Even Tavi.
EspeciallyTavi.
She doesn’t know this, but the first time I actually saw her,beforethe incident that didn’t happen, she was helping a duck cross the road near the lake.
Could’ve run on by.
Ignored the duck wandering aimlessly in the predawn light.
But she stopped and shooed him to the side of the road, all dressed in reflective gear, as I was heading out for an early-morning emergency job in Deer Drop.
She’s the only reason I didn’t have to bury a duck that day.
She thinks I remember one thing and one thing only.
I remember a little more.
And honestly?
Between the dog and the feeling that she’s more than the fluffball she makes herself out to be when she knows people are looking, I’m curious what Tavi Lightly is really made of.
I like knowing my neighbors, and she’s my neighbor for at least another nine to ten months, if her grandmother’s plans are to be believed.
So far, nothing about Estelle Lightly suggests she’ll bail early, no matter what we all thought at first.
And nothing about Tavi Lightly suggests she’ll be granted one of her grandmother’sGet Out of Hell Freecards early like her sister, Phoebe, got a couple of weeks ago.
“You really want to do that, Dylan?” Ridhi asks as I take Jane’s seat.
Tavi meets my gaze, then quickly averts her eyes.
And that seals it.
I like people to like me.
I like to get along with my neighbors.
And Tavi Lightly and I need to clear the air so I can get back to being that guy I’ve finally made myself into—the trustworthy, dependable, nice guy next door. “Sure do.”
Chapter 3
Tavi
It doesn’t matter how evil my grandmother is for making us move to this little town in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin—there is no evil that can top being woken up in the morning.
And it happensevery damn day.
“Morning, sunshine,” a deep, ruffled voice says nearby.
Okay, being woken up by the one person you need to talk to most, whom you really don’twantto talk to at all, and whom you mistakenly thought you’d find alone when you followed him into a secret underground lair last night, is probably a worse evil.
“Mmphle,”I whimper out.
My head feels like it’s been put in the mouth of the world’s largest, ugliest nutcracker. Something smells like goat mixed with body odor mixed with Vaseline. A strobe light flickers beyond my closed eyelids with a buzzing to go with it, and I don’t know what I’m sleeping on, but I’m reasonably certain it hasn’t been cleaned in a few decades and might be filled with gravel.
This reaction to mornings has nothing to do with the two shots of vodka last night and everything to do with the fact that I haven’tslept more than twelve hours in a single week since I got here to Tickled Pink.
Is that polyester upholstery scratching my cheek?
