Jack and I had barely spent a single night in the house when the doorbell rang. We were still living out of boxes, the coffee maker hadn’t even been unpacked yet, and the windows stood bare without a single curtain. But that didn’t stop the neighborhood welcome wagon from rolling in right on time.
I peeked through the peephole. “Looks like we’ve got company,” I muttered.
Jack groaned. “Please tell me it’s not someone holding cookies.”
It was. A woman in a pastel pink cardigan, matching headband, and capri pants stood smiling on our front step like she was auditioning for a 1950s homemaker ad. She was holding a tray of chocolate chip cookies that looked like they’d been measured with a ruler. Not a crumb out of place.
“Hi there!” she chirped, teeth gleaming. “I’m Lindsey. I live right across the street. Just wanted to say welcome!”
We thanked her. Jack gave a half-hearted wave. But Lindsey wasn’t looking at us anymore—her eyes kept flicking past our shoulders, scanning the entryway like she expected to find a meth lab behind the coat rack.
