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Falling for the Girl Next Door by Tera Lynn Childs   Copyright © 2016 by Tera Lynn Childs. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.  

Chapter One

A few months ago, if someone asked me to name one good thing about Austin, Texas, I would have laughed in their face. Serious, can’t control it, gut-wrenching laughter. Never in a million years.

Apparently a lot can change in a short time, because now I can name three.

1. The food. As a vegetarian, Austin is a wonderland. There is a seemingly endless array of meat-free options. Back home in New York I had my favorite haunts, but here I’m finding new places to yum practically every day. Plus, there is my new obsession: Tex-Mex. There is no such thing as too much guacamole.

2. The school. When I first saw Austin NextGen Academy, all shiny and modern, I thought it would never compare to the School of Drama and Art where I spent my first three years of high school. I was wrong. Between the advanced-level classes and the experimental teaching methods, NextGen has totally blown my mind.

The neighbors. Or, more specifically, the neighbor boy. Tru Dorsey. He didn’t exactly make the best first impression—climbing up onto my roof to disrupt my angry solitude had not endeared him to me. And thanks to a bunch of propaganda from my mom and his parents, I’d been pre-disposed to dislike him, anyway. But the boy has definitely grown on me. So much so that he’s been elevated to full-on boyfriend status.

So there it is. The three reasons why I’m not unequivocally hating my parent-enforced exile in the Lone Star state. Enough to make my sentence here more than bearable. Dare I even say enjoyable? I’m not saying I’m ready to apply for permanent Texas citizenship, but sticking it out here in weirdsville for the duration of my senior year won’t be the worst thing in the world.

Cue the guilt. I feel like I’m cheating on my hometown with another city. A girl can’t spend almost eighteen years as a New Yorker and then just walk away. But Austin makes me want to try.

There’s also the family guilt. While Mom and I are living it up in Austin, Dad and Dylan are back in our Big Apple brownstone. Dad is a workaholic who is almost never home. It’s kind of hard to miss him when I never saw him much anyway. But my baby brother is another story. He’s like the missing puzzle piece in my daily grind. I know Mom feels it, too.

The guilt was bad enough when I could blame my parents for sending Mom and me away. It was me against them. I was the sane one who wanted to go home.

Now that I’m actually content to stay in Austin…now it’s kind of my fault, too.

My family is broken in two, with half a country separating us. And I’m partly to blame.

…

“You need more than water for breakfast,” Mom says as I grab a bottle from the fridge.

I shake my head. “Tru and I are stopping for coffee.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. Her brows frown into that look of disapproval that means a lecture of some sort is coming.

I’m not interested.

“You need more than coffee for breakfast,” she corrects.

“It has more than coffee,” I counter. “It has steamed milk, too.”

I don’t tell her that it also has an extra shot of espresso. That would only earn a sterner glare.

“How exactly are you paying for this caffeine habit of yours?” she asks. “You’re not letting Truman pay for it all?”

I wince over the way she says his full name, which he hates.

Mom may have agreed to a general truce about Tru, but I can tell that the disapproval is right there, lurking beneath the surface. Despite the fact that he and I have been together for almost as long as we’ve lived here, she still doesn’t trust him.

“Nope,” I say, forcing a cheerful attitude that I don’t feel, but is my only way of escaping without a more extensive lecture. “Bank of Dad.”

After the Thanksgiving debacle, the guilt over not having seen me in months finally got to Dad and he sent me a credit card. Along with strict instructions that I use it responsibly and not abuse the privilege.

Daily lattes are pretty much my only indulgence.

“Sloane, you know I don’t think—”

Beep-beep.

“Whoops, I’m late,” I tell her, grateful to be called away from wherever this conversation is heading by Tru’s warning honk. “Gotta go.”

I give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then I’m out the door.

 

Tru’s bright yellow Mustang glows like a neon sign against the gloomy gray of the overcast morning.

When I think back to the night he volunteered to drive me to and from school, I have to laugh. I was beyond annoyed. Our first meeting had been somewhat irritating and, at the time, I was trying to keep my distance from him to make Mom happy.

Now I don’t really care what she thinks. Tru makes me happy, and that’s all that matters.

He still annoys me—frequently—but the parts I like about him (usually) far outweigh the parts I want to sucker-punch.

Our commute times, anywhere from twenty to ninety minutes each, depending on the craziness of Austin traffic, are my favorite parts of the day.

Tru leans against the driver’s side door.

The diffuse morning light softens his features, rounds the chiseled cheeks and jaw that reflect the Japanese half of his genetics. Even in an artfully rumpled “Keep Austin Weird” T-shirt and thin gray hoodie, he looks better than any J-pop star I’ve ever seen. I’ve never known anyone who could make rolled-out-of-bed-and-pulled-on-whatever’s-within-reach look so good. With his sleepy morning eyes and messy hair that begs for a good finger combing, I just want to spend all day in his arms.

“You wanna drive today, New York?”

I shake my head. “Not really.”

We’ve been working on the driving lessons, but between my inability to fully maneuver the stick shift and my total lack of driver’s license, I know I’m not ready to take to the highways, yet.

“Your loss,” he says as I cross around the front of the car.

As soon as we’re both in our seats, he leans across the gear shift and presses a kiss against my lips. The soft heat of it nearly melts me into a puddle. I lift a hand to his cheek and sink into the feeling of his mouth on mine.

This. Him. He is the only thing that makes the Austin-liking-guilt bearable.

My phone rings in my backpack.

I linger in the kiss for a second longer before I pull away with a groan. It’s either Mom calling to remind me to get some actual food at the coffee shop, or my best friend Tash calling to tell me about her latest boy toy. Ever since her last douchebag boyfriend dumped her, she’s been tearing through the artistic male youth of the city like they’re the latest food craze.

After finally having it out with her about the constant nagging to come back to New York, things with her are good again. She’s even pretty okay with the fact that I want to stay in Austin for senior year. She doesn’t love it, but she accepts it.

I think sending her a picture of Tru was a big part of changing her mind.

Plus, she’ll get to see me at Christmas. Mom and I are heading to New York as soon as school is out.

When I grab my phone, it’s not Mom’s or Tash’s face I see on the screen.

“It’s my dad,” I tell Tru.

I’ve been trying to talk to Dad for days.

Tru nods and turns the key in the ignition. He knows how strained things are with my dad.

“Dad, hi!” I exclaim as I answer the call.

“I’m on my way to a meeting,” he says, “but your messages made it seem urgent.”

I flop back against my seat. Yeah, I guess I was starting to sound urgent after not talking with him for going on three weeks. He’s been so swamped since Thanksgiving that we’ve only been communicating by messages through Dylan.

And my baby brother is not the most reliable secretary.

Tru gives me a sympathetic look as he backs out of the driveway.

“It is urgent,” I insist. “Did you get the Christmas decorations out of storage?”

“No, take the FDR,” I hear him tell his driver. “Sloane, I don’t have time for this right now.”

“But Mom and I are going to be there in less than two weeks!”

I may have softened up to the idea of living in Austin, but no one will ever convince me there is a more magical place to be at Christmas than New York. I’ve been daydreaming almost nonstop since Thanksgiving about everything I want to do when Mom and I go home for the holiday.

“Your mother is in charge of the Christmas plans,” he says. His phone cuts out for a second. “Sorry, sweetheart, I have to take this call.”

“But Dad—”

“We’ll talk at Christmas.”

And then he’s gone.

I hold my phone out in front of me. “Great talking to you. Let’s do this again soon.”

Tru doesn’t say a word. He just reaches over and wraps his hand around mine.

I force myself to take a deep breath. Tru always manages to put things into perspective, even when he isn’t trying. My dad may be an absentee workaholic, but that’s nothing compared to Tru’s dad. The man is a jerk in every possible way.

I feel guilty for even being annoyed at Dad.

“Thanks,” I tell Tru, turning my hand over so our palms are facing.

He glances away from the road for a second. “For what?”

I squeeze his hand. “For being you.”

He smiles. “Ditto, New York.”

And just like that, everything feels better. Mom and I will go home to New York for the holidays, we’ll get to spend some quality time with Dylan and Dad, and my guilt for wanting to stay in Texas will be eased for at least a little while.

At least until Spring Break.

“Hey, what’s that?” I ask when I see a black object stuck to his dashboard.

“What?” He glances away from the road for a second. “It’s a camera.”

“For a class project?”

He shrugs. “Something like that.” Before I can ask any more about it, he says, “How about you let me treat today?”

I can tell he’s trying to make me feel better about the situation with Dad. But he already has.

“No, let my dad treat today,” I tell him with a laugh. “Extra shots and Danishes all around.”

…

By lunchtime, the morning clouds had cleared, and the bright blue of a clear sky and soft winter sunlight practically begged Tru to film something.

He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and opened the camera app. If he had his choice of gear, this wasn’t even in the top ten. He had three quality cameras at home and there were at least a dozen in the Cinematography classroom in Building F. Hell, he even had a decent handheld in his backpack.

But what the smartphone gave up in quality, it more than made up for in portability and the ability to take candid footage.

Sloane didn’t even notice when he started filming.

Her friend Jenna glanced at the camera and then back down at her carefully arranged lunch.

Tru loved capturing these secret moments. Not just with Sloane, although he probably loved those the most, but in everyday life in general. Those instances that happened over and over again, most of the time without anyone taking any more notice than they do of a gentle breeze.

To capture those moments, to document them for eternity—or at least as long as the technology would allow—made him feel like he was contributing to something greater than himself.

Like he was turning life into art.

And the intersection of life and art described his relationship with Sloane perfectly. She came into his life at a low point, at a moment when the prospect of spending another year in the uncertain torment of life under his father’s roof was becoming unbearable. She moved in next door and provided a light at the end of the tunnel. If he could just keep walking toward her, just keep her light in sight, then maybe—just maybe—he could make it out alive.

He knew he was being a bit melodramatic. His life wasn’t actually on the line. The situation with his father never escalated to a dangerous level. But escape was almost always on Tru’s mind. Sometimes he felt like he might go insane under the constant scrutiny and attempted control.

Ever since Sloane and her mom moved in next door, he’d been thinking about escape less and less.

She gave him a reason to stay.

“Hey!”

A grape popped him in the forehead as Sloane finally realized he was filming her.

“What?” he asked with a grin, shaking off his dark thoughts.

“We talked about this,” she said. “No filming me without warning.”

“No, you talked about it.” He kept filming. “I never agreed to anything.”

She reached for the phone, but he pulled it out of reach, careful to keep her in the frame.

“This is why I can’t bring you home to meet Mom,” she teased.

He knew she meant it as a joke—he’d met her mom dozens of times. They were neighbors, after all. But there was an edge of truth beneath the sarcasm. An edge just big enough to sharpen his own humor.

“But does it explain why I can’t bring you home to meet the ’rents?” he tossed back.

He regretted the words as soon as he said them. He couldn’t be prouder of Sloane or of being her boyfriend. To even suggest she wasn’t good enough for his family was ridiculous. Especially when the opposite was actually true. He wasn’t good enough for hers.

Luckily, she seemed to miss the biting undertone.

“Come on,” she whined at the camera. “Stop.”

He shook his head. “It’s for a class project.”

She gave up trying to grab the phone, and crossed her arms over her chest. “What? The annoy-your-girlfriend project?”

“How did you know?”

Jenna snorted at his response.

He winked at her.

He’d always thought Jenna was a bit of an oddball, but ever since she helped them prove that Aimeigh was behind the stunt that would have gotten Sloane kicked out of school, Jenna had been okay in his book. He wasn’t really sure if the three of them were friends, exactly, but they ate lunch together almost every day.

“You can’t use my likeness without my consent,” Sloane insisted. “I haven’t signed a release.”

He knew she was only teasing. And, lucky for them both, he loved to play this kind of game.

“You want me to flunk out of Cinematography?” He pressed his free hand over his heart. “I would get kicked out of school, my dad would kick me out of the house. I would be living on the streets, with no prospects for the future. Is that what you want?”

Sloane’s expression turned sly. “If your dad kicked you out, you could live in my closet. My mom would never notice.”

He waggled his eyebrows at the possibility.

“Fine,” she said with a great big sigh. She looked directly into the lens. “For the sake of keeping a roof over your head, you have permission to film me.”

“I knew you’d relent.”

She smirked. “Oh, did you?”

“I am impossible to resist.”

She leaned close and he twisted the phone to capture the moment as she said, “You really are,” against his lips.