by C. A. Harms
Allure
Brooklet Dreams Series
Book One
(A Southern Boys Novel)
By C.A. HARMS
Allure
Copyright © 2018 by C.A. Harms.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: May 2018
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-368-9
ISBN-10: 1-64034-368-7
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To my Charmed Girls—each one of you and the support you give me make it all worth it. You are my #rockstars.
The love of a lifetime is worth a million tries…
~ Author Unknown
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Epilogue
Prologue
Rhett
I looked out over the small lake that Harley and I parked next to often. It was the summer before our senior year of high school and everything seemed perfect. The lake was one of the very few places two teens could disappear without parents hovering. It was peaceful, quiet, and rarely used by the landowners.
I may only have one sibling, but I’m part of a huge family, and that meant very little privacy. There are seven kids and nine adults, which consisted of parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents within my family. They may not all be blood relations, but I’m telling you they’re my family. They’re the people who have my back no matter what. They are the people who protect me and stand by me, whether right or wrong, no questions asked. I had their full support.
Which means, I never, and I do mean never, got time alone. They’re nosy too, always paying too much attention when they should be living their own lives. Very little slipped by them, and that wasn’t always a bad thing. But as a guy looking for a little alone time with my girl, those were some of the times I wished I was an only child with a small family.
The windows to my truck were rolled down and I could hear the crickets chirping in the night. It was the only sound, other than Harley and me. I reached out across the front seat of my truck in search of Harley’s hand and found it resting on the bench seat beside me. Without a second of delay, we wove our fingers together, and that movement alone tugged at my heart. I still remember the first time I saw her. She was in a pair of coveralls, her hair all wild with pieces of hay sticking out here and there. Her face was dirty with the remnants of a hard day’s work. She had her delicate hands hidden by a pair of big old work gloves that looked two sizes too big.
She was taking in one deep breath after another as if she’d just ran a marathon. She looked wrecked, yet my only thought was I had never seen a prettier girl. After that, she’d quickly become someone I wanted to surround myself with as often as possible. Harley held my heart; she had from that moment on.
We’d always been so in tune with one another. Everything we did, we did together, and I couldn’t help but feel as if something was off between us. As we sat side by side in the cab of my truck, each passing second that feeling of something being wrong only grew. Harley had been quiet all night, and it gave me this crazy tight, restricted feeling in my chest. I didn’t much care for it, because everything had always been so easy for the two of us. It was the part I loved the most. Nothing was forced; it just flowed without pause, like we’d known each other our entire lives and there was never something we couldn’t share with the other.
Not only was this girl my love, she was my best friend too.
“You okay?” I asked, finally forcing myself to look in her direction. That hollow space inside me, the one I’d been trying to ignore, was now so overpowering I began to feel sick from the force of it. I’d been avoiding it for the last thirty minutes, only I could no longer overlook it. All the rambling I’d done to lighten the mood had accomplished nothing, so now there we were.
“I’m not okay,” she whispered in the darkness, still staring ahead. I could see the glistening tears in her eyes, and my stomach tensed even more. It resembled a knot deep within me that literally felt like a burning inferno. I wasn't sure my heart could take hearing her say something like she no longer felt the same way I did.
She and I had been inseparable since we were twelve. Friends, grown into more, and at this point I knew I’d never truly feel for someone else what I felt for her. She was my girl.
“Talk to me,” I insisted, even though on the inside I was screaming, please don't say the words.
“I have to leave.”
For a moment I just stared at her, wondering what the hell she meant by that. Leave? No, leaving wasn’t an option.
“I don’t want to, but I have to.”
“What do you mean you have to leave?” I turned in my seat to face her and tug on her hand, forcing her to finally look at me. “Where are you going?”
My sweet girl, with tears flowing along her cheeks, her lower lip trembling as she did her very best to remain in control, suddenly fell apart. “We’re moving. My father was transferred.”
I had never felt the kind of pain I’d felt in that single moment, like someone was tearing at my chest in search of my heart. My throat was so tight, I wasn't sure I could swallow, breathe, or even speak.
“They’ve decided we’re leaving on Saturday morning so that we can search for a house, or even a condo as a temporary place until we can find something better. He has to be there to start his new position in three weeks.”
“Where is there?” The question was a hoarse whisper, the rawness I felt overpowering.
Maybe it wasn't so bad; maybe I could visit, or she could too.
“Seattle,” she replied, and that pain I’d felt earlier tripled.
Chapter One
Four and a half years later
“You coming tonight?”
I tossed my bag over my shoulder and looked to my left. Terrance, a fellow baseball player and friend, hollered out from the other side of my truck bed. “AJ’s gonna be there.”
“I know. She told me.” I didn’t answer his question because I wasn’t sure I was up for a party by the lake. The same lake H
arley and I used to make out near time and time again. The very same lake where I’d lost my virginity to the girl who broke my heart. She was still someone I thought about often, wondering what I could have said or done differently that could have changed the distance that now lay between us.
“I don’t get it, man.” Terrance leaned over the side of my truck shaking his head. “AJ is a sweet girl, cute as hell, and she has a thing for you. Yet, it’s like you don’t even see her.”
“I see her,” I tell him. How could I not see her? She was always there, at every game, every party. She was sweet and cute; I’d have to be blind not to notice her. It just didn’t feel right, because I knew part of me was still hung up on Harley, and that wasn’t fair to AJ. I’d noticed the way she looked at me, the way she flirted, but every time I thought of moving on, I’d imagine Harley coming back. They say you never forget your first love, but it was hard to imagine I could ever have a second one.
“Rhett, I know Harley leaving—”
He paused when I stepped back and began walking toward the cab of my truck, hoping my dismissal of his nagging was noticeable. I didn’t talk of Harley, and my friends didn’t bring her up; it was just a given. Or it should have been by now. Terrance was the one guy who thought our friendship gave him the fucking free-for-all. He was pushy, and I know he meant well, but I was never good with lectures, from friends or anyone else. I was strong-willed and always had a difficult time when others tried to lead me in a direction I wasn’t sure I was ready to go.
“I’ll see ya later,” I hollered, hoping he’d finally gotten the hint. I didn’t even wait for him to respond before climbing up into my truck and slamming the door.
Whenever I was alone it was always the same—my mind would wander back to the night she told me she was leaving and the weeks that followed. Hell, the year that followed was one of the hardest I’ve ever had.
“So, I got the scholarship to GS.” I stood on the front porch with my acceptance letter still held in my hands, excitement racing through me as the idea that I’d get to hold Harley again soon runs around full force in my mind. “You get your letter yet?”
I was met with silence.
“Harley?”
“I’m not going to Georgia State.”
It was my turn to remain silent. I had to have heard her wrong, because I could have sworn she just told me she wouldn’t be coming back to Georgia like we’d planned. Like we’ve talked about over and over during high school as well as the last year since she’d been gone.
“Berklee has this really amazing dance program.” With each word she spoke, I swear I could hear my heart breaking. “I applied thinking that there was no way I would get in, but I did.”
“Berklee, as in Boston.”
“I know it’ll be hard, but we’ll make it.”
I sarcastically laugh because she had to have lost her damn mind.
“Thousands of miles apart, for the next four years, and you think we’ll be all right. Harley, we barely talk now.” I lean against the railing, no longer feeling like I was on top of the world after getting the letter in the mail. “I think we should just call this what it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about us calling this a long-distance relationship when we should just call it an end.” The words made my stomach feel sour.
“It doesn’t have to be the end.”
“It does, Harley,” I take in a shuddering breath, “because pretending it’s not is just too hard. We’ve never been further apart then we are now, and I’m not just referring to the miles between us. We talk a few hours here and there, but that closeness we once shared is gone. I find out about your life through your Facebook more than I do you. We’ve been trying to hold on to this, and I thought once you got back to Georgia things would be okay again, but now you’re not even coming. There’s no point in lying to ourselves about this any longer.”
I shook the memory from my thoughts and turned up the radio to drown it all out. It was always the same, me regretting the decision I made, then getting pissed because there was nothing I could do to change it. She was gone, living her life, and I was here. I should be living mine too.
It was my last year at Georgia State. Holding out for a girl who wasn’t coming back was wasting the life I’d never get a chance to relive.
We’d agreed that the friendship we once had was worth holding on to because we had too many memories between us to pretend they didn’t exist. Those emails and texts that we’d exchanged even though we were no longer together had also begun to fade. We had come to a point where they only seem to be exchanged during a special occasion instead. I wished those would stop too, because when they came it was like a kick to my already wounded heart. They were only a reminder of what we once had.
I pulled into the driveway of my home and placed my truck in park, smiling when I saw Grace sitting on the front porch reading from the Kindle I’d bought for her seventeenth birthday. I swear she did everything she could with that device in her hand. She annoyed the hell out of me at times, but I loved her like crazy, though I’d never admit it because she’d use that shit to her advantage.
She was smart too, book smart but naïve, which always had me on guard. Little shits her age flocked to her; a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with her head stuck in the clouds was a target for all those horny little fuckers.
I know, because it was only a short time ago I was one of those horny high school boys.
When I climbed out of my truck and began walking in her direction, she looked up from her book. “Dutchess ate another pair of your underwear.”
I stumbled up the stairs, narrowing my eyes at her when I noticed her weak attempt at hiding her smile behind her Kindle. “I told you to keep your damn dog out of my room.”
“And I did,” she declared, sitting up straighter. “She found them in the laundry basket that was sitting outside your door.” She cocked her head and gave me that sassy look she often gave when she thought she had one-upped me. My earlier admittance that she was a good kid was long forgotten, because at this point I wanted to toss her ass in the dirty lake behind our house.
I couldn’t wait until my place was ready. We were converting the huge loft above the barn into an apartment, and times like this reminded me why I’d pushed for the renovations to begin in the first place.
“You’re buying me a package of boxers.”
“Like hell I am.” She pushed up off the chair she was sitting in and placed one hand on her hip. “I don’t care if you’re forced to wear underwear with holes or not.”
“Grace…” I looked toward the door just as Reed, the only father I’ve ever known, stepped outside, giving her a warning look. “Mouth.”
“But Daddy…” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She was going with the innocent girl look she always used when she was scolded. “I can’t help if Dutchess likes his boxers.”
Dad attempted to hide his own smile, but I saw it clearly. He looked between me and Grace, almost appearing as if he was lost.
“Looks like I’ll be alternating between the three pair I have left.”
“Or you could go without,” Grace announced, moving past both of us toward the front door. “Doug and Skip were talking about that very thing during gym class and apparently—”
“Why the hell are two guys talking to you about not wearing underwear?” I challenged her before our dad could, but I didn’t miss the same questioning look in his eyes. I also didn’t miss the panic in hers when she began to fidget, moving the weight of her body from one foot to the other. “I’m waiting,” I pushed a little more for the answer.
“Me too,” Reed finally added as he crossed his arms over his chest. He and I stood close to the same height; his build was a little larger than my own, but I was gaining on him. My biological father wasn’t a small guy and his genes had been passed on to me—there was no denying that.
“Is that Mom yelling?”
Before ei
ther of us could answer she hurried inside, and we both realized a second too late what she’d done.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” I looked at Reed and saw the gleam in his eyes almost instantly.
“Yep.” I took a step toward the house. “We’re taking her bedroom door off the hinges until she decides to clear this mess up.” I walked away hearing him chuckling behind me as I moved quickly toward Grace’s room.
She knew better than to assume either her father or I would let this slide. If we had things our way, she’d be thirty before she went on her first date; even then, we’d be there too.
Chapter Two
“You gonna make a move?” Terrance nudged my shoulder. “What’s it gonna hurt? Just a little fun, man.”
“A little fun only opens up the door for a certain someone to get a whole lot hurt.” AJ was a sweet girl; the last thing I wanted to do was lead her on. I wanted to be sure I was ready to move on before I took a chance. But AJ—she deserved someone who was all in, no hesitation, and I wasn’t sure yet if that guy was me.
“You know what your problem is?”
I lifted the bottle of beer in my hands to my lips and took a big gulp before lowering it once more. “What’s my problem, Dr. T?” The guy always had some drawn-out conclusion or words of wisdom to offer.
“You’re living in the past, yet your past is living in the now.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” I said with a smile.
I found myself wondering just how many beers the guy had since we arrived that had him going all Dr. Phil on me.
“Let me break it down for you.” He lifted his phone out of his back pocket, looking down at the screen, tapping away. “You are living in the past, meaning, you’re waiting for some sign or some moment where you leap back into the life of Harley. You spend all your time questioning what took place between the two of you and holding on to the idea that because she was your first love you somehow owe her. You keep thinking by some miracle the two of you will end up together, like she’ll show up and say she made a mistake. It’s been four years since she left, three years since you ended it, and you’ve only spoken a few times a month since then. I think we both know that what you two had is long over. The problem is neither one of you has the balls to tell the other one that very thing.”