The Neighbors by Ania Ahlborn Read Free Book Online

desire to try his hand at Belgian waffles.
    Half-asleep, he rolled out of bed, brushed his teeth while sitting on the toilet, and then hopped in the shower to wake up. By the time he was dressed, Mickey still hadn’t come home, and Drew found himself standing in his room, staring out the window at the house next door. A shadow shifted behind glass. He squinted, trying to make out the figure that seemed to hover behind the curtains, wondering whether there was actually someone there, staring back at him, or if he was seeing the shadow of a swayinghouseplant. The carefully cut lawn, the vigilantly pruned roses, the white picket fence standing proud against the big blue sky—it reminded him of the black-and-white sitcoms his mother used to watch; the ones where the men worked and the women patiently awaited their return, eager to ask about their day, ready to offer up a pair of slippers, dinner in the oven, raring to go. They were the type who held neighborhood barbecues and ran through wheat fields on the Fourth of July. These were people Andrew wished he knew.
    He flipped open his wallet and fingered the corner of the card he’d found on top of the cookies the day before, then slid it back in place behind his driver’s license. He thumbed through his dwindling stack of cash. With only one hundred forty-two dollars left, he was running dangerously low on funds. But he assured himself that everything would be fine. In their e-mails, Mick had assured him that money wasn’t a big deal—Drew could pay his share of the rent when he got on his feet. The offer had struck him as overly generous, but he was thankful for it. And Drew was no freeloader; he’d pick up a job in the next few days. But until then, he needed paint.
    The doorbell rang just as he grabbed his keys. He paused, the odd sensation of having to answer somebody else’s door settling over him. Sure, he had been there for a couple days, but it still felt strange. It was a public admission of residence, assurance to whoever was on the other side of the door that yes, Andrew Morrison
did
live here now. The doorbell rang again. Drew squared his shoulders and walked down the hall, peeked through the peephole and blinked.
    It was
her
.
    Butterfly wings brushed the lining of his stomach. His belief in first impressions stood firm, and he definitely wanted to make a good one now.
    Andrew cleared his throat, pulled open the door, and offered the woman from next door a confident smile.
    “I missed you yesterday,” she said. “Just wanted to be a good neighbor and welcome you home.”

    The first boy had taken less than a week. She hadn’t liked him. He had been a slob just like Mickey, and it disturbed Harlow how at home he had seemed in that shithouse of a rental. His name had been Christopher Clark, and he hadn’t had an inkling of ambition—no drive, no common sense in that empty skull. When Harlow had taken in the spectacle that had been Christopher Clark’s bedroom, she had shaken her head in disgust. The boy had slept among trash, hadn’t bothered to obtain any furniture; the entire room had the sharp stink of body odor.
    But she pursued him anyway. He wasn’t perfect, but dumb enough to not know any better, which gave her a sense of comfort. She intended on stepping up her game as time went on, but that first time on Magnolia, she had been nervous, and Christopher was easy.
    But Christopher hadn’t intrigued her. The act had felt empty, nothing but an exercise in testing the waters. His eagerness had made her sick, and that was what had ruined it in the end: that lack of reluctance. The hunt had been spoiled.
    After Christopher, Harlow made more of an effort to find boys that sparked her interest. To her disappointment, finding upstanding specimens was more difficult than she had expected. For a time she had been so uninspired, she even let a few of them go. It wasn’t worth the energy if the boy wasn’t right.
    But Andrew Morrison was different. She