Clallam Bay (A Fresh Start #2) Read Online Free

sure he’s fine. I mean, wouldn’t Sonia know if he wasn’t? She is his landlord,” Alyssa reminded me. “And you know that bitch would be hunting down family, grieving or not, if it meant getting paid on time.”
    I kept my mouth shut where it concerned Sonia, even though Alyssa was right. Sonia was anal that way.
    “She’s probably charging you both out the ass for this view, too.”
    I didn’t know about charging me out the ass. All I knew was it was worth every pretty penny I had to pay. It also didn’t hurt that my parents opted for half. At least for the first year. After that, I was on my own. Then it’d probably be a different story.
    Alyssa took off later that afternoon, leaving me to watch the sunset alone on my front porch swing. But with everything going on in my head, I couldn’t enjoy it because what if my neighbor were dead? What if he didn’t have family to mourn him? Maybe I should have clipped a flower for him. Just in case.
    Turned out my worries were all for nothing. I heard his truck before I saw it putter over the small hill in our shared driveway. My heart sped while his engine stalled and then restarted before he made it to the sparse gravel alongside his house.
    My first instinct was to run up and give him a hug and make sure he was okay. But when he waved, I waved. And that was that. He disappeared into his house and I hadn’t seen him since.
    *
    “Well, this is a good thing, right? I mean, he’s still alive. Yay!”
    As much as a part of me wanted to argue with Alyssa’s reasoning, I couldn’t because who cared if he continued to be aloof or not? He was still alive and that was good, no matter how I looked at it.
    It wasn’t as if he owed me anything. It wasn’t like I expected him to take time out of his day to stop by, maybe say, “Hey, I’m back, so you can stop worrying now.” But I couldn’t help wanting him to.
    It was silly, really, putting this all on him when I could have taken the time out to go over there, maybe bake him a yay-you’re-still-alive bundt cake—I had just bought a new pan. But I didn’t.
    Who knew. Maybe he was waiting for me to check in on him. It wasn’t like anything was stopping me. Except for me.
    “Maybe I should make him dinner or something. Just take it over to say, ‘Hey, there. Super glad you’re not dead. Here’s some chicken.’”
    Picking at her salad, Alyssa nodded.
    “You think he likes chicken?”
    “It’s chicken. Who doesn’t?”
    “Well, you think he’d like Italian chicken? It’s where you cook the chicken in Italian dressing.”
    “I know what Italian chicken is,” Alyssa said, scowling up at me before going back to picking at her salad.
    “I’ve been craving it. And I always make too much anyway. But it’s not for everyone. What if he doesn’t like Italian dressing?”
    “It’s chicken,” Alyssa repeated. “And all men like chicken, Hailey. All kinds. I’m sure he’ll be beyond ecstatic to have your excess bird meat.”
    I smiled, happy to have made a plan. Now all I needed was to pick up the ingredients after work, bake the chicken, and I would be ready to make the first move as the friendly new neighbor—just a little over a month too late.
    As expected, the rest of my day moved at a slug’s pace. I had to slow myself down in order to not rush through the afternoon lessons. When the bell rang, I was the first person out the door—right after all my students had been picked up, of course. By six I was standing outside his house, working up the courage to knock.
    As the sun started to set in the October sky, I rapped my knuckles lightly against the chipped wood. When he didn’t answer, I did it a little harder. I waited so long the plate warming my hands cooled in the wind. And the moment I could no longer feel my fingers, I gave up and left the plate on his porch.
    *
    The next morning, I woke to look out the window and found the plate missing from his porch. I checked my porch, but found nothing