Finally (Neighbor from Hell #12) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,1

a bit, and kept going as Devin bit out, “Shit!” again. After one last look over his shoulder, he went after her. For a moment, Charlie simply stood there, watching as the small woman ran towards her car only to rethink that plan when she spotted Devin coming after her and took off down the street crying, “You can’t make me go back in there!” as she went.

Wondering if she should expand her search to include rooms for rent, Charlie slipped the post-it note back in her pocket, turned around to head to her car only to turn right back around again and invited herself in when she heard a child say the magical words, “We’re gonna need matches.” Once she was inside the house that looked like it had been hit by a tornado, Charlie carefully made her way towards the sounds of cabinet doors shutting, stepping over toys, crayons, and Legos as she went. When she opened the kitchen door, she completely understood why the small woman ran screaming from the house.

*-*-*-*

“This isn’t fucking happening,” Devin said as he stood there, forced to watch as the woman that he hadn’t been able to convince to give this another chance tore out of his driveway, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

What the hell was he going to do now?

He was going to panic. That’s what he was going to do, Devin decided as he walked back inside his house, pulling his phone out as he went and began scrolling through his contacts, trying to figure out how he was going to convince his mother to put off her vacation for another day so that-

“What’s your favorite dinosaur?” he heard Dustin ask as he opened the kitchen door and found the small woman that he’d spent the last five years avoiding gently working her fingers through his son’s soapy hair only pausing long enough to add more shampoo before she continued.

“That’s a tough one,” Charlie said with a thoughtful frown as Dustin, who never sat still, calmly sat in the large kitchen sink, waiting for her to answer him.

“I’m going to put down T-Rex,” Abbi, his baby girl, said from where she sat on the counter, wrapped in her favorite Mickey Mouse towel with her wet hair neatly combed and a clipboard with one of the rental applications that he’d printed for the in-law apartment on her lap.

He’d been putting off renting out the in-law apartment for a while now, but with the kids getting older and Bradford Creations growing, Devin didn’t have much of a choice. He needed help, which was why he’d been hoping to rent the apartment to a college kid or a middle-aged woman in exchange for low rent and a few hours of babysitting a week. What he hadn’t expected was for her to show up.

He didn’t know what it was about her, but since the day that she showed up for an interview wearing an Indiana Jones tee-shirt and the cutest fucking smile that he’d ever seen, Devin hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Within the first thirty seconds of meeting her, he’d realized that hiring her would be a mistake. He’d planned on thanking her for coming in and tossing her resume in the trash as soon as she left only to find himself sending her a text, telling her that the job was hers before she made it to the front door.

It had been a mistake, one that he’d been regretting for the past five years and it had nothing to do with her job. He wanted her. God, did he fucking want her. It didn’t matter how many times he reminded himself that he couldn’t have her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was the reason why he’d turned the second-floor storage room into her office and avoided the break-room when he knew that she was in there because he wasn’t supposed to want her.

He’d made a promise to his children when they were born and he planned on keeping it. That meant avoiding the small woman that never should have caught his attention in the first place. She was nothing like the women that he used to date. She was a short, plump little thing with an unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter and the bluest fucking eyes that he’d ever seen.

“That’s a good idea,” Charlie said with one of those warm smiles that he tried not to think about most days as she finished working the glitter