Falling for You: A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance (Book 2 - Isla and Owen’s story)
Burning for You: A Brother’s Best Friend Firefighter Romance (Book 3 - Sarah and Braden’s story) - August 2021
Standalone Novels - Adult Contemporary Romance
French Kiss: A Friends to Lovers Romance
Bad News: An Enemies to Lovers Romance
Bonus Chapter - The Summer of Him
A Celebrity Mistaken Identity Romance
Los Angeles International Airport
July
There was still time. The plane hadn’t taken off yet. And that made me nervous.
He could still show up. Maybe he would.
I looked at my phone again. I’d already checked it too many times to remember, sneaking a look while dodging questions from my Lyft driver, going through security, and boarding the plane. Not to mention glancing behind me constantly like a fugitive who was being tailed.
I wasn’t ready to give up on him yet. He could still get his act together. He could decide to apologize and admit that all the things he’d done and said were a blip in the larger, more important constellation of our love.
I hoped to God he wouldn’t do that.
That’s right. I hoped against hope that Johnny Royce, my now-ex-boyfriend, wouldn’t call me or come to the airport or try to get on the plane. Yes, it was supposed to be our vacation together. And no, there wasn’t a law against him traveling.
Except there was. It was the universal law of bad breakups: don’t try to follow your ex-girlfriend to France, especially when the relationship ended badly. Especially when it was all your fault.
I’d been clear on that point, but logic didn’t always mean anything to Johnny Royce. He was guided by different laws and principles than most people. He liked to do anything that seemed dangerous and fun. And while coming anywhere near me would definitely accomplish the dangerous part, I hoped—for once—that logic would pay him a visit and he’d see there was no fun to be had.
But I knew him.
He would think it was fine to travel together even after what had happened between us, which was a total shit show that I’d tried my best to block from memory.
Tried and failed.
So I didn’t want him calling the airline and trying to reinstate the ticket I’d bought for him and later canceled. I didn’t want to fight with Johnny in Paris or try to force the romance of an incredible city on the sad remains of what had sort of passed for barely-friends with mediocre benefits.
I looked down the aisle of the plane once more and exhaled an audible sigh of relief. He wasn’t coming. Thinking about our yearlong relationship, I felt a mixture of ‘we had our sweet moments’ and ‘wow, I should have seen that train wreck coming.’
If our breakup was as inevitable, so was our initial hookup. I’d walked into the bar where he worked and flirted with him. I’d planned it because I was a planner, and Johnny went along with it because, well… fun and sex. He wanted one thing from life—a party. He made a pretty decent effort to find a party on a daily basis, looking for a cliff to dive from or a door to sneak through if it seemed like something interesting lay on the other side. Johnny made everyone around him have a better time, no matter where he went.
What he didn’t want was commitment. Or rules. Or sobriety, apparently. I told myself I was fine with that.
I was lying.
Johnny Royce worked as a bartender at Moby’s, a tiny craft-beer and fancy burger place a dozen blocks from my apartment. He always looked like he’d just come in from playing beach volleyball—suntanned with streaks of blond in his sandy-brown hair and sunglasses on top of his head, even at night. He was always in motion, swinging out from behind the bar to wipe down three tables, scooping up empty pint glasses and dumping them in a grey kitchen bin, and wiping his hands on a long white apron without letting a single customer wait more than a couple of minutes at the bar.
He’d fill a glass, holding the tap open with the same hand so he could use the other to wipe off the bar or pop a napkin down for a newly arrived customer. Moby’s had a steady flow of people, and Johnny kept up. It made me think he had to be smart if he was able to stay on top of everything without letting a task go unfulfilled.
The reality was he just didn’t like people to go too long without a fresh beer.
His friends were bartenders or surfers or bartenders who surfed. After a few months of persuading, he even managed to get me on a surfboard. He guided me patiently and held onto the board until the waves came up and under me. “Okay, stand up now. Just hop into a squat, and when you’re balanced, rise up and ride the wave.” It took a half dozen attempts and more than a little water up my nose each time I fell, but I did get up on that board. I was having more fun than I’d had in ages, and it felt like the wave would keep on building.
That just showed how little I understood about relationships. Or surfing.
So I sat in my aisle seat on the plane—so far with no fellow travelers in my row—and thought back on the year that had led me to this moment: promising start, moments of irresponsible fun, differing life goals, and a crash and burn ending so bad it made me question my judgment for hooking up with him in the first place.
Final score: Judgment 0, Inevitable Realities of the Universe 1.
* * *
The plane was starting to fill up. Flight attendants were closing some of the overhead bins and I was telling my irrational self not to worry. He wasn’t coming.
But I feared the grand gesture.
It was just the kind of thing that would appeal to Johnny’s adventuring spirit, trying to ignite a dashed relationship—forever, this time—at the airport in the moments before the plane was due to take off. He’d buy a ticket he couldn’t afford just so he could get past the gate. He’d push his way through the line of passengers, who would all turn to see his grand romantic gesture.
“Hold on. Don’t close the door. I have to get on and tell this woman I love her… that I was meant to be with her… that I was wrong… that I was an idiot… that I want to spend the rest of my life with her… Nikki, it’s you. It’s always been you.”
He’d bend his forehead to touch mine and look into my eyes, searching to make sure I felt the same way. I’d nod and he’d give me the best kiss of my life. People on the plane would applaud.
Then I’d have to deal with him again and look like the jerk who was turning away a guy with a cute smile making a grand gesture.
“Excuse me,” said a voice to my left. My heart dropped to my feet because the voice was deep and sounded like Johnny trying to do a comedy bit: “Excuse me, Miss. Is this seat taken?”
I looked up at the tired, balding man staring at me and almost hugged him. His laptop case dangled awkwardly from his wrist while he waited for me to get up and let him into the window seat. He had a hipster beard and serious eyes, the kind that were focused on getting settled in and buckling his seatbelt.
“Sorry,” I said, quickly unbuckling, standing, and moving into the aisle to let him get to his seat.
Then, because I was newly single, I checked him out. Above the beard, he wore nerdy glasses, maybe just for effect or maybe for reading, since he was leafing through a copy of Sports Illustrated. He’d already put his eye mask on his forehead in preparation for sleep. He’d already stuffed earbuds into his ears to block me—and anyone else—out of his life for the duration of the flight.
I turned back to the seat pocket in front of me and tucked in my iPad and the bottle of water I’d bought at the airport.
My thoughts drifted back to Johnny. Ten hours on a plane begs for topics to think about. I intentionally only remembered the best times—the sun-kissed afternoons sitting on the roof of his 1930s apartment building, where we’d have to climb out a window and hoist ourselves over a railing to crawl onto a flat patch that was perfect for watching the last half circle of sun slip into the Pacific Ocean.
At about six foot one with an athletic body he wa
s lucky enough to have been born with, Johnny was good at pretty much any sport he tried without a lesson. I’d trained for months to get through a century bike ride, and Johnny hopped on a borrowed bike and joined me at the last minute without suffering a sore muscle. He could sink three-pointers easily and surf waves that would frighten most people.
But it was his smile that I found the most appealing. He had a blond-streaked shock of hair that fell over his green eyes and a guilty-looking teenage-boy ear-to-ear grin. His happiness felt contagious, and I was a born rule follower who was used to having things work out if I dug in and gave it my full effort. Maybe that was why it took me a year to figure out that Johnny and I should’ve only lasted a couple of dates or a couple of months at best. Instead, I convinced myself that if I tried, I could make a relationship work with a fun guy who brought out a playful side of me.
The rooftop always beckoned with another sunset. He’d stuff a couple of beers in his pockets and swing a leg deftly over the rail before helping me over. My legs were shorter, so I needed the boost. There was a perfectly placed half wall where he could rest while I leaned on him. Johnny would wrap his arms around me, and we’d sip our beers, silently watching the sky change colors, never disturbed by another soul venturing up there.
“It feels like we should be drinking rosé from tall wineglasses,” I’d said more than once, thinking the chilled pink drink would look pretty set against the setting sun. And I liked the way it tasted.
He’d tip his pinky finger out like he was holding a teacup, mocking me. “Oh, oui, oui,” he’d say, laughing at himself. “People who drink wine are kinda pretentious, don’t you think?”
Like a million other things, I let the semi-insult go. Up on the roof, with the warm breeze wafting across my face and Johnny nuzzling my neck, I didn’t think he meant to mock me or my interest in beverages made from grapes.
I didn’t think he had a mean streak. I didn’t think he’d ever cheat on me.
Until he did.
* * *
The Summer of Him is Book One in the Summer Heat Duet and is the perfect vacation read. Grab your copy HERE!
Falling for You Page 26