Fool for Love (Believe #2)

by Karen Ferry

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, places, media, and incidents are either the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referred to in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission.

  The publication/use of these trademarks are not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods) without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 by Karen Ferry

  Stock Photos: Dollar Photo Club and Stocksy

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  Cover Designer: Louisa Maggio © LM Creations

  Editor: Another Pair Editing & Proofing

  Proofreading: Amanda Maria

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Quote

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Make Me Believe” (Believe #1).

  Do it with passion or not at all…

  Unknown

  For Suzane

  May your inner light always shine bright.

  I love you.

  Author’s Note

  Well, then. Suzy’s story is here at last.

  This second book of mine has been challenging, heartaching, and, in some ways, very difficult to write, but I hope that you will see that it is a true labour of love – that these two characters have become so very dear to me.

  When I first began to write “Fool For Love”, I had no idea how much of a wild rollercoaster ride I was in for. I believed that Suzy’s journey would be a fairly easy one to reveal – but, wow, was I wrong about that. As I delved deeper and deeper into her and Garrett’s journey, I realised that these characters both had so many layers that it would take a long time before their story would see the light of day.

  And it has.

  It has been eight months since I published my first book, “Make Me Believe”, and I know that my loyal readers have been waiting (im)patiently for me to finish writing this very important book. But since I began my writing career, I have said what so many of my author friends also keep saying – and it is not something that we should ever apologise for.

  I cannot publish a book that I do not feel is ready for the public eye.

  But now that it is? I could not be happier with the way it has turned out, and I hope you will feel the same once you get to know Suzy and Garrett better.

  Theirs is not only a love story – although that factor is a major one, as romance is my preferred genre to write; it is also a story about being lost, wandering here and there without any real sense of direction, and becoming increasingly anxious about not moving forward in life. It is a story about finding hope and light when all you ever knew before was sorrow and darkness.

  Lastly, “Fool For Love” is a story about how you get rid of the perceived notions that society is so fond of labeling certain people – to find the courage within to stop letting society rule your choices in life. Because there should be no labels when it concerns matters of the heart.

  Love is love.

  The End.

  Thank you, as ever, for reading my work. It truly does mean the world to me.

  Much love,

  Karen Ferry.

  I CHUCKLE AS MY best friend in the whole world hugs me tightly.

  “Come now, Emma, I'm going to New York, not Timbuktu.”

  She sniffles and only increases her hold around me. I would be lying if I said I wasn't equally fit to burst into tears at this very moment, but I try to hold them at bay.

  “Suzy…What am I going to do without you?” she whispers.

  I wink at Daniel who's standing behind her, quietly rubbing a hand on her back in support.

  “Let Daniel take your mind off me being away as much as possible, of course.”

  A broken laugh escapes her. At last she pulls away from me, smiling wobbly at me.

  I tuck a stray hair that’s escaped her messy bun away from her cheek, pushing it behind her ear.

  “We still have Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp,” I try to reassure her, quickly dabbing at the tears now falling freely from my eyes. Blast!

  Emma nods and then looks briefly at Daniel, who smiles gently at her before he takes her hand, interlacing their fingers. The love he holds for my BFF is clear for all to see; and while there was a time I might have felt a sliver of jealousy from seeing it, I am beyond happy for my dear friend. She deserves all the happiness in the world, and Daniel is her perfect match.

  Briskly, I step towards Daniel and kiss him on the cheek.

  “Take care of her, please,” I whisper in his ear, not wanting Emma to hear me.

  He nods as I step back and tucks Emma close to his side.

  The airport is crowded, as usual, and butterflies swarm my tummy from the thought of the trip I'm about to embark on.

  New York City. The Big Apple. The world's biggest metropolis awaits me.

  My phone rings, startling me, and I look at the Caller-ID. But when I see the word ‘Mum’ shining back at me, I press the red button to end it. She’s the last person I want to talk to right now.

  “Who was it?” Emma asks me.

  “My mother.” Briskly, I wipe at my wet cheeks, and with a heavy heart, I turn off my phone and put it back in my pocket.

  “Don’t you think you should phone her before you leave?” Daniel’s kind voice makes me want to cry again, but I grit my teeth as I shake my head at him.

  “No. I don’t want to talk to her. She’s the reason I’m going on this trip, after all.”

  He opens his mouth, but gives up when I give him a hard stare. He nods, eyes sad, but I won’t relent. My heart is heavy, but I need to distance myself from my parents for a while.

  “Now, are you absolutely sure that you have a place to stay when you arrive in New York?”

  I grin at Emma and her mother-hen-like question.

  “Yes, I’m sure. Please don’t worry about me, Em. I’ll be fine.”

  I take the handle of my suitcase as the speaker announces that it's time to go through secur
ity.

  “Well.” I smile brightly at my friends. “I best get going.”

  “Don't forget to text me the minute you land,” Emma reminds me. I give her a mock salute.

  “I'd never forget that, honey.”

  I inhale deeply and hold my breath for a few seconds before I let it out. I turn away to head in the opposite direction, the hustle and bustle of the other travellers sounding all around me. The anticipation everyone feels while about to go on a trip is palpable; I can almost smell the excitement I see on the faces around me, and it strengthens my own. Finally, I’m about to go on an adventure. At last, I will get some answers. Or at least I hope I will.

  I haven't walked far when Emma calls out, “Suzy!”

  I stop and turn to look at her.

  She blows a kiss at me and yells, “Don't kiss too many frogs while you're gone, sweetie. Take your time to find your Prince Charming.”

  I giggle and roll my eyes fondly at her.

  “But I enjoy kissing frogs!” I shout back.

  She snorts and waves at me. Daniel kisses her cheek and I smile at the gesture.

  I turn around again to head to a future I can't wait to meet.

  New York…here I come. I hope you're ready for me.

  Three months later

  NEW YORK CITY. THE Big Apple. The city that never sleeps.

  The metropolis that brought me Carrie Bradshaw and Sex & The City, making me fall under the illusion that that was what real life here would be like. Such a fantasy.

  Call me naïve, but I thought that coming here would lead me to a realisation of what I am supposed to do with my life. New York was meant to be an adventure – a wonderful experience and an opportunity for me to explore the real me. But so far, I have been left with more questions than answers.

  When will I know who the real Suzy is?

  When will the questions stop?

  Our mothers teach us that once we grow up, we will find the answers; that we become tougher, smarter, and wiser by each year. Or that’s what my mum told me, at least. I wonder if she has ever truly believed that, because telling her my secrets – my hopes and fears for the future – didn’t have the desired effect. Far from it, actually. Maybe we didn’t have the kind of relationship like most mothers and daughters have while I grew up, but I thought she would accept me…all of me; I never thought that I would hear such awful things coming out of her mouth like I did three months ago. No, instead, I thought that coming out as bi wasn’t something that I should keep from my own parents.

  Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong, apparently.

  The really hard thing to swallow here is the fact that by going off as she did – calling me abnormal – and the subsequent revelation about my whole reason for existing planted small seeds of doubt about myself and my sexuality. I haven’t felt like that in a really long time, and a part of me hates her for having that much power over me even though I’m a grownup.

  Life in Denmark wasn’t so bad, really, but I needed to get away. I wanted to go on an adventure. But this adventure hasn’t turned out the way I expected it to so far. Am I meant to keep dithering around, always searching for the lost piece of the puzzle that is…me? Forever questioning my hopes and dreams?

  If that is the case, I am so disappointed with life – and I fear my dreams will float away, like ashes in the breeze.

  How depressing.

  I’m usually the upbeat, happy-go-lucky girl. The one who tries to find something positive in every situation, but here’s the thing: I’m a good liar. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. In fact, I think I’ve become such a great con artist that I no longer know the truth from the lie.

  I need to find a way out. If I don’t, I will be lost forever.

  The first time I kissed another girl – a real kiss, one that involved lots of tongue and boob grabbing – I was fifteen years old. Her name was Isabelle, and she was very sure of herself. I wasn’t. I’d kissed a couple of boys before, and I knew I fancied them. But then Isabelle came into my life, and I started to have some very sexual thoughts and feelings about her that confused the hell out of me. The way my heart galloped away in my chest when she was near – just like it did when I was crushing on a boy – was familiar, yet so different at the same time. It felt forbidden, in a way, but liberating. I tried to not let it show how I felt whenever she noticed me staring at her; or whenever her arm brushed mine when she was my partner in our physics class – or how I would get lost counting the freckles on her nose, daydreaming about kissing every single one of them – because I never thought that she might feel the same as I did. I never dreamed that she was crushing as hard on me as I was on her.

  One night, though, changed everything.

  It was towards the end of the school year, and I was at a friend’s party. It was very low key, but the guy hosting it had nicked some beers from his parents – or that’s what he said – and my classmates were feeling rebellious. So was I. I’d had a couple of beers even though I knew I wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol yet. I remember feeling less shy and awkward as usual, and the buzz in my head, and the good music sounding around me, made me bold. When I saw Isabelle standing at the CD player, smiling at me in a way that made my belly flip, I got up from my seat on the couch and went to chat with her.

  I can’t remember one single thing of that conversation. The only thing I do remember is the way her eyes lit up in a way I’d never seen before when I went to her. The alcohol made me brave, and when I reached her side, I stood as close to her as I could get. At some point, she took my hand in hers, interlacing our fingers, and that’s when I felt it – as if a piece of me that I’d unknowingly been searching for suddenly just clicked into place.

  When she leaned down to whisper in my ear – she was a lot taller than me – I held my breath, and her words were the sweetest ones I’d ever heard come out of a person’s mouth.

  “I want to kiss you, Suzy. Will you let me?”

  I nodded, struck mute for once, and my breaths came out hard and fast. She glanced around us, and then led me out of the basement and into a bathroom right next to it. Pulling me inside behind her, she quickly locked the door before turning on the light.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl before?” she whispered as she backed me up against the door, and all I could do was shake my head in silence.

  “Mmm,” she sighed as she put her arms around my waist, and then leaned down, but stopped when our lips were only inches apart. Her questioning eyes met mine, and I just knew, right down to my soul, that she was silently asking me if I was okay. I put my hand on her cheek, and she smiled softly at me. When her lips met mine, slow at first, then more urgent, a heat unlike any I had felt before surged through me, and I became lost in the sensations her kiss made me feel.

  I wasn’t the same after that night. Even when Isabelle never approached me again after our forbidden kiss in that basement, leaving me slightly broken-hearted, did I regret it. I knew that I was different from most of the teens at the posh school I was attending, but you didn’t talk about ‘such things’, so I couldn’t know for sure. When I realised that I still fancied boys, I spent a lot of time trying to find out if I had any preferences.

  Practice makes perfect, after all.

  It turns out that while I love having sex with with women, I fancy men the most. There’s just something a little more special, I guess, when I’m with the other sex in an intimate way. I love their strength – their hands that can be both soft and rough on my body – and I definitely love that specific part of their anatomy that they have between their legs.

  Or so I thought up until a couple of months ago.

  A woman's touch is so much different from that of a man's.

  She instinctively knows where and when to move softly or quickly; where your body is the most sensitive; and, in general, she knows how important foreplay is. Furthermore, when a woman goes down on you? She doesn't have to search long and hard for where your lady bits are.

 
; Why don't men ask more questions during sex? It must be so much easier to know what you're doing instead of fumbling around all the time?

  Unless they think that's sexy, of course.

  Oh lord…if that is the case, the male population is in a whole lot of trouble!

  I'm lying on my bed, Morgan tucked close to my side, and I take in her gorgeous body while she sleeps. Her shapely bottom, her perky breasts, the curve of her long neck – where strands of her red hair rest – her rosy cheeks, still a bit flushed from our hot and heavy make-out session; and at this very moment, I wish that there could be more between us than the casual fuck we indulge in from time to time.

  And yet…I can't. I can't pretend to be in love with her when I know I'm not.

  Sighing, I rub my tired eyes and look to my right, out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the loft I'm renting while here in New York. I don’t know what time it is, but the sun is setting, shining softly on the trees and the remaining leaves. Fall has arrived, and while I love the golden and reddish colours, I wish it wouldn't be so cold already. These few, short months in New York have been amazing – an experience like I’d hoped for – but I haven’t found love like I’d hoped I would. While I haven't been kissing as many frogs as Emma feared, I haven’t held back, and I'm becoming more and more impatient. Why is love eluding me?

  Morgan is like me in many ways; we met in a club in Soho soon after I arrived, and when she chatted me up and found out about my love for interior design, we clicked right away. It turned out that she is a fashion designer and runs her own little business in Chelsea. She's gorgeous, funny, and I like that she tells things the way she sees them – no holds barred. She comes from Houston, Texas, and I love how she says ‘y’all’ all the time. And she understands that while I find her sexy as hell, and I like getting together when the need strikes me, I don't feel that way about her…sometimes, I really wish I did.

  I groan inwardly, annoyed with myself and my stubborn heart that’s unable to just do as it’s told.