Free The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Small Town Romance (Soulmates Series Book 3) by Hazel Kelly Page A

and opened the fridge.
    “Helly said you should have them with the raspberry jam she gave
you, and I can second that since we had scones for dinner.”
    I found the jam in my fridge and turned around. “You know he’s
all wrong for you, right?”
    Her mouth twitched.
    “And that’s not coming from some relic of teenage jealousy,” I
said. “It’s the truth.”
    Her face started to turn red.
    “Your whole relationship is a joke,” I said, slicing the scone.
“You even did your fake laugh at him.”
    “I did not.”
    “You did,” I said, spreading some butter on the bottom half. “At
least three times.”
    She furrowed her brow. “You were counting? What the hell is your
problem?”
    “How much time you got?” I said, glancing up at her. “All I know
is one of my problems isn’t that I’m in a relationship with someone who thinks
I’m someone I’m not.”
    “Fuck you.”
    I dropped some jam in the scone and spread it around.
    “Who the fuck do you think you are?” she asked. “I haven’t seen
you in years-”
    “Whose fault is that?”
    “And you think you can tell me how to run my life?!”
    “No offense,” I said, closing the scone. “But it doesn’t seem
like you’re doing a very good job.” When I looked up, her eyes were glassy and
her bottom lip was shaking. “Jesus, Laney, I didn’t mean-”
    “Yes you did,” she said, dragging a finger under her eye.
    “I’m sorry,” I walked around the butcher block to where she was
standing. “I shouldn’t have said that. I had no right-”
    “No,” she said, her eyes full of pain. “You didn’t.”
    I put a hand on her shoulder.
    “But you’re not wrong,” she said.
    “No, I am. I shouldn’t have-”
    “I’ve made a mess of things,” she said.
    “What mess?” I pulled out a barstool and gave her a nudge.
    She sat on it and put her elbows on the counter, still keeping the
tears from spilling from her eyes.
    “What’s going on?”
    “It’s over,” she said.
    “What is?” I pulled out the barstool beside her.
    “Me and Henry.”
    It took everything I had not to smile, and I felt like a piece
of shit for not being able to be more genuinely sympathetic.
    “And my job.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Your job?”
    “I quit.”
    “It was just a job,” I said.
    She looked at me for the first time like maybe I did understand,
like maybe I was on her side. “You’re right. It was just a job. That must be
why I don’t feel worse about it.”
    “You couldn’t stay there forever.”
    She leaned back. “It was killing me.”
    “And I’m sorry about Henry.”
    She shook her head. “No you’re not.”
    I pursed my lips.
    “It’s okay,” she said, catching my eye. “I know you didn’t like
him.”
    “I didn’t like him for you,” I said.
    “I did.” She shrugged. “I liked him a lot. And I liked myself
with him.”
    She might as well have wiggled a blunt knife into my gut.
    “Or the version of myself I was with him, anyway.”
    “Exactly what version of yourself was that?” I asked.
    “The small part of me that’s ready and willing to be an adult.”
    I laughed. “Being an adult is overrated.”
    She leaned her head back and blinked to absorb her tears.
“Overrated but mandatory.”
    “You can still keep that side of you if you liked it,” I said.
“It’s not like he took it when he left.”
    “I don’t know if I want to,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell
I want.”
    “That’s okay, you know.”
    “No it’s not.”
    “Everyone’s faking it, Laney. No one has everything figured
out.”
    “Some people do.”
    “I wish that were true,” I said, reaching across the counter to
slide my plate over. “Then the rest of us would have something to aspire to.”
    “I guess I just wish I could rewind a few steps. Like in a
Choose Your Own Adventure Book.”
    “So do that.”
    “I can’t,” she said. “It’s too many pages back where I took a
wrong turn.”
    “When would you want to go