The hustler next door a.., p.1
The Hustler Next Door: a novel, page 1
part #1 of Polson Falls Series
The Hustler Next Door
a novel
Polson Falls
K.A. Tucker
Contents
Also by K.A. Tucker
The Hustler Next Door
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
The Player Next Door
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by K.A. Tucker
Ten Tiny Breaths
One Tiny Lie
Four Seconds to Lose
Five Ways to Fall
In Her Wake
Burying Water
Becoming Rain
Chasing River
Surviving Ice
He Will Be My Ruin
Until It Fades
Keep Her Safe
The Simple Wild
Be the Girl
Say You Still Love Me
Wild at Heart
The Player Next Door
Forever Wild
A Fate of Wrath & Flame
Running Wild
A Curse of Blood & Stone
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2023 by Kathleen Tucker
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All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For more information, visit www.katuckerbooks.com
ISBN 978-1-990105-32-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-990105-13-5 (ebook)
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Edited by Jennifer Sommersby
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Cover design by Hang Le
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Published by K.A. Tucker Books Ltd.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
To the readers who have waited two years for Justine’s escapades. I hope you’re ready for her.
Chapter One
“Half of Boston must be here.” My calf muscles strain as I stretch on my tiptoes, striving to see over the bulky winter jackets and capped heads. It’s pointless. There are too many people and, as usual, my diminutive stature works against me.
Mom waves off my protests. “It’ll move fast. It always does.”
She’s right, of course. Rain, snow, or sunny summer skies, mornings at Sam’s Pastry are always hectic as Bostonians flock to the iconic downtown bakery for their cannoli fix. Even now, only days after everyone has renewed their gym memberships and made New Year’s resolutions about pious lives of salads and spin classes, bodies are stuffed into this storefront like the rows of cream-filled pastries in the display cases ahead. Five separate lines wait impatiently for service while a crowd loiters outside in the frigid January air.
Mom and I have always been Saturday regulars. Even after I moved out, I’d insist on coming here every visit home, just so I could taunt my brother Joe with unflattering pictures of myself shoveling pistachio—his favorite—into my gaping mouth. But it’s been ages since I’ve faced this crowd, and I’m not in the mood for it. “We picked the slow line.”
“Stop fussing.”
“I’m boiling.” I tug at the collar of my knit sweater for effect.
“And you’ll be cold once we step outside.” Mom toys with a strand of my lengthy hair. I’d dyed it black for years but recently made the switch to a rich chestnut brown. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
I meet my mother’s gaze, see her sincere smile, and I swallow the other complaints waiting to spill out. “So am I.” There’s something about walking into Sam’s and inhaling the sugary-sweet icing sugar and pastries … it transports me back to childhood every time, if only for a moment.
She hesitates. “Especially since you missed Christmas.”
Oh my God. “Please don’t start now.” I’m already irritated; a guilt trip will put me over the edge. “You know why I didn’t come home.” Why I did the unthinkable and skipped the holidays with my family for the first time in my thirty years of life. It’s not that I didn’t want to see them. It killed me not to see them. But holidays with my family include our longtime friends, the Wrights, and there was no way I was spending Christmas watching a certain six-foot-three Wright—the one I was supposed to marry—and his new woman suck back eggnog while canoodling in matching reindeer sweaters. “If you’d wanted me there badly enough, you should have banned them from visiting.”
“That would have put a strain on the relationship. And punishing everyone for his mistake—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“These things always happen for a reason. One day you’ll look back and—”
“Cheating is cheating. Do not make excuses for Bastard Bill.” I stab the air with my finger in warning.
“I’m not! The truth is, I don’t think I’ll ever look at him the same way again. But, for Molly and Craig’s sake, would you please stop calling their son that, or I’m liable to do it in front of them accidentally.”
“Would that be so bad?” I know Mom’s in a difficult position. The Wrights have lived next door to us for almost three decades. Our families have a long, entwined history. When my father injured his back and couldn’t work construction any longer, Craig put his reputation on the line to get him a job at his company, even though my father didn’t have the first clue about insurance or office work. Mom and Molly must have burned a trillion calories together over the years on their daily walks while venting about their husbands and children. They travel to Mexico every winter together. I can’t expect my parents to cast away those friendships because of what Bill did.
I can’t even blame my brother. When Bill and I first hooked up years ago, Joe was pissed. He wouldn’t talk to either of us for days, and when he came around, he swore he’d never take sides between his sister and his best friend if we broke up, no matter what.
I was shocked when Joe showed solidarity, punching Bill across the jaw and ignoring his calls for a few weeks. But I knew that wouldn’t last. They’ve been best friends since the day they met. They went to college together and have never lived more than a twenty-minute subway ride apart. They start every day swapping sports stats over the phone while sitting on their respective toilets.
“Look, we’re all disappointed with the situation—”
“The situation?” She says it like Bill got a flat tire and was late to work one day. “You mean when he got caught sticking his dick in his coworker?” Close enough, given the explicit texts I discovered on his phone.
“Justine.” Mom’s cheeks flush as she scans around us to see if anyone heard her daughter’s crass remarks.
“Whatever,” I huff. “It’s my own damn fault. I should never have taken him back in the first place.” We dated while I was in college until Bill broke it off to “figure things out.” I was crushed. I’d been in love with him since I was twelve. Imagine my surprise when he showed up at a family barbecue with Debra. One wedding, a daughter, and a divorce later, he came crawling back to me. I should’ve seen myself for what I’ve always been to him, though—a fill-in until something better comes along. No wonder he was so hesitant to live together.
And now he has Isabelle, who Joe begrudgingly informed me has asked Bill to move into her midtown condo with her.
He probably didn’t blink when he said yes.
“Do they still have the Oreo cannoli?” I ask, abruptly changing the subject to keep my emotions in check before I turn into a lip-quivering mess.
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.” Mom lifts her chin, trying to spy over the sea of shoulders. It’s no use; she’s even shorter than I am.
“They better, or Uncle Jay is gonna ride my ass hard.”
“Honestly, I don’t know where you earned that mouth of yours.”
“From your father.”
Mom grunts but doesn’t deny it. She can’t. Gramps was a sweet old man, but he could have headlined a Quentin Tarantino movie for all his cussing.
“Speaking of your uncle, he’s not happy with the man he hired to replace you.”
“I warned him that guy didn’t know his head from his asshole, but he didn’t listen.” Through a narrow crack in the crowd, I spy the tray of limoncello c
“Your uncle is as stubborn and hardheaded as your father.” She pauses. “But he’d let you come back in a heartbeat.”
“I know.” That’s why Jay’s driving to Boston this weekend: to promise me the sun, the moon, and the North Star until I agree to work for him again. “I already told him no. I just … I can’t.” I needed a big change.
“You know what he said to your father the other day?” Mom drops her voice conspiratorially, though no one’s listening. “When he kicks the bucket, he’ll leave the company to you.”
“Come on.” I snort. “Jay isn’t kicking any buckets anytime soon.” My dad’s baby brother is a fit fifty-two-year-old who has no interest in retiring. “And running a skilled trades agency isn’t the life I want.” Even though I had become a master at matching candidates with the right employers. I’d even started recruiting clients. Of the new companies we partnered with in the past year, I brought in eighty percent of them.
Mom worries her lip as if weighing her next words. “But selling refrigerators in a tiny town in Pennsylvania is?”
There it is: the judgment I’ve been waiting for. When I told her I’d started at Murphy’s Appliances in Polson Falls a few weeks before Christmas, she asked the usual questions but didn’t share her opinion. I knew it would come. “I don’t just sell fridges. Ovens too. And washing machines. The occasional microwave.”
“Justine—”
“Like I said, it’s temporary. The hours are good, there’s no stress, and it’s a four-minute drive from home.”
“I don’t see why you had to uproot your entire life.”
“There was nothing to uproot. Besides, Scarlet’s in Pennsylvania.” There should be no need to elaborate. My best friend and I lived together for a decade before she bought a house in her hometown. When I caught Bill cheating, she’s the one I ran to. I sure as hell wasn’t running back to Boston, where everything reminds me of him. “Look, I am in what they call a transition stage of my life. Nothing is permanent. The world is my oyster.” I hold out my hands for dramatic flair. “Now, can we talk about something other than my poor life choices?”
Mom purses her lips. I know what she’s itching to point out: that I’m borrowing a room in my friend’s dilapidated house in a sleepy town, I have a dead-end job in a store that’s barely surviving, and my custom T-shirt that reads “I hope your penis falls off”—I had it printed in three colors—isn’t about to woo future dating prospects.
“Tell me about Sara,” I prompt. “I still can’t believe Joe brought her home for Christmas.” They only met in November, but literally, every text from my brother is Sara this and Sara that. It’s nauseating.
“Oh, Justine …” Just hearing her name has my mother smiling. “She is lovely.”
“She has great taste, I’ll give her that.” Joe’s gift to me this year was an adorable pair of Sorel suede booties that I know he didn’t pick out.
For the next ten minutes, I’m content to shuffle a few steps at a time and listen to my mom drone on about the many ways Sara Walton is perfect—how smart and kind she is, how elegant and yet down-to-earth, how tall and pretty, how proud her parents must be that she’s taken up nursing when, according to Joe, her family comes from “old money”—the kind that earned them a penthouse in Manhattan and summers in Newport, Rhode Island.
“I’ve never seen Joseph so smitten.” Mom’s eyes light up. “She’s the one. I’d bet money on it.”
“Wow. Must be serious.” A gambler Joan MacDermott is not. She still rolls loose pennies to take to the bank. “Do you think it’ll last, though? A woman like that with Joe?”
“Why wouldn’t it? Your brother’s no slouch. He just got that big promotion at work. He’s one of the youngest executives his agency has ever seen!” she declares proudly.
“He also eats Froot Loops for dinner and spends half his paycheck on baseball cards.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“He’s thirty-four and sleeps on an air mattress.”
“Not anymore. He just bought a proper bed.”
“Either way, the MacDermotts of Boston don’t run in the same circle as the Waltons of the Upper East Side.”
She seems to consider that for a moment. “Maybe not, but your brother’s circle must have crossed with Sara’s at some point, otherwise they never would have met.”
“Fair point.” I still haven’t heard the details of their meet-cute. “I guess I should say hello to my potential future sister-in-law soon, then, huh?”
We’re next in line for the counter. Mom is deciding out loud which six of the nineteen flavors we should order while I glower at the worker who collects the last three limoncellos and tucks them into a large box. Who would take three? That’s excessive.
I stretch up on my tiptoes as the clerk veers back toward the customer, curious who the culprit is.
My stomach drops.
Bill is at the far end of the counter, his long, skinny index finger pointing out other flavors for the worker to fetch.
I haven’t seen him since I discovered the string of racy messages last October. The day I moved my belongings out, I threatened bodily harm if he showed up.
He stayed away.
How dare he come here, to my cannoli spot, and buy up my favorite flavor?
The brunette standing beside him leans in, her plump lips moving as she reads out flavors, and a sinking realization hits me. I’ve seen that face before, attached to a naked body on my boyfriend’s phone.
Rage simmers as I grit my teeth against the urge to scream. Not only did he come here, to my cannoli spot, but he brought Isabelle. They’re probably visiting his parents. They’ll be right next door.
“Justine?”
“Huh?” My head whips back so fast, I kink my neck and a burst of heat explodes.
Mom has moved ahead to the counter where a server with latex gloves and a tight smile awaits, box in hand. “They’re out of the lemon. Can you believe that? No one ever wants the lemon. What about the peanut butter or the mint, or …” Her voice trails. “What’s wrong?”
I feel like I’m going to vomit. “He’s here,” I hiss.
She frowns. “Who’s here?”
“Bastard Bill. And he’s with her.”
Her focus shifts over my shoulder, and she inhales sharply. “Oh dear … this is awkward.”
“Ya think?”
“Has he noticed you yet?”
“Not that I know.” But the longer we stand here, the more likely a run-in will become.
Sympathy twists her features as she studies the panic splayed across my face. “Tell me what you want to do.”
“Shove the biggest cannoli they have down his throat until he chokes to death?”
The worker in the hairnet raises an eyebrow.
In truth, all I want to do is run, and my mom figures that out.
“Let’s pick our flavors and get out of here, okay? How about two of the—”
“Kitty!” A shrill child’s voice carries over the buzz in the bakery.
Fuck me. Bill’s daughter is here, too, and she’s seen my mother, who answers to that nickname as readily as her own. Bill and Joe coined it years ago on account of Mom’s laugh sounding identical to that of the mother in That ’70s Show.
Can this day get any worse?
“Pretend you didn’t hear her,” I say.
Mom cuts me a glare before smiling wide and waving. “Hi, Rae!”
I groan inwardly. Of course, that’s the right move—Rae had no part in her father’s treachery. With a deep inhale, I peer over my shoulder. The six-year-old is perched on Bill’s arm, held high enough to glimpse the display case. My heart softens for a few beats as I smile at the little girl, her pigtails poking out of a pink knit cap, before it hardens again for the man holding her.
