by JA Huss
“Yeah,” I agree. But I’m distracted. The party is fun. Everyone is here at Spencer’s house for Labor Day. Rook and Ronin’s daughters, Sparrow and Starling, are eating watermelon and playing patty cake. Veronica’s two other girls, Princess Belle and Princess Jasmine—Five’s nomenclature caught on. Like I said, he’s persistent—are swimming with Sydney and Merc’s three girls. Angelica is getting her hair braided by Rook, and Harper and James are teaching little Hannah, and Spencer’s son Oliver, to kick their feet in the water. All the other guys, but Jax, are sitting at the swim-up bar in the pool, watching sports. And all the other girls, but me, are tanning on lounge chairs at the water’s edge.
“What’s wrong?” Jax asks, sliding into the hammock under the giant buckeye tree. “You feel OK?”
I nod hesitantly.
“You’re lying.”
I’m not. I’m really not. And I can’t hide the smile that forms on my face as he tries to figure me out. But I don’t have any words for this. So I just take his hand and place it on my belly.
He cocks his head at me, questioning. And then we both burst out laughing.
“We win,” I say, gazing up into his eyes. And then I place a hand on his scratchy jaw and kiss him the way he kissed me that very first time. Back when I was having a very bad day and he was there to make it better. When he refused to take no for an answer and challenged me to resist him, and I realized I couldn’t. When he promised me safety and he delivered.
I wasted ten years lusting after a dream life I was never meant to live.
I won’t give up a single moment doing that again.
Because love should never be wasted.
We win.
END OF BOOK SHIT
Welcome to the End of Book Shit, fondly called the EOBS around these parts. I write these at the end of every book in place of an Author’s Note and it’s just a way for me to talk about the story and have my say without getting reamed for having an opinion on Facebook.
So if you’re new to me, hi. ;) I write these just before I have to publish. They are 100% last minute and never edited, so you might see some typos.
I think Wasted Lust was the most emotional book I’ve written to date. For sure, 321 tore me up, that ending was everything I had pictured in my head and more. But this book had characters I knew. Characters I loved. I had just met Ark, JD, and Blue in 321, so I wasn’t as invested in them and the story.
But even though I feel you can read Wasted Lust as a standalone, there’s a lot of baggage with these characters in this book. A lot of past wounds and heartbreak. A lot of loss that fills them up and changes how they see the world. And every bit of that loss and heartbreak along the way was mine too. Because these characters are real to me. I live in their heads as I write each scene. I not only know them, I AM them.
Sasha is in a lot of books. Slack, Come Back, Coming For You, one sentence about her in 321, (unnamed) and a huge reason why Merc was the way he was in Meet Me In The Dark. He loved her. He was the man who took her in before Ford Aston gave her a forever home. He picked her up when she called, heartbroken after being denied the only thing she ever thought she wanted. He showed up as the ace in the hole when the whole world was crumbling down around her, and he put down that rifle in MMITD to save her life. He was big, and mean, and deadly and he loved her like a daughter.
James was the same way. They fought in the Dirty, Dark, and Deadly series like brother and sister. And it was hard to figure out just where Sasha stood with these killers because she’s been playing a game with a dangerous enemy since she first appeared on the pages of Slack with Ford Aston.
I think the best scene to sum up the relationship between these men (including Nick) and the women they love (mostly Sasha, but also Sydney) is that ending of Come Back. If you haven’t read the book, I won’t spoil it. But it’s possible to kill someone and save them at the same time. And this was what Wasted Lust was for me.
I always knew that Nick made his bed back in Coming For You. And once he did that there was no going back. If he believed that what he did was right—and he did, and it was—then he had to see it through to the end.
I take my hat off to Nick Tate. He’s the hero and the bad guy all wrapped up into one not-so-neat package. And I cried my eyes out for him. He deserved very tear for being ugly, and ruthless to the point of making me sick. But also good, and brave, and loving for setting everyone free.
The advanced release copies went out to people last weekend
(today is Monday, June 22) and I’ve already gotten more messages about how this book touched people than any other book I’ve published before. Thank you, ARC readers. I love that you are so connected with this story and felt the same way that I did when it was over.
After building a world, and weaving a plot, and becoming each and every character through twelve books (Tragic, Manic, Panic, Slack, Taut, Bomb, Guns, Come, Come Back, Coming For You, 321, Meet Me In The Dark, and, finally, Wasted Lust) it’s hard to wrap it all up and not feel a profound sense of loss. I don’t write traditional romances. I like stories—in movies or books—that live in reality. And for sure, I asked you to believe in this shadow government called The Company. But if there was a Company, and if there was a mother-daughter pact, and if there was a network of people who use innocent children to fight their wars—then this is exactly what that world would look like.
I think that’s why people respond so positively about my books. I take a fictional scenario and I make it real. Horrifyingly real, in some cases (Merc anyone?).
But each book, and every single word I ever put down on paper, has meaning. So even though I didn’t enjoy writing Sydney and Merc’s story, it was necessary. How could you ever (ever) understand what it meant to be a Company girl if you had not had Sydney’s story? You couldn’t. You would not feel the same about what these people did, and what it took to break free, if you didn’t know what it really meant to belong to the Company. To be their property.
If this is your first book by me, I take my hat off to you, reader. :) It’s very complicated, it’s filled with hidden meaning and call-backs, and it’s not an easy read. I do think it’s a standalone— everything you need to know is in here. All you have to do is trust me.
But if this is your first JA Huss book, you’re missing out on a great story.
A. Great. Motherfucking. Story.
Because even though you think you know the end and that’s all there is to it, you have no idea what it took to get here. So if you liked this book and have not read the others listed above (in order)… go back and read.
Because it’s never about the end, my friend. The only thing that matters is the journey.
Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I’ll see you in the next book.
Julie
JA Huss
Happily Ever After
Edited by RJ Locksley
Copyright © 2015 by J. A. Huss
All rights reserved.
ISBN-978-1-936413-99-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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DESCRIPTION
Life in Rook & Ronin’s world has been bliss for fifteen years. Rook, Veronica, and Ashleigh are still BFF’s raising their kids together. Ronin, Spencer, and Ford have managed to go legit and stay out of trouble. And they have a pack of kids running around the eight t
housand square foot Vail mansion they all share for the holidays—begging for gifts, and fun, and love.
But every HEA has problems.
Five is fifteen and getting ready to go off to college. He’s put it off as long as he could in order to stay close to Princess Shrike, but his stay of execution is over and in three weeks he’s off to Oxford. But Five can’t leave until he gets the only thing he’s ever wanted. The heart of his Princess.
Ford and Ashleigh never had any more children after Five. And now that Kate is sixteen, Ashleigh is out of her head with desire for just one more chance to have a baby in the house.
Rook and Ronin have two beautiful daughters, but Sparrow is growing up too. And she just got a job offer that has Ronin crazed with paternal worry.
And Spencer is the father of a fifteen-year-old princess who looks way too much like her Bombshell mother for his comfort level.
Join the whole Rook & Ronin gang for a Team Christmas you will never forget.
Chapter One
“Five?”
Kate is calling me from the bottom of the stairs. I’m stuck up in the attic bedroom in the Vail vacation mansion with Oliver, as usual. He’s still snoring. Kids. They love Christmas. He was so excited last night, he stayed up talking me to death until three AM.
“Five?” Kate yells again.
I look in the bathroom mirror and smooth an out-of-place hair, then straighten my tie.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” Kate asks, coming up behind me. She’s clearly annoyed with my indifference, because she has one hand on her hip. “I’ve been calling you.” She stops short and covers her mouth as she laughs. “You are not wearing that.”
“I’m busy, Kate. I have adult things on my mind.”
When I look over at her she’s just giving me that dumbfounded stare. “I’m older than you.”
“Age is not what makes a person mature.”
“Anyway,” she says, sighing and blowing some of her dark bangs out of her eyes. “Rook is making us all breakfast. Pancakes!” This lights up her face. Kids love their pancakes too. “But seriously, Five. No one wears suits to Christmas Eve breakfast. It’s stupid.”
“It says upwardly mobile.”
“That’s stupid too. No one wants to look like they’re going on a job interview at family breakfast.” She pauses, looking me up and down with a critical eye. “You know she’d like you more if you weren’t so weird.”
“I have no idea to whom you are referring. And I’m not weird.”
Kate snickers. “OK. But she’s my best friend, you know. Rory tells me everything and she thinks you’re weird.”
“She does not,” I say, spinning around so I can look Kate in the eyes. “Princess Shrike is my one true love. She knows this. I know this. And one day, when we are of legal age to marry, the world will know this.”
Kate sighs. “I was kidding. Well, a little bit. She has remarked about the suits though, Five. For real. Don’t wear it. I’m not steering you wrong here. I’m trying to help.”
“I agree,” five-year-old Oliver says from behind Kate, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Lose the suit and put on the snowmen, Rutherford the Fifth. Trust me, I live with her. She likes this stuff. She’s always telling me how cute I am in these.” He points to his flannel character pajama pants.
“First of all,” I say, putting up a finger, “do not call me Rutherford the Fifth. Second, I don’t have snowman pants. Third, suits always say normal.”
“Wait here,” Kate says with a sigh.
“Whatever,” I say, turning back to the mirror to check my tie again.
“You should take our advice, Five,” Oliver says. “I’m a girl expert. I have five sisters. I live with them. Rory likes boys who wear t-shirts. Like that Marshall kid in her class.”
“Marshall?” I squint at myself in the mirror, my mind whirring to try and place a kid named Marshall. “Who is Marshall?”
“Quarterback for the varsity team,” Oliver says. “She went to the library with him last week.”
“Hmmm.” I hate not being in the same school as her anymore. She’s at a charter school in Fort Collins and I’m commuting to University of Denver twice a week. Why do I have to be so smart?
“Yeah, Marshall something. Do you want me to find out his last name so you can hack into his email like you did the last boy she was talking to?”
“Jesus, Oliver. You have some imagination. I don’t hack things.” I do hack things, but I’m not allowed to hack things, so Spencer’s big-mouth son needs to keep his mouth shut. “But I’ll take that last name if you can get it.”
Oliver gives me a conspiratorial wink just as Kate comes bounding up the attic steps again.
“Here,” she says, thrusting a present at me. “You’ll have one less thing under the tree, but it’s more of a Christmas Eve gift anyway.”
I take the gift bag filled with bright red tissue paper and peer inside. Pajama pants. “No,” I say, handing it back to Kate.
“Seriously, Five. You’ll look cute.” And then she reaches up and messes up my hair. “Girls like that too. And you should stop shaving those three stubbly things growing on your chin. Girls like a shadow.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Kate. I know what Princess likes. Me. I don’t have to wear weird pants or look like a vagrant. I just need to be me.”
“I saw her staring at Marshall when he was at football camp last summer,” Oliver says. “Princess was at the cheerleading camp across the field and—”
“What?” I was at Stanford all last summer. “She went to cheer camp? Cheer camp with football-playing boys?” I almost can’t take it. “I thought she was riding all summer?”
“See,” Kate says. “You don’t even know her anymore. I’m sure you were best friends back at Saint Joseph’s, Five, but she’s grown up a lot since seventh grade.”
“She’s only in ninth grade now, Kate. It’s not like I missed much.”
“Marshall is in eleventh grade,” Oliver says through a sleepy yawn.
“What? What the hell is wrong with Spencer? How can he allow his daughter to associate with an older man?”
Kate shakes the bag of flannel pants at me. “Put them on. She does like that guy, Five. He asked her to Winter Formal, but we were going out of town that weekend to talk to those horse catalog people, so she had to say no.”
I just stare at the bag. “Flannel?”
“And a t-shirt,” Oliver says. “Shrike Bikes, if you’ve got one.”
“I’m telling you,” Kate says. “She likes you, Five. She’s always liked you. But you’re moving on without her. It’s not her who’s leaving you behind next semester. Oxford is a long way away. You won’t even recognize her when you come back in the summer. If you come back.”
“If?”
“Please, Five. You’re smart. You know that you’ll love it there. You know you’ll get involved in all sorts of nerdy academic things and coming home might not be a priority after you get settled. You’re going to be living the life of an adult. Rory is a freshman in high school. She’s not interested in growing up so fast. Not like that, anyway.”
I don’t ask what that means. I know what it means. She’s going to do all her teen things without me. I’m going to be thousands of miles away all engrossed in computer engineering, and she’s going to be thinking about football games and Marshall. It’s research labs and college life for me and dances and note passing for her.
I take the bag of pajama pants from Kate and close the bathroom door to change.
When I get downstairs Princess is laughing and joking with Sparrow and Kate as they eat their pancakes sitting at the kitchen island. Rook is flitting around filling plates and the little kids are sitting at the kitchenette table near the window where there is a clear view of the ski slopes.
I feel self-conscious in this new outfit. I want to hide behind my suit and tie. I want to hide behind the facade of normal so the only girl I’ve ever wanted won�
�t see too deep inside me.
But when she turns and takes me in I know that Kate was right. My new look delights her. I can see it in her bright blue eyes.
“Five.” She laughs. But it’s not a laugh that says ‘you look ridiculous.’ It’s a laugh that says, “You look…” I wait for it. “Cool. I dig the penguins.” She looks me over, taking a full two or three seconds to do it. “And the bedhead.” She giggles. “It suits you.”
I glance over at Kate, sitting just to Princess’ right, and she gives me an I-told-you-so smile.
“Thanks,” I say, letting out a breath of relief. If Kate is right and Rory is thinking of liking a guy who is not me, then I need to step up my game. I need to get her full attention every time I walk into a room. My eyes get stuck on her perfect lips and I wonder briefly if she’s ever kissed that boy she likes.
No. I’m pretty sure Spencer would walk over to that kid’s house and threaten him with a shotgun if she has. She hasn’t kissed him. Yet.
And with that my mission becomes clear.
I need to kiss Princess Rory and I need to do that today.
Chapter Two
“Hey,” Rook whispers in my ear. “Wake up.”
“Hmmmmm,” I growl. “What time is it?” I crack one eye open. “It’s still dark. We just went to bed.”
“No.” Rook laughs. “It’s seven.”
“Practically night time.”
“I made you breakfast, so sit up,” Rook says, sitting down on the bed next to me.
“Since when?” I laugh. Rook is perfect in all ways, but she and I have never been on the same time clock. She is not a morning person.
“It’s Christmas Eve. You know I love Christmas Eve. So I just wanted to cook for the kids. And I made pancakes. Your favorite.”