Crazy For You
S.B. Alexander
Copyright © 2021 by S.B. Alexander
All rights reserved.
First Edition
S.B. Alexander: https://sbalexander.com
Editor: Red Adept Editing
Cover Design: Hang Le
Photography: by Sara Eirew Photographer
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. 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 the 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 husband of twenty-two years who is the most courageous, honorable, moral, and wonderful man I have ever met. His battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, has been a challenging journey for the last five years. But through the ups and downs and twists and turns, he always has a smile on his face. He’s the love of my life and my soulmate, and I’m honored to call him my hero.
With all the love in my heart.
Susan
“The greatest pleasure of life is love.”
Euripides
Contents
Foreword
J.A. Owenby, International Bestselling Author
S.B. Alexander Newsletter
Prologue
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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Also by S.B. Alexander
Foreword
J.A. Owenby, International Bestselling Author
“Every now and then there comes a story that will rip your heart out and piece it back together. This is that story.”
S.B. Alexander Newsletter
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Prologue
I pressed the button on my Fitbit as sweat trickled down my temples. The summer heat had been off the charts with high humidity that, according to the weatherman, would last well into next week. I usually didn’t mind sweltering temps as long as I was either on my skateboard, swimming in the ocean, or in an air-conditioned place.
Sadly, our AC had been on the blink, and I suspected it was broken. Dad liked to keep the electric bill as low as he could, which meant the indoor temp was high and not as cold as my bestie’s place. Georgia’s parents both worked at the local hospital. Her mom was a nurse, and her dad was an ER doctor, so they could afford to keep her home cool.
Still, I was tempted to grab my skateboard and hit the park, but Dad wouldn’t like me traipsing out at three in the morning. Not only that, but my junior year was starting the next day, and while I would love to do anything but sit in a classroom with students I didn’t care to know, I’d promised Dad I would do well my upcoming year.
High school sucked the big one. Drama galore, and then there was Grady Dyson. He was the ass of all asses, despite his good looks—tall, football beefy, thick blond hair that curled around his ears, and blue eyes. Most girls in school bowed down to him like he was a rock star. But I wasn’t one of them. The dude had hated me since the seventh grade. He’d stuck his tongue practically down my throat on a dare, and in turn, I’d kicked him in the balls. Then I’d spread a rumor about how awful his kiss had been. Girls had giggled and whispered about him that year. Since then, I’d been on his radar.
Oh, he was making me pay with the crap he’d said about me. I’d ignored the gossip my freshman year, but sophomore year, and one rumor in particular, had been a different story.
“Stay away from Lawson. She’s a terrible lay,” Grady had told his friends and anyone who would listen.
After that, guys looked at me funny or not at all. But I wasn’t one to back down. I’d stormed onto the football field during one of his practices and kneed him in the balls. I’d gotten suspended, but I considered it worth it.
I had no idea how I would keep my cool or bite my tongue, but if I didn’t want to sit in detention or get suspended again, I had to. Aside from Grady, I also had to pay more attention in class. My mind wandered too much. While the teachers lectured, I daydreamed, mostly about nothing or skateboarding—anything but math, English, and science.
My mom had died in a car accident two years ago, and neither Dad nor I had been the same since. It was hard to be happy after we’d lost the glue who held us together. Dad and I had tried to get our lives back to something resembling normal. We’d moved out of our old four-thousand-square-foot mansion that Mom had designed. Too many memories, although it was hard to forget the day we’d moved in. She’d been the happiest I’d ever seen her. Her bright blue eyes sparkled like the ocean on a clear summer day. Her smile had been infectious, and she couldn’t wait to show me my room. She’d had the entire house decorated with new furniture before we stepped into the grand foyer.
“We’re starting anew,” she’d said as she draped her arm around me. “You’re going to love this place, Skye.”
A tear escaped as I planted my feet on the scuffed wooden floor and rose. I missed the plush white carpet I’d had in my former bedroom. Hell, I missed so much, and memory after memory suddenly bombarded me. I sat down on the edge of the mattress and cradled my head in my hands. Every time I thought of Mom, another piece of my soul was ripped away.
Taking a deep breath, I got up once again. I couldn’t keep crying. I couldn’t keep making myself miserable. But it was hard not to shed a tear any time I thought of Mom.
Stella, my Maine Coon, purred from her perch on my chair in the corner.
“It’s okay, girl. Just thinking about Mom.”
She meowed as if she, too, was still mourning Mom. After we’d buried her, Stella looked for her everywhere. It had broken my heart to see her wandering aimlessly around for weeks.
“I know, girl. I’m still grieving too.” I turned on my nightstand lamp, and the soft glow shined on the dirty clothes piled on the floor near Stella.
I wasn’t the cleanest person. That award went to my BFF. Her room was immaculate, but then again, I didn’t have a maid who picked up aft
er me.
I ambled over to Stella, then rubbed her head. “Go back to sleep. I’m just going to crack the window.” Maybe the air wasn’t so stifling outside.
A car door slammed as I was about to raise the blinds. I didn’t have to look out to know Mr. Caldwell, our next-door neighbor, was stumbling up his driveway.
Regardless, I peeked. Sure enough, he was swaying as he walked. The man had a drinking problem. I’d overheard his wife, Bonnie, telling Dad one day that, after his thirteen-year-old son drowned, Mr. Caldwell hadn’t been the same. “He drinks to drown the misery,” she’d said.
Dad and I could sympathize with their sorrow, but alcohol wasn’t the answer. Or at least that was what Dad had said to Bonnie.
The therapist Dad and I were seeing explained that everyone dealt with problems differently.
For sure. I daydreamed and cried. But I also read a ton. When I wasn’t skateboarding, I was reading. I devoured books like a hungry animal, from romantic comedies to political thrillers or anything to keep my mind from wandering down a deep, dark hole that I couldn’t get out of.
Dad, on the other hand, tinkered in the garage during his free time. He liked to fix golf clubs for some of his friends. And every Saturday, he played eighteen holes with his buddies. If he drank, it was never more than one beer.
Once Mr. Caldwell was out of sight, I lifted the window higher, hoping a brisk wind would blow in. Sadly, the humidity was too thick for anything to cool down.
I picked up my Stella. “How about we check the thermostat and then sit outside?”
We had one of those large wraparound porches, which was what had drawn Dad to our modest eighteen-hundred-square-foot home. He’d grown up in the deep South in a similar two-story with lots of land. We didn’t have a large yard, but the neighborhood was decent, and I liked the moss trees and the azalea bushes that decorated properties up and down our street.
I loved sitting in one of the rockers, watching cars and people walk by. I’d practically lived on the porch only to get a glimpse of the boy next door. Colton Caldwell was dreamy in every sense of the word. He had wavy brown hair, almost the color of mine sans the blond streaks. Colton was tall, with eyes the color of warm melted chocolate, and a sexy grin that made my belly swarm with butterflies.
Stella jumped out of my arms, then took off the moment my feet hit the cool tile at the bottom of the stairs.
The moonlight filtered in through the large transom window in the family room, highlighting a path for me as I headed into the kitchen.
As my feet slapped on the tiled floor, I heard faint crying. I held my breath as I sharpened my hearing.
The deep-baritone sob grew louder.
Dad? The last time Dad had shed tears was at Mom’s funeral.
I hurried down the short hall to his room. The closer I got, the louder his cry became.
My heart split in half, and I fought hard not to let my own tears fall. Seeing Dad sob twisted my insides like a violent storm.
Our therapist had said that time would help ease the grief, which was total bull crap. Anytime I thought of Mom, that empty, hollow feeling came back as strongly as the day the social worker had called to tell us that Mom had died on the way to the hospital.
I knocked softly. “Dad?” Then I opened the door and faltered.
Dad was on the floor with his back against his dresser as though he’d fallen and couldn’t get up.
I ran like a sprinter, hoping my legs wouldn’t give out. “What is it? Are you having a heart attack? A stroke?” I dropped to my knees.
He shook his head, blinking several times, his blue eyes clouded with tears. “Why are you up? You have school in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about me. What is it?” I felt his carotid artery as if I knew what I was doing.
His fingers wound around my wrists. “I’m fine.”
“You’re crying. So you’re not fine.”
He patted a spot next to him. “Sit with me.”
Once I did, I grabbed his hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Dad was my anchor, my saint, my world, and if he died, I would die a thousand deaths. I rested my head on his shoulder. “Are you thinking of Mom?”
“No, sweetheart.” He took a huge breath. “I need to tell you something.”
I stiffened at the despair weaving through his voice. I knew that what he was about to tell me was bad, not only by his tone, but also by how hard he was squeezing my hand.
“Do you remember what Lou Gehrig died of?” he asked so softly that I almost didn’t hear him.
I nodded. “He lost the ability to control his muscles.” Dad and I were big baseball fans. In the South, we rooted for the Atlanta Braves. Truth was, I didn’t like them that much. My team was the Chicago Cubs.
“Well,” he whispered.
I shook my head violently. “No. No. No. Please don’t tell me that’s what you have.” I knew a little bit about the disease, mainly from watching The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon was a gigantic fan of Stephen Hawking, who’d lived with ALS for many years, which was very rare. Lou Gehrig had died within two years of diagnosis.
Dad shuddered. “Skye, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to believe it myself.” Tears streamed down his unshaven face.
“Did a doctor diagnose you already?” I knew he’d had his yearly physical last week.
He cried. “I have some very revealing symptoms. Remember a few weeks ago when you asked if I’d been drinking because I was slurring my speech? Well, I’m finding it’s hard to say certain words. And one of the guys asked me the other day if I was drunk when we walked off the golf course.”
In my head, I replayed what he’d just said, trying to detect any sort of stumbling in his speech. “But you’re not slurring now.”
“True, but it comes and goes.”
“Maybe it’s just stress.” He’d been under a ton with his job at the local chemical plant, and Mom’s death hadn’t helped.
He dragged his fingers through his thinning blond hair. “I wish it were.”
“So the doctor knows this for sure?” I refused to believe it.
He wrapped me in his arms. “I want you to know I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you’re taken care of.”
My tear ducts burst open, and I sobbed. “I can’t lose you, Daddy. I can’t.” My stomach hurt. My heart splintered and my world went black.
1
One Year Later
“Dad,” I called as I wound my way into the family room from the kitchen. In the year since finding out he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, he had severely declined.
I was blown away by how quickly the disease had taken hold of him. I was blown away by how our life had changed in a blink of an eye. I was blown away by how Dad was on the fast track to another life. And as crazy as it might sound, I often wondered if Mom wanted him to join her in heaven.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I shook off the thoughts of death, of losing another parent, of being alone. I couldn’t sleep at night, I could hardly eat, and if I sat and stared at Dad, I ended up crying like a newborn.
I was only seventeen, and if he died before I became an adult, I would end up with his sister. I’d only met her maybe three times when she visited for a holiday here and there. She and Dad had a strained relationship, a falling out when she was in college over some dude Dad didn’t like. He hadn’t shared the whole story. Over the years, they’d reconciled, but they still didn’t keep in touch on a regular basis.
Despite that, I didn’t want to move to California, and I sure as hell didn’t want to live with my aunt. The last time she’d visited, a year before Mom passed, Aunt Clara was snooty to me. Maybe she’d changed. Maybe she was a nice lady. I’d gotten the feeling she didn’t like kids, and to my knowledge, she didn’t have any.
My mom had been an only child, and her parents had died years before, so that was out.
Even if Dad passed after my eighteenth birthday, I had no idea how I would survive. He’d tried to talk to me about
what was to come, but I always ran out of the room in tears. I just couldn’t bring myself to even think about the future without him.
Regardless, watching him decline tore my heart right out of my chest. He’d gone from walking one day to a wheelchair the next and from speaking one day to having no voice the next.
I wished upon a star that I could hear his voice, his laugh, or even a reprimand if the need arose. I missed him calling me “sweet pea” or “sweetheart.” I missed carrying on a conversation with him about anything and everything. He had a computer to relay his thoughts for him, but its robotic voice wasn’t the same.
Dad sat in his wheelchair in front of the TV, wearing a large blue bib over a hospital gown, while Nan, his caregiver of six months, fed him breakfast. Dad had been through three caregivers before finding Nan. I was praying she would work out and stay for the long haul.
She had a great personality, soft and patient. She had a big heart and a caring soul. She reminded me of Mom in some ways.
She and Dad had hit it off from the moment she’d walked through our front door with her easy smile and gentle touch. In a different time, I was certain they could’ve been more than friends. They weren’t that far apart in age. Dad was approaching fifty, and Nan was in her mid-forties.
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