HANS: Alliance Series Book Four(4)

It doesn’t make it better.

I grab my glass of water off the counter and chug it down, trying to loosen up the peanut and zucchini concrete sealing my jaw shut.

When I finally clear my mouth, I move back to the fridge, and this time, I take out a bottle of beer.

I crack it open and alternate between pulls from the bottle and mouthfuls of cookie until the last three are gone.

My stomach protests at the last bite, but I can’t waste it. It doesn’t matter how bad her creations are, my deep-seated need to consume every bit of Cassandra won’t let me throw them away. And my tastebuds won’t let me go through this torture twice. So, this has become our ritual. Cassandra leaves me something that lands somewhere on the scale of edible, and I binge eat it while standing alone in my kitchen, staring out the window over my sink and imagining I’m eating them in her house, with her next to me.

When all the awful cookies are gone, I tip the glass container over the sink, letting the little pool of green liquid drip out. Then I wash and dry it.

Once I secure the lid in place, I leave the empty container on the counter and pick up the Post-it.

I walk across the living room, turning off lights as I go, and step into my bedroom.

The bedside lamp is on, and it illuminates my actions as I pull open the top drawer of my nightstand.

Leaning down, I carefully stick the newest Post-it on top of the last one, adding it to my little stack of yellow paper squares.

One for every delivery from the girl next door.





CHAPTER 4





Cassie





“Okay, bye! Be back later!” I grin to myself as I step out the front door, locking the handle as I go.

I don’t have any pets. There’s nothing alive inside the house, but I still say goodbye to my home whenever I leave. It’s probably silly, but it makes coming back feel happier. Like the structure itself will be waiting for my return.

As I take the few steps down to the sidewalk that leads from my front door to my driveway, I glance across the street. It’s a cloudy afternoon, but I can clearly see my neighbor’s empty front step. No cookie container in sight.

I bite the corner of my lip.

So he was home, but he didn’t answer the door. Again.

Or he got home after you were there.

Or he was in the shower.

Or he came home this morning.

I pull my gaze away from Hans’s house and hurry the rest of the distance to my old sedan. The thought that Hans might be spending some of his nights at a woman’s house has crossed my mind more times than I care to admit. And even though I have zero claim over my elusive, handsome neighbor, the jealousy in my gut is real.





CHAPTER 5





Hans





Cassandra backs out of her driveway, nearly clipping her mailbox. Then she takes her time playing with the radio before she finally pulls away, turning off Holly Court and disappearing from sight.

I give her the usual eleven minutes.

She has a track record of forgetting things and coming back for them, but she never turns around if she’s more than five minutes away. So, when that eleventh minute starts, I tuck the empty container under my arm and step outside.

I don’t look around. I don’t try to sneak over. Both of those things give away the fact that you’re doing something shady. It’s always best to act like you belong.

Plus, there’s no one here to see what I’m doing anyway.

The lots on our little cul-de-sac are large, and beyond the edges of our mowed lawns is a thick forest of trees. Both leafy and evergreen. So unless someone is on one of our properties, or coming down our street, they wouldn’t see me walking between Cassandra’s house and mine.

They won’t see me now, and they haven’t seen me the dozens of other times I’ve done this.

My boots are quiet on the steps up to her front door, and I use the duplicate key in my palm to unlock the handle. When it turns and the door opens, I shake my head.

“Why have a deadbolt, Butterfly, if you’re not gonna use it?”

I set the empty dish, lid attached, on her literal welcome mat, wipe my boots off on said mat, then step over it and shut the door behind me, relocking the handle. Just because she should be gone for a while doesn’t mean I won’t leave everything how I found it.

It doesn’t take me long to do my usual rounds, but I don’t rush through them.

I tell myself it’s because I want to be thorough. That I need to make sure every window is properly locked—twice, because I may have missed it the first time.

I don’t dwell on the way I enjoy being in her space. I don’t think about the way the air feels different in here. The way it tastes different in here.

The living room doubles as Cassandra’s home office. On one side of the room, the gray couch faces a subpar TV mounted above a fireplace she never turns on because someone—me—keeps disabling the gas line because someone—her—has left it on unattended one too many times. She’s thankfully given up on calling out the repair man, because I don’t want to feel bad about her spending money on repairs when I’m only going to fuck it up again.

The other side of the living room has a bright white table tucked against the wall, topped with a small lamp, her work laptop, a ceramic cactus, and an empty floral-printed cup with a matching pink straw that looks big enough to fit half a gallon of liquid.