by Celeste, B.
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Author’s Note
I know what you must be thinking. Screw you, Barbara. Am I right?
First off, I’m sorry for the emotions you’re probably feeling right now. For the record, I loved Emery too. In fact, I am Emery. That’s why I needed to write this book in all it’s raw, real glory. I knew how it’d end. It’s a fear of mine that I’ve battled since I realized something was wrong with me.
When you have a chronic condition, you spend a lot of your life being doubted by others. Not all diseases can be seen. In fact, a lot of them aren’t. That’s why invisible diseases can be so deadly, because nobody knows they’re there until it’s too late.
Not only do you have to suffer silently from pain and other symptoms, but you have to watch what your misery does to everyone around you. Loved ones. Friends. You name it.
Underneath the Sycamore Tree started as a short story called Mama’s Eyes that I wrote for my Creative Writing class in undergrad. It was a story I wrote from the heart about how the relationship between a mother and daughter changes when the daughter becomes chronically ill. It’s a story I reflected on for many weeks before submitting it, and maybe years before choosing to take everyone’s advice and expanding it into a full-length novel.
This book was both one of the easiest and hardest ones to write. Odd, right? I wrote this faster than I wrote any book before. When a story comes from the heart, it’s going to gut you and cleanse you all at once. It’s therapeutic but also painful in ways that is hard to explain. You’re reliving moments you wish to forget.
Like the first chunk of hair found on a pillow, the first of many prescriptions, missed classes, seeing your family look at you like you’re slipping away, and the fear—the fear of not knowing what’s going to happen because doctors don’t seem to believe you even though you struggle getting out of bed, and you’re skin and bones, and your hair is falling out. After a while, you begin believing them when they say you’re crazy.
This book is the representation of something very rarely found in literature. Often, we’re scared of reading stories that remind us of real life. I get it. We all want to escape reality, right? Reality always finds us though when we finish the last page.
I wanted to write a story that was so raw it stripped the soul. Every now and again, I think we need a reality check. Fiction can speak millions of truths that we’re not always willing to hear in the real world.
So this is mine.
This is my pain.
This is my fear.
This is my worst nightmare.
Please keep in mind that this is fiction. Getting a lupus (or any illness) diagnosis does not mean you’re fated to die. It means you’re fated to fight, and that’s something you need to accept from the start in order to make the most out of the life you’re given. It’s not easy, but I promise you’ll get through it a day at a time.
No other book I write will be like this, and I promise you’ll get a more traditional happily ever after from here on out. Even if you might not love me right now, know that I love all of you.
Keep fighting my loves,
Barbara
Where The Little Birds Go Sneak Peek
PROLOGUE
Kinley / Present
I never expected him to come crashing back into my life. Without warning, without a single clue, I was face to face with my greatest weakness. Nobody knew that I was already familiar with the silver-eyed charmer whose face encompassed every magazine, newsstand, and Hollywood tabloid cover.
Before Corbin Callum became America’s biggest star, he was just the new kid in the middle of nowhere New York. I knew all his secrets from the start—where he got the scar on his right eyebrow, why he has two black tally marks tattooed on his left pec, and who he lost his virginity to. It isn’t information I gathered from the press or pieced together from rumors.
Long before we dove headfirst into the industries we’ve dreamed of being big figures in, we made a pact that we’d never leave each other behind. But our aspirations were larger than the old versions of ourselves that thought everything would remain the same. We couldn’t keep up the charade, pretending to be the teenagers who had the world at their feet.
Once upon a time, I was his.
Before the fame.
Before the girls.
Before her.
I accepted that we’d never see each other again, but here we are.
He meets my eyes and grins.
“Hey, Little Bird.”
CHAPTER ONE
Corbin / Present
I’ve officially lost it at twenty-eight.
Regardless of the half-naked woman sporting nothing but a white t-shirt and black panties in front of me, I’m staring through distorted glass at one fully clothed. The way her chestnut hair flows down her back as she laughs at something the graying man in front of her says has me harder than the scrap of lace over a tan pert ass five feet away. I know the husky laugh well. I’ve even been the cause of it a time or two.
But that was before.
Suddenly, I’m not picturing the blonde in my clothes. I’m picturing a familiar brunette with a curvy body under a thin sheet of my favorite worn cotton. A small birthmark in the shape of a heart would peek out from the fabric on her inner thigh where I’d be able to trace it with my finger.
The brunette isn’t in front of me though. She’s too busy talking to world renown Tyler Buchannan as he flirts his way into her good graces in hopes that’ll lead to a few glasses of wine and a strip show in the penthouse he rented.
Unbeknownst to him, she doesn’t drink. At least, she didn’t. I guess that could have changed over the past ten years. I’d be a fucking fool to think nothing else has.
The front of my slacks gets too tight for comfort as my head conjures old memories of bare skin under my old AC/DC sweatshirt. That birthmark likes to make its appearance in the back of my mind more times than not, and I can still feel the sensation of smooth skin under my fingertip like it was yesterday.
“My, my,” a sultry voice purrs.
Slowly, my eyes meet a pair of blue ones staring down at the hard dick tenting my pants. Adjusting myself with no shame, I settle into the chair I’ve been in for the past ten minutes.
“Is that for me?” Olivia asks, shooting me the same wicked grin she gave me the first day we ever worked together. I like Olivia Davies. She’s always easy to work with, and certainly not bad on the eyes. She referred to herself as Hitler’s wet dream once, which didn’t go over very well with the press we were doing interviews with. I cracked up, but both our managers scolded us for the shitshow we created.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Stretching my legs out and crossing my arms over my chest, I nod toward the free chair beside me. “I wasn’t thinking about you.”
I’m sure she rolls her eyes as she takes a seat, sitting sideways on the chair and using the back as an armrest. “I’m sure. You were thinking about Lena, right? Honestly, I would be too. I can admit when I have a girl crush. She gives me a lady boner.”
I find my gaze locked on chestnut hair again, her facial features cracked from the thick decorated glass separating us. “Uh…what?”
“Lena,” Liv repeats, snorting out an amused laugh. “Your wife?”
I roll my shoulders back and force myself to look around the kitchen. Anything but the woman outside it. Everything here looks shiny, expensive, and new. The counters are dark wood, the countertops white granite, and the appliances all featuring the best of the best with brands I’m sure are helping fund the project through sponsorships.
“Yeah.”
Except that’s a lie. The only woman who should get me this hard with a single memory should be my wife. Unfortunately for me, that isn’t the five-seven figure walking alongside Buchannan as he gives her a tour.
“Definitely thinking about my wife.”
Liv nudges my foot with hers and tips her chin toward the side of the set. “What do you thin
k Buchannan and Kinley are talking about? I doubt his new girlfriend is a fan of her books. I’m not sure she can even read.”
Chuckling over the sad but true knock at the ditzy redhead who Buchannan is stringing along for the time being, I shake my head. “I’m sure they’re going over expectations of the film.”
You know, if expectations were telling her where his hotel is and what number is on the door. I’ve worked with Buchannan before, and even if I didn’t he has a reputation. Women as gorgeous as Kinley Thomas can’t be ignored by men with prying eyes like him.
Olivia full on cackles now. “Yeah, sure. I thought writers were, like, introverted hermits. You know, kinda smelly and sensitive to sunlight.”
I don’t want to tell Liv that Kinley has never fit the stereotypical author role. That would mean I know her, and that’s far from true at this point. Once upon a time, I knew that she loved Twizzlers, action movies, and picking dandelions to make wishes she knew wouldn’t come true. She hated mayonnaise and when people called her anything but her full name. It’s why part of me thought I was breaking the ice by using an old nickname only I ever called her.
Little Bird.
Turns out, I was wrong.
“Well?” Liv presses.
“Hmm?”
“What’s your opinion on Kinley?”
That’s a loaded question.
Besides the film industry, my oldest fascination has been the shy girl who preferred journaling on her own over going out with friends. She has a scar on her left cheek from when her family’s chow-chow bit her that’s only visible in close proximity if you know what you’re looking for. Once she tried covering it up with makeup, but it was the dead of summer and the shit melted off and made it more pronounced. Any flaw she thought she had was a favorite part of her in my eyes—scars, aversion to people, and all.
“She seems like the kind of woman who won’t fall for Buchannan’s tricks,” is what I opt to settle with after thinking on it for too long.
She laughs, letting it go.
“We’re filming in two,” Buchannan yells from his chair at the other end of the set. Next to him is Kinley’s seat, which is placed a little too close. I tell myself it wasn’t her who put the chair there, but it doesn’t ease the irritation bubbling under my skin.
It shouldn’t matter anyway.
Liv gets up and puts the chair back how she found it, shooting me a wink before swaying her hips provocatively where she’s supposed to start the scene by the counter. I roll my eyes at her as I settle on the chair as cued, resting one arm on the edge of the table while watching her closely. My legs are spread, my teeth are digging into my bottom lip, and I study her like I studied Kinley Thomas before I fucked everything up.
“And, action!”
Olivia grabs a wine glass and glances over at me. Her eyes are lust-filled as they scan down my body, landing on the slight bulge beneath my zipper.
“I have a feeling you’re going to be a bad influence,” she says, delivering her line as she begins filling her glass with Pinot Noir.
Swiping my bottom lip with my thumb, I shift in the seat and stare at her exposed ass. “I don’t think you have a problem with that.”
She fights off a grin. “There’s a special place in hell for people like us, you know.”
“People in love?”
She lifts the glass to her lips. “Cheaters.”
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Acknowledgments
A lot of people helped me polish this book, but I want to shout out someone specific first. This is for my mother, who went to every appointment and raised hell when I didn’t have the energy to. I know it was hard, but I appreciate everything you did for me.
To Micalea, my Momager, you know what it’s like to fight an unseen battle. You survived for a reason, never forget that. Even if that reason is to stalk my Instagram stories and slay my posts. I love you, you savage beast.
To Alisha. I know this story hits home for you, and I’m glad I could bring some of your fight to life. Your willingness to dig deep into the vault you never wanted to open again means the world to me. You are a fighter and a survivor.
My betas. You know who you are. You guys have polished my baby to make it the best it can be. Even though most of you said you no longer wanted to talk to me after, know that I appreciate you and all your hard work.
Letitia at RBA Designs brought Emery to life on this cover. I wanted to play with the concept of time and do something so unique that it fit this story perfectly. She did that in one single concept. Thank you for making this my favorite cover ever.
My readers mean the world to me, so thank you for sticking with me. I hope after this you continue to trust me to heal your hearts. Just remember Emery got her happily ever after. She’s with Logan and they’re both pain free.
Until next time, book nerds.
B
About the Author
B. Celeste’s obsession with all things forbidden and taboo enabled her to pave a path into a new world of raw, real, emotional romance.
Her debut novel is The Truth about Heartbreak.
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