by Mj Fields
Her First Kiss
Londons story
MJ Fields
MJ Fields
Contents
Her First Kiss
Copyright
Disclaimer
Also By MJ Fields
To The Reader
Playlist
1. Becoming Elle
2. Love...Yourself More
3. Jocks
4. Tequil -Ya
5. Still
6. Dining out
7. Drives...Me crazy
8. She’s A Pain
9. Dining Disaster
10. Sound
11. Penith
12. Thhhhhh
13. Pre-Game Plan
14. Game Day
15. On Top
16. Unreal
17. Hate
18. A Night Worth Forgetting
19. November Rain
20. Can’t Stay Away
21. Friends-Giving
22. Thanksgiving Break
23. Cold and Cruel Winter
24. Breaking point
Coming Soon
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Her First Kiss
Firsts Series, Book 1
London’s Story
Copyright
Her First Kiss
Copyright © 2017 by MJ Fields.
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All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Disclaimer: This book contains mature content not suitable for those under the age of 18. It involves strong language and sexual situations. All parties portrayed in sexual situations are consenting adults over the age of 18.
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For information contact: [email protected]
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Cover Design and formatting by Jersey Girl & Co.
Editor by C& D Editing
Proofread by Ally Derby
Cover Model: Conor Cushing
Cover Photographer: MJ Fields
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First Edition: December 2017
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Disclaimer
Thank you for downloading/ purchasing this eBook.
This eBook and its contents are the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
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Also By MJ Fields
The Men of Steel Series
Forever Steel
Jase
Cyrus
Zandor
Xavier
Raising Steel
* * *
The Ties of Steel Series
Abe
Dominic
Eroe
Sabato
* * *
The Rockers of Steel Series
Memphis Black (Memphis and Tallia)
Finn Beckett (Finn and Sonia)
River James (River and Keanna)
Billy Jeffers (Billy and Madison)
* * *
The Match duet
Match This!
ImPerfectly Matched!
* * *
The Steel Country Series
Hammered
Destroyed
Wasted
* * *
LRAH Legacy Series
These families’ stories are intertwined starting with The Love series, they move to the Wrapped Series, the Burning Souls series, Love You Anyways, 27 Truths, and 27 Lies.
Many more series will spin off from these characters already written and each will be a standalone series but for those of us who love a story to continue I recommend reading in this order.
* * *
The Love Series
(Must Be Read In This Order)
Blue Love
New Love
Sad Love
True Love
* * *
The Wrapped Series
Wrapped In Silk
Wrapped In Armor
Wrapped In Always and Forever
* * *
Burning Souls Series
Stained
Forged
Merged
* * *
LRAH Legacy Additions
Love You Anyway
Love Notes
* * *
The Truth About Love Series
27 Truths
27 Lies
* * *
The Norfolk Series
Irons
Shadows
* * *
The Caldwell Brothers Series
(co-written w/ Chelsea Camaron)
Hendrix
Morrison
Jagger
Visibly Broken
Use Me
* * *
Standalones
Offensive Rebound
To The Reader
Firsts...
Some of us wish we could erase them, which would remove the hurt, the bittersweet memory they bring to our hearts. Some smile fondly and cherish the memory of all their firsts as they look to those they have since met. As they look to the one who took all the hidden and broken pieces of their heart, looking upon them as beauty and through love as they mended and molded those pieces into something so beautiful its scars are almost invisible. There are others who can still look beside them years later and be reminded of how far they have come together. Growing together, hurting together, building together, loving together, living together with their first and only love. Some have walked away from their first love and have lived other love stories, yet they still return to their first, and as older, stronger, wiser...hearts, they make it so much more than ever imagined.
Whichever you are, whichever love you have experienced, your first love is forever etched in your heart, irrevocably changing you.
Then there are others whose hearts are so guarded by what they have experienced and seen that they choose to observe love and never experience it firsthand. Their hearts are so big they believe they can’t handle those firsts...without losing who they are becoming or have become.
When I think of all that our hearts can survive, it is sometimes illogical that so many of us are able to smile each and every day. That makes me realize there are two stronger emotions than hurt and fear.
Love and hope.
Love of life, of self, and of others can erase any pain we have ever endured. Hope and dreams becoming reality and tomorrow being better than today can, erase yesterday’s fears.
Some may think this is entirely too optimistic, but I challenge you to look in the mirror and see the beauty in yourself. I challenge you to look upon a child, a loved one, your fur baby, and tell me that I am wrong.
To see what tomorrow holds, somedays we have to make the decision to let go of that thousand-pound invisible anchor that holds our hearts down, giving it the inability to soar as intended and LOVE ourselves more, because tomorrow’s possibilities are nothing less than beautiful.
Love, my lovelies, it is so worth it.
Hope, my friends, there is nothi
ng more powerful.
Forever Steel,
MJ
This book is dedicated to my ‘Firsts’,
My First book, Blue Love, regardless of how messy, or how much I itch to go back and tweak it, make changes, clean it up, because there are those who have no love for it, I can’t.
It was written from a place of love. It’s a beautiful mess of reality and fiction that touched so many because of its raw realism and relatability.
This is for you.
LYA and Love you more....
MJ
Playlist
Something To Talk About by Bonnie Raitt
Glad You Came by The Wanted
Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man
Black Betty by Ram Jam
What Lovers Do by Maroon 5 and SZA
Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gonna by Cinderella
Hold On by Wilson Philips
No Scrubs by TLC
Toxic by Britney Spears
Single Ladies by Beyoncé
Island In The Stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
Oops! I Did It Again by Britney Spears
Count on Me by Bruno Mars
Too Much To Ask by Niall Horan
1
Becoming Elle
London
What does a seventeen-year-old, single girl, who isn’t only a virgin, but who has never been kissed know about love? What does a seventeen-year-old who has never been on a date know about relationships? What could she possibly know about love, dating, men, and the occasional musical comparison to each?
Much, much more than one would expect.
My parents’ relationship wasn’t what one would consider good, and that’s putting it mildly. What they have both assured me was the best part—me—is a sign of that.
My name is London. It’s not your average name, and the meaning behind it should have been a warning to them that maybe their love wasn’t meant to be.
They didn’t have a lot of money, but they did well by the standards of the good ol’ American dream. For years, they saved money so they could someday take the trip of mom’s dreams to London of all places. With each failed fertility treatment, that trip became farther and farther away, and so did their desire to take the trip. In fact, that trip became less and less important, and so did their love. Their dreams changed, their paths changed.
No one knows I know the truth behind my name.
I once overheard my grandparents talking about the fact that my father, Troy, was thought to have been having an affair. Feeling guilty, he told my mom to take the London money and use it for their final shot at having me.
My name is London because the money saved for the trip ended up becoming the one treatment that resulted in a pregnancy that lasted past twenty weeks. When they told me the story, they said it was the best trip they had ever taken.
At four, I recall the muted arguments.
At five, I recall Mom reading to me for hours at night. I loved hearing the stories of princesses and princes and love. It was also then I realized my parents didn’t seem to have that kind of love. It was also then I asked my mom, “When will you find your prince, Mommy?”
Her answer was a smile that didn’t even come close to touching her eyes and the words, “I did, London. Your father.”
At six, I realized, when he had a glass of the amber liquid, he wasn’t nice, not even to me. Then I asked her the same question.
That time, she didn’t smile. She hugged me and asked, “When did you become smarter than me?”
A week later, we moved out.
Not long after that, Mom found her prince, and guess where he was from? England.
A year or so after that, my father got himself together and things were so good. Then the accident happened, and he died.
Brody, my stepfather, has and always will be a huge part of my life. And yes, I call him Dad.
My stepfather is a legend, and no, not self-proclaimed. He’s a legit rock and roll legend. The entire world knows his story. He rose from ruins to become something based on pure drive and the use of his God-given talent. He’s also pretty well-known for some sex tapes that were leaked, and his son—my brother Maddox, who is also a rock star—who Brody didn’t know about until Maddox was fifteen.
But this isn’t their story. It’s mine, and it’s about what I have learned about love.
My knowledge of love wasn’t because of growing up with two legends. It doesn’t come from my parents truly being a loving couple, or that my brother and his wife Harper are equally as loving. It doesn’t even come from the fact that I witnessed anything different from the rest of the world. Where my knowledge comes from is the ability to see the truth in it, to see the broken in it, to see the beauty in it, which means inevitably seeing the warning signs.
I feel my earbud being popped out of my ear and quickly hit save on my draft before closing my laptop.
“London,” my sister Lexington whispers.
I inhale a deep, calming breath, trying to rid the annoyance I have kept at bay for the past month. The annoyance that only a little sister can spring on, like nails on a chalkboard.
I look over and smile. “Yes, Lexi?”
She points out the window at the mall, Destiny USA in Syracuse. Then she points to our mom. “She’s being strong.”
I nod my agreement.
“But you should pay attention to her. She loves you, London.”
Lexington’s irritating know-it all statement precedes her blue-green eyes filling with tears.
Lexi’s tears don’t come often. She is a very happy and self-confident child. Even at the age of ten, she has that blind sort of confidence gained from a lifetime of love and near pain-free living.
Her tears are my weakness. The tears of anyone I love messes with my persistent—or as some may see it, tenacious and unfaltering—grip on the strength I have gained through a life of questions and life-altering lessons.
Weak, I am not. Swayed easily from my beliefs and morals, I am not. Well, not until I see tears.
Like water to Elphaba, Christine to the Phantom, and legacy to Hamilton, Lexington’s tears are all those things to me.
Her eyes now red, I’m unable to resist. I reach over and grab her hand, giving it a light squeeze and trying my best to smile.
“You should, too, then, okay?”
Her lips quiver a bit as she nods. Then one tear escapes her pretty blue-greens, a perfect combination of Mom’s and Brody’s eyes.
“I’m an hour away, Lexi. Just an hour.”
As the second tear spills down her cheek, she quickly licks it away as it hits her top lip. I am done for.
I look down at my seatbelt, reaching to unbuckle it as my hands shake in resounding fear.
When Lexi covers my hand with hers, I look up as she whispers, “You don’t have to.”
“The only reason she’s alive is because of her seatbelt,” I hear the paramedic’s voice in my head as if it were yesterday, and not ten years ago.
I lived through the accident that killed my father because I had mine on. He would have lived had he worn his.
Fear. Fear is crippling to us all. When the fear stems from an actual event, or a lesson, as I like to call them, causing a person not just the worry of what could happen, but stops them from doing what must be done in order to stop another chain of events that will inevitably cause more tears, a person needs to do what they have to.
I hit the orange button that pushes up the console between us. Then I scoot closer to Lexi and grab the seatbelt to secure me. Looking for the latch, feeling the onset of an anxiety attack, I find it in Lexington’s hand.
I push it in and wait for the click. Then I breathe in a sigh of relief as I put my arm behind my sister and she rests her head on my shoulder.
“You’ll be fine, Lex,” I whisper.
“So will you, London. You are fine.” She smiles up at me as, what I hope, the third and final tear
falls.
I lay my head atop hers and nod. “We all will be. Change isn’t easy, but it’s sometimes for the best.”
“I know,” she sighs out.
I look up to see Brody’s eyes on me in the rearview mirror. He gives me a wink, and I give him a nod. He then turns up the radio and, as if on cue, The Brody Hines Band booms through the Bose system with the latest platinum selling single, “That’s My Girl.”
I smile at him, and when he smiles back, I think, That’s my dad.
When Brody pulls up to the curb at Lawrinson Hall, I pull every strength, plus a little bit of acting ability, out of my internal box of tricks and jump out. Dragging Lexington behind me, I get wrapped up in the excitement of the next chapter in my life, knowingly wrapping her in it, as well.
We are checking-in two hours early, another perk of being Brody’s “Girl.” That’s topped with the staff and administrators at Syracuse University not wanting a riot because Brody, the normally level-headed one, the ‘rent who doesn’t let fear and emotion cloud his judgment, told the college, “Over my dead and rotting corpse will I not be here when my girl takes her first step into adulthood because an overpriced education that will inevitably amount to her using her God-given talents to make a living, and not a piece of fucking paper legitimizing who she already is, stops me from being her dad. Figure it the fuck out or you can kiss her tuition and the new theatre construction goodbye.”
