Searching for Neverland
By Monica Alexander
Copyright 2013 by Monica Alexander
ISBN: 978-1-3017-1195-6
Cover Image: Copyright PhotoAlto / www.fotosearch.com Stock Photography
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or personals, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
About the Author
Playlist
Chapter 1
“I hate guys,” I growled as I shut the front door and leaned my head back against it.
Having just been on my fifth dead-end first date in as many weeks, I was seriously starting to think that being single for the rest of my life might not be such a bad option. Where, I ask you, did all the good men go? When I was twenty-two, there seemed to be a plethora of them. Now, from where I stood, rapidly edging toward thirty, there seemed to be seriously slim pickings – or maybe I was just a magnet for the worst men on the planet.
“Hey, what did I do?” I heard from the kitchen and jumped a mile.
I wasn’t expecting to actually get a response to my rhetorical statement since I thought no one was home. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. I would have recognized that southern-accented voice anywhere.
As if on cue, my roommate Josh rounded the corner from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in his hand and milk dripping from his chin. Typical Josh.
I couldn’t help the grin that crept up on my face. He was such a mess, but I loved that something as simple as him having milk on his chin could turn my pissy mood around.
“Thank you,” I said, perplexing him further, as his eyebrows knitted together.
“Um, okay,” he said, as he wiped his chin with sleeve of his long sleeve t-shirt.
“Shitty date, that’s all,” I told him, as I kicked off the heels I was wearing and made a face at them. They’d been pinching my feet for the past few hours. “I think I might just stop dating. It would definitely be preferable to the agony of going out on these dead-end dates all the time.”
It literally pained me to think of the perfectly good hours I’d lost going out with duds. Why couldn’t I meet someone who was at least fun? Or someone who was really hot who just wanted casual sex? I would be amendable to that at this point.
Josh chuckled and pointed at me with his spoon. “That is exactly why I don’t go on dates with women I’ve only met for five minutes.”
“Ha, ha,” I said, as I pushed past him and went to sit down in the living room.
He’d been giving me shit all week for accepting a date with tonight’s guy soon after meeting him the previous weekend. I’d met him at O’Donnell’s, my uncle’s bar, where Josh worked as a bartender/manager, and he’d been behind the bar at the time I’d been talking to the cute guy who’d occupied the barstool next to mine while my friend Casey was in the bathroom. The guy was sweet, and he told me I was pretty, and to my credit, I was heavily intoxicated, so I didn’t see the flaws in him that I might have noticed had I been sober – namely that he was shorter than me and mind-numbingly boring.
And my sweet and considerate roommate hadn’t thought to tell me any of these things. He thought it was funnier for me to figure them out on my own. Love him for that.
Josh followed me into the living room and flopped down into the armchair. He stuffed a heaping spoonful of cereal into his mouth and said something that wasn’t the least bit coherent.
“Are you eating my cereal?” I asked him, already knowing the answer.
He grinned, then finished chewing, and swallowed. “Yes,” he said, and gave me the look he always gave me when he did something bad. It was a mix between puppy dog eyes and little boy innocence, and he knew I couldn’t resist it.
“Jerk,” I muttered, but I wasn’t the least bit upset. My roommates knew how much of a cereal fiend I was, but I was willing to share when they asked nicely – or shamefully begged for forgiveness after pilfering my supply.
“I was hungry,” Josh said so pathetically, as if he was a starving orphan.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Do you want me to make you a bowl?” he offered.
I shook my head. “No, but I’d love a beer.”
“You got it,” he said, setting his cereal bowl on the coffee table. “Go change, and then you can come back down and tell me all about your crappy date.”
I wasn’t sure why Josh was home, since he was supposed to go out with his friends that night, but I was sure glad he’d decided to stay in.
Five minutes later, I came back down the stairs wearing yoga pants and my favorite Gators t-shirt from college. I settled onto the couch, crossed my legs under me, and pulled my long blond hair back into a messy bun as Josh tossed me a can of Coors Light.
“Bless you,” I said, popping it open and taking a huge swig. “So no big plans tonight?”
Even though it was only ten o’clock, he was wearing gray basketball shorts and a white Atlanta Braves t-shirt, and his light brown hair was damp, as if he’d recently showered, so I knew he wasn’t going out.
He shook his head and stretched his legs out in front of him on the coffee table. “Sean and Cole were going to Channelside, but I haven’t had a night off in a while, and the idea of spending my night in a bar seemed less than appealing.”
Josh had worked at the Irish pub my Uncle Stu owned for the past three years, which happened to back directly up to our house. In addition to bartending, he’d started managing the day shift the year before, and a girl named Chelsea had been the night manager. But in May, Chelsea had finished her degree and had gotten a job in her field, so Josh had picked up some of her shifts while he’d hired and trained a new night manager. He’d had been working close to seventy hours a week for the past month, so I knew he was beat.
“I wish I would have stayed in with you tonight,” I
said wistfully.
“So what was wrong with tonight’s guy?” he asked, cutting right to the chase.
He’d heard my complaints about the last four guys I’d dated – toxic bad breath, did a line of coke during our date, had a distractingly large Adam’s apple, and talked about his mom during most of dinner – so it made sense that Josh was serving as my dating sounding board for tonight’s dud.
“He was short,” I said, shrugging as I took another sip of my beer. “And he had garlic breath, and he was really, really boring.”
“How short?” Josh asked, making a face.
“Shorter than me,” I said, as if it was all that was needed to be said.
Josh made a face. He didn’t date girls taller than him, but of course, at 6’1”, he didn’t find many girls taller than him, so it was kind of a moot point. I was only 5’6”, so shorter than me was short.
“And he had garlic breath?” he questioned, raising his eyebrows. I knew sometimes my dating stories were out there, but I swear, they were all true. I usually dated weirdos, bottom line.
I sighed. “Yeah, he’d eaten Italian for lunch, and he was discreetly burping it up all throughout our date. I felt bad for him, and I probably would have let that slide had he not been soooo dull,” I said, letting my head fall back against the couch.
“Are you sure you weren’t being too picky?”
I glared at Josh, but in his defense, I’d let guys go for lesser annoyances and had been accused more than once of not giving a guy a chance and being too judgmental too early in the dating process. But I hadn’t done that with tonight’s guy. Just thinking of the conversation we’d had about 401ks and stocks that I’d been forced to sit through made me want to take a long nap.
“No, I was not being too picky,” I retorted.
So Josh raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, go on, and I knew he didn’t believe me.
I shook my head. “He shared his five year plan with me, which included making partner at his law firm, getting married and having two kids.”
“In five years?!” Josh questioned, and I knew he finally understood.
Most of our other friends were looking forward to settling down and having families, including our roommate, Allison, who was Josh’s younger sister and my best friend. She dreamed about the day she could marry Corey, her boyfriend of four years, and start popping out kids. For me, that concept was terrifying. Sure, I wanted to get married, but kids wouldn’t be in the cards for several years. I was still trying with everything in me to hang on to my youth, and I knew Josh, who had a bit of a Peter Pan complex himself, was doing the same. Hell, he didn’t even have a real job, he loved sleeping in, staying out late, and he hadn’t ever had a girlfriend in the three years we’d lived together. He was nowhere close to settling down.
“Eesh,” Josh said, mock shivering at the thought of having kids. “He really told you that on your first date?”
“Oh yeah,” I confirmed, my eyes going wide. “It was one of the first things he told me, as if it was supposed to entice me or something.”
Josh gave me a knowing look, and I knew what he was thinking. He was two years older than me, so he’d dated a few girls around his age who were watching their biological clocks like hawks. I knew it freaked him out when a girl he’d just started seeing brought up marriage and kids, or even co-habitation. It was why he’d switched to primarily dating girls in their early twenties over the past year.
I sighed. “I know, I’m weird. I should have been thrilled that he didn’t want to be a bachelor forever and just use me for sex, but I couldn’t do it. All I could picture was this boring life where I stayed home with our kids and he went to work and came home expecting dinner on the table. I freaked.”
“Oh, so you’re going to be a stay at home mom when you two get hitched?” Josh joked.
I nodded. “Oh yeah. He doesn’t want his wife to work,” I said pointedly. “How do I know this? He told me. Right after the waiter took our order. Let’s just say it set the mood for the rest of the date.”
Not that I was opposed to eventually staying home with my kids, when I eventually had them, but I was in the middle of getting my MBA, so I sort of figured I might want to do something with it before giving up my career for a family. And I liked to work.
But none of that mattered, since I wouldn’t be seeing short, dull, garlicky guy again. It was a non-issue.
“So, no goodnight kiss, I assume?”
I made a face, imagining how gross that kiss would have tasted. “You assume correct. I told him I’d had a long week, was really tired, and bolted as soon as I could.”
“Nice,” Josh said, as he finished his beer. “Way to avoid conflict.”
“It’s what I do best,” I said, as I folded my arms across my chest. “Next time I’m getting hit on, can you do me a favor and just tell the guy you’re my boyfriend? Please?”
“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “If I’m there, I’ll definitely lie for you, but just so I’m clear, do you think we should make-out for a little bit after we tell the guy, you know, just to be sure it seems legitimate?”
“If I could reach you, I’d smack you,” I threatened. “That’s gross.”
He opened his mouth in mock-offense. “I’ll have you know I am an extremely good kisser.”
“Been there, done that, and you’re not even in my top ten.”
“Hey now. I was sixteen,” he defended. “My kissing has improved tremendously since then.”
Yeah, Josh was my first kiss. I had such a crush on him back when I was fourteen and he was sixteen, and I thought I was so cool when I got to kiss him on a dare. It had been sloppy and clumsy, but at the time, having no point of reference, it was the best kiss ever.
“Well, I will just have to take your word for it, because I have no plans of experiencing that again,” I said, as I got up to walk to the kitchen. “You want another?”
“Yes, please,” he called back to me. “Hey, a guy can try, right?”
“I give you an ‘A’ for effort. Personally, I blame Casey,” I said, changing the subject, as I walked back into the living room and dropped his beer in his lap and settled onto the arm of his chair.
“For what?”
“If she hadn’t gone to the bathroom at that moment, I never would have met boring guy.”
Josh laughed. “Right. I’m sure it’s totally her fault. It wasn’t like you could have said no when he asked for your number.”
I ignored his logical suggestion. “Or, maybe it’s your fault,” I ventured. “You should have told me he was not worth my time since you were stone cold sober at the time and could have been a good friend and stopped the madness. Or maybe I need to talk to Stu about having a better screening process for customers at the bar.”
Josh laughed. “Hey, we don’t check Douchebag IDs at the door. If they’re over twenty-one and have a valid driver’s license, we let them in, no questions asked. We also don’t screen for boring or discriminate on height. Short guys need love too, you know.” He raised his eyebrows at me in challenge.
“Not from me they don’t,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Good thing I’m not short,” he said after a few seconds, and I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. He was looking up at me endearingly. “Wanna mess around?”
“Jeez, desperate much?” I teased him.
“Only to get into your pants,” he said, raising his eyebrows in suggestion a few times as he looked up at me.
“Oh sweetie, keep dreaming,” I said, as I hauled myself up and settled back onto the couch.
Josh smirked at me. “Oh, I will,” he said suggestively, and if I had something to throw him, I would have.
We flirted like that all the time, but both of us knew it was harmless. Since he’d moved back to Tampa and become my roommate, we’d spent a lot of time together, so it was only natural that we’d become close. Allison was gone most of the time, playing house with Corey, so it was usually just Josh and me
. We sort of had developed a love/hate, best friend relationship that included making frequent inappropriate sexual innuendos to each other.
But we’d never hooked up. Not once, even in all the times we’d been drunk off our asses together. He’d never once made a play for me, and I’d never thought about making a play for him. We were all talk.
But for as long as I’d known him – I’d been best friends with Allison since the third grade – Josh and I didn’t really grow close until we became roommates. Because he was older than us, he basically ignored us while we’d been growing up, but he’d been hot, and I’d ogled him from afar for years. Then one fateful night, the summer before ninth grade, he invited Allison and me to hang out with him and his friends. And when we were playing truth or dare, I got dared to kiss him. And it was amazing.
I hoped desperately something would spark up between us, and for the next two years while we were all in high school together, I kept that hope alive. But even though I saw him frequently, since I was over at Allison’s all the time, we didn’t really hang out much or even talk. He had his own friends and his own life. And even though I knew deep down that he wasn’t interested in me, I still held out hope that our kiss had made a lasting impression on him and one day he’d walk up to me in the cafeteria and profess his love. It never happened.
Yeah, I know, big shocker.
Then Josh graduated from high school and moved north to attend the University of Georgia, and I realized I needed to give up my crush and date boys my own age. I saw him occasionally when he was home for school breaks, but we rarely hung out together. And then I just occasionally heard about what was going on in his life through what Allison shared since he moved to Atlanta after graduating college. But by that point, any feelings I’d harbored for Josh Nolan had flitted away into nothing.
Then three years ago, he’d finally decided to come back to Florida when his dad had an unexpected heart attack. Since we had an extra room in our house, it only made sense that he would move in, and then I got him a job working at my uncle’s bar. I figured our cohabitation would be temporary, but Josh never moved out. And I can’t lie. I love living with him.
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