Single Dad Next Door
Cathryn Fox
Copyright
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ISBN Print: 978-1-928056-87-4
ISBN ebook: 978-1-928056-88-1
1
Rachel
When my bedroom door flies open and crashes hard against the paint-chipped wall, I groan. “Go away,” I say, my voice muffled by my pillow. Not that my roommates will listen, even if they can hear me. Heck, I could scream at the top of my lungs and it wouldn’t faze them, much less send them running back to their rooms—not when the view outside my window is that hot.
Seriously though, sharing a house with four college freshmans is not my idea of a good time, not when I’m a senior and working my ass off to get into law school. But when I left NYU two months before the start of my fourth year and transferred to Penn State at the last minute, this place was all I could find—and afford. Ultimately, Penn State is where I want to do my law degree after undergrad. I just ended up here sooner, rather than later.
Someone tugs at my pillow and I open one eye to see Becca hovering over me. “Come on, Rach, he just took his shirt off,” she says. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Why oh why did my room have to come with the best view of the hot neighbor’s driveway?
“Thank God for this heat wave.” Sylvie, roommate number two, fans her face with her hand.
I groan and curl up into the fetal position. I just want one more minute in bed without every member of the house in my room. “I. Don’t. Care.” Well, that might be a lie. I like looking at the eye candy next door as well as they do, but after putting in a late night at Pizza Villa—I seriously have to find a new job—I need all the sleep I can get before class.
“Jesus, would you look at him,” Becca says, her voice a breathy whisper as she peers out the window. “Talk about slurpalicious. I could seriously lick that from head to toe, and back up again.”
“Leave,” I say on a yawn.
Ignoring me, Sylvie squeals. “He’s going back into his garage. Damned if he doesn’t look as good going as he does coming.”
“But I’d rather see him…coming,” Becca says, and they start giggling.
“Seriously. Are you both twelve?”
“Shh, he’s back,” Becca says and swats her hand at me, like I’m an annoying fly that needs to be shooed away.
I shift on my bed, not to get a better look outside my window. No, moving has absolutely nothing at all to do with the shirtless mechanic turning my roommates into dim-witted moths. The only reason I’m getting up is to herd these girls from my room, and if I happen to get a glimpse of the hot, tattooed, badass daddy next door, well…then so be it.
I rub the blur from my eyes and toss my pillow at them. “Get away from my window, before he thinks it’s me.” They don’t need to know that the hottie’s bedroom window is also across from mine, and that late one night, he caught me staring into his room as he walked around in nothing but boxer shorts. Heck, if they knew that, they’d camp out for the rest of the school year, and that was so not happening.
“Ohmigod!” Sylvie leaps back. “I think he just saw me.” She puts her hand over her mouth and starts to giggle. Footsteps pound down the hall, announcing the arrival of my other two roommates. I shake my head as they come bursting in.
Kill. Me. Now.
“Is he out there?” Val asks, her big blue eyes wide and hopeful.
“Yeah, but he saw me looking,” Sylvie says. Despite that, she edges back around to sneak another look. Megan hurries across the room, and goes up on her toes to peer over Sylvie’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse without getting caught.
“Do you really think he killed someone?” Megan asks.
“That’s the rumor,” Val protests, though her tone holds uncertain convictions.
“Then why isn’t he in jail?”
“Maybe it was self-defense.”
“He’s such a badass.”
“He’s good with his little girl, though.”
“Bad Boy Daddy, now that’s hot.”
“Do you think he’d spank me if I was bad?”
Unable to put up with their incessant chatter and giggles any longer, I point my finger toward the door. “Out. Now.”
A chorus of grumbles ensues as they all sullenly walk to my door. Christ, I’m getting that lock fixed, even if I have to eat ramen noodles for the next month.
“God, you’re such a grouch in the morning.” Becca shoots me a wounded look over her shoulder.
“Doesn’t even have to be the morning,” Val adds with a hair toss.
“You need to get your nose out of a book once in a while,” Megan says.
“What she needs is to get laid,” Sylvie informs them all, but her solution
