Fortuity: A Standalone Contemporary Romance (The Transcend Series Book 3)

by Jewel E. Ann

  Hunched like a baseball catcher, gaze still to the floor, he crooks a finger at me.

  I set my plate on the counter. “Did you lose a contact lens?” I squat next to him behind the counter.

  He lifts his gaze to meet my squinted eyes. The corner of his mouth bends just as his hand slides behind my head and his lips press to mine.

  What the hell?

  My lungs freeze while my heart pauses and my mind explodes. There’s no tongue to this kiss, just hungry lips. It knocks me off balance, and I fall to my knees, resting my hands on his shoulders.

  Nate pulls back half an inch, letting his lips hover next to mine, the warmth of his breath covering my stunned mouth. “I’m not even sorry.” He shrugs.

  My mouth opens as if it wants to speak, but I have no idea what to say.

  “Dad …”

  Nate bolts up, leaving me on my knees. “Yes?”

  “Can Hunter use—” Morgan’s eyes narrow at me, my head barely peeking over the counter. “Gracelyn, what are you doing?”

  “I’m …” I give her a tight smile.

  Nate says, “Picking up a few crumbs.”

  At the same time, I say, “Tying your dad’s shoe.”

  His explanation is much better.

  Morgan laughs. “Um … okay. You’re both acting weird.”

  I climb to my feet.

  “Can Hunter use what?” Nate asks.

  “Your bike so we can go for a bike ride.”

  “Are you going to stay around here?”

  Morgan nods. “Pinky swear. We won’t go too far.”

  “I’ll need to put the seat down for her.”

  “Yes! Thanks, Dad. I’ll go tell her.” Morgan runs out of the kitchen.

  Nate covers the cake with plastic wrap and nods to my plate with the half-eaten piece of cake. “Are you going to finish that?”

  Cake. He wants to talk about the cake?

  My head inches side to side.

  “Too good to let it go to waste.” He picks up the plate and finishes my cake.

  YOU KISSED ME!

  “By the way …” His gaze remains on the plate as he scoops up the last bite. “Morgan knows I know how to tie my own shoes.”

  “You kissed me!” I whisper yell.

  “I did.” He sets the plate in the sink and turns to look at me. “Still don’t regret it, but I won’t do it again if you didn’t like it.”

  “That’s … that’s …” I shake my head. “Not the point at all.”

  “No?” He cocks his head.

  I’m in trouble. Nearly two more months with this guy—cliff-diver, Jamie doppelgänger, kiss stealer.

  “It can never be more than a kiss.” I tip my chin up.

  “Not even a second one?”

  “Dad? Coming?” Morgan calls from the other room.

  He pushes off the counter and brushes past me, leaning next to my ear for a split second and whispering three words, “Think about it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Nathaniel

  “Bed, Squirt.”

  Morgan slips her bookmark into her book from her beanbag chair as I fold a load of laundry on the sofa. “You don’t have to tuck me in if you don’t want to.” She hugs her book to her chest.

  “What would make you think I don’t want to tuck you in?”

  Twisting her lips, she shrugs. “I just don’t want you to think I need you to do it … that you have to do it.”

  It’s official. She’s breaking my heart. I try not to let it show on my face.

  “Do you feel like you’re too old for me to tuck you into bed?”

  She won’t even look at me. Her gaze sticks to her bare feet as she rocks back and forth on them.

  I don’t want to make her feel bad. My heart wants to give her wings, not clip them. But damn … it’s hard. “So are you thinking a hug right here?”

  Her head lifts an inch at a time. Big blue eyes meet mine, and she smiles even with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. “Definitely.” She shifts her book to her right hand and wraps her arms around my neck.

  I hug her a little tighter—a little longer. “Goodnight. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Daddy.”

  Daddy.

  I’ll take it. Most of the time she calls me Dad in front of other people, but I still get Daddy when she hugs me.

  She heads up the stairs, and I put away the towels, start the dishwasher, and lock the doors. After brushing my teeth, I shrug off my shirt and start to close the shades over the door to my balcony. Just before they’re completely shut, I stop. Flipping off the light so I can get a better view, I cup my hands at my face against the glass.

  There’s a body on its back on Gracelyn’s balcony. I hope it’s her, and I hope she’s alive. Stepping out onto my balcony, I rest my forearms on the railing. “You okay?”

  “Yep.” She doesn’t move. Her gaze remains aimed at the sky, hands folded on her stomach.

  My head falls back, and I take in the starry night. “Are you sleeping outside?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have you forgiven me yet?”

  “It’s hard to forgive someone who regrets nothing.”

  I grin even though she can’t see it.

  “It’s your wife, isn’t it? I look like her. Do I kiss like she did?”

  Dropping my head, I run my hands through my hair—or lack thereof.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s hard to let go of someone when it feels …” She sighs. “When it feels like you didn’t let go. Like you had this hold on them and they just disappeared without you letting go. And they … they took a piece of you with them. Everyone else is just a piece of a different puzzle.”

  Her words play in my head for a few seconds. “I suppose, but for me, it’s been ten years. I don’t feel like I’m looking for a piece to a puzzle.”

  “Can you honestly say when you kissed me, you weren’t thinking about your wife? Because I was … I was comparing you to every man I’ve kissed before you.”

  “Yeah? Well, how did I compare?”

  I can’t see her face, but I want to believe she’s grinning as much as I am. “I’m not sure. It was too unexpected.”

  “Sounds like a solid reason to try it again.”

  Gracelyn laughs. “So two? We kiss once more, and then we’re done kissing? This is so … weird. I have never discussed kissing with any guy before you.”

  “No?”

  “No.” More chuckling. “It’s not something you discuss. You just … do it.”

  “Noted.”

  She sits up, turning to face the railing, crossing her legs in front of her. “Noted, huh? So now you’re taking notes about me? Will I make it into one of your future books? Maybe a novella about your summer in San Diego. Will you use my real name? Will you mention my great ass?”

  “Great Ass will be the chapter right after Clipper Disaster.”

  “Real funny.”

  I take a seat on the balcony, resting my back against the door and sliding my knees toward my chest. “What are you thinking about … out here, alone, staring at the stars?”

  She releases a heavy sigh. “Just … my life. How I got to this point. How I’m supposed to navigate the future with a young boy. Kyle and Emily left me with this responsibility that goes beyond feeding him three meals a day and driving him to school. I have to consider the friends he has and their influence. I have to think about his life after high school. Will I have what it takes to make sure he’s armed with everything he needs to be successful in life? Look at me. I’m not exactly the picture of success.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She’s right. I don’t.

  Easing my head back against the door, I look for my own answers in the stars. “Jenna and I agreed that we would travel the world with Morgan while she was young. We’d school her by letting her learn from life and different cultures. We wanted her to be so much greater—have so much more kn
owledge and awareness than she would have ever received inside four walls with a massive herd of her peers. So I did it … I honored our dream for Morgan even after Jenna died. Now, I have this young girl who is too smart for her own good, too mature in some ways, and cultured beyond anything ninety-nine percent of her peers could ever imagine. I’m faced with the very real possibility that she won’t fit in when she goes to school. And as much as I can get defensive and make excuses, like any kids who don’t like her are just stupid and not worth her time, the truth is she wants to fit in. Morgan doesn’t want to be different, smarter, more cultured. She wants girlfriends who will paint her nails and boyfriends who will make her smile.”

  “Nate … she will thank you for what you did. Maybe not on day one of public school, but someday she will thank you for giving her the world in the first ten years of her life. Morgan’s future is going to be so bright. I can’t even imagine how profoundly different my life would be had my parents been able to give me what you’ve given Morgan.”

  I smile even though she can’t see me. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “Absolutely. Hard truth? She’s going to get a computer, cellphone, and boyfriend, and you’ll be an afterthought.”

  Barking out a laugh, I shake my head. “Remind me not to come to you when I need my next pep talk.”

  “I’ll remind you not to come to me for anything. All my good advice and worthy pep talks are saved for Gabe. Everyone else gets the sludge from my brain, the insight from the morals of my tragic stories.”

  “The only thing tragic about you, Elvis, is that you’ve given up on men.”

  She grabs the railing and pulls herself to standing, drumming her fingers on the rail a few times. “I didn’t give up on them … they gave up on me. Night, Nate.” Gracelyn disappears into her bedroom. The door lock clicks behind her two seconds before she closes her blinds.

  “Night, Gracelyn,” I whisper, enjoying the slight cool breeze under a blanket of clear night sky.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gracelyn

  “Miss me?” I ask Gabe when he hops in the vehicle with his overnight bag.

  “It was one night.” He shuts the door and fastens his seatbelt.

  “Well, I missed you.”

  “Now you sound like my mom.”

  “Sorry.” I back out of the driveway and head toward home. After a few minutes of thinking about it, I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Actually, I’m not sorry I sounded like your mom. I’ve been so worried that I’m doing everything wrong. Maybe missing you when you’re gone overnight is actually doing something right.”

  “Um … whatever.”

  I bet he said those same two words to Emily and Kyle a lot. That makes me feel good. So far, I haven’t damaged him beyond repair.

  Eight more years, Gracelyn. You’ve got this.

  “What do you want to do today? I have the day off.”

  “I don’t care. I’m sure Morgan will decide what I do today.”

  I grin. “You don’t like Morgan?”

  He shrugs. “She’s … okay. Different.”

  “Okay is good, right?”

  Another shrug. “It’s fine. She just … I don’t know. Asks a lot of questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know …”

  I’m not sure why he starts every sentence with “I don’t know” and then follows it up with an answer that proves he does in fact know.

  “She always wants to know what I do with my other friends. And when I tell her, she asks why. She’s always hovering over my shoulder when I’m playing games. And she asked me a few days ago if I had a girlfriend.”

  “Well … maybe she likes you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “She’s … fine. Whatever.”

  “Do you like girls?”

  He whips his head in my direction. “You think I’m gay?”

  Holy shit …

  “No. I’m …” Okay. Call me naive, but I didn’t see that coming. Wow! I just showed my age and lack of knowledge about his generation. I guess ten-year-olds are more informed about sexuality than I was at his age. I’m not sure I knew what the word gay meant at ten. I’m so … out of touch.

  “I wasn’t implying that I thought you were gay. I … it’s fine if you are. And that’s just a side note. But I was meaning are you interested in girls or boys or whatever at this point? I don’t fully remember what my life was like at ten. I just remember girls were interested in boys or having boyfriends before the boys I knew even looked at girls as anything more than a forced pick on a dodgeball team in PE.”

  “I’ve had a girlfriend.”

  “Okay. Good. Great. I … I’ll just shut up now.”

  As soon as we arrive home, Morgan bolts out of her house and meets Gabe at the front door.

  “How was your slumber party?”

  “Sleepover. Not slumber party.” He rolls his eyes at her before opening the deck door.

  “What did you do? Did you stay up all night? Did you sleep in sleeping bags?”

  Gabe tosses his bag on the bottom step before heading to the kitchen. I glance around for Mr. Hans and Hunter, but they’re not here. I think he mentioned taking her shopping today.

  “Want me to make you a sandwich?” I ask Gabe.

  “I’ll make him one. What do you want?” Morgan asks.

  Gabe grabs a sports drink from the fridge. “Turkey, but I can make it.”

  My brow furrows as I watch the two of them mill around the kitchen, foraging for food. Since when did Gabe learn to make his own sandwich?

  “I’ll make lunch for both of us.” She reaches for the plates on the second floating shelf by the stove. “Gabe, grab us plates.” He sets his drink on the counter and stretches his arm toward the plates.

  I grin. He can’t reach them either. “Maybe in another year you’ll be tall enough.” I stretch my arm over them and retrieve two plates. “Go play. I’ll make your sandwiches.”

  Morgan sighs. “Fine. Let’s go, Guac.” She grabs his arm and tugs on it.

  He shoots me a look, and I wink at him. He rolls his eyes but not before cracking a tiny grin. Yeah … he likes her.

  I assemble two turkey sandwiches and cut up an apple for them to split.

  “Want to hear a secret?” Morgan asks Gabe as I climb the stairs with their plates in my hand.

  “I guess,” Gabe answers with no enthusiasm.

  “This morning my dad and I stopped by the store to pick up a few things. He let me get this huge chocolate chip muffin and it was so good, but anyway … we were in the line to pay for our groceries, and he let me hold his phone. He told me to scan through the pictures and find some I’d like to have printed in an album.”

  “That’s the secret?”

  I stop at the top of the stairs, but the floor creaks and two heads whip in my direction. “Here you go.” After handing them the plates, I ease into the recliner. Morgan’s gaze flits between her plate and me, but she doesn’t continue her story. Taking the awkward cue, I grab an empty glass from the end table and make my exit—partial exit. Descending three steps, just out of sight, I take a seat and wait for Morgan to continue her story.

  She doesn’t disappoint. “While I was scrolling through the photos on my dad’s phone, I looked up just as he was putting a box of something … oh my gosh … you’re never going to believe what … onto the counter. I was like what the? And I asked him about it as soon as we got in the car, but he said he was picking them up for Mr. Hans and that I shouldn’t say anything. So whatever you do … don’t you dare tell anyone I told you. Okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Guac! You have to pinky swear.”

  I hold in my giggle because she’s being so dramatic and secretive, but Gabe shows zero curiosity about her secret.

  “Fine. I swear.”


  It’s probably a laxative or hemorrhoid cream. I’m not sure he knows what either of those things are, but I have no doubt Ms. Smarty Pants will fully inform him. It makes me think of all the talks I need to have with him. I have no idea what Kyle and Emily taught him or what he’s learned in school or through friends. On one hand, I don’t want to overshare too early, but I also don’t want him running into too many Morgans in the world and feeling stupid when he doesn’t know about something.

  “Condoms!”

  Thump.

  Clunk.

  Thump.

  Clump.

  Crash.

  The dropped glass from my hand survives the carpeted stairs but suffers an ill fate at the bottom with the tiled floor. I drown my gasp with a hand over my mouth and fly down the stairs.

  “What was that?” Gabe calls.

  “Um … nothing. Just dropped a cup. Keep eating. No big deal.” I pick up the pieces while the word condoms echoes in my head.

  Nate bought condoms. There’s no way he bought them for Mr. Hans. No. Way.

  My head is ready to explode with clashing thoughts.

  We kissed.

  He bought condoms.

  Morgan saw them.

  She told Gabe.

  Does Gabe know what condoms are?

  Why did he buy condoms?

  Maybe they’re not for me. How many women is he kissing?

  “Whoa, what happened?” Mr. Condoms comes through the screen door.

  “Glass slipped. My fault.”

  Your fault!

  I take the larger pieces to the kitchen and toss them in the trash before retrieving the broom and dustpan from the garage.

  “Let me hold it.” Nate takes the dustpan from me.

  I do not make eye contact as I relinquish it when I sweep the mess into it or when I take it from him and head back to the kitchen.

  “Where’s Hugh?” he asks after I return the broom and dustpan to the garage.

  “Not sure. I think he agreed to take Hunter to the mall.” I wash my hands without looking at Nate and his sexy smile, his slightly fitted gray tee, or his muscly calves.

  “I see. Well, I’m taking Morgan to the ice rink. Does Gabe like to ice-skate?”

  My head snaps up, my gaze laser focused on him now. “Ice-skate?”