Boy Next Door (Parkside Avenue Book #2) Read online

  Boy Next Door

  By

  Raquel Lyon

  First Edition.

  Copyright 2014 Raquel Lyon

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied, resold, or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  End

  Chapter One

  Three years. Three years of partying with dirty fingernails. Three years to get a degree in how to dig a hole and stick something in it. It doesn’t take a genius to do that, but it does require a piece of paper to let future employers know that you can. I’m about to get that piece of paper, so I should be stoked, ready to move up in the world, or at least stick my size elevens into it. Instead, I’m back where I started, Pappa’s house. As much as I loved the old place, I never thought I’d have to call it home.

  Dumping my worldly possessions onto the perfectly varnished slats of the front porch of number twenty-three Parkside Avenue, I freed up my hands to open the door.

  “Pappa! Paps, I made it.” Smokey, Pappa’s ageing Retriever, bounded towards me, his tail wagging furiously. “Hey, boy. Where’s the old man, asleep again?” I asked, bending my knees to pet him and receiving a dog-dribble face in response.

  Despite entering his seventy-sixth year, Ronald Kempton, kept his home perfectly, right down to the blue and white urn, holding my grandmother’s ashes, sitting pride of place on the mantelpiece, and looking around the pristinely decorated living room, filled with antique furniture, brought back many childhood memories, every one of them sad since my parents had joined Nan in the big unknown. In the corner, Pappa’s favourite armchair was empty. I wasn’t surprised; afternoon naptime was over.

  I dragged my bags over the porch and into the hallway. Smokey sniffed them excitedly. He clearly had a thing for the scent of dirt and fertiliser, although how he could detect any smell other than Pappa’s pipe tobacco amazed me. The scent hung in the air like thick city smog, meaning the old man couldn’t be far away.

  Smokey followed me as I strode through to the kitchen and headed for the patio doors. Second only to Pappa’s love for his armchair was his love of the garden, and I fully expected to find him there. I wasn’t wrong. The familiar curve of Argyle sweater stooped over an impressive row of cabbages, pulling out stray weeds.

  “You should be kneeling down to do that. You’ll put your back out again,” I said with a mixture of chastisement and endearment.

  Pappa’s receding hairline rotated to face me. “Johnny! Hello, son. I wasn’t expecting you until four.”

  “It’s ten past, Paps.”

  “Is it? Well, well. How time flies. I’ll just get these last few strays, and then I’ll help you settle in.”

  Squatting down next to him, I said, “Let me give you a hand, and then maybe you’ll be qualified to write me a reference when I start job hunting.” It was an icebreaker not a serious request.

  “I doubt your grandfather giving a glowing account of your weed pulling prowess would cut much mustard.” He chuckled and slapped my back, warm-heartedly. “It’s good to have you home.”

  Home. Over the past decade, I hadn’t spent more than a few hours between these walls, and yet home was what it was now. Since Dad downed a bunch of painkillers—six months after Mum failed to wake up from the operating table—Pappa was all the family my brother and I had left.

  I threw one last green shoot into the waiting bucket and assisted Pappa to his feet.

  “I hope you like steak,” he said. “I got us a couple of rumps for tonight. A sort of welcome home celebration.”

  “Great. But only a couple? Is Kendrick eating out?” I asked, as we crossed the lawn towards the house.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, son. Pleases himself, that boy. I never know whether he’s in or out.” Pappa stopped to tip the weeds into the garden bin. “Maybe I’m too old for this parenting lark, or perhaps I was blessed with a well-behaved daughter, but Kendrick trawls in at all hours of the night with no explanation as to where he’s been.”

  “Teenagers tend to do that, Paps.”

  “Yes, I appreciate that. I may be ready for my wooden overcoat, but I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be young. Still, I worry about what he gets up to, and I suspect he’s missing college too. I was hoping you could have a word.” He shook the bucket empty and discarded it next to the shed. “Steer him in the right direction, you know. He looks up to you.”

  I waited patiently for him to finish tidying up. “Sure thing.”

  Over the fence, the sound of someone else putting out the trash caught my curiosity, and I strained my neck to peer through a gap in the lilac bush. The blonde-haired woman turned to return to her house before I managed to see her face, but my eyes followed her tight, little ass all the way to the doorstep, and I felt a familiar stirring in my jeans. A great ass got to me every time.

  Pappa noticed my scrutiny. “I don’t think you’ve ever met Cora, have you? She moved here a few years ago. Lovely woman. Single too. If only I were thirty years younger.” He chuckled. “Her daughters are a chip off the old block, too. They must be about your age, now. You could do worse,” he said, entering the kitchen.

  “Yeah?” I’d spent the past few months concentrating on getting through my exams, relying on the old one-handed mambo to keep me company at night, so if any half-sexy momma could get my juices flowing, I figured it was time to get back out there and find myself a girl. It couldn’t hurt to check out the daughters. “Good to know.”

  ***

  Pappa cooked a mean steak, and with a fully satisfied stomach, I set about unpacking.

  My room was the smallest one in the house—a case of last one in gets the cupboard, I reckoned—but I didn’t mind. It had once belonged to my mother, and I could almost feel her essence lingering in the faded wallpaper, as if she were somehow looking out for me. As far back as I could remember, the room had remained unaltered. In fact, I’d been born on the very bed still squished under the window, as it had been for the last twenty-two years. Even the purple candlewick bedspread had survived the decades, and there was barely enough floor space to dump my bags on the moth-eaten carpet, due to the oppressive dark wooden wardrobe dominating the remaining space. If I did manage to bag myself a woman, no way would I be bringing her back here. A shag palace it wasn’t. A girl would have to be one card short of a full deck to find my new digs a turn on. The sooner I could set myself up with a set of wheels the better.

  After stuffing the last of my T-shirts into a drawer in the base of the mahogany mountain, I tossed my holdall onto its top, as footsteps clumped up the stairs.

  The door flew open.

  “Hey, Bro
. Welcome to God’s waiting room.” My brother leaned against the doorjamb, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  “Since when did you start smoking?”

  “You haven’t seen me for nearly a year, and I get a fucking lecture for a hello?”

  Dressed all in black in a cut-off T-shirt and ripped jeans, Kendrick had certainly altered in that time. When I’d returned to uni, last year, he’d been into computer games, cars, and very little else, with ambitions of becoming a mechanic, and it had always been my plan to buy a plot of land, where he could run his garage business alongside my gardening one.

  “Pappa hinted you’d gone off the rails. I can see what he means.”

  “He doesn’t get me.”

  “He’s cool for an old guy.”

  “Yeah, real old. Kinda kills the street cred dossing with a wrinkly. Town’s okay, though. I can fill you in on some decent hangouts. Fancy shooting some pool tonight?”

  “I had planned to get my head down soon. Bit knackered after that long journey.”

  “Didn’t you kip on the train?”

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  “You’re good then. You can sleep some more when you’re dead.”

  It was pointless trying to reason with my brother. When he made his mind up, he was as stubborn as they came, and I had no energy to start off our reconciliation with an argument, so resigned to getting my ass whipped at pool, I grabbed my wallet and keys and shoved them into the pocket of my jeans, on the way out. With a bit of luck, Kendrick would tire of beating me after a couple of rounds, and I’d be able to slip away early.

  As we exited the front door, a woman jogged along the pavement. Kendrick’s eyes followed her and he let out a wolf whistle. The woman’s blonde ponytail swished rhythmically above her figure-hugging outfit: black with pink sections at the side to give the appearance of a smaller waist. Not that she needed any assistance in that area. She had a damn fine figure, and there was something familiar about the line of her Lycra covered ass. Without breaking her stride or casting a sideways glance, she continued up the neighbouring driveway.

  Kendrick angled his head and watched her all the way into the house. “Fucking smoking, man, that one. I swear if I ever get the itch to tap a MILF, she’s top of my list. Pert ass and tits that still point in the right direction, mm-mm.”

  “Was that Cora?” I asked, thinking her front was as sweet as her rear.

  “I didn’t know you knew her?”

  “I don’t. She was in her back yard, earlier. Paps mentioned her name,” I commented casually, as we walked off in the opposite direction, and I snuck a backward glance on the off chance she’d re-emerged.

  “He would. I think the old dog has a soft spot for her. Lecherous old bastard.” He lit another cigarette and snapped his Zippo shut. “I bet he mentioned the daughters, too, didn’t he?”

  I nodded. “Ah-huh. I think he was playing matchmaker. What do you reckon? Worth the bother?”

  “Nah, dude. Fucking hot, granted, but stuck-up.”

  “You mean you struck out.” I thumped his shoulder playfully. Despite his talk, I doubted that, at seventeen, my brother had the right skills to pull the babes.

  Kendrick’s arm wrapped around my neck and he pretended to punch my head in return. “Me strike out? Never. This town’s ripe with easy tail. One look at those two and you can tell, high maintenance, the pair of them. Why bother with the hassle?” He let me go and resumed walking. “Besides, I think they’re both hooked up.”

  That’d be right. “You got a girl, then?”

  “I like to keep my options open.”

  I stuck my hands in my pockets, and we rounded a corner onto the main street. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “I do all right.” He winked. “What about you? Get much action in the old geek shack?”

  “I did all right,” I answered, mirroring his brush-off.

  The last time I’d walked down Tirdle Road, I was holding my mum’s hand, with Nanna pushing Kendrick in his pram, on our way to the park. Of course, that was before Mum became ill. After that, a visit to our grandparent’s house resulted in nothing more than kicking a ball around the back garden or a game of Scrabble, if it rained. But the street was much as I remembered it, filled with dark buildings housing too many fast-food takeaways and taxicab offices. Nothing changed.

  After a few more steps, Kendrick stopped. “We’re here,” he said.

  Nestled in a red brick wall, a black door faded into the shadows. Above it the neon sign glowed with the words Pocket Scratcher.

  My eyebrows rose at the name. “You sure this is the right place?”

  “You think I got lost in the two hundred yards we just walked? I come here all the time.”

  “Sounds like a gay club.”

  “Anything but, Bro, anything but.” He slapped me on the shoulder and steered me inside. “Mind you, if you’re into that kind of thing, I know a few joints. Great places to pick up the chicks. It’s surprising how many of them are up for proving they can straighten you out.” His eyebrows shot up. “Gotta admit, I’ve let a few of them think they have.”

  I laughed, undecided as to whether I believed him or not. “Maybe next time.”

  Inside the club, the smoky atmosphere hit me like a gas cloud. Had they not heard of the smoking ban? “Christ, does anyone ever get out of here alive?” I asked.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Kendrick said. “Pete, the owner, has chain smoked for years. Doesn’t give a damn about the penalties. He’s cool. It’s one of the reasons it’s so popular here.” He lifted a Doc Marten onto the metal footrest and leaned over the bar. “That and the back room poker.”

  My interest piqued. Kendrick had no idea what an intriguing snippet of information he’d revealed. Poker was rife at uni, and I’d learned fast. Not only had my winnings provided beer money, but I’d stashed a good amount in the bank too. Mum’s life insurance had taken care of my student loans, and there was even a bit left over. I figured with a few years of hard graft, I’d have enough to buy the patch of land, before I reached thirty. But if I could get a few games in here, perhaps I could reach my goal sooner than I thought. “Ever been in?”

  “Where?”

  “The back room.”

  “Couple of times. Lucked out, though. There’re some serious dudes in there, Bro. And serious consequences for those who don’t pay up. Got my nose busted open for owing a twenty. You play poker?”

  “Doesn’t everyone? Can you get me in?”

  “Invite only.”

  Figured as much. “So, who did you have to shag?”

  “Fuck off. Everyone loves me here.” The barman slammed two bottles of beer in front of us and snatched the waiting note. Rick picked up his bottle and nodded at the other. “Grab that and rack ‘em up.”

  Chapter Two

  Three beers and two games later, we were in the middle of the decider.

  “Hey there, sexy.” A girl, with more flesh on show than she had covered, sidled up to Kendrick. Her long, black hair flowed in waves down her bare back, stopping short of her hip hugging skirt. She wrapped her arms around his waist and planted a more than friendly kiss on his cheek.

  “Hey yourself,” Kendrick replied. “I thought you were grounded. Did you get time off for good behaviour?”

  “Me, good behaviour? Get real. I snuck out.”

  “Lucky me.” His eyes drank in the girl’s cleavage as he talked. “You here for some action?”

  I could spot a slut at ten paces, and I leaned back against the pool table, watching, as she trailed a finger down Kendrick’s chest. Evidently I’d been wrong about his skills, even if he had hooked up with a tramp. The way she draped her body over his did more than suggest she was a regular fuck-buddy, and even though alley catting isn’t my scene, I had to admire his style.

  “I could be, but I’m here with Tina. She’s at the bar getting the drinks in,” she said.

  “And if I sort Tina out?”

 
; “I am not sharing you.”

  “Actually, I was talking about my brother, newly back from uni and looking for company.” Great, Bro. Thanks for labelling me a loser who can’t pick up his own skirt.

  “Brother? I didn’t know you had a brother, Rick.”

  Kendrick cocked his chin in my direction. “Johnny, meet Lexi. Lexi, Johnny.”

  I held up a palm in silent greeting.

  Lexi angled her head and ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. “Hmm. I might be willing to re-think the sharing thing on my part. I see your family went halves on the good looks.”

  Kendrick slapped her butt cheek. “You really are a little slut, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, baby.” Lexi pouted. “Have I hurt your feelings? I didn’t realise you wanted exclusivity.”

  “You haven’t. And I don’t.” He pulled her closer and they locked lips.

  Tina arrived with the drinks, walking past me without a glance. She nudged one at Lexi. “Jeez, Lex. I thought we’d come for a quick game. Don’t say you’re leaving me hanging again?” She stood tapping her foot until the couple broke contact.

  “Course not,” Lexi said, accepting her drink. “You can have a booty call too. Rick has a brother.” She looked over Tina’s shoulder and smiled at me.

  I studied my potential date. Not conventionally pretty, and certainly not my usual type, this girl was all skin and bone, long and lean, no curves at all. Only her fluffy, fake fur jacket, prevented her looking like a stick stuck into black, scuffed stilettos.

  Her red hair flew out, like a flag blowing at the top of a flagpole, as she swung around to greet me. “Hi, Rick’s brother. How’s it hanging?” she asked, her gaze travelling down to my jeans, and spending a moment too long there, before reverting to my face.

  “Can’t complain.”

  As she downed half of her drink in one long mouthful, I found myself wondering what else she could fit in that wide mouth. Yeah, it was definitely time to get laid by an actual woman again. I’d almost forgotten what one felt like. It wasn’t as if I’d climbed on the leg-over wagon, but after one too many one-night stands, at uni, I’d realised that getting off for a few minutes, or an hour, relieves the frustrations but gains no lasting satisfaction. Sleeping around just wasn’t my scene. It was time to find that elusive, meaningful love: the kind my parents shared, the destructive kind that ends badly more often than it works out. I was ready. I wanted it. Tina wasn’t it. But it didn’t hurt to take what was on offer, and Tina was definitely offering. One last random shag could be just what I needed. The game was a bust anyway. Kendrick had Lexi up against the wall, greedily partaking of every inch of her exposed caramel flesh.