Chapter 4

For Brian, the morning had started out differently than most. For some reason, he was awake before the sun and for once, he couldn’t convince his body to fall back asleep. It had been one of those long nights. He tossed and turned and opened his eyes after what had seemed like hours, but was really only minutes.

The sound of a large truck screeching to a stop nearby was convincing enough to make him leave the warmth of his bed. He threw the covers off of his body and walked to the large second story window in his bedroom. Someone was finally moving into the house across the street.

It was a beautiful, two-story Tudor-style home. It was surrounded by a short stone fence and backed by acres of tall pine trees. It was surprising that the home had stayed on the market as long as it had. Brian shrugged to himself seemingly uninterested. He grabbed the television remote control from his bedside table and sat back on the bed, propping himself up against the cushioned headboard. As he flipped through the channels, he couldn’t commit to anything for more than a few seconds. Instead, he kept glancing back at the window. A strange feeling suddenly crept over him, but he shook it off.

After a few more minutes of mindless channel surfing, he threw the remote down on the bed next to him and patted his dog, Tyke, on the head. Poor Tyke, Brian thought to himself while sighing deeply, he lies around with me in this empty house all day. The only exercise or fun the little man gets is during our hour-long afternoon playtime in the backyard.

“Hey Tyke. You wanna go outside for a run today?” Tyke’s little tail wagged happily as he jumped into Brian’s lap. “We haven’t done that in a while, huh, Buddy?” Making a decision, Brian jumped out of bed again and sauntered into his closest to change out of his plaid pajama bottoms and into a tank-top, running shorts and sneakers. A few minutes later, he put Tyke’s collar around the dog’s neck, hooked him to the leash and stepped out into the brisk morning air.

Brian kept a steady pace as he and Tyke jogged through the quiet streets of his sleepy neighborhood. As he ran, he tried desperately to keep his thoughts from wandering. He didn’t want to think about Hayden. He didn’t want to think about the Backstreet Boys. He just wanted peace and solitude for a few minutes—just long enough to get his blood circulating and fresh air running through his lungs. Brian closed his eyes as he ran and it didn’t take long for the terrorizing images of that day to fall back into his head. He had nightmares about planes crashing into buildings almost nightly. In every dream, Hayden looked out the window of the airplane and screamed to Brian for help, but there was nothing that he could do. Some nights, when his sub-conscious really wanted to shatter his heart, Hayden would scream frighteningly to Brian that he shouldn’t have let her go, that he should have begged her to stay.

Brian believed that. In his heart, he knew that something terrible was going to happen that day. He had told her before she boarded the plane that he had a bad feeling, but Hayden laughed and said that he was being overprotective. I should have pushed it. I should have made her stay. If I had, she would be alive right now and we’d have a five-year-old child.

After news of Hayden’s death got around, Brian was contacted by her OB-GYN. The doctor felt it was necessary to tell him that they were having a girl. He guessed the doctor thought that it would make him feel better, but all it did was put a face on their unborn child and make it that much more real.

Before he could stop it, tears were pooling in the corners of Brian’s eyes. He stopped abruptly, pulling Tyke to a stop with him. Suddenly, his lungs felt like they were going to collapse. He wrapped Tyke’s leash around his wrist and bent over, resting his hands on his knees. He breathed harder and harder and finally let the tears fall slowly down his cheeks until he felt a hand rest on his back. He quickly stood and brushed the tears off his cheeks. He whirled around and came face to face with a concerned-looking brunette.

She was a young woman, early to mid- 20s, with intense blue eyes and soft features. For the first time since his wife had passed away, Brian was enamored by the beauty of another woman. The guilt he felt by his reaction to her suddenly made him want to throw-up.

“Are you okay?” She asked softly, her brow furrowed in concern for Brian.

“Yeah,” Brian huffed, finally catching his breath. “I’m fine, thank you.”

He turned quickly to leave, but she called out to him. “I’m Alexa!” Brian turned back around, this time standing feet away from her instead of inches. “I just moved in down the street.” Alexa pointed at the house across the street from Brian’s.

Without realizing it, he had made his way back around the block and was practically standing in front of his own home. “You’re moving in a little early in the morning, aren’t you?”

Alexa shrugged. “Eh, I guess so. I thought that I’d get here early enough so that I could avoid all of that neighborly nonsense. You know, introductions, strange people walking up to you in the street, stuff like that.” She smirked casually, hoping that he caught the irony.

He chuckled softly and started to walk backwards toward his house. “Yeah, definitely.” Brian nodded a goodbye and turned back around. “It was nice to meet you, Alexa.”

“Wait a minute, Neighbor!” Alexa called laughingly as Brian continued to walk away. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

He smiled as best he could, though his insides were twisting. “I’m Brian. I’ll see you around.”

Alexa waved as he looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Brian turned back around and walked slowly to his front door. His hands were shaking, but he managed to get the key into the lock and let himself into his house. He quickly unhooked Tyke from his leash and leaned back against the door. His eyes closed slowly as he sighed deeply and took a mental vow to stay locked inside his house and as far away from his new neighbor as he possibly could.

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Across the street, Alexa was beating herself up. She jogged quickly into her new home and grabbed her suitcase back out of the closest. “Jenny!” She called into the mostly empty house. Jenny Murphy, her long-time best friend and almost sister bounced into the room moments later.

After Alexa’s intense meeting with Ben the week before, she was convinced that there was no way that she was going to go through with his new ‘assignment.’ That night, Jenny had come over and Alexa had hashed out the entire crazy encounter. To her surprise, Jenny thought that she should do it. It shouldn’t have surprised her though. Jenny was of a New York state of mind. It was kill or be killed. Do what you have to do to get to the top. The nice guy always finishes last. She didn’t see the assignment as unethical or deceitful at all. It was all business. Besides, she had countered when Alexa was finally starting to cave in, what was to say that she even had to try that hard? Ben had said that he was going to pay her either way. All she had to do was talk to the guy.

Jenny was right. If she was going to deceive anyone, maybe it would just be Ben. Not to mention the fact that she was in desperate need of the money that he was offering. Finally, Alexa had decided to go, but only if Jenny came with her—at least for a while. A few days later, the girls were packed and moving into their Georgia estate.

“What are you doing?” Jenny asked as she took a large bite out of the apple she had carried into the room with her.

“I’m packing.” Alexa huffed as she pulled the clothes that she had unpacked when they arrived the night before from the closet. “I can’t do this.”

“What brought this on? You were fine last night!” Jenny sat on the bed next to Alexa’s suitcase. Every time Alexa threw something in, Jenny proceeded to pull it back out.

“That was until I talked to him this morning.” Alexa shook her head and sighed. “You can still see the pain in that man’s eyes. He went for a jog and stopped right in front of his house and broke down into tears. I’m sure he thinks that I didn’t notice, but I totally did. It was terrible.”

“Alexa. What happened to not following Ben’s plan and just having a vacation in Georgia on Jive’s tab?”

Alexa continued to shake her head. “No. Just no. We’re going to go home. I’m going to forget that Jive Records exists all together.”

Jenny frowned deeply. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“You like him for real.”

Alexa sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “I do not. We spoke for five minutes.”

“But you think that you’ll probably start to like him and you don’t want him to connect you with Ben.”

“Okay Miss Cleo, it’s time to get out of my head.” Alexa plopped herself down onto the bed next to Jenny. “It’s not a romantic kind of thing, not at all. I’m sure that he’s had so many insincere people come in and out of his life through the years. I just don’t want to be that person.”

“Aly,” Jenny started before wrapping an arm around Alexa’s shoulder. “You have what I like to call a save-the-world complex. You want everyone to be happy and you do your best to make that happen, usually at your own expense. That’s your whole thing with Brian right now. He’s unhappy and he’s been unhappy for a very long time. So, you want to bring him into your happy little Alexa bubble and you want to save him. Honey, it’s probably not going to happen. The only one that can save Brian is himself.”

“I know and you’re probably right. I just have this guilty feeling. I haven’t even done anything wrong. Not really.” Alexa sighed and stood back up. “I just really don’t want to end up hurting him.”

“We’re on vacation, Alexa. That’s it. Just remember that and you won’t have to worry about hurting anyone, because he’s just going to be another person passing through your life. He’s your neighbor. That’s it.”

Alexa nodded slowly, wanting to agree with Jenny. Still something didn’t feel right. Alexa had a terrible feeling that her whole ‘vacation’ was going to blow up in her face.