Ended?

by Kilby Blades

  Ended?

  A Second Chance Romance

  Kilby Blades

  For the fandom.

  Copyright © 2019 by Luxe Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters, situations, places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. References to songs are cited with credit to the original artists.

  For permission requests and other inquiries, reach Kilby at kilby@kilbyblades.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-7338674-8-1

  Contents

  I. Walking on Sunshine

  1. Walking on Sunshine

  2. Ready for a Fall

  3. Ticket to Ride

  4. The Middle

  5. Another Brick in the Wall

  6. Battlefield

  7. Love is a Battlefield

  8. Lovesong

  9. Landslide

  10. White Flag

  II. I Keep Forgetting (Every Time You're Near)

  11. I Keep Forgetting

  12. I'm Not in Love

  13. Silver Spring

  14. What Hurts the Most

  15. The Caterpillar

  16. Let me Love You

  17. Love's Recovery

  18. Chained to the Rhythm

  19. Before You Walk Out of My Life

  III. True

  20. What's Up?

  21. True

  22. To Love You More

  23. Heaven

  Epilogue

  About Kilby Blades

  Also by Kilby Blades

  Part 1

  Walking on Sunshine

  1 Walking on Sunshine

  I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it's true.

  And I don't want to spend my whole life

  just a-waiting for you.

  Now I don't want you back for the weekend,

  not back for a day.

  I said baby I just want you back,

  and I want you to stay.

  -Katrina and the Waves, Walking on Sunshine

  * * *

  Jagger (Late August)

  “This is just wrong.”

  Declan’s proclamation was spoken from the back seat of my car, his bass low, his words slow, and his tone grim. A glance in my rearview mirror caught the scowl on his face as he glared out the window toward the quad. He looked every bit as put-out as he had ten minutes before, when I’d picked him up from his house.

  “I mean…is this even legal?” he groused. “Technically, it’s still summer vacation. Why should a college counselor have the right to make us come to school? Miss Morales ought to be reported to the authorities. This is child abuse.”

  I smirked at Declan’s righteous indignation. He’d taken surprising offense to the mandatory college essay workshop the rising seniors had been told to attend. There was no good explanation for why it started so bright and early, or why it couldn’t wait until after the first day of school. But so went the life of a teenager: authority figures bossing you around and too many arbitrary rules.

  “Vacation’s over, son,” Gunther drawled from the passenger seat in the way he only did when he was recently-returned from Alabama. For that summer’s two-week pilgrimage to his grandmother’s house, he’d taken his girlfriend, Zoë. They’d never been outside a fifty-mile radius of one another since they’d gotten together last year, which made them almost as in love as me and Roxy.

  “Bo told me all about it,” Gunther continued, referring to his older brother, who had graduated three years before. “Special assemblies on college stuff every week. Plus applications. Plus essays. Plus get good grades. Plus college visits. My mom and dad didn’t get off his back ’til March.”

  “Which is exactly why everyone needs to back the hell off now,” Declan concluded, still petulant as I meandered my car through the lot. “I mean, at least give us ‘till Labor Day. Give us one second to take the best parking spots and push the freshmen around and revel in the fact that we’re seniors.”

  “He’s not wrong about the parking spots,” Gunther said, sliding his gaze to me before jutting his chin toward the top of the hill. When I focused my sights there, rather than toward the spaces where we’d parked last year, I spotted Zoë’s Cayenne.

  “Onward and upward,” I chimed in. It was a bad pun and a weak platitude to Declan’s legitimate complaints. Still, I couldn’t help the swell of anticipation that arose. If Zoë’s car was here, then Roxy was in tow and I was seconds away from seeing my girl.

  Like Zoë and Gunther, Roxy and I had gotten together Junior year and had been equally inseparable. Though, I’d seen her less than I wanted this summer, thanks to us having internships in two different towns. Hers had just ended—a few days after mine—which gave us another week to revel in summer—another week of no homework or alarm clocks or daytime supervision.

  “Morning, love,” I murmured in her ear a minute later, facing her squarely and angling my gaze to take in her lovely face, which had sprouted light freckles in the summer sun. The sun had also caused her blonde hair to lighten. The combination of the two had given her a bit of a different look, setting off a subtle burst of gold in her tawny eyes. Even this far north, she was every bit a California girl.

  “This is bullshit.” She pouted. Except, unlike Declan’s pouts, Roxy’s were cute.

  The smile I could never keep from growing when I was around her bloomed as my arms slid around her waist. I hadn’t spared a glance at Annika or Zoë in my haste to get to Roxy. Most likely, both were too busy kissing Declan and Gunther to spare a glance at me. We were the three most disgustingly enamored couples in all of Rye.

  Coming in at a close fourth, and with twenty-plus years of practice, were my parents: Jack and Elsie Monroe. If there was one thing I’d learned from my mom and dad, it was how to hold on when you found the one. Because when you knew, you just knew. They’d met in their Freshman year at Berkeley when they were only eighteen—barely a year older than Roxy and I were when we met.

  Sure, it took us a little while. If I'm honest with myself, I had a crush on her all along—and not just in that half-lustful way that any teenage boy is fascinated with a beautiful girl. It took Declan’s meddling on my side, and Zoë’s meddling on Roxy’s, to get the two of us to realize we were perfect for one another. But every epic love story had a great beginning. We’d be telling ours for the rest of our lives.

  "I'd have thought they'd excuse someone with your qualifications from a class as basic as this…” I raised one eyebrow and fixed Roxy with a half-smile. “…seeing as how you're not an amateur anymore."

  Roxy tried to elbow me lightly in the ribs as we turned to follow the others. She got embarrassed when I talked about her summer job. Not many teenagers nowadays had worked at a magazine, let alone impressed the editor enough to get themselves published. Roxy had done both and deserved every word of praise.

  Everyone knew she was book smart. But Roxy had greatness inside her—one too big for her to see.

  Yet, I reminded myself. Roxy didn’t know she was great, yet. But she would one day. And I would be there when she did.

  “After you, my love,” I murmured in her ear, uncaring that she’d just attacked m
y midsection. It would take a whole lot more than that to scare me away.

  Before she could get too far, I relieved her of the faded military-canvas messenger bag that hung at her side, pulling it over my own head and arranging the strap across my chest. I kept my hand on the small of her back and held the door for her on our way into the building.

  Settling my arm around her shoulders as we walked down the halls, I felt pleasantly possessive as kids we’d barely seen in weeks nodded their hellos. I wasn’t one to piss on my territory but it was the first day back and everyone needed to know.

  Yup. Roxy’s still mine.

  “Your place later?” Roxie asked with a muffled yawn.

  I waggled my eyebrows a little. "Last Jacuzzi make out of the season.”

  “But I want to make out all year.” Roxy looked dismayed. “Why does summer have to end?”

  It had been an epic summer—a fermata that held the last notes of our epic junior year— and one I would look back on fondly. But senior year would be just as epic. So would going to UCLA next year with Roxy and being college sweethearts just like my mom and dad.

  But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was us living out our dreams—me being a film score composer and Roxy exploring the writing thing and us living in the significantly-warmer sunshine of L.A. Yes, that was the very best part: meeting the person you were meant to be with, forever. Being blessed enough to have it all figured out when you were eighteen.

  2 Ready for a Fall

  I can’t believe

  you’re the one for me.

  If it was this easy to find you,

  I should be ready for a fall.

  -PJ Olsson, Ready for a Fall

  * * *

  Roxy (Early September)

  "Your place or mine?" I asked Jagger breathlessly in-between a series of deep and sugary kisses.

  He ignored my question in favor of sucking on my neck, but finally growled, "Mine."

  On a picnic table behind the Custard Shack was hardly the place for what I wanted to do with Jagger. But I couldn't be blamed for pouncing on him—not after the way he'd licked ice cream sundae off his spoon.

  I'd retaliated, of course—lifted half of a banana from our split with my fingers and locked my eyes on his as I'd cleaned the banana with my tongue. He'd ripped it from my hand and thrown it over his shoulder, pulling me onto his lap. The Custard Shack was days away from closing for the season. We’d gone there every day since school started to get our fill. What I really wanted my fill of now was Jag.

  "What time is it?" he asked distractedly, five minutes later, his Tiguan now whizzing down the forest road.

  "Time to get a watch," I giggled, enjoying preoccupied, horny Jag. The fact that he didn’t just look at the clock on the dashboard told me just how preoccupied. I knew I shouldn't be too hard on him—it was wicked of me to tease when the truth was, I'd been kind of scarce.

  Not liking the idea of Jagger and I left alone every day in Rye for the whole summer, my dad had forced me to take an internship with the magazine where my aunt Judy worked part time as a CPA. It held the added bonus of providing me with work experience that would play well on my college applications. So, three days a week, I’d headed to Littleton to earn a few bucks and learn all about the publishing world. And I’d loved it, not least of all for the energy of a busy editorial desk and the feminist slant of the magazine, but because the women I’d worked with were like none I'd ever met.

  Until a year ago, I’d been raised by my fickle mother, who’d sold out on providing us with a stable life. She’d struggled to keep up with our rent and to keep money in her pocket. The alimony my dad had paid her to support me, she’d squandered on voice coaching and studio time, all in the name of becoming the next-biggest recording star. She’d never graduated high school and had a series of low-wage, dead-end jobs.

  My father, by contrast, had maintained predictable, steady work as a tradesman and turned his once-tiny custom cabinetry shop into a lucrative business. It added up to a big life lesson: learn a practical skill and don’t become an artist.

  I’d always looked toward college as the first of my hell-will-freeze-over-before-I-become-my-mother insurance policies. I'd never thought about what I wanted to do with my life, beyond that. But working at the magazine had inspired me. It had gotten me thinking about whether writing for a magazine counted as a practical career or a frivolous one. I’d been thinking about it a lot.

  Jagger, for his part, had also spent part of his time working, trailing his dad in the ER and cuddling a shitload of babies. That’s right—my damn-near perfect boyfriend volunteered as a baby comforter in the NICU. He'd also helped entertain his parents' house guest, who had been a constant fixture in the Monroe home for the past two weeks. It had thrown a serious wrench in our sexy times, but their guest was scheduled to leave that day.

  "You think you're funny, do you? Huh?" He reached over the center console to deliver a squeeze to my thigh, one a bit higher than it strictly needed to be. There was something decidedly not-playful about it—a note I’d heard before in his voice and an intensity I’d felt before in his touch. They held a warning that told me he would punish my antics in the most delicious of ways.

  I exhaled a shaky breath and shifted my gaze out the window, blind to the scenery that whisked by. Once upon a time, we'd been in favor of taking things slow. Not that fooling around was a curse—even our fully-dressed make-out sessions were phenomenal. But the energy between us had become too great. One day, we’d both just cracked. Jagger and I had been doing the deed since our third week of summer vacation and things between us were sizzling hot.

  "Shit," he cursed, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I realized the car had stopped. "They should've been halfway to SFO by now.”

  As if on cue, Jack Monroe barreled out of the house at a fast clip, car remote in one hand, suitcase in the other.

  "We're late," Jack called unnecessarily after Jag and I had exited the Tiguan, then lifted the suitcase to place in the trunk of his black Mercedes. Elsie and her friend sauntered elegantly behind him as he loaded up the car.

  "One more hug, dear," called Elsie's friend (was her name Alexis?), opening motherly arms as she took a few steps toward Jagger.

  He adjusted himself discreetly behind the Tiguan door before stepping forth to embrace the middle-aged woman and he bent more than he might have strictly needed to for the hug.

  "And don't forget what you promised to send," she scolded in a playful but serious tone.

  "I won't," smiled Jagger a bit uncomfortably.

  "You must be Roxy," she said, surprising me when she turned to extend her hand to me. "I was sorry I didn't have a chance to meet you. Destinata is a beautiful piece—I can see Jagger's inspiration."

  "Uh…thank you?" I said awkwardly. No one appeared to notice my perplexed expression as the three adults rushed to get in the car. Jack honked the horn as he pulled away, and then it was just me and Jagger.

  "They'll be gone ’til dinner,” he said devilishly, grabbing my hand and pulling me up to his room.

  Hours later, we lay side-by-side, kissing languidly again, this time in the hammock by the warm pool. His father was some sort of soaking enthusiast so, of course, they had three tubs: hot, warm and cold. They were set back from the main house, down a wood-plank path that meandered deeper into his acres-of-forest backyard and ended in a clearing of trees.

  A sturdy cabana and two strung-up hammocks were perfect for lounging, but the main attraction were the soaking pools. All were ovular in shape but the cool one was the largest—a bit too cool for my liking so our default was the warm.

  We’d spent practically all our down time this summer in that very spot, though our friends had usually been in tow. The cabana was the biggest space to lounge in and the easiest to get in and out of. But we always gave the cabana to Annika and Declan. Covered by one of the enormous towels the Monroes kept in the space, we swung in the hammock that felt like it had become our
s.

  Between kisses, I memorized the cupid's bow of his lip, the hue of his hair in sunlight, the vibrant clarity of green-gray eyes. I soaked in the sounds of the forest and loved the sweep of the late summer breeze on my back. I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep until Jagger's whispered words woke me up.

  "Destinata…,” he had breathed into my hair, barely loudly enough for me to hear.

  "What does it mean?" I mumbled groggily, my voice hoarse from disuse.

  "My destiny," he murmured, kissing the top of my head. "My world." He kissed me again. "My everything."

  I still had trouble, hearing him talk like this, though I knew his words were sincere. I was getting better, but I still couldn't fully accept a love this big.

  "Is that Spanish?" I asked. I had no ear for languages. "It sounds like what your mom's friend said to me earlier."

  Jagger's body stayed relaxed, but his answering sigh held a certain tension.

  "It's Italian. She was referring to your song."

  My song has a name?

  "How did she hear my song?" I asked, slightly protective of what I liked to think of as exclusive to Jagger and me. He’d started writing it in the early days of our dating and I’d spent countless hours next to him on the piano bench while he fleshed it out. I’d been his sounding board—listening to variation after variation, telling him which elements did and didn’t work.