But He's My Grumpy Neighbor (But He's a Carter Brother #1)

by Annah Conwell

“I can be there in a few hours to beat him up for you.” Caroline’s voice sounds through the earbud in my right ear. I’m walking Murphy around the lake and I always keep one ear free to listen to my surroundings. The company I run sells digital wedding invitation templates, so that means a lot of my work day is spent with my eyes glued to my tablet screen while I craft new designs. So, I try to get outside at least once a day. “It would take you more than a few hours to get here from California. And I don’t need you to beat him up, he wasn’t that bad. Also, there’s the fact that you have no fighting skills whatsoever.” I’ve just told Caroline about the trashcan incident and she has jumped–as usual–to physical violence as a solution. Murphy buries his nose in a pile of orange leaves and I stop to let him sniff around. The lake and trees are bathed in golden light this evening. Sunset is my favorite time of day to walk the lake and when I time it just right I arrive back home before it’s too dark out to see. I’m not a fan of darkness, so I make sure I’m safely inside before it falls. Caroline scoffs. “Who needs fighting skills when I have a giant muscly husband who can do the beating on my behalf?” “I thought Josh told you to stop entering him into duels.” My best friend has a tendency to let her rambunctious personality get the best of her and at times that means others get angry with her or she gets angry with them first. This leads to her yelling loudly for everyone to hea...