“I was wondering when you were finally going to give me this thing!” she exclaimed.
“Wait,” I said, taken aback. “You knew I had it?”
She shot me a look, unable to keep the smile off her face. “I’m the one who does your laundry, Travis. Your sock drawer? Really?”
Damn. I thought it was a good hiding place.
“I take it that’s a yes, then?” I asked, relieved. Obviously, she liked it. And she put it on the correct finger, so that was a big plus.
“Oh! Sorry. So sorry,” she quickly apologized as she pulled the ring off and handed it back to me. “You probably wanted to be the one to put it on me. Yes. That’s a yes.” She bounced excitedly as she held out her left hand.
I grinned as I looked at Angel.
Big blue eyes were shining at me with so much love, it took my breath away. There was a smudge of icing on her chin that begged me to lick it off. Her cheeks were flushed from excitement and her blonde hair was in total disarray from sleep. She brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘bedhead’.
Fucking beautiful.
Picking up her hand in mine, I gave her finger a soft kiss.
“Thank you for being my forever,” I said against her skin before sliding the ring home.
It was a perfect fit.
THE END
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“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
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.
When I first decided to write a book, I had no idea I would need so many people to help me along the way. Thank you to my husband and kids for being so supportive of this new adventure. I couldn’t have done this without your encouragement, especially on the days when I felt like giving up. And a special thanks to my hubby for volunteering to be my cover model. (That’s right. The man on the cover is mine!)
Thank you to my betas Brittaney and Carole. You were the very first people to enthusiastically volunteer to read my book, and I appreciate you!
Thanks to my Newbs. Writing a book was incredibly lonely until you came along. Your support, knowledge, and encouragement has helped me so much.
Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my readers!
To my own little caterpillar pig-fish,
I love you super lightning eight one zero eight!
Technically, I’m not a stripper. As a cage dancer, I don’t take all my clothes off and no one gets to touch me. I’m just the eye candy.
And I can feel their eyes on me. I know they’re watching, but I don’t do this for them.
This is my time.
My life may not have turned out the way I thought it would, but I’m not complaining. From 9pm to 1am several days a week I get paid to feel sexy, to feel desired, to do what I love.
I always knew I wanted to be a dancer—I just didn’t realize I’d be doing it in a cage.
Erectile dysfunction—two words that can cause a collective cringe from men everywhere. The doctors can call it ‘performance anxiety’ all they want, but that’s just a fancy way of saying my dick doesn’t work.
Just when I start to think there’s no hope for me, I see her. She’s gorgeous, sexy, and goofy as f*ck. She also looks really familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.
When I find out who she really is, my world is turned upside down and everything seems to fall into place.
She’s not gonna make it easy for me, but I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. She’s convinced I won’t stick around.
I’ll prove her wrong.
I’ll show her I’m one of the good guys.
Fifteen Years Ago
Seven Years Old
“Eight, nine, ten! Ready or not, here I come,” I sang.
Skipping across the lawn, I headed to the backyard shed first, pretending to be clueless about where Colton was hiding.
I liked to let him think he had me stumped, even though I always knew where to find him. My mom said we were like the last two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I agreed with her because Colton was my other half. From the first moment I saw him, I knew we belonged together.
After confirming that he wasn’t in the shed, I tiptoed around to the front of the house, being careful not to step on Mom’s freshly planted marigolds.
As I approached the white porch, I heard quiet snickering underneath the wooden boards. I shook my head and smiled because he was so bad at this game.
“Gotcha!” I poked my head through the place where the lattice was missing.
Colton grinned at me, showing missing teeth on top and crooked teeth on the bottom. I loved his crooked teeth. I crawled under the porch and sat next to him in the dirt.
“Do you think they won’t find us?” he asked. “Maybe we could just stay here forever.”
“No, they’ll find us. That’s why I brought the backup plan,” I said proudly, pulling a pair of handcuffs from the back pocket of my jean shorts.
He gave me that smile again. After clasping it on himself, he carefully wrapped the metal around my wrist, making sure it wasn’t too tight.
“Look.” He pointed to one of the boards above my head. “I stole my dad’s pocket knife.”
I couldn’t stop the goofy smile on my face when I saw what he carved in the wood.
Colt + Ellie 4ever
It even had a heart drawn around the words.
Early summer sunlight filtered through the boards above us as we sat shoulder to shoulder, and I tried to soak up these last minutes together.
“I wish you didn’t have to move away,” I said, fighting against the lump in my throat. Colton didn’t like it when I cried. Said it made him sad, and I didn’t want to make him sadder than he already was.
“Me too,” he replied quietly.
“Is it because your mom…” died. I didn’t want to say the last word and I didn’t need to. Like true best friends, we could finish each other’s sentences.
Colton nodded. “Dad says we need a ‘new beginning’,” he said, putting air quotes around the words. “He wants to start his own auto shop and he got a good deal on some shitty garage.”
I gasped.
“Colton, don’t say shitty,” I whisper-yelled.
“Well, it is.” He angrily picked at the dried dirt on the bottom of his shoe.
“You’re gonna get your mouth washed out with soap again,” I warned.
“I don’t care.” He scowled. “If he wanted to have a shop so bad, I don’t know why he couldn’t just do it here.”
“But you’ll write to me?” I asked hopefully while anxiously rubbing at the knuckle of my thumb—it was my nervous habit.
“Of course, Ellie.” Colton put his hand over mine, stilling my actions. “Don’t do that. You’re gonna give yourself a blister again.”
He was right. If I kept it up, my skin would get red and raw-looking. I clenched my left hand into a fist, tucking my thumb inside.
I lifted my right hand, causing Colton’s left to come up with it
since we were shackled together. “Thumb war?”
He rolled his eyes because he knew I would beat him, but he put his hand in mine anyway.
Our thumbs danced together as we both chanted the words, “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war.”
Grunting with a determined look on his face, Colton gave it his best effort. It was a little more difficult with the handcuffs on, but I managed to pin him in under a minute.
I smiled. He huffed.
“I want a rematch,” he grumped.
He always wanted a rematch. And I always won.
“It’s just because I’m older than you,” I taunted.
“By a couple months!” he said incredulously.
“Five months,” I corrected. “That’s a long time in kid-years. Better luck next time.” Unable to resist, I patted him on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look, knowing he hated it when I did that.
With a half-hearted glare, he gave me the side-eye.
I smiled cheekily at him. “You know what? We should get a house someday. A yellow house in the middle of nowhere. Just you and me. We could decorate it however we wanted. And it would have to have a barn for the horse.”
“Why a horse?” he asked, looking amused.
Shrugging, I continued my dream scenario. “I’ve always wanted a horse. Every girl wants one. His name will be Barnaby. And we’ll have to get one of those huge trampolines because you’ve always wanted one of those.”
With a half-smile on his face, Colton just sat back and listened. Some people thought I talked too much, but Colton? He just let me ramble until I ran out of things to say. It was one of the things I loved about him. It was also something I would miss after he was gone.
He slipped his hand into mine and linked our fingers together. We sat there in the cool dirt for several minutes in silence until my dad’s legs came into view. Colton’s fingers tightened around mine and I held my breath, hoping we wouldn’t be found.
“Brielle, come on out. It’s time for Colton to go,” my dad said.
Dang. Apparently my dad was pretty good at hide-and-seek, too.
We reluctantly crawled out from under the porch, wearing defiant expressions as we proudly wore the handcuffs that tethered us together. I liked to pretend it meant we were inseparable, but my parents had figured out this trick a long time ago. My dad pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked our wrists.
“Time to say goodbye, son,” Colton’s dad called from the moving truck, barely looking our way.
Hank hadn’t been the same since Jill died. He used to be cheerful, funny, and happy. When Jill got sick, it was the first time I ever heard the word cancer. And I hated that word more than any other word in the world. It took away Colton’s mom, and now Colton was being taken away from me.
Maybe a new beginning really would help them move on, but that thought was only a small comfort as I looked at my best friend. The selfish part of me wondered how Colton could possibly be better off without me.
He needed me, right? Or maybe I was the one who needed him.
I threw my arms around Colton’s neck and he held me tight.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said, sounding choked up.
Colton almost never cried, even when he got hurt. In fact, the only time I’d ever seen him do it was after his mom died, but when I pulled back to look at his face I was sure I saw his eyes watering.
“Promise me we’ll always be best friends,” I begged, my voice wavering.
“I promise.” He tried to give me a smile and ruffled my ponytail, causing some of the brown strands to come loose. “Forever, remember?”
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I nodded and started our goodbye routine—the same one we said almost every time we had to part ways.
“Three,” I started the countdown.
“Two,” he responded as he backed away.
“One,” I said, my eyes filling with tears.
“Bye.” We both said the word at the same time.
Chin wobbling, I tried not to cry as he climbed into the passenger side of the giant truck then peered back at me through the glass.
As soon as it turned the corner, I let the tears fall. Overwhelming dread formed in the pit of my stomach, because I couldn’t help feeling like it was the last time I would ever see him.
“It’ll be okay, Brielle.” My dad patted me on the head. “He’s only moving a couple hours away, not halfway around the world.”
“How many miles?” I asked, curious about the distance. I knew the closest Walmart was twenty miles away and sometimes that trip seemed to take forever.
“About 130.”
“One hundred and thirty miles?!” I shrieked.
That might as well have been halfway around the world.
Dad gave me a sympathetic look.
“Come here,” he said, walking over to our van. He opened the passenger door, popped open the glove compartment, and pulled out a book. “This is a map of Illinois.” Unfolding it, he pointed to a spot on the paper. “Can you read that?”
“Hemswell,” I said, naming our town.
“Good job.” He smiled, then his finger followed a long red line. “If we drove on this highway, it would take us about an hour and a half to get to Champaign.” He pointed to the dot, then he peered closer to the map, turning it this way and that. “Well, I can’t find Tolson, but it’s somewhere around here.” After gesturing to a blank area, he folded it back up. “Maybe we can visit them sometime.”
I nodded, and he gave me one more pat on the head before going back into the house.
Sniffling, I wiped my face with the back of my dirt-stained hand then went to sit back under the porch. I hoped the days would go by fast because the only thing I looked forward to was getting the first letter from Colton.
Gazing up at the carving he made, I held onto the hope that I would hear from him soon as I traced over the deep grooves with my finger.
Colt + Ellie 4ever.
Present Day
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 or wash my hands, I popped the cap off the cold beverage and took a long drink. Usually, the first thing I did when I got home from work was get out of my dirty auto shop coveralls and take a shower, but that would just have to wait.
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, laidback 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 front door, wearing an identical grease-covered uniform.
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 grumpily.
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 were in a shitty mood at work today. In fact, you haven’t been t
he 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, his green eyes practically sparkling with happiness. “We just got engaged and they’re already wedding-planning.”
He’d proposed to his girlfriend recently, and I couldn’t have been 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.”
The Good Guys Box Set: TRUCKER, DANCER, DROPOUT, and A Trucker Wedding Page 24