Love Thy Neighbor, page 1
Copyright © 2020 by Teagan Hunter
All rights reserved. For your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for not pirating and respecting the countless hours the author has put into this book.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at teagan@teaganhunterwrites.com.
Editing by Editing by C. Marie
Proofreading by Judy’s Proofreading & Julia Griffis
Cover Image: Adobe Photos
Contents
1. Cooper
2. Caroline
3. Cooper
4. Caroline
5. Cooper
6. Caroline
7. Cooper
8. Caroline
9. Cooper
10. Caroline
11. Cooper
12. Caroline
13. Cooper
14. Caroline
15. Cooper
16. Caroline
17. Cooper
18. Caroline
19. Cooper
20. Caroline
Epilogue
Thank You
LOATHE THY NEIGHBOR PREVIEW
Other Titles by Teagan Hunter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To bourbon.
Thanks for making 2020 tolerable.
1
Cooper
“PENIS!”
My shoulders shake with laughter as I sit in front of my computer, plugging away at my latest project, a video game I’ve been working on for the last six months.
I don’t want to get my hopes up or anything, but I believe it could be the game of the year when we’re finished with it.
“Again?”
“Yes, again!” Her sigh carries through the apartment. “Just tell me what it is!”
“Why didn’t you save it?”
“You know I’m not tech-savvy.”
She’s not wrong there.
Caroline Reed, my best friend since I was fifteen, is decidedly not the tech guru in our duo. I think if it weren’t for me pushing her to always buy the latest versions of phones and computers, she’d still be rocking a flip phone and the world’s thickest laptop.
She’s the artsy one. I’m the buttons and clickies.
She’s the hide-behind-a-book type, and I’d rather spend my Friday nights at the local sports bar.
We make no sense as friends, but here we are, living together in peace. Friends for…what has it been now? Ten, eleven years?
Either way, I can barely remember a time in my life before Caroline came barreling into it with her surprisingly smartass mouth.
“Just tell me the dang Wi-Fi password, Cooper! Or I’m going to call your moms and tell them you’re looking up dirty things on the internet again.”
“I’ll tell them myself.”
“I will beat you with my flip-flop!”
Okay, so maybe it’s not as peaceful as I thought.
“Come on, Coop.” She groans loudly, and I grin because I can imagine her face all scrunched up like it always gets when she’s angry.
“You didn’t ask for it correctly…”
“I NEED YOUR PENIS!”
Doesn’t matter how many times she yells it—which is strangely often—it still makes me laugh like a maniac.
I could change the Wi-Fi network name from Yell I Need Ur Penis 4 Password to something else and make it a little more “family-friendly,” more “mature,” but where’s the fun in that? Working from home all day long gets old quick, and I’ll take my laughs where I can get them.
I push away from my desk and make my way from my bedroom/office into the living room, where I’m not surprised to find Caroline curled up under the massive gray blanket we’ve taken to calling the chinchilla blanket because we swear it’s as soft as the pet she used to have. She acts like it’s freezing in our apartment with just her face poking out of the mound of fabric.
“Give me your phone.” I hold my hand out, towering over her huddled form. “And stop being such a baby. It’s not even that cold in here.”
“It’s sixty!”
“You live in Colorado for fuck’s sake and have for several years now. You’ve had plenty of time to acclimate to this weather. Quit acting like you can’t take a bit of chill.”
We originally grew up in Florida, where we were more accustomed to ball-busting heat than ball-shriveling cold, but we’ve lived here in Harristown in the mountains for about seven years now. We’re used to this climate—or at least we should be.
“Or you could, I don’t know, turn the heat up.”
I quirk a brow. “I’m sorry…are you the one paying the electric bill?”
She grumbles under her breath. I can’t fully make it out, but I’m almost certain the word asshole is in there somewhere.
“That’s what I thought.” I wiggle my fingers. “Phone.”
“Just tell me.”
“No, because I’m going to save it into your phone for a change so you’re not bothering me for it tomorrow night, or yelling through our apartment about how much you need my dick when we’re both painfully aware of how thin these walls are. You’re already the talk of the morning mail run.”
“Then change the Wi-Fi name.”
“And ruin the fun for later? No way.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
She darts her hand out and settles the two-generation-old brick into my hand, then quickly wraps the blanket back around her, chattering her teeth to try to make me feel bad.
Nice try.
I am way too cheap to fall for that shit.
I punch in her passcode, then enter the Wi-Fi password, making sure to hit save.
“There. Now you won’t have to ask again for another month until I change it again.”
“I don’t understand why you change the password so often.”
“Because I’m a paranoid computer nerd.”
“You got the nerd part right.”
I hold her phone up, shaking it. “Just for that, I’m keeping this.”
“You are not. Give it back.”
“Come get it from me.”
She wrinkles her nose. “On second thought, keep it.” She pulls her blanket tighter, if that’s even possible. “It’s too cold out there. Now move, you’re blocking my view of The Vampire Diaries.”
I glance behind me to the TV. “Again, Caroline?”
“Yes. They use my name in this show, and fake Caroline and I look alike. I’m required to watch it to support my long-lost twin.”
I distinctly remember when the show first came out and Caroline called me over under the guise of studying when I knew she just wanted someone there to hold on to in case she got scared of the vampires.
In the end, she was more freaked out by the fact that the character who shares her name could easily be her older sister. She switched the TV off immediately and refused to ever watch it…until articles came out about all the shirtless scenes. Putting on a brave face, she overcame her fear of her small-screen doppelgänger.
The damn show has been on repeat since.
“Multiple times?”
“Yes.”
“And it has nothing at all to do with the hot vampire douche-bros?”
“Douche-bros?” She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t act like you hate it. There have been plenty of nights you’ve watched it with me.”
“Only because I’m a good best friend. And because you take the batteries out of the remote.”
The brat always hides the batteries when she wants to watch something she knows I won’t like.
Technically, I could change the channel from an app on my phone. But, shit, those fucked-up vampires and their shitstorm of drama suck you in.
Plus, you know, it’s chock-full of hot chicks, which, if anyone asks, is exactly why I’m tuning in.
“You know, I—” Caroline’s phone vibrates in my hand. I look down at the screen.
The fuck?
“Whoa now,” I say, my interest piqued by what I see. “What’s this we have here? A notification for Dud or Stud.” I peek at her. “When did you get on that app?”
Her baby blue eyes—the ones that have gotten me in more trouble than I care to admit over the years—widen to about twice their usual size, and she shoots her hand back out from the comfort of her blanket cocoon. “None of your beeswax. Give me my phone back.”
Her voice is up two octaves…and my curiosity rises along with it.
“Maybe I’ll just…”
I swipe down, intrigued that my best friend is on a dating app and hasn’t once mentioned it.
“Don’t you dare, Cooper Bennett!”
Too late.
I’ve dared.
And I immediately fucking regret it.
MrSexMachine69: Are you sweet, Caroline? Because I can make you ba-ba-ba all night long.
And then there’s a dick.
&nb sp; On my best friend’s phone screen.
It’s a small one, too. And fucking gross. Like “the guy should spend a little more time in the shower scrubbing it” gross.
My lips curl up in revulsion. “Is this the type of shit dudes are sending you on here?”
“What?” She shoves out from her warm haven and rises to her full five-seven height, then snatches her phone from my hand. “What’d he—oh hell. Not this guy again.”
“Again?”
She groans. “Yes. He keeps making different profiles and I keep falling for it like an idiot, but I’d recognize that penis anywhere.” She shoves the screen in my face. “See that mole on his stomach?”
I smack the phone away, glaring at her. “Can you not shove dick pics in my face?”
She shrugs, glancing back down. “You’re lucky. At least he plucked the mole this time. Usually, you can see a few long black hairs sticking out of it.”
“You are way too nonchalant about this.”
“It’s kind of par for the course.” Another shrug. “Dating is weird nowadays.”
“Just because we’ve moved to a more technology-based way of meeting people doesn’t mean you should be subjected to unwanted pictures of rotten peckers.”
“It does look rotten, doesn’t it?” She shudders.
“Why do you keep falling for this crap?”
Her eyes narrow to slits as she looks up at me. “First, lose the judgment-filled tone.”
“Lose the dick pic in my line of sight.”
She shoves it in my face again, and this time I’m quick, plucking her phone from her hand and pocketing it.
“Cooper!”
“You can get it back when we’re done with this conversation,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, staring down at her. “You’re not answering my question. How the fuck do you keep falling for the same dude’s shit?”
“What do you mean? It’s all online.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s not hard to create a new profile. It’s not like the app gods keep good track of that stuff. There are so many people on here pretending to be celebrities. I once got matched with Tom Holland. It, unfortunately, was not him.”
“Why do you say that like you talked to this catfishing dude for a while to determine it wasn’t in fact Tom Holland?”
“Hey, I’ve read my fair share of romance novels—falling in love via a dating app or by accitext is a thing.”
“Accitext?”
“You know, you text the wrong person on accident and then you fall in love. Accitext.” She shrugs. “It happens.”
“Yeah, in fiction.”
“Fiction sounds really good right about now. It’s a heck of a lot better than standing around listening to you judge me.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m worried about you and the random dicks—actual random dicks—on this dating app you’re on.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Don’t start your whole big brother bull hickey again. That’s so high school.”
I don’t bother denying it, but I wouldn’t call fending off numerous tools a big brother move, just a common sense one.
I saved Caroline from many shitty dates and handsy assholes. It’s not that I completely kept her from dating—I’m not her parents, just a concerned friend—but I did do plenty of vetting and never let her forget it.
“You know, I’m surprised you aren’t on the app with you being perpetually single and all. I’m sure you’d match with someone in no time considering…” She gestures toward me. “Well, you know.”
I do know.
And that’s not me being a cocky douche. It’s the truth, and my physique is one I work damn hard for.
I can thank my middle school years for my love of hitting the gym, being bullied about being a tiny little shit when all my friends had already hit puberty and were shooting up like trees. I begged my uncle to allow me to use his workout bench in his garage for the whole summer between eighth and ninth grade. A month before high school started, I finally hit a growth spurt. It seemed like I sprouted four inches overnight…and then didn’t stop until I hit six foot five and towered over everyone else.
I lift a brow. “Elaborate for me.”
She huffs. “You know exactly what I mean. All buff and hot and whatnot.”
That same brow inches higher.
Hot? That’s a new one from her.
Over the years, she’s called me cute or handsome, even dropped beautiful a few times, whatever the fuck that means for a dude. But hot?
That word has never left her lips regarding me.
I…think I like it.
I lift my lips into a smirk. “You think I’m hot, Caroline?”
Another glare. “You’re something…like annoying, for one thing. You’re totally ruining my vampire-fest right now, and you’re a tool for taking my phone, which I’d like back now.”
She holds her palm out again, and when I don’t hand over her cell, she lunges for me.
I sidestep her easily.
She tosses her head back with a groan, her hands falling to her hips, where I can see her fingers digging into her flesh with frustration. I’m pushing all her buttons tonight, but I don’t care. I want to know what she’s doing on a dating app. The Caroline I’ve known for years has always lamented the lack of finding a real connection with someone. That’s not something you usually get on some dating app, especially one like this.
“Come on, Coop.”
“Don’t you come on me. Stop trying to change the subject. What the hell are you doing on Dud or Stud? This app is like a breeding ground for douchebags.”
“Um, trying to find a stud, obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to start dating.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what people do.”
“Why?”
She grits her bright white teeth. “Cooper…”
I raise my hands. “Just saying it’s a little out of left field for you. You’ve been content living that…what’s that saying you’re always spouting off? ‘Free and single, just don’t make me mingle’?”
“Yeah, well, things change.”
Sure. But not this. This hasn’t ever changed.
She’s been in about as many relationships as I have, which isn’t saying much. She’s always been indifferent to dating. Why is she going after it so hard now?
There’s something she’s not saying.
“Care…”
When she sees I’m not going to let her get away with a half-assed answer, she throws her hands in the air, frustrated.
“Because I’m lonely!”
There’s a commotion from the apartment next door, and I have no doubt the old, nosy broad living there has her ear pressed up against our wall again.
That’s the only problem with where we live. We’re in the heart of the city, and there are a lot of older folks here whose rich kids have set them up in this hot locale because it’s within walking distance of everything you could ever want. Which, in turn, means a lot of gossip floats around here because everyone is bored with their lives.
Due to the fact that Caroline yelled it louder than when she asked for the Wi-Fi password, I’m sure half the apartment building will have heard about how lonely she is by nine AM.
Fucking mailbox gossips.
“I’m lonely, okay? Are you happy?”
Not by a long shot.
Not when she stands there wringing her hands together, her nerves showing clear as day.
Not with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
And not when her blue eyes are turning sadder by the second.
An upset Caroline is my least favorite version of her.
Hell, I’d take an angry version of her over this.
This one makes me feel all protective…and something else I can’t quite put my finger on, but I know I don’t like it.
“Why are you lonely?” I point to myself, trying to lighten the mood and ignore whatever is eating at me. “You have me—is that not enough?”
“You’re you, Cooper.” She lifts her eyes skyward, a grin pulling at her lips. Then it’s gone. “I’m lonely in different ways.”
