“Forever,” I repeated.
EPILOGUE
A FEW MONTHS LATER
GEORGIE
“Hot damn,” Patty swore, her eyes on a figure down the hall. We’d just finished our very first English 101 class. We’d always talked about this day while we were away at The Cove together and now it was here. Our first day of college classes and our first day ‘out in the real world.’
Patty was from a small farm town smack-dab in the middle of North Carolina, and I was from the Outer Banks. Relatively, two different worlds—even though we both grew up in the same state. Now we were both attending Luke University. And I couldn’t be happier that fate had brought us back together. We were the same grade, had both finished our high school classes at The Cove, and now we were rooming together for our freshman year of college.
She looked healthy too. Not quite as skinny as I remembered from a few months ago, but I knew she still struggled with all her food issues daily. Food was something a person always needed to eat so it would be a lifelong struggle for Patty. The same way missing my brother would never fully subside in me.
“You didn’t tell me he was gorgeous,” Patty went on. “I want one.”
She meant the handsome, blond-haired man standing only a few feet in front of us. He wore a leather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans—a motorcycle helmet under one arm and his shoulder-length hair pulled back at his neck. He looked like trouble waiting to happen, but I knew otherwise. He was one of the kindest, gentlest, most protective men out there, and he was all mine.
“Oh, God, I hate you already,” Sydney groaned at Patty. “Keep your panties on. He’s not man-candy. He’s a human being.”
Sydney had ended up at Luke University, as well. We weren’t exactly friends—yet. I found out twenty-four hours ago that she was living in the same dorm as me. Imagine that. And we even had a few classes together. Imagine that, too. I’d never really given her much of a chance in high school. Before Ben died and before I left, I wasn’t the same person as I was today. I was too caught up in my own world, too worried about what other people thought of me, and honestly, I was kind of a bitch.
I wanted to give Sydney a chance now. She was feisty, and I liked that.
Something had also happened between her and Ben—maybe they’d only been friends or maybe they’d been more—but I was curious, and either way, I wanted to see if we could be friends, too. If she meant something to Ben then she meant something to me. And after all, college was the place for fresh starts, new beginnings, and all that stuff.
“Hi, Noah,” I said in a low voice as I came up to him. My cheeks flushed.
Even after a few months of dating, he still had my heart screaming every time I saw him. It screamed now—but that was a good freaking thing. It let me know I was alive. He let me know I was alive. Every. Single. Day.
“How was your first class?” he asked, impervious to the world around him and the many female stares constantly thrown his way. I’d gotten used to it, and it didn’t hurt that his eyes always stayed faithfully on mine.
“It was okay. The professor seemed nice. How about your first class?”
The handsome man before me already had his associate’s degree. He’d had to get it a few years back—when he and Ellie first started their own business. Someone had to have business sense in order to run their business. So that meant he was already in higher level classes than I was. It also meant he’d finish college about two years before I would. But he was here with me now, as I knew he would be in the future, and that was all that mattered.
“It was fine,” he said, shrugging, as he picked me up. “Alright. I’ve played polite long enough. Bye, ladies,” he shouted to my friends. “It’s my turn with my girl now.”
And, like the knight in shining armor that he was, Noah carried me out of the building, toward where he’d parked his motorcycle, and off into our own metaphorical sunset. It was going to be a good life with him, and I was beyond happy that I was going to get to live it.
THE END
CHANGING TIDES
CHANGING TIDES
(Kill Devil Hills #2)
SARAH DARLINGTON
CHANGING TIDES (KILL DEVIL HILLS #2)
Copyright © 2015 Sarah Darlington
Cover Design by Sommer Stein of Perfect Pear Creative Covers
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and events portrayed in this book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced throughout this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is dedicated to my cousin Melissa, my original inspiration for Ellie.
Love does not see race, gender, religion, disability, or age.
Love just loves.
PART
ONE
CHAPTER 1:
ELLIE
I’d always been the black sheep of my family. I was different. I was a misfit. I had tattoos, short hair, and a preference for the same sex. I never seemed to say the right thing at the right time. My mouth was always getting away from me. But I was a Turner—through and through. I loved my family, my parents, my three siblings, and Noah. I loved these people above all else in life. So, I never minded being the black sheep or the odd man out at times. I never minded because every family needed a black sheep and I was happy being the one in mine.
But lately, over the past nine months, my siblings seemed to have entered into a contest. I think my two sisters and dumb-ass brother all got together, had a meeting, and decided they wanted to dethrone me of my title. See who could out do whom in the ‘biggest fucking moron’ contest we all seemed to be competing in.
Well, I guess I had to discount my youngest sister Rose from this theory. She was nine years old going on sixteen, smart as a whip, and on track to be the least crazy out of all of us. I highly doubted she was in on the mayhem. So I had to dismiss her from my speculations.
That left Ben and Georgina.
Ben. Sweet, stupid Ben. Second born and my only brother. Ben went and got himself quote unquote ‘killed.’ And Georgina, suffering from a whole lot of depression and other shit no one in my family even noticed, couldn’t handle our brother’s death. Hours after his funeral, she tried to take her own life. She’d slit her wrists, bled all over the bathroom floor, and came within inches of meeting Jesus and those pearly white gates. Luckily, Noah being Noah—my best friend, prone to plain dumb luck—found my sister just in the nick of time. He saved her, in more ways than one, and now, ironically enough, he was dating her.
So, since Georgie was doing much better thanks to Noah, she had to be ruled out from this little sibling rivalry too. That left me and my dead brother, Ben. My over-the-top personality, bad decisions, and sexual preferences really couldn’t hold a candle to my brother’s stupidity.
In the ‘biggest fucking moron’ race to become the blackest, black sheep in the Turner family…Ben won. Because Ben—sweet, stupid Ben—wasn’t even dead.
* * *
Noah Clark was drunk, completely sloshed off his ass, and it was the most adorable thing. As soon as everyone made it through airport security, I was going to whip out my camera and start snapping as many photos as possible. Because this was beyond priceless and needed to be documented immediately. Get my friend liquored up on any normal day and he turned slightly less shy. But, apparently, getting him liquored up around my sister meant he’d transform into the most romantic sap ever. And it was pure awesomeness.
He pressed tend
er, slow kisses down my sister’s neck. She laughed and arched into him. Then his hands wrapped around her waist as he yanked her in closer against his leather jacket covered chest.
“Noah, seriously,” I whispered, as his hands settled on Georgina’s ass—right in front of all our friends and the TSA person! “Holy shit. Keep it together, buddy, or they’re not going to let you on the plane.”
Actually, unless somebody knew Noah personally, they wouldn’t even recognize that he was drunk. Noah always had a controlled, confident way about him—so even when he was slightly less controlled, he still seemed pretty normal.
He ignored me and whispered something into Georgie’s ear. Whatever ‘sweet nothings’ or perhaps ‘dirty nothings’ he was telling my sister caused her cheeks to turn a pretty shade of pink.
I decided to roll with Noah’s intoxication, as my sister already was, and slipped off my Chuck Taylors. Because I needed to take them off to walk through the full body scanner thingy at security.
Not many people in this world understood my relationship with Noah. We’d been friends since our freshman year of high school. Back in the day, when we first met, people were scared to death of the guy. He used to wear all black clothing, eye liner, and these weird lace-up combat boots. I really wished I had a photo of that. He never spoke, and kids at school used to fear he’d bring a gun one day and start shooting. Everybody avoided him, including me. But I envied the avoidance the rest of the world showed him—because I had the opposite problem. The bitchy mean-girls at my school used to pick on me for sport. I was a lesbian and not the girly-girl lipstick type either. I was a tom-boy, through and through. Still, to this day I couldn’t understand why so many girls had hated me for that.
So, I did what any rational person in my position would do. I befriended the one boy in school everyone feared. My plan worked. Almost immediately, those bitchy ‘mean-girls’ left me alone. Noah was like the Mafia. Without even needing to speak, or maybe because he never did, he had a protective force-field buzzing around him. It kept others away. And once under his protection, others stayed away from me too.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that there was more to Noah Clark than the ‘black’ the rest of the world saw. He wasn’t so shy if you took the time to get to know him. He had a lot to say. And we actually ended up having more in common than I ever could have guessed. Noah was fun to be around, in his own weird way, and loyal to a fault.
The Noah before me today, ten years later, looked the complete opposite of my high school friend. His hair was its natural shade of blond, shoulder length, and he would never be caught dead wearing eyeliner. He wore jeans and a light colored t-shirt—the only black in his wardrobe was the leather jacket that I bought for him a few Christmases ago to match the motorcycle he owned. We were still best friends. And recently he’d started dating my sister—which was unquestionably perfect for all of us. She made him happy, so score for him, while I loved that Georgina never once examined my relationship with Noah. The few other girls he’d kicked around with in the past always hated me even though it was obvious I was gay. But Georgie just flat-out accepted us. No questions. No bullshit. She was a bad-ass little chica, and she had my best-friend whipped.
I loved it.
I loved them.
As I waited for my carry-on bag, shoes, and belt to come through the x-ray machine, still watching Noah and Georgie canoodling like this wasn’t America and we were in France, Rhett bumped my arm.
“Not sure you thought this one through, Ellie May,” he whispered. “Those two are treating this little vacation of yours like a honeymoon. Wild Card Georgina is going to be in for the surprise of her life the moment she realizes what this is really about. And Noah will be pissed by default. What’s your plan then? What am I here for…damage control?”
“Shut the hell up,” I whispered, jabbing Rhett in the ribs as hard as I could without drawing attention. He’d overheard a phone conversation of mine weeks before and was the only person who knew my secret. Well, he and Rose.
I’d spilled the beans to my youngest sister because my mom hadn’t let me bring her along with us on this trip. She couldn’t very well be the last person to know. What sort of awful big sister would that make me? So I’d told her a few days ago. She actually took it very well. Knowing her, I shouldn’t have expected anything less.
“I didn’t invite you,” I snapped at him. “So mind your own damn business and worry about your own damn problems—Luce and Sydney. And if you call me Ellie May one more damn time then I will break something off. I swear, I’m not kidding around.”
He threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine. Whatever. Cool the jets. No need to chew my ass out. I was just saying.”
I flipped him off, effectively ending our conversation, and finished gathering my stuff.
This trip was originally only supposed to be Noah, Georgie, and myself traveling together. But since I’d lied about the whole purpose of this trip, my brilliant vacation idea had turned into a freaking fun-feast for our whole group of friends. Georgie had invited her friend from college, Sydney. Noah had invited my roommate Rhett, who was his former roommate, not knowing Georgie had already invited Sydney. Rhett and Sydney had partaken in a one night stand a few months ago. After which, Rhett had proclaimed his love, while Sydney had proclaimed her indifference. Now the only thing that remained between them was a whole bunch of awkward silence and tension. So, Rhett being Rhett, invited his co-worker/fuck-buddy, Luce.
So yeah, one big motherfucking happy family.
Actually, Sydney seemed to be a sweet girl…most of the time. And Luce and I had known each other for years. She was cool. So other than my real purpose to this trip, the only thorn in my side was Rhett. God, he was a cocky, arrogant asshole. Half the time he bugged the shit out me with the vulgar things that came sprouting out of his mouth and half the time I found myself laughing at his stupid jokes. But, I guess, as much as we argued, he was my friend too. Hell, we lived together—of course he was my friend. And I really shouldn’t have snapped at him like that.
After the group was through security and once we walked the short distance to the boarding gate, I caught Rhett’s attention. “Hey man, want to come with me to pick out a few snacks?”
“The plane boards in ten minutes,” he deadpanned.
“We’ll be quick.”
“Fine.”
The two of us made our way toward a small snack stand close to our gate. We’d hear our flight’s announcement easily from here. It was early in the morning and I knew whatever food they served on the plane was going to be crap, so I loaded my satchel bag full with muffins for everyone. I was the oldest of four siblings. I was used to playing mom. And moms always carried around food for their kids in their purses. (Or satchel bags…since I refused to call my bag a ‘purse.’)
“What’d you want?” Rhett asked. He rubbed at his closely shaved head, glancing back in the direction of our friends. Luce and Sydney stood awkwardly together, while Noah and Georgina were in an embrace a few feet away from them. I had been the one to persuade Noah to drink those five shots of bourbon on the car ride to the airport this morning. This was his first time on an airplane and he had a tendency to worry, especially over my sister. I hoped a little alcohol would be enough to help him take the edge off, ease his nerves, not prevent him from being allowed to board. God, now I was worrying…again. Worrying wasn’t my thing and I hated all the extra stress I’d been under lately. Hopefully this trip was about to end all that. It better. Because my next plan was to get my parents involved.
I brought my attention back to Rhett. In an alternative universe, if I found men attractive over women, then I might have found Rhett attractive. He was muscular, tattooed, and handsome in a commanding way. “I wanted to apologize for snapping at you before,” I told him, sucking up my pride.
“You snap at me all the time,” he countered. “I’m used to it.”
“Well, you didn’t deserve it that time.”
Rhett gave me a smug little smile and hugged me against my will. “Apology accepted, roomie.”
I groaned and shoved him off me.
Then for the smallest second, his cockiness dropped and sincerity flooded his face. “All of this will be okay,” he reassured me. “You’re doing the right thing here. And you’re going to need an extra plane ticket home. Maybe you weren’t the one to invite me on this little trip, but I’m here for you just the same.”
My throat clogged up and I wasn’t normally an emotional person. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure you’re not here because Sydney’s here?”
He shot me a nasty look and, just like that, his walls went back up. Then his face turned mischievous. “You got me,” he teased. “My whole goal for this vacation is to get Luce and Sydney to join me for a threesome. You want in? You like pussy too.”
Making a sour face, I punched his hard-ass bicep. “Ew. Just ew. You’re gross. Go back to your weird love-triangle and leave me out of it. Conversation over.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, love you too, roomie.” Then he walked back toward our mismatched little group.
I paid for the snacks and followed after him. Our flight was announced and we all made our way down the jet-bridge. The plane was medium sized, three seats by three seats across, and I wasn’t even sure who I was about to sit next to. I’d booked the tickets, but I swear my mind was a mess these days. Forgetting shit wasn’t typically like me, but having to bring my dumbass brother home from the dead was screwing with my brain. Dammit. What I wouldn’t give to be lying on some beach somewhere?
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 19
