ENEMIES

by Tijan

  “Mom, Dad.”

  Stone started to roll over me, but paused and lifted his head. A fond and adoring smile softened his face. “Do your pops a favor and go wake up Grandma Barb. Yeah? Grandpa Chuck might need an extra yell in the ear, too. Flying in for the visit probably made him extra tired. Right up here. Right in here.” He pointed to his own ear, winking.

  Gray’s eyes got big, and he shoved off the bed, jumping down with a thud which he didn’t feel at all. He was off and sprinting down to the main floor because that was where Stone’s parents liked to sleep. Their bedroom was off by the kitchen, and relatively more quiet until everyone decided to eat, but they liked being closer to the coffee machine. That was my guess.

  “That wasn’t nice.” I grinned up at him as he looked back down at me.

  His eyes were already darkening, taking in my eyes, my lips, remaining on my lips, still on my lips, and then he rolled completely over top of me. Our door was wide open. We had two recent college graduates in their own showers. Our little dude was downstairs and currently doing his best impersonation of a human alarm clock, but nope. He nestled in, grinding into me, and my mind turned off.

  Sea turtles who?

  He grinned, dropping his head and kissing my neck. “You and my mom seemed good last night.”

  I frowned, a hand to his chin and I lifted his head up. “Excuse me?”

  Another grin. His hand slid around my waist, sliding up my back, but I knew it would move down. He said before that happened, “You two cooked last night together. Don’t think I didn’t notice. Kept expecting the house to burn down.”

  I was annoyed.

  I scowled. “Are you kidding?”

  “No, babe. That’s not a joke.”

  Ah. Screw it. He was half-right to worry.

  It’d been a long road for Barb and Charles (now Chuck once Grayson was born), but we were at the place where we could cook an entire meal for hungry teammates, college students, and three-year-olds together and I was happy. When Stone let them know we were serious, they hadn’t been pleased. They warned him off me, saying I’d turn around and finish blackmailing them exactly how Gail had started.

  I’d been furious until Jared happened, and how he heard, I had no clue. He wasn’t saying.

  He was the one who went up to her at the end of his basketball game. Sweaty. Had been one of the two star players for that game, and when Barb went up to him to congratulate him on the win, he asked her if she said what he heard she said. She stammered, stepping back. Her neck and face went beet red. Charles had been there, and he stepped back, coughing, uncomfortable. There’d been two other couples with them, and the women looked aghast. One of the husbands coughed, laughing, but Stone got a phone call that night.

  It’d been loud and long, until Stone said, “She’s going to be my wife one day. It would be smart for you to change your attitude.” That was it. He hung up, and he didn’t take another call from her for six months.

  Barb and Charles changed their attitudes.

  But then it was on my end, and I had to get over everything they’d done to my family and me.

  So that’d been another long journey of ups and downs.

  But we cooked a meal together last night, and there’d been wine, and while Barb cut back on hers, I upped mine so we met in the middle. It was a wine-compromise, and it worked. It also helped that they adored Grayson, and I knew they were hoping for another four grandchildren. Not two, not one more. Four. Chuck told me one night after too many bourbons.

  So yes, we were all a work in progress, but things were getting smoother. Much, much smoother.

  They also earned bonus points because not only could we hear them getting up to start the coffee, but they’d been adamant they’d attend the hatching, too. I also heard Barb asking Stone one night if it was true that an octopus changed colors when they slept.

  I yelled from the other room, “They also come to say thank you if you save their lives. It’s true. Youtube it.”

  I said now to Stone, “She’s been trying. It helps.”

  He lifted his head from my throat. “Babe. She’s been kissing your ass for years now.”

  I was growing heated, but not in the bad way. I shrugged before twining my arms around his neck. “There was a lot of stuff she needed to kiss my ass about.” Then I grinned. “Now shut up and give me a proper good morning kiss before we go off to shield baby turtles from frigate birds.”

  So he did just that.

  And after Stone carried me to the shower, behind a locked door, we were quick but panting when we finished just in time to dress and dash downstairs. Jared was shaking his head. Apollo was smirking, again. Grayson was dressed and jumping up and down. Barb and Chuck were at the door, having helped to get everyone ready and dressed and fed.

  Barb held out two coffees for us and a bag. “Those are toasted bagels for you both. Now we must go or we’ll miss the hatching.”

  We were off.

  We got there in time.

  The babies were just crawling out, starting their speeding for the ocean, and people lined the way for them. With Stone’s arm around my shoulders, with Grayson leaning against both of us and standing on our toes, and with both of my brothers with us, and yes, even with Grandpa and Grandma there, I was happy.

  I tipped my head back.

  Stone gazed down, those eyes reading my need and he bent his head.

  His lips touched mine, and then I raised up and told him we needed to stop for a pregnancy test on the way home.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed Enemies, please leave a review!

  They truly help so much.

  * * *

  A bonus prologue scene is on my website if you’d like more Dusty and Stone!

  www.tijansbooks.com

  The Letter

  Baby girl, this is your mother.

  I know I’ve given you explicit instructions to trace this into your yearbook, but they’re my words. That means this is from me, my heart, and my love for you.

  There’s so many things I want to say to you, things I want you to hear, to know, but let’s start with the reason I’m having you put these words in your senior yearbook.

  First of all, this book is everything. It may be pictures, some names of people you won’t remember in five years, ten years, or longer, but this book is more important than you can imagine. It’s the first book that’s the culmination of your first chapter in life.

  You will have many. So many! But this book is the physical manifestation of your first part in life.

  Keep it. Treasure it.

  Whether you enjoyed school or not, it’s done. It’s in your past. These were the times you were a part of society from a child to who you are now, a young adult woman. When you leave for college, you’re continuing your education, but you’re moving onto your next chapter in life. The beginning of adulthood. This yearbook is your bridge.

  Keep this as a memento forever. It sums up who you grew up with. It houses images of the buildings where your mind first began to learn things, where you first began to dream, to set goals, to yearn for the road ahead. It’s so bittersweet, but those memories were your foundation to set you up for who you will become in the future. Whether they brought pain or happiness, it’s important not to forget.

  From here, you will go on and you will learn the growing pains of becoming an adult. You will refine your dreams. You will set new limits. Change your mind. You will hurt. You will laugh. You will cry, but the most important is that you will grow.

  Always, always grow, honey. Challenge yourself. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations (BUT BE SAFE!) and push yourself not to think about yourself, your friends, your family, but to think about the world. Think about others. Understand others, and if you can’t understand, then learn more about them. It’s so very important. Once you have the key to understanding why someone else hurts or dreams or survives, then you have ultimate knowledge. You have empathy.

  Oh, honey.

&n
bsp; As I’m writing this, I can see you on the couch reading a book. You are so very beautiful, but you are so very humble. You don’t see your beauty, and I want you to see your beauty. Not just physical, but your inner kindness and soul. It’s blinding to me. That’s how truly stunning you are.

  Never let anyone dim your light.

  Here are some words I want you to know as you go through the rest of your life:

  Live.

  Learn.

  Love.

  Laugh.

  And, honey, know. Just know that I am with you always.

  And my last word, look.

  Look for signs from me, because I’m giving them to you. They’re everywhere.

  I love you, my sweet child. You will grow and you will go through hardships and happiness, and every single time, I am there with you.

  Always, always love you so very, very much, your mother.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing this book was during a particular important stage of my life. In writing these acknowledgements, I need to mention this because I’ll always remember it.

  Having said that, I want to thank my editor, my proofreaders, my beta readers, my author friends, and of course the members in my reader group! Thank you guys for always being there, always supporting, and always inspiring me.

  Thank you Crystal!

  Thank you Kimberly!

  Thank you my Bailey.

  Teardrop Shot

  Lucas is busy forking his new girlfriend, but if you’re feeling vengeful, I can pop in my dentures.”

  Those were the words I heard as three things were happening at once.

  One, I was just dumped.

  The message was being delivered from Newt, my boyfriend’s—no, my very, very recent ex-boyfriend’s—grandfather, while I was standing on his doorstep.

  Two, my phone started ringing.

  I glanced at it, half hoping it was Luc-ass, but it wasn’t.

  I gulped because the person calling was a blast from my past, like my way early past before Lucas, before the guy I was using Lucas to get over, before even him. That far back, and while the person calling me was a guy, he wasn’t a romantic guy. At all. It was more the group of people he represented, a group that I left in my dust years ago.

  So, hence the gulp, because none of them had called for at least six years. Give or take.

  While both those events were hitting me at once, the third was what shirt Newt was wearing—my Reese Forster shirt.

  I pointed at him. “You stole my shirt!” And because I was getting flooded with everything happening, the question blurted out of me. “If an owl could talk, what accent would it have?”

  My neck was getting hot, furiously hot.

  Newt was the one in front of me, so I was dealing with him first.

  Who did he think he was?

  A thief, that’s what.

  I loved that shirt. I lived in it. Slept in it. Drooled even. I did so many things in that shirt. And there was no way he could claim it wasn’t because the collar was ripped. I put it there, one time in frustration when I watched Forster get the ball stolen from him during the West Conference Finals.

  Reese Forster was the Seattle Thunder’s star point guard. They had other star players too. In fact, their team was stacked this year, but it was Reese.

  It was my shirt of him.

  I got it the first year he was drafted, when he was nineteen, and while my obsession with basketball had waned over the years, my obsession with him had not.

  I kept up on his stats. He was lined up to have one of his greatest years this next season.

  Goddamn. I’d have to get a new shirt. Maybe a jersey even?

  “Is that a no on the revenge sex?” Newt countered.

  “I hope your dentures get glued to the bottom of someone’s saggy ass and you have to go to the emergency room to get them removed. You old fuck!”

  I stormed off after that, but my phone kept ringing.

  Shit.

  Looking down, seeing a name I never thought I’d talk to again, I faltered in my storming away. I couldn’t lie, even to myself because I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

  Too many things were all converging at once.

  But Luc-ass.

  Was I devastated? No.

  Was I annoyed? Yes.

  Lucas and I bonded over our love of Reese Forster and he’d been the first guy I could tolerate in over a year so I was using him. The whole mantra of getting under someone else to get over someone—well, I’d been trying to test that theory out with him.

  It hadn’t worked.

  So no, I wasn’t crushed about Luc-asshole’s cheating. I mean, it made sense. In a way. I could never bring myself to practice human corkscrewing, as he’d put it. He’d tried selling me on role-playing opening a bottle of wine.

  I’d be the wine bottle, and…

  Ring!

  Okay. It kept ringing.

  In the past, the very distant past, if they tried calling, it was only once.

  They’d call. I wouldn’t answer. They’d leave a voicemail, which I usually deleted. There’d been a few I had kept saved in my mailbox and depending on how much I wanted to suffer, I might listen to them over a box of wine and Cheetos.

  This was different.

  He called. He called again.

  He kept calling.

  Oh boy.

  Taking a breath for courage, my thumb lingered over the accept button. I mean, why not? The day had already gone to shit. Might as well add another to the pile.

  But if I was going to answer it, I was going to do it my way.

  “If you had to pick an alcoholic drink to be the title of your autobiography, what would it be and why?” Pause. A breath. Then, “Heya, Trent.”

  * * *

  Read more about Reese and Charlie in Teardrop Shot.

  He’s an NBA star, and she’s a mess.

  * * *

  For additional sports romances, check out Hate To Love You, Ryan’s Bed, or my Fallen Crest Series!

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  Did you love Enemies? Then you should read Kian by Tijan!

  Dark. Mysterious. Gorgeous.Loved by all the girls.Respected by all the guys....that was Kian Maston.

  As the heir to a billion dollar empire, his future was promising until the day he saved my life. Everything changed for both of us, and there was one more word that could be used to describe him—dangerous.

  The nation fell in love with him while falling in hate with me. He was sent to prison, and as far as they were concerned, it was my fault. I was forced to go into hiding...until today.

  Kian's being released from prison, and he should go back to being the golden boy he always was supposed to be. I should remain in hiding, living my life as normal as could be.

  That's what we should do...

  Kian is a 329 page, 95k, standalone! These are brand new characters, and is not a part of any series.