Senior Year Bucket List

by Miller, J. M.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Senior Year Bucket List

  Synopsis

  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

  Epilogue

  Bonus Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Senior Year Bucket List

  Copyright © 2019 J. M. Miller

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, events, occurrences, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters and the story lines are created from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover photo by Regina Wamba - www.reginawamba.com

  Cover design by Amy Queau - www.qcoverdesign.com

  Editing by Lawrence Editing - www.lawrenceediting.com

  This one’s long overdue.

  For Bullet,

  one of my very best friends.

  She was the goodest girl ever.

  Caleb Samuels.

  Smug. Irritating. Pain in the …

  After high school, I was content with the idea of never seeing him again.

  But as his sister Merilyn’s best friend, it was bound to happen eventually. I just didn’t expect it to be at her wake, where, following a foolish, naive, and completely ridiculous incident, I’m prepared to return to my perfectly routine life and wash my hands of him forever. Again.

  Unfortunately, Merilyn had other plans.

  Even though she traveled the world, her final request is for Caleb and me to recreate our senior year bucket list and take her ashes along for one last adventure. All the foolish, naive, and—you guessed it—completely ridiculous memories return in an instant.

  He tormented me, teased me, kissed me like no one ever had, made me fall for him, and broke me like no one else ever would.

  Reliving it all might end with a crash worse than the first.

  Or maybe not.

  Maybe the fall would never end.

  1

  ______________

  Celia

  -now-

  Life is a simple thing. Time goes by and you soon find your adult self in a usual groove, filled with ordinary habits and experiences, every single day. Routine. It’s fundamental.

  Wake up, work out, shower, dress, go to your all-around average job, take the next verbal lashing from your overpaid and under-laid supervisor, return to your spotless one-bedroom apartment, tend to the over-watered succulents, turn down the coworkers’ spontaneous ladies’ night and eat a piece of the lasagna you made and froze into individual servings last week instead as you binge a few episodes of that criminal show with the hot cop and sub-par plot, then finally settle into bed with every intention to read the self-help best-seller collecting dust on your nightstand only to download the latest rom-com on your TBR list.

  Until one day you find yourself at your high school best friend’s wake, standing at the food table beside someone dressed in a furry blue fox costume while “Highway to Hell” plays on in the background. Well … maybe that’s all more specific to me.

  Merilyn was an Internet personality. She’d always been adventurous, which was highly attractive to everyone within her gravitational range, whether they wanted to join in her fun or wanted to witness something extraordinary. It all started from day one. Being born inside of an elevator is front-page news in a moderately small town. I wasn’t around that far back. I was a late addition to The Merilyn Samuels Show, entering in freshman year at Ellville High when my parents split and Mom moved us closer to my grandparents.

  We all knew it was only a matter time before Merilyn discovered a way to turn her love of adventure into a moneymaker. At least she had died living a happy life. Or, I assumed she was happy judging by the content of her videos. It had been a while since we’d talked on the phone, and even longer since we’d hugged.

  As soon as we graduated high school, we both broke free of Ellville. She jumped around for a year before hitting it big on Adventure Life—a division of YouTube for notable names in travel and extreme sports. I, on the other hand, stayed in Pennsylvania, driving a couple hours away to State College. And that was where I stayed.

  When the blue mass of fluffy fur walked away with a full plate, an eau-de-toilette and corn chip scent trailing behind, I stared at Merilyn’s senior picture propped at the end of the table between the quarter-cut club sandwiches and the Waldorf salad. Her head was tipped in the patent senior pose, long golden hair spilling over one shoulder of the photog’s prop graduation gown. Her smile was natural, the same one I’d seen almost every day for four years, and her impossibly light brown eyes smiled right along, happy to be alive, happy to be looking forward to the next adventure—which, incidentally, was an hour later when her face collided with the assistant photographer’s in a heavy, kiss-a-stranger make-out session. Don’t be so shocked. Kissing a stranger was on our senior year bucket list. Besides, adventures didn’t always mean physically challenging. Sometimes they were daring. And Merilyn was exactly that. Daring and bold, and as bright as a supernova. I had nicknamed her Nova for that reason. And though the name didn’t stick, she wound up using it for her Adventure Life channel—Nova’s Bucket List.

  Here, right now, that brightness burned from inside a frame, even with a smear of Waldorf salad coating her cheek, looking a lot like something else if you get my drift. I giggled and slapped my hand over my mouth, feeling the immediate shame. But as I glanced around, seeing more tranquil smiles than frowns, I heard Merilyn’s laugh in my mind and knew she would have stood right beside me, wiping the Waldorf smear from her face and laughing too. This was what she had wanted. A party, not a wake. People in bright colors moving in and out of the house while songs unfit to play at a funeral streamed from the living room speakers. Her parents had honored her final wishes, no matter how ridiculous.

  I giggled again, unable to contain it. Despite what she wanted, it felt wrong to outright laugh at a wake. When I looked at the picture another time and felt the laughter bubble up, I dropped my plate and ran for the stairs, heading for Merilyn’s old bedroom. As soon as the door closed at my back, I shut my eyes and let go, belting out a strangled mix of something between a laugh and a cry.

  “This room’s off-limits. Go laugh somewhere else,” a somber male voice said. And though it sounded somewhat deeper than I remembered, I knew it to be Caleb’s. He hadn’t been downstairs at all, even during the eulogy.

  My eyes popped wide to scan the room, noticing right off that it hadn’t changed since Merilyn moved out nearly five years before. Caleb was seated upon the queen-sized bed with his hunched back to me, his black pants and dark gray shirt like a cloud of dread above the cheery p
urple duvet beneath him.

  His head tipped back as he poured a drink down his throat. He slammed the empty low-ball glass onto the nightstand so hard I prepared for a shatter. Only, it wasn’t the glass that broke. It was my heart, the intensity of his pain cracking me a little more when he spoke again. “I said, get out.”

  “I … uh …” My reply died in my throat as I watched his body turn to see who had intruded on his refuge. I looked him over as his glassy eyes zeroed in on me, noticing his disheveled appearance and the quick wipe of his hand over his wet cheek. He had grown since I’d last seen him. Taller and fuller. It was noticeable even without him standing. He was only a year younger than Merilyn, but that hadn’t stopped him from being as popular in high school. He was the golden boy, and she, the golden girl. But now his golden hair had darkened, and his boxy face had the scruff of a man who hadn’t shaved in days, possibly since he’d heard about his sister’s death.

  “Tar see ay,” he whispered.

  Of course he’d revert to using his rude-ass nickname for me. Tarsier. He had said I reminded him of the tiny primate because of my big eyes, small body, and because I was the quiet watcher among them. He always questioned my friendship with Merilyn and often acted as if I was a burden to deal with when we all hung out. Unlike them, I was not the adventurous type, and I would often mess up their plans in one way or another. But still, Merilyn wanted me with her and accepted me for me—not quite as energetic and usually the only one who was too chicken to take the risk. Much to Caleb’s dismay and amusement.

  I shook my head and actually thought of leaving without saying a word to him, but I knew that reaction would be a mistake I would regret for … well, possibly forever. Now that Merilyn was gone, there was a chance I’d never see him again. So I couldn’t push my sympathy aside because of the small rift from what had happened—or not happened—between us years before. No, I wasn’t heartless.

  We both lost someone. He lost a sister. And I lost a friend, who had been the closest thing to a sister I’d ever had.

  When my only response was to chew wearily on my lip as I made my decision, he thought better of his greeting and corrected, “Celia.”

  “Caleb,” I replied. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I am too.” He stood and rounded the bed. I stared openly at him, at the man he’d transformed into. “How long has it been?”

  I shook my head and smoothed my hands down the front of my simple black cotton dress. “Three years maybe?” I’d seen him only a handful of times after Merilyn and I had left high school. “It was close to a year since I last saw Merilyn.” I wrapped my arms around myself, ashamed at that fact. But she had always been so busy, and I knew better than to try and hold a supernova.

  “It was months for me too. With her always traveling … But I suppose it was good to see her weekly videos. At least there was that.”

  I agreed with a solemn nod. “Look, I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I just—”

  “Were laughing,” he interjected. “You were laughing.”

  “Right.” I smiled at Merilyn’s dresser, at the picture of us at graduation, our smiles big enough to conquer all the shit life was about to drop on us. Feeling his eyes on me, I shifted to meet his gaze and was suddenly struck by how handsome he had become. Muscle definition was obvious enough beneath his button-down, so unlike the guys occupying space at Pearson Insurance with dad-bod, grandpa-bod, or workaholic-bod—except for Brent in accounting, who had the bod of a gym rat who bench-pressed big numbers at his desk and in bed, one number being me. I doubted Caleb even kept track of numbers. He was never the type to throw them around. And compared to my early memories of the gangly, big-eared eighth grader sliding through the same bedroom door with a squirt gun and a mouth full of braces, or the squeaky-voiced sophomore pranking us with shaving cream during many of our sleepovers … he was definitely a grown man.

  “Are you going to tell me the joke?”

  “No joke,” I replied hastily. “I was observing everything downstairs. The music. The people. I pictured her standing beside me laughing and then started to myself. But I didn’t want to be rude.”

  He rubbed the scruff along his jaw as the corners of his lips lifted the tiniest bit but fell almost as quickly. “It’s gotten a little out of hand. My parents should have turned some of her super fans and video personality friends away.”

  “The fox.”

  “The fox,” he echoed with another twitch of his lips. “I think that one might have been walking the neighborhood after an orgy and happened to find a source for free food.”

  I chuckled awkwardly then reconsidered my interruption. “Maybe I should—”

  “No, please,” he said, reaching out a hand only to pull it back. “I didn’t mean you. You might be one of the only people I’ve seen from school. She had so many friends. It’s a little surprising.”

  “She did. You know most people got out of here as quickly as she did, though. They could have had issues getting time off or making the trip back.”

  “True. But I think it has more to do with the fame thing. She told me a good amount of people dropped contact. Jealousy. Anger. It bothered her some.” He looked at the bed and nodded. “You want to sit?”

  “Sure.” I watched him sink down onto the mattress first before taking a seat and grabbing Mer’s shaggy pink throw pillow for something to hold.

  “It’s unreal, right? Her life. Her death.”

  “Yes.” My fingers worked through the pillow’s strands nervously. Being so close to him had me worked up. It was as if it was senior year all over again. My thoughts instantly shifted to the bucket list, to one of the last tasks I hadn’t completed until much later than senior year. Virginity. I’d nearly lost mine to an asshole who changed his mind at the last minute and never had the decency to tell me why. I could turn and ask him now, but to say this wasn’t the time or place would be an understatement.

  He let out a long breath, and I instinctively inhaled, smelling his cologne and the whiskey he’d been drinking, so unlike the cedar wood sawdust that hovered around him when we were younger. I shook my head, clearing away the thoughts that were starting to form. Merilyn was gone, and I was drooling over Caleb in her childhood bed instead of mourning the loss of her. Things were getting too hot.

  I stood and moved toward the door. “I should probably go.”

  He was behind me in no time. “No, Celia. Just … wait.” His hand ran down my arm, drawing me back, asking me to turn around.

  And so I did, staring right at his chest. I tipped my head back to see his face, and I was frozen there in his gaze, his light brown eyes nearly identical to Merilyn’s trapping me for maybe the millionth time. There had always been an intensity within his, filled with determination, strength, and sometimes even desire. But at that moment, I saw only emptiness.

  His arms wrapped around me, his head dipping low to bury his face into the side of my neck. He held me tight, gentle but fierce, releasing his grief and pain with long and steady breaths against my skin as his heart beat its brokenness with mine. I held him too, digging my fingers into his back, gripping him with a sorrow I had never felt before and with as much support as I could give as silent sobs shook me and tears fell steadily.

  We were locked in time. I had no idea how long it lasted, but an abrupt shift in mood stole it away. Only it wasn’t the break I’d anticipated, one that would have him realizing his mistake and disappearing, a reminder of that fateful night. Instead, his arms slid down mine and his hands trailed along my back. I shivered and cursed my body, unable to control its response to the closeness. With a sharp inhale, his whiskey scent filled my nose, making me very aware of every point of contact between us.

  “Celia.” My name was a whisper, as light as the fingertips skimming across the very start of my backside. His lips met my neck tentatively.

  “Caleb,” I breathed out and wobbled, hit suddenly with a need for more air. I was melting right there, under the weight of his toned arms
and his smooth touch. I had never felt so damn good and so incredibly bad at the same time. Enjoying it was wrong. Enjoying it in Merilyn’s room was even more so. I cringed.

  He felt the movement and relaxed his hold but continued to drag his lips up my neck, scooping my long hair out of the way as he went. “Why were you so difficult? My crux.”

  Me? I was simple. A creature of habit. The one who showed up early. The one who kept promises. The one who was there that night.

  “Tar see ay,” he whispered again, his lips pressing below my ear before he pulled back to stare into my eyes. “Why are you so beautiful?”

  I stood still as a board, my brain taking an asinine amount of time to process what was happening. My lips parted of their own accord, silently inviting him to kiss me while my brain scrambled to regain logic and reason.

  He understood my invitation, and without hesitation his mouth was on mine, his tongue diving into my waiting, traitorous mouth. You’d think I’d have a little more respect for myself and for Merilyn—rest her adventurous soul. But no, there I was, gasping for breath as her brother squeezed my ass and worked my mouth in a way that made me want to drop to my knees and beg him for more. The heat threatened to make me combust on the spot. A tiny sigh vibrated in my throat. That only made things worse. His grip grew hungrier, his fingers digging in. I felt all of his length pressed against my stomach, and that only made me bite his lip to keep from whimpering with need.

  “Caleb, I don’t feel comfortable sitting alone with your—” A sweet, but irritated voice smashed through my sex-crazed thoughts like the Kool-Aid Man through a brick wall.

  I jumped away, alarmed and embarrassed by my behavior, expecting to meet Mrs. Samuels’ shocked stare. But it wasn’t her. Oh no, it most definitely wasn’t her. The person was far from the charming mom I’d known all through high school. This was a crazy-eyed blonde in a black lacy dress, staring at me with the power of a thousand suns, all ready to burn me alive.

  “What the fuck, Caleb?” she screamed then lunged for me, her hands reaching to grab hold of something. Anything.