On Deck

  On Deck

  A Sexy Neighbor, Single Dad, Friends to Lovers Romance

  By Liz Peters

  © Copyright 2019 by- Liz Peters -All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. The characters in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. WARNING: Contains mature themes and language.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One | Laila

  Chapter Two | Jeremy

  Chapter Three | Laila

  Chapter Four | Jeremy

  Chapter Five | Laila

  Chapter Six | Jeremy

  Chapter Seven | Laila

  Chapter Eight | Jeremy

  Chapter Nine | Laila

  Chapter Ten | Jeremy

  Chapter Eleven | Laila

  Chapter Twelve | Jeremy

  Chapter Thirteen | Laila

  Chapter Fourteen | Jeremy

  More books by Liz Peters

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  Laila

  LAILA REID SMILED WITH happiness, closed her eyes and snuggled contentedly under Michael’s chin. She was so relaxed, so satisfied as the feelings of stress and frustration slipped away from both her mind and her body. This was one of the best parts of sex for her, that post-orgasmic, totally weak, breathless feeling. She drank in his familiar scent and listened to his heartbeat still pounding so close to hers. He reached down to squeeze her ass the way he always did as if to remind her that she belonged to him. She was just about to drift off to sleep when she was jolted by the sound of an irritating strum of mechanical notes...

  Her alarm! She wasn’t drifting off, she was waking up, and Michael was not holding her. In fact, Michael was gone. Gone from her life forever.

  It was almost six months since they broke up, and it had been a clean break. But they had been together for a long time. Even though the breakup was for the best, the sex was difficult to forget, or at least that’s what her subconscious was telling her yet again. Damn, she hated these dreams. They were always so real and seemed to get her day off to such a rough start. She felt rattled, but she didn’t have time to think about that now. She had a full day ahead of her corralling kindergarteners and that required all of her attention and energy.

  Normally, early morning was Laila’s favorite time of day. She liked getting up before the sun and starting the day with a cup of coffee or tea before she set about the rest of her tasks for the day. Everyone had always rolled their eyes at her for being such a morning person back in college. It certainly hadn’t won her any brownie points with her roommate Alicia. Now that they were a little older, they had eventually found their way to being best friends. They’d even wound up teaching at the same school in the awesome city of Midland, Michigan.

  Laila liked being a teacher as much as she liked being up early in the morning. She enjoyed the quietness of feeling like there was no one else in the entire world except for her. Being a morning person and a teacher went hand in hand for her now. Today marked the first day of her third year as a kindergarten teacher in this picturesque town. It was finally starting to feel as if she really knew what she was doing. Today was going to be a long one, but she was up for the task. She could guide those little people through their first days in school and not feel like she was flying by the seat of her pants. At least that’s what she was telling herself as she grabbed her cup of coffee and walked out the front door of her one bedroom apartment. She slung her tote bag full of the supplies she was going to need to get her through the day, locking the door behind her.

  The sun was just starting to rise in the sky, leaving the pinks and purples of the sunrise behind for the pale blue sky that always heralded the morning this time of year. Laila was used to seeing the parking lot sparsely populated this time of day. She turned to survey what lay behind her, scanning the spaces nearby for her car as she moved to pull her long, dark hair back into a low ponytail that rested at the base of her skull, freezing in her tracks when she saw an unfamiliar face on the other side of the parking lot.

  Laila had been living here for a couple of years, and she knew just about everyone who lived in the complex. She was used to being the new kid on the block, even though she’d been here longer than you’d think necessary to fit into the daily routines of the neighborhood. They’d welcomed her here, but she was still something of an outsider compared to the people who had spent their entire lives in this area. That’s why seeing someone she’d never met before loading boxes off the back of a rented moving van was the last thing she’d been prepared for at this early hour.

  The two bedroom apartment on the first floor of the building across from her was empty. It had been for the last six months, ever since the single mom who had lived there with her son moved out. She’d gotten married to the police chief, and they were living quite happily in his house on the outskirts of the city. It seemed like everyone in the neighboring communities had been invited to their wedding, and everyone had shown up to celebrate.

  Laila studied the van for a moment. She’d only gotten a brief glimpse of its driver when he’d disappeared into the back of the van, presumably to move some boxes off the back of it, just enough to figure out it was a guy. Maybe it was someone she knew. Maybe someone’s son moving back from college, who knew? She just needed to get a better look at his face to figure out if it was someone she knew or not. That’s how she managed to be staring at the back of the van as he emerged.

  One look was all it took for Laila to realize that she had absolutely no idea who this was. It was a big enough city that there was probably someone living here she’d never met, but seeing a stranger moving directly across from her had her curiosity peaked. When she finally took in the man who was by now staring right back at her, she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. He was gorgeous — blonde hair and blue eyes she could make out even at this distance in the dim morning light and his body was absolutely amazing. The muscles of his arms that held a pair of boxes pressed against his chest, rippled as he turned and walked down the ramp. He froze on seeing someone else in the lot. He was in shape, that much was clear, and it wasn’t the kind of shape you just fell into by good luck or genetics. It was clearly something he worked at. Laila didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone that attractive anywhere in this city, and now here he was moving into her apartment complex. And, he’d caught her staring.

  “Morning!” the gorgeous man called out from across the parking lot, freezing in his tracks when he saw her. Instead, she just sputtered, dropping her stainless steel tumbler filled with coffee on the sidewalk in front of her. The moment the cup hit the ground, the top sprang free, letting a wave of coffee splash up and cover her pants and shoes in a layer of brown liquid that was going to dry into a sticky mess unless she went inside and changed what she was wearing.

  Laila cursed under her breath, embarrassed that this new guy had witnessed her inane fumblings this morning.

  “Well that’s going to leave a hell of a first impression,” Laila whispered to herself. She started wiping the hot liquid off the parts of her pants she could reach before grabbing the cup off the ground in front of her. She spun around to head back into her front door without an audible response to the good morning she had been given. It wasn’t until she was well inside that she’d realized exactly how awkward and rude that must have seemed to the new guy on the other side of the parking lot.

  Laila shook her head to herself, heading straight back t
o her closet to pick out a new outfit for the day. She needed to hurry or she was going to be late for the first day of class. That was the last thing she wanted, but there wasn’t much she could do about the spilled coffee at this point other than take care of the mess as quickly as possible. At least she’d done laundry this weekend, which meant that all of her work clothes were clean, and changing was just going to be a matter of quickly grabbing something else to wear.

  By the time she managed to change and head back out into the now bright morning light, her new neighbor was nowhere to be seen. She was slightly relieved at not having to explain her bizarre behavior when she climbed into her car, twisting the key to send it roaring to life before she headed off to work for the day. There were probably going to be a lot more opportunities for Laila to explain or embarrass herself before all was said and done. The apartment residents had a weekly cookout on Saturdays when the weather allowed, and there were always block parties on all the major holidays. Next week was Labor Day, and she’d already had a hand in planning the festivities that were going to happen.

  There was going to be a bouncy castle and some inflatable water slides for the kids. It was the end of summer, the last few days when it was still going to be warm enough for them to get wet. This was one last hurrah for the kids and a break for the parents before everyone got back into the full swing of the fall. She figured everyone was going to be there including the new stranger that she’d been caught staring at from across the parking lot.

  For now, Laila decided that she just needed to get her mind on the work day that she had coming ahead of her. There was a lot to do, and the first day of kindergarten was a stressful experience for everyone involved, even the parents. She was going to have mothers calling at random points throughout the day checking on the little ones who had never spent a single day away from home in their lives. There would be the ones who got randomly homesick halfway through the day or those who broke down in tears the moment their parent tried to leave them in the morning. Laila was going to need every last ounce of the coffee she had now refilled and was sipping on her drive into work.

  At least the drive was short, though it didn’t give Laila time to get her head back on straight before she was parking her car and heading into the building. She took a deep breath, closing the car door behind her before she made her way into the front doors and made a beeline for her classroom only to be stopped dead in her tracks by the sound of her name being called from the other end of the hallway.

  “Laila!” She recognized the voice without even having to look up to see who it belonged to. “I’ve been calling you since you turned the corner. What in the world has gotten into you?”

  Laila sighed, tugging her bag up higher on her shoulder as she glanced up at her best friend Alicia with a shrug.

  “Can I just say it’s already been a long day and leave it at that?”

  “Nope. I want details. You know me, I need the deets!”

  Laila looked around the hall deciding that there were far too many other people out here for her liking and grabbed Alicia’s hand, pulling her into Laila’s classroom before gently shutting the door behind them.

  “Well, I had another Michael dream. It was super real this time. I swear I could feel him next to me.”

  “What? I thought those dreams were starting to fizzle out! Every time you start to get over him, it happens again.”

  “I know, right? It’s super frustrating, and for some reason, this one really got to me. Anyway, I got up, had a cup of coffee and was heading out the door in time to get to work early when I made a complete fool of myself in front of my new neighbor.”

  “So, you’ve got new neighbors? Are they awful?”

  Laila shook her head, taking a long sip of her coffee to give herself time to formulate her answer.

  “Well he’s probably the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in real life, and I dropped my coffee dead on the sidewalk and splattered it all over my clothes the minute he said hello. Oh crap...” She leaned down resting her face in her hands. “I didn’t even say anything back to him. He’s going to think I’m the weirdest most antisocial person on the face of the planet.”

  Alicia laughed, and Laila felt her cheeks getting redder by the second. A quick glance at the clock told her that the kids would be arriving in the next fifteen minutes so she knew she needed to get focused as quickly as possible.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this since the breakup. Here’s what you’re going to do.” Alicia walked over to Laila’s desk, grabbing a pad of notepaper and a pen as she jotted down something quickly before looking up. “That is the recipe for my mother’s famous Man-Catching Apple Pie. She claims it’s how she got my father, but I don’t know whether she’s just a good liar or what. You’re going to stop at the market on the way home, get the ingredients for this little thing and then go home and bake it. When it’s cool enough to pick up, you can march your pretty little ass across the parking lot and make up for being the world’s most clumsy neighbor. You can just say it was your first day back to school for the new year and you were a little distracted so he doesn’t think you’re out of your mind.”

  Laila glanced at the piece of paper on her desk then back at Alicia before taking another long swig of the coffee in her hand.

  “I think you’re the one who is out of your mind.”

  “Just trust me.” Alicia winked and then walked out of the door calling out behind her. “The kids are coming down the hall so take a deep breath and put your big girl panties on.”

  Chapter Two

  Jeremy

  Jeremy Nichols had started moving into his new apartment long before the sun came up. The six-hour drive from Milwaukee to his new home had started around ten o’clock last night, so it was safe to say he’d had no sleep and wanted nothing more than to crash in a bed as soon as he put his key in the lock. The only problem was, his bed was sitting in six pieces in the back of the moving van parked outside. There was no way he was going to get everything unloaded before he crashed, but there were a few essentials he was going to need to get in the door for the day ahead.

  He clearly hadn’t been thinking about that when he’d packed the van, though, because it turned out his box of bathroom supplies was at the dead back of the space. He groaned and went to fishing around for the one last box he was going to need before he could curl up on the couch he’d had delivered the day before and just sleep. There was no way he was going to take the time to get his bed together before he crashed.

  The long drive had given him plenty of chances to think about his life and all the changes that were happening. This time last year, he was wrapping up the end of another baseball season. Every day he was busy with either a game, practice or travel to play one place or another. That was the life of a professional baseball player, and it was the life he’d had for the last fourteen years until his entire world seemed to fall apart because of one simple decision he’d made.

  Jeremy’s knees creaked every time he moved his leg the wrong way. It was a near constant reminder that he’d been told by a doctor that he could either quit playing ball like he was still twenty-one or face a knee replacement before he was forty. He’d been around the game long enough to know what kind of toll playing longer than you should takes on a guy. He’d seen plenty of them taken out permanently when they were injured beyond something you couldn’t walk off or throw an ice pack on after the game. Jeremy had decided that was the last thing he wanted for himself, but it hadn’t been his ex-wife Stephanie’s plan.

  She’d grown accustomed to the lifestyle they’d been living and wasn’t willing to adapt to this big change. Their divorce had been finalized six months ago. She was remarried the week after the papers were signed to one of his old teammates, Dave Meyers, and good old Dave had been transferred to Detroit at the same time. All of this worked together to make it that much easier for him to take the job offer he’d received to
coach a AAA ball team in Michigan. They would all be living in the same state, so it was an ideal situation.

  He would have his son Jesse every other weekend and a list of chosen holidays plus a month during the summer. Jesse was really the primary concern in his life now. As a five-year-old, he didn’t really understand what was happening between the adults in his life. At least Stephanie and her new husband were willing to keep the drama at bay, and the three adults worked hard at maintaining some semblance of a relationship.

  That was what he’d been telling himself anyway. Jeremy just knew that he wasn’t good at much besides baseball, and being offered a job as a coach was probably the best offer he was going to get fresh off a team. He could not just sit at home and go to pot like a lot of the other guys he’d played with did after their retirement. Technically, he’d made enough money that he could live off of for the rest of his life if he was careful. A job was less about making a living and more about having something to do so he didn’t go absolutely insane.

  His plan was to keep busy with promotional gigs, coaching and maybe work a little at offseason camps and clinics that were happening around town. He just needed to keep busy doing what he loved without doing any more injury to himself.

  Jeremy had a few days to get moved into the apartment here and get acclimated to a new town before he had to report for work. Today, though, the only thing that was on his agenda was to unload this van and catch a few winks before he tried to function and possibly interact with other people.

  Speaking of people, he hadn’t seen very many around the apartment complex since he’d gotten here. He knew from the cars in the lot and the visit he’d made to sign the lease and pick up the keys a couple of weeks ago that there were plenty of people here. Maybe it was just too early for very many of them to be getting a start. Now the sky was starting to grow light. It was about time for most of the people around here to start getting up and heading into work. Jeremy had already seen a few of the lights in the windows around him coming to life and could hear some of the sounds of the people behind them stirring and preparing for what would be just another day to them.