by Ford, Mia
Those 365 Letters
Mia Ford
Copyright © 2019 by Mia Ford
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
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Published: Mia Ford 2019
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Author’s Note
Blurb
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
Epilogue
Excerpt
Author’s Note
Stay connected with Mia Ford
Also by Mia Ford
Author’s Note
Those 365 Letters is a full-length standalone novel. At the end, I’ve included an excerpt from my latest bestselling steamy romance novel Accidental Meeting.
Those 365 Letters concludes at around 90% on your device.
Happy Reading!
XO, Mia Ford
Blurb
I thought I’d loved and lost.
But the man of my dreams is back into my life.
He’s not just a billionaire.
He’s also the hottest man I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
It didn’t work out the first time around.
My life was in shambles.
And circumstances tore us apart.
Logan sent me letters even after we’d broken up.
Today, he’s as tempting as he used to be back then.
Those deep, intrusive eyes.
That ever-so-charming smile.
And the same ambition to conquer the world.
I think I might fall in love with him all over again.
But something tells me that I’m setting myself up for disaster.
I’d be devastated if my heart broke again.
So, is it better to let the past stay in the past?
Chapter 1
Cora
This is one of the last times we will ever do this. It’s really coming to an end, isn’t it?
I took a bite of my pizza and set it down on the paper plate in front of me. I was typically a pizza junkie and would gobble it down whenever I got a chance, but today the delicious indulgence held very little appeal for me. In fact, I barely tasted it. My heart was in a dark place and I knew all of the reasons why. Reasons that I could do little about, nor would I want to unless my goal was to hold myself and my friends back from moving forward with their dreams.
Life moved along in stages. And my friends and I were about to move on to another important stage.
“You are so wrong, man,” Jacob Mueller, a friend of ours since third grade, said. “Ironman could totally take The Flash in a fight.”
My best friend Miley Rose and I looked at each other with a shared annoyance. Was this the subject of conversation? Really?
Kirby Daniels, a guy who had somehow become our friend over the past few years, but no one could ever remember how he did, took a big drink of soda and slammed his cup on the counter to signify that he was about to speak his mind and everyone around him had better listen that up.
“That is the biggest load of garbage I’ve ever heard,” Kirby said. “The Flash has actual superpowers that defy logic and humanity. Ironman is really just a Batman rip-off. He is a normal guy with a lot of money and a lot of really cool gadgets that he uses to fight evil.”
“Take it back, dude!” Jacob said.
“No, I won’t take it back.” Kirby replied. “Ladies, will you back me up on this?”
Miley and I couldn’t stop our laughter. Miley finally speaks to the dumbfounded Jacob and Kirby. “Wow, this is the most pathetic conversation I’ve ever heard. You remember that we all just graduated high school last week? We are eighteen years old, headed off to college in a few short months. We are adults. Why are we wasting our time talking about comic book superheroes?”
Jacob and Kirby looked at each other totally confused.
Kirby scratched his head. “Because it is awesome. And this has become much more than just comic book stuff. These superheroes are doing massive numbers at the box office. Everyone loves that stuff.”
“I think you may be grossly over inflating the numbers when you say ‘everyone’,” I said. “Miley is right.”
“Fine,” Jacob said. “What do you want to talk about? I’m all ears.”
“Well, I was just thinking how sad all this is,” I said somberly. “Just think, this summer is going to be the last. Then we are all going to different schools and we will hardly see each other; our lives are radically changing. I’m not sure I’m totally ready for it. How about you guys?”
There was silence among my friends. I could tell that they’d all been thinking the same thing, but had tried to bury it deeply in the back of their minds. I’d just brought it to the light and now everyone was deeply bummed. Good job, Cora.
“I know it’s going to be difficult,” Kirby said. “But we will make it work. I mean, that’s life; you move onto new things. Does any one of us want to stay around here?”
I gave him a dirty look. It took him a moment, but he finally caught on to the fact that he’d just insulted me.
“Well, you know what I mean, Cora,” He backpedaled. “But you aren’t really staying here; you’re going down the road to Rio Grande. That’s a good school.”
“Yeah, but it’s not Ohio State,” I said flustered.
“You might still get in,” Miley offered. “The waiting list is pretty cool. As soon as a spot opens, you are there.”
“Yeah, and I might be on social security by the time it does,” I said.
I didn’t want to get into a rant about it; I was tired of talking about that subject, but I was just so flustered by the whole thing. My whole life I’d been Cora Blair, the girl who got straight A’s; the girl who was the head of every club and after school activity; Cora Blair, the captain of the girls’ basketball team, head cheerleader, and student body president. I was the best because I had always strived to be. I’d always loved working hard and I was committed to my dream of being a top architect in a huge firm one day. That had been my dream since I was ten years old.
And when my dream school told me that I was just good enough to make their waiting list-- I was crushed. I had been accepted easily to Rio Grande, and it was a good school, but to get accepted into the top archite
cture firms, I needed to get into the very best schools. And I’d never be able to afford Ivy League, so Ohio State was where I’d set my sights.
Now, if only my dad had become a plastic surgeon instead of a local family doctor, I might have had a shot at Ivy League.
But then again, if I was only a waiting list material at Ohio State… I didn’t really see Harvard knocking on my door anytime soon.
“Cora,” Miley said. “You are way too hard on yourself. I’m sure you will do awesome things. You are too smart and hardworking to ever accept second best.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m going to miss all of you so much.”
“Well, if you ever want to transfer to University of Toledo with me, we could be roomies,” Miley said.
“No,” I quickly replied. “No one could convince me to go there.”
Miley pretended to be shocked. “What the hell?”
I laughed and stole one of her French fries.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to be that far away from home, especially at a school I didn’t really want to go to. If I was going to go to Toledo, or Bowling Green like Jacob, I might as well have stayed at Rio Grande where I could still commute every day.
“You know what you need to do this summer, to take your mind off things?” Miley asked.
She had that goofy grin she got on her face when she was thinking about something really wrong. It usually ended up with us in some kind of mischief. Miley was one of those people who was endlessly restless. She would most likely get tired of Toledo after a semester and try to transfer somewhere else, or drop out entirely and then go back later on after she’d settled down. She said she wanted to be a veterinarian, but she often talked about just taking some time off to travel the country and see what else she could find out about other places. And ideally she wanted to take a year to travel abroad and visit all seven continents.
“You need to have a wild, crazy summer romance,” Miley said.
Jacob and Kirby gave each other stupid, gross out faces.
“That’s the dumbest idea ever,” Jacob said.
“What? Why?” Miley asked.
“Because it has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You need to follow the thread of conversation here.”
“Just eat your burger,” Miley said. She turned to me with a serious look on her face. “You need to get back out there. It’s been too long.”
I laughed. The way she was taking this so seriously—as if she was explaining how she’d just been diagnosed with a deadly illness—was hilarious. This couldn’t be that important to her.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Jason was a few months ago.”
“Six. Six months. And it’s long overdue. You need to get out there and find someone else, at least for the summer.”
“You are crazy. I’m not going to start a relationship. Just because I’m staying here, doesn’t mean I plan on being here long. I’m still waiting on a couple other schools to get back to me. And, like you said—Ohio State might still come through for me.”
“I’m not telling you to have a relationship. I’m saying you should get out there and have a fling, just some meaningless thing. You know, like you see in the movies. I’m telling you it would be the best thing for you.”
“You have issues,” I said. “I have no intentions of doing that. I’m really committed to school and studying as much as I can. I need to work on my extracurricular activities, and I’m going to be competing against so many other people. I’m not going to have time for dating.”
Miley scoffed at me. She was hilarious sometimes.
“You are overthinking this,” she said. “It’s almost like you don’t know how to just do that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Where you don’t care about society’s conventions, where you throw caution to the wind; where you just grab some random dude and ride him until he walks sideways for a few days.”
I almost choked on the last bite of pizza I had left. “I don’t think I want any part of what you are suggesting.”
“Yeah, I think you should go out and get some pipe laid in you,” Jacob said. “And by the way—I’m available.”
I gasped in total shock. Jacob had really said that. I was so offended, but almost so full of shock induced laughter that I couldn’t get mad.
“What the hell?” Miley asked. “Are you on something? You aren’t day drinking are you?”
“No. She’s my friend; you said she should score with somebody. Do you want her to hook up with some random weirdo she knows nothing about? The guy could be a serial killer or something. She knows me. I’m willing to be that kind of friend.”
Kirby’s eyes were about to fall out of his head.
“You know, I don’t really know Jacob that well…” Kirby said. “So, I wouldn’t consider him my friend if you want to kick him out of our group.”
Kirby said the words slowly with a very serious expression on his face.
I could not stop laughing. Jacob was a good friend and a cute guy, but I thought of him more like a brother than anything romantic. The idea of just hooking up with him on a whim was hysterically preposterous and funny to me.
“This just went to a very weird place,” Miley said.
Jacob held up his hands and leaned back. “Fine. Then I withdraw my invitation. You can’t have me.”
“Thanks for the laugh, Jacob,” I said. “But, I’m good. And Miley, I’m not pursuing some stupid fling.”
“Ok,” Miley said. “But I still think it’s the best thing for you. Are you worried about developing feelings for some guy and getting stuck here for good?”
She was now starting to get closer to the truth. I thought about it a moment and then began to speak. “Yeah, I think so. That’s not such an irrational fear now, is it?”
“No,” Miley said. “But you have to learn to get a tighter grip on your feelings. It’s easy to fall for someone you are intimate with, especially if it’s good. But if you learn to ignore some of these compulsions, then you can just enjoy it without letting it become some big deal. I think all women owe it to themselves to act like players at least once.”
“Players? I sure as hell don’t want to be a player, even if I am pretending. Seriously, let’s drop this topic. My love life is not really open for debate.”
We finished eating our dinner and left the food court. As we headed past the movie theater where we’d just seen the new Adam Sandler movie about an hour ago, Kirby noticed a flyer hanging on the bulletin board.
“Hey, check it out!”
I sighed and walked over to see what silliness our friend had discovered. He was the member of our little group who was always trying to decide what new venture we should all be working on. Basically, he was the most likely one amongst us to chase quick riches and to be scammed out of his life savings (of which at this time there were none).
“Hey, that sounds cool,” Miley said.
I stepped in beside Miley and read the poster. The carnival was coming to town. It came every year at the beginning of the summer and I’d always enjoyed it. The drag races, the food, the games, and of course the rides. My favorite was called The Hurricane. It was not for the squeamish. A few years before Miley and I had ridden it six times in a row.
We had to stop for fear of projectile vomiting if we did it even once more.
“We’re going, right?” Miley said.
I groaned. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“What? What are you talking about? We always have the most fun.”
“I know, but this year just feels different. I don’t know…”
“Are you afraid of it becoming another ‘last thing’?” Miley asked.
Wow. She was right.
“I guess,” I said. “I just don’t feel in the mood this year.”
“Wow, you have to break out of this funk,” Miley said. “And this is the perfect way for you to do that. We will go and stuff our faces with funnel cakes and then we will ride every stu
pid ride until we are too nauseous to stand up.”
I laughed.
“Yeah, we are totally going!” Jacob said slapping Kirby a high five.
“See, all of us are going to be there,” Miley said. “You don’t want to be left out, do you?”
She looked at me with a fake puppy dog expression. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen.
“Oh, wow!” I said. “Fine. I’ll go.”
I was actually glad they’d talked me into it. The more thought I gave to it, the more interesting it became.
The air outside was warm and balmy. Southern Ohio in the summer is known for its heat and humidity. As we left the Mall, I found myself reminiscing about all of the times we’d spent here. Several times a week and weekends you could have found our little group of friends hanging out at this mall either inside or outside depending on the weather. It was the local hangout for many of the kids in the town our age.
And it was going to be gone soon. I couldn’t imagine myself coming there in college, hoping that some of the high school kids would include me in their group, even though I was old and had graduated. It seemed like a silly thing to think about, but the sadness of it was becoming overwhelming.
We piled in Miley’s SUV and drove across town to the Bowlarama bowling alley. It was another one of our favorite hangout spots, and something else I was surely going to miss. But at the bowling alley I always saw several people I knew from high school.