”

I get the impression there’s more wine than books going on at her book club, but I guess when your child grows up, you have to find something to do with your time.

I circle around with my arms open. “So what do you think?”

I would love to say my mother’s opinion of my store doesn’t matter, but it does.

She walks around and picks up a book here