“Thank you for being my forever,” I said against her skin before sliding the ring home.
It was a perfect fit.
The end
Continue reading for a sneak peek of Colton and Brielle’s story in
DANCER
(THE GOOD GUYS BOOK 2)
Coming December 2016!
*The excerpt from Dancer is unedited and subject to change
CHAPTER 1
COLTON
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, but that wasn’t too early for a beer. Not today. My 22nd birthday was tomorrow, but the last thing I felt like doing was celebrating.
After walking through the door to my apartment, I kicked off my boots and went straight to the fridge. Without bothering to remove my coat, I popped the cap off the cold beverage and took a long drink.
Next, I made my way into the living room and closed the blinds on the windows. I was about to do some serious brooding, and I needed it to be dark and quiet for that. After sinking down onto the couch, I spent the next several minutes enjoying the silence.
I wasn’t an alcoholic—I just wanted to forget my problems for a few hours. I was tired of pretending everything was okay. Tired of putting on a happy face for everyone. People expected me to be the happy-go-lucky, laid-back guy they’d always known. But I wasn’t that guy anymore.
Swirling the beer bottle in my hand, I realized I was getting low. I finished it off in one gulp and got another from the fridge. Just as I sat back down on the couch, my roommate came through the door.
Travis stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. Heaving out a big sigh, he threw his keys on the table, then flopped down into the chair by the couch.
“Alright. What the fuck, Colt?”
“What?” I demanded.
He sighed again. “I didn’t want to say anything because I thought you needed time to get over the breakup with Tara, but I come home to find you drinking before five o’clock. In the dark. By yourself. That’s some serious shit. It’s fucking creepy, man.”
I didn’t have a response, so I just took another long drink of my beer.
“You haven’t been the same for a while,” Travis stated. “Is that what this is about? The breakup?”
I was already shaking my head because he was way off base. “No. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? Come on, we’ve been friends since we were seven years old. There isn’t one thing we don’t know about each other.”
He was wrong. There was something he didn’t know about me. Something I’d kept a secret.
But I knew Travis. He would keep coming at me with questions until I talked, so I tried a different tactic—changing the subject.
“Where’s Angel?” I asked. After all, she was his favorite thing to talk about these days.
“Shopping with my mom.” He grinned. “We’ve been engaged for two days and they’re already wedding planning.”
He’d proposed to his girlfriend on Christmas and I couldn’t be happier for them. They were perfect for each other in a disgustingly cute sort of way. I didn’t even mind that Angel had moved in with us several months ago. She pitched in with the bills and the cleaning, and it didn’t hurt that she was one hell of a cook. Travis was like a brother to me, so technically, that made her family.
“You guys set a date yet?” I asked.
“Not yet, but she wants a summer wedding. Maybe July,” he replied.
The conversation stalled. I didn’t know anything about wedding shit. I would’ve kept him talking if I’d known what to ask.
Travis ran a hand through his hair and the brown mass fell over his eyes.
“You need a haircut,” I told him, once again trying to distract him from talking about me. “You should just do what I do and buzz it off.”
“Angel likes it long on top. Gives her something to hold onto,” he smirked.
“Dude.” I barked out a laugh. “There’s such a thing as too much information.”
“And there’s such a thing as trying to change the subject,” he shot back, giving me a pointed look.
Deciding to get it over with, I took a deep breath. With my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, I confessed my deepest secret.
“I’ve got a problem with my dick,” I blurted out, grimacing at how blunt I was.
“Shit,” Travis breathed out. “Did Tara give you something? Is that why you broke up?”
“No!” I practically shouted. “Hell no. I got tested for everything after we broke up. Clean bill of health.” I held up my hands. “Tara was into drugs. The hard stuff, too. I didn’t even know it for most of our relationship. I don’t know how she hid that shit from me, but she did.”
“So, what’s the problem?” he asked, reminding me of my confession.
“It’s like—” I paused, trying to think of a way to explain it. “It’s like whiskey dick, but I haven’t been drinking. I can’t keep it up. Fuck, sometimes I can’t even get it up in the first place.”
Realization dawned on Travis’s face. “The arguments,” he recalled. “I heard her yelling about stuff a few times. What she said didn’t make sense at the time, but it does now.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t exactly understanding about it. It only made it worse.” I took another swig of my beer as I remembered the way Tara berated me.
What’s wrong with you?! Don’t you think I’m sexy? Are you gay or something?
“We didn’t even have sex for like the last two months of our relationship,” I said. “I got tired of trying. And failing.”
“Did you ever think maybe you just didn’t like her? I mean, maybe your dick knew better than you,” he joked, making light of the situation.
I shook my head. “I had the problem in high school a few times. You remember Katie? Of course you do,” I chuckled because Travis hated her. She could be a total bitch but she was hot. Back then, that was all I cared about. “Anyway, it happened with her a few times, too. I’d been drinking those times, though, so I thought it was because of that…”
“What about since Tara? You guys broke up months ago.”
“I tried to go home with a girl from a bar one night.” I cringed thinking about my desperate attempt to prove to myself that my cock wasn’t broken. “I got to her place and we started to mess around. I couldn’t even get half-mast. I ended up making some lame excuse and leaving.” The shame and embarrassment weighed down on me. You’d think talking to my best friend would make me feel better, but it didn’t. I’d already told him this much, so I thought I might as well spill everything. “I went to see a doctor about it earlier today,” I admitted, looking up at Travis to find him listening intently.
“And?” he prodded.
“He gave me a prescription for Viagra. Fucking Viagra!” I removed the orange bottle of blue pills from the pocket of my Carhartt jacket and set it on the coffee table. “I’m 22 years old and they tell me I have erectile dysfunction.”
I finished off the second beer and got up to get another one.
“Wanna grab me one, too?” Travis called from the living room.
I got two beers from the fridge, handed one to him, then sat back down.
“Have you talked to Hank about it?” he asked.
My face twisted up in a horrified expression. “I’m not talking to my dad about my dick problems,” I said incredulously. “Anyway, he’d just tell me there’s nothing wrong with me and say some shit like ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”
Travis nodded because he knew my dad as well as I did. “Or he’d tell you that line about the broken clock,” he laughed.
Then at the same time, we both said, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Chuckling, I cracked the first real smile I’d had in a long time.
Travis cleared his throat. “What about when you’re… by yourself?” he asked.
“It’s better then, unless I think about it too much,” I admitted.
“You want to know what I think?” he asked and I nodded.
“I think your dick is smarter than you.” I huffed out a laugh and he continued. “I’m serious. I think you just haven’t found the right girl yet.”
TRUCKER PLAYLIST
“Don’t Worry Baby” by The Beach Boys
“On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson
“Highway 20 Ride” by Zac Brown Band
“Earth Angel” by The Penguins
“Must Be Doing Something Right” by Billy Currington
“Raining On Sunday” by Keith Urban
“Silver Wings” by Merle Haggard
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys
“From the Ground Up” by Dan + Shay
“Kiss me” by Ed Sheeran
“Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen
“Already Home” by A Great Big World
“Quit Your Life” by MxPx
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams
ANGEL’S SLOPPY JOES
1 lb. ground hamburger
¾ cup ketchup
1 teaspoon mustard
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
Brown hamburger and drain extra grease. Add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and vinegar. Mix. Enjoy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie Schlosser grew up on a farm in Illinois surrounded by cornfields. Although she no longer lives in the country, her dream is to return to rural living someday. As a stay-at-home mom, she spends most of her days running back and forth between her two wonderful kids and her laptop. She loves her family, iced coffee, and happily-ever-afters. You can find out more about Jamie and upcoming books by visiting her Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/authorjamieschlosser/
Trucker (The Good Guys #1) Page 24