Always Series Box Set
Lindsay Becs
Contents
Always
Playlist
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part II
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Special Thanks
Always There
Playlist
Important Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Special Thanks
Promise Me Always
Playlist
Important Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Special Thanks
Always You
Playlist
Important Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Special Thanks
After Always
Playlist
Important Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Tilly’s Signature Cookies
Special Notes & Thanks
Always Bonus Epilogue
Sneak Peek of DANCE IN THE BALANCE
Other Books by Lindsay Becs
About the Author
Copyright ©2018 Lindsay Becs
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except for the use of brief quotation in a book review.
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Design: Amanda Shepard: Shepard Originals
Formatting: AB Formatting
Editing: Tricia Harden
Proofreading: Jennifer Jaks
This is for the unconventional loves.
The ones others don’t understand, but you do because it’s yours.
Fierce, strong and unwavering against all odds.
You chose love.
Always.
Playlist
Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey
Accidentally in Love – Counting Crows
At My Best – Machine Gun Kelly Ft. Hailee Steinfeld
Naked – James Arthur
Rock Bottom – Hailee Steinfeld Ft. DNCE
What About Us – Pink
Never Be the Same – Camila Cabello
Love So Soft – Kelly Clarkson
Just Breathe – Pearl Jam
Meant to Be – Bebe Rexha Ft. Florida Georgia Line
Perfect – Ed Sheeran
Penny and Me – Hanson
Part I
Chapter One
Josie
I’m belting out Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” at the top of my lungs, using the wine bottle I’m drinking straight out of as my microphone. I think I sound amazing as I sway and swivel my hips to the music blaring from the living room. Putting my microphone down for a minute, I reach over to grab an oven mitt so I can pull the tray of cookies I baked just for me from the oven. I continue to sing to my cookies like the song was written just for them.
“Yeah they will!” I hear a voice say from behind me, making me jump at the unexpected intrusion.
“Shit!” I yell, knocking my near-empty wine bottle over, the red liquid thankfully not pouring out too much. I quickly grab a towel and wipe the few red dots spotting my counter. “Travis, you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing here?” I ask because when I actually stop and look at my son’s best friend, he looks so sad.
“I came to see if I could stay here tonight.”
“Ollie and Tate are at their dad’s this weekend. Sorry dude, it’s just me here. Everything alright?” Travis Gellar has lived two houses down from us since the boys were eight. Now, ten years later, they are still the best of friends. Travis has always been like another part of our family. He’s stayed at our house at least half his life it seems.
See, Travis’ parents are weird. And when I say weird, I’m not being mean. His dad works a lot and travels frequently, and while he’s gone, Trav’s mom is usually “entertaining.” I’m pretty sure she’s an escort, but I’ve never looked into it enough to find out for sure. They both checked out of his life at a young age, allowing him to go do anything he wanted way before a kid should have liberties like that.
Our house has always been his haven when they’re gone, when they fight, when there are strangers in his living room, and everything in between. There’s never been judgment or questions, just an open door for him. Always. Because a child should always have a place to feel safe, and if he wasn’t getting that at home, then I wanted him to always know he had it here.
“Oh...” He drops his head in defeat, and I feel my heart drop with him.
“You can still stay if you want, but it’s just me,” I say shrugging my shoulders.
“Well, you and all your babies, right?” He nods toward my tray of cookies with a smirk.
“You lit
tle shit!” I laugh, throwing my towel at him.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a dollar for the swear jar already, Mrs. D.” He quirks his eyebrow at me.
“One wasn’t my fault; you scared me. I’ll put in fifty cents,” I fight back with my hand on my hip.
“How about I’ll give you a pass for the night if you let me stay and share your cookies with me?” He wags his eyebrows, and my eyes widen at the sexual innuendo I know is in there. “The chocolate chip cookies you’re baking, you perv,” he adds, reaching past me to grab a cookie from the rack on the counter behind me.
“I need more wine,” I grumble under my breath as I turn away, hearing him moan as he takes a bite of cookie before he starts laughing.
“This your dinner?”
“You even think about telling Oliver and Tatum and I will cut you.”
His hands go up in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“We can order pizza if you want. I was just going to have fruit and cookies for dinner and maybe watch a movie or twelve.”
“Fruit?”
I hold up the new bottle of wine I’m uncorking to show him I meant fermented fruit. “Ah. Got it. Feel like sharing?”
It’s my turn to quirk an eyebrow at him.
“It was worth a shot,” he says, hopping up on the counter next to where I’m pouring my fruit into a glass this time. I can’t show all my secrets, you know.
“So, you want pizza?”
“If you don’t mind. I haven’t eaten all day,” he says, dropping his head and reaching for another cookie.
“Trav, what have I told you about that? I’m proud of you for working so hard at the shop, but you gotta eat. If you need help with groceries, you tell me.”
Travis is anything but a lazy teen. He’s at school every day, pulling good grades while starting on the football team. He works after school and weekends at the car repair shop in town, learning a trade to basically provide for himself.
He lets out a sigh, his head leaning back and hitting the cupboard behind him. “I just need out.”
“You have, what, two months left until graduation? Enjoy it. Try to be a kid. You’ve got prom soon, and then it’s the real world. Enjoy being a kid these last months. Trust me, being an adult sucks.”
“I don’t care about that stuff though. I just want out of that house, to be on my own and moving forward.”
I give him a weak smile and pat his leg, knowing nothing I say is going to change how he feels about his home situation, and I can’t even blame him for that.
“What do you want on your pizza?”
“Meat lovers?”
“How about supreme? Then you’ll get some vegetables, and I won’t feel as bad for feeding you junk food.”
“Deal.” He jumps off the counter and crushes my body to his in a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispers in my ear.
“Anytime, Trav. Always.”
We order pizza, make more cookies, and laugh. Because we both needed a relaxed night of laughter. Travis has his shitty home life, and my kids are meeting my ex-husband’s new girlfriend, Candy, this weekend.
Adam, my ex, and I had a rough hand dealt to us, but I thought we were stronger for it. I was wrong. He left me after I found out he’d been cheating on me not only while we dated, but also for the eleven years we were married.
We were high school sweethearts who got pregnant young. I had Oliver when I was fifteen. Adam stayed with me through it all. We both worked so hard, with a huge amount of help and support from our parents and graduated high school. We got married right after we graduated, and Adam got an academic scholarship to a college not far from our hometown. He went to school full time, and I worked nights. It was hard, but we did it.
Things were great. After earning his degree, Adam landed an amazing job at an advertising agency. We had to move, but it was worth it. The pay was amazing, and we were able to buy our first house, the one I’m sitting in now, about a year after we moved to Graves. The whole process of buying a house intrigued me so much that I got my license to be a realtor.
Then we got a surprise that we were expecting again. I had already had three miscarriages, but this time I gave birth to a beautiful girl, Tatum. Tatum, who’s now nine, and Oliver are nine years apart in age but are as close as siblings can be with that much of an age difference.
As excited as I was to have another baby, a baby we’d been trying for for years, it put a huge strain on our marriage to start over again with a newborn. Adam started coming home less and less. I never knew where he was, and it terrified me. I finally started digging into his personal stuff and found that he had several online dating accounts and had been ‘dating’ behind my back for years. When I confronted him about it, he said he’d never loved me, but I was the easy family he needed to put on the façade for work. But at home I was too fat, not pretty enough, didn’t dress nice enough, was horrible at sex and couldn’t do anything right. Nice, huh? He had already moved his girlfriend at the time into another house. Apparently, he was going to double life it, but me finding out made things easier for him. Even though it’s been three years since we divorced, it still hurts.
I got to keep the house, I get alimony since he was a big fat cheater, and the kids most of the time. But two weekends a month, they stay with him. They usually hate it, but unfortunately, they don’t have a choice, court mandated and all.
So that brings us to where I am now, my ex’s new girlfriend that my kids are meeting at their weekend visit. I deal so well with this stuff, hence the fruit and cookies for dinner and why the easy laughs with Travis are nice.
I’m feeling all emotional now though. I don’t know if it’s the almost two bottles of wine I drank or the fact that Jerry McGuire is about to say that Dorothy Boyd completes him, but I’m about to lose my shit. I can feel the sting in my nose and tears pooling in my eyes.
“Mrs. D? Are you—”
“Don’t fucking call me that!” I snap as a sob erupts from me. I curl into myself and cover my face with my blanket, not wanting Travis to see me like this. I’m supposed to be the strong mom, not the broken woman crying on the couch.
“I… I’m sorry. I… Do you, um, do you want me to get you more wine or something?”
I snort out a laugh. “No. I definitely do not need more wine, Travis. Clearly, I’ve had too much. I just hit the weepy drunk stage.” I sniff and shift to pull the blanket down a little so I can see him. He looks lost as he stands over me, and I feel bad for making him feel anything but safe and comfortable. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Trav. But you have to stop calling me that. I might not have changed my name, but I am anything but Mrs. Duncan here. Call me Josie. You’ve known me ten years and are about to be an adult. You can call me Josie now.”
I watch as he bites his lip between his teeth and fights the smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He looks so cute all flustered, not knowing what to do. Wait, what? Did I just think he looks cute? Oh damn. I have definitely had too much to drink. I clear my throat, wipe my eyes and sit up, pretending to watch the end of the movie.
I feel the couch give as he sits next to me. “Josie?” I slowly blink at the way he says my name, and it sends tingles throughout my body. “You know I’m already an adult, right?” I turn to him then, confused with brows bunched, not understanding. “You said I’m about to be an adult, but I’ve been eighteen for six months. I am an adult. I might still be in high school, but I am an adult.”
“Oh. Yeah,” are the only words I manage to say as my heart begins beating out of my chest and I’m not sure what the hell is going on or why I’m feeling really confused right now. And hot. I feel hot everywhere.
He reaches up and brushes a piece of hair behind my ear with a smirk before adding, “I just wanted to be sure you knew that. Josie.”
With my eyes wide in surprise and my heart still beating hard, I nod my head in understanding before turning back to watch the rest of the movie. It doesn’t take long before drunkenness meets s
leep.
TRAVIS
I’m having the hottest dream ever and feel like I’m going to blow at any second. I’m rubbing against the sweetest ass I’ve ever encountered. Her sweet scent of lavender and honey is making my senses go wild as I take in a deep inhale because I can’t get enough. I reach around the front of the girl in my dream, skimming my hand up her curves and over her soft skin. When I reach her full breasts, her nipples are already hard. I softly play with the underside of one before I run my finger between them, finally ending at her nipple that I roll between my finger and thumb. I’m hard as stone from the feel of her in my hands. She’s so responsive to every touch and trace of my fingers on her soft skin. I have her going, and she’s pushing back into my erection as I grind into her harder from behind. I switch to her other breast, not wanting it to feel left out, and kiss the side of her neck. My tongue traces her outer ear, and I hear her moan from all the sensations I’m giving her.
Always Series Box Set Page 1
