by Casey Diam
Bad Choices and Heartaches
Casey Diam
Table of Contents
Also by Casey Diam
1. Gabby
2. Gabby
3. Ryker
4. Gabby
5. Ryker
6. Gabby
7. Ryker
8. Ryker
9. Gabby
10. Ryker
11. Gabby
12. Ryker
13. Gabby
14. Ryker
15. Gabby
16. Ryker
17. Gabby
18. Ryker
19. Gabby
20. Ryker
21. Gabby
22. Ryker
23. Gabby
24. Ryker
25. Gabby
26. Gabby
27. Ryker
28. Gabby
29. Ryker
30. Gabby
31. Ryker
32. Gabby
33. Ryker
34. Ryker
35. Gabby
36. Ryker
37. Ryker
38. Gabby
39. Ryker
40. Gabby
41. Ryker
42. Ryker
43. Gabby
44. Gabby
45. Ryker
46. Gabby
47. Ryker
48. Gabby
49. Ryker
50. Gabby
51. Gabby
52. Ryker
Epilogue
Thanks For Reading
Can You Hear It (Alpen Springs #1)
Sneak Peek (Things That Matter Book 1)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About the Author
Also by Casey Diam
Romantic Suspense
Things That Matter Trilogy
Trust
Hope
Love
New Adult
Alpen Springs Series
Can You Hear It
Bad Choices and Heartaches
Copyright © 2020 by Casey Diam
All rights reserved. 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. For permission requests, please contact [email protected]. Thank you for supporting writers and respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Okay Creations.
Copyeditor: AW Editing
Proofreader: The Passionate Proofreader
www.caseydiam.com
Chapter 1
Gabby
Five years ago . . .
“Sean, stop!” I yelled at my older brother as he held my forearms, dragging me into the living room. “You’re going to mess up my nails. They aren’t dry yet! Mom!”
I’d painted my nails with pink polish to attract a certain boy’s attention. The problem now though was that my brothers wanted me to go snowboarding after the dump we had overnight.
I would jump at the chance any other day, but I really liked this boy in my class, and since tomorrow was Monday, and Dylan only went for the girly girls, this seemed like the best way for him to notice me.
Mom came out with her purse and car keys. “Sean, leave her alone. And I don’t mean leave her home by herself!” The front door closed behind her a second later.
“Come on, Crabby Gabby,” my other brother, Hunter, teased. “Even Ryker’s here. The snow is calling.”
I peeked around the side of Sean’s arm and saw that Ryker was in fact here with Brody, and another one of my brother’s friends who was sitting on the couch.
They’d planned this all along.
Sean and Hunter were high school seniors, and they did this all the time. “Come on, little sis, let’s go snowboarding,” and then within an hour of catching some early runs in the park, they’d take off, leaving me with Brody, Ryker, and Lee. I didn’t mind at first, but the mean girls at school were starting to make fun of me, flipping their hair and saying things like the guys only hung out with me because my brothers told them to.
I had friends. Like my brothers, and these three guys. Girlfriends? I had about four, but they were the girls I competed with at snowboarding events, and two of them lived in a different country, Japan and Norway, so it wasn’t as if we really hung out. Ireland lived in Breckenridge, almost two hours from here, and Ally, she lived nearby, although she was more of a skier and three years older.
So, yup, there I was, the only female in the room being outvoted by the males in my life.
“You aren’t going to make it to the Olympics by getting your nails done,” Hunter tried to reason.
“And you’re not going to get any smarter by using that line every chance you get. Just go without me,” I argued back.
“No, because the last time that happened, you almost burned the house down.”
“It was an accident!”
“How about this—” Sean grabbed my fingers, his hands sliding over the still-wet polish before he let go. My heart stopped.
“Why would you do that?!” I yanked my hand away, saddened by the disaster that was now my nails.
“You’ll thank me when you’re getting that gold medal one day,” Sean said.
And this was my life growing up. Don’t get me wrong, I dreamt of competing with the best of the best from all over the world, but when my brothers used it as some excuse to get what they wanted, I wanted to spite them, which was why I went to my room and slammed the door.
Fuming, I scrubbed the polish off my fingers with a cotton ball.
I was not going to the ski resort today, no matter what.
“Gabby,” Ryker said from outside my door about fifteen minutes later. “If you come out with us, I promise I’ll help you after.”
“Help me what?”
“I’ll re-paint your nails.”
“It’s ruined, and stop lying for them.”
“I’m not. They’re actually all looking at me like I have a disease.”
“Yeah, it’s called being a pussy. What the hell, dude? Are you hitting on Gabby or something?” my brother’s friend asked, his voice distinctly coarse.
“No, fuck off,” Ryker retorted. “Such an idiot.”
A whole minute passed before I caved, but Ryker upheld his offer that afternoon. So while the rest of the guys played a game in the living room, he and I were on the linoleum floor under the bright lights in the kitchen.
“I’ve never seen you with nail polish before, why now?” Ryker asked.
“I don’t know. Change is good.”
“Uh-huh.” He passed a few strokes of pink over my index fingernail before moving to my middle finger. “So, it isn’t about Dylan.”
“Dylan?” I asked a bit too hastily. “No, what?”
“So, you don’t have a crush on him?”
My cheeks flushed. “No.”
“Gabby, you have a crush on Dylan.”
“No.”
He smiled. “Whatever you say, but you don’t need this, you know?”
“Need what?”
“The nail
polish. The lip gloss.”
I rubbed my glossed lips together. I’d swiped some on earlier, because I liked the taste, and it made me feel . . . girly?
“You don’t need all the extra shit that other girls do to attract guys.”
“You don’t know anything. It isn’t that easy.”
“Why do you think it isn’t easy?” He finished my pinky nail and moved to my other hand.
“Because—” I looked at him for a second, and knowing he wouldn’t judge me, I told him. “They see me as a dude, not feminine enough, which means they’re never going to ask me out.”
“That’s stupid.”
“You’re stupid, and you call me a dude too!”
He paused and looked up at me, but I kept my eyes down, embarrassed.
“Because, dude, you’re cool. How’s that a bad thing?”
I thought about that as he continued to paint my nails, pushing aside my thirteen-year-old self-esteem issues to observe the amazing job he was doing. None of the polish was on my skin like when I’d painted them, and they didn’t look like I’d just slapped a glob of polish on them. But I shouldn’t be surprised that he’d be good at this. Ryker was good at everything—snowboarding, football, basketball, swimming, painting, and drawing. More recently, though, I think he loved to draw the most. In one of our classes together, I’d watched him sketch a cartoon version of the classroom with the students at their desk and the teacher at the dry-erase board. And halfway through using his color pencils to fill in the colors, he’d gotten busted and sent to the principal’s office. He was also good at getting in trouble.
My gaze flitted to his face, the specks of freckles on his skin, his full lips, the tousled red hair on his head.
His voice lowered. “You know the reason Sean wanted to get you out of the house today was because Hunter had a girl coming over?”
“What? Eeww! That’s gross.”
“Gross? That’s going to be you one day, trying to get your brothers out of the house.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Whatever you say, just keep making googly eyes at Dylan and drooling on your desk at school then.” His mouth quirked into a smile.
“I don’t drool on my desk.”
He looked up and teased, his eyes rolled to the ceiling, “Dylan, oh Dylan!”
Chapter 2
Gabby
Present day . . .
“We can’t take out a second mortgage on the house!” Mom yelled.
“Gabby needs our help. It’s just a few more events. Just one more year,” Dad responded.
“And then what? We live on the streets?”
Heart pounding inside my chest, I held my breath, key in my hand as I stood on the front porch.
“We could use some of the money for your mother’s medical bills. It’s the only way out,” Dad reasoned. A door slammed inside. “Carol?”
A second passed before Dad spoke again. “Don’t you want her to get somewhere, to do more than we did?”
“Don’t you put that on me! That isn’t fair. I’ve done everything I could, I just stopped working two jobs, and your only focus has always been on Gabby and the Olympics. You cart her around, pushing her into this dream you both have, but she has her sponsorships. She’s eighteen; you don’t have to go with her everywhere, especially if it means putting us in the position of possibly losing our home. We’ve been doing this for ten years, Roy. We’re in our fifties! We can’t start over. When are you going to get that through your head?”
I swallowed, stepping back and hurrying to my blue Subaru Outback.
Dad had spent a lot of money, making sure I had all the gear and flying with me across the world to train and compete while also homeschooling me since I was fourteen. Through all of that, I’d never once heard my parents fight about money.
I knew it had to have been an issue before my sponsorships, especially since Mom used to yell at my brothers to either turn off the television or to stop messing with the heater, but that was as far as it went.
In some stupid way, I’d thought things would get better once I started to give them eighty percent of any money I made at events, which wasn’t a lot, but still, I’d hoped it could help to dig them out of how much they’d already invested in me.
But if things were still that bad, Mom was right. I still had an entire year—exactly three hundred and ninety-three days until the Winter Olympics in Japan. So, Dad trying to put their home on the line for me was too much. Something I’d need to talk to him about, just not when things were that heated at home.
I headed into town and then pulled into the parking lot of Darlene’s Bakery and Café.
Grabbing my laptop from my bag, I got out of the car and walked in.
It wasn’t as busy as the weekends, but it wasn’t empty either.
A petite woman with short, curly brown hair that was partially covered by a red beanie stood at the counter that Averie was leaning her hip against.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Betty. I don’t have any more tickets left. Does anyone have an extra ticket for the New Year’s Masquerade?” Averie asked loud enough for everyone inside the café to hear. “No?”
I glanced around the room at the various heads shaking.
“Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I want to stay home,” Ms. Betty grumbled. “I want to go dance and sip champagne at midnight too.”
I smiled despite the sadness that had settled deep inside me from a few minutes earlier.
“You young people—” Ms. Betty began before Averie lifted a gold envelope and smiled. “I’m joking. I have your ticket right here.”
“Why you!” She smiled. “Thank you, darling. I was about to have a talk with that grandson of mine.”
I’d heard a few people at the Alpen Springs Mountain College campus library talking about the masquerade party when I’d gone in to take my finals last month, but I hadn’t paid much attention since there was little to no chance of my being invited. Ashton’s grandmother was on the in though.
“Gabby! I didn’t see you come in,” Averie said, walking over as I looked around for a spot to sit and hide out until I was ready to head back home. “What can I get for you?”
“Just a small latte, but I can order it at the counter,” I told her.
“No, it’s no problem, we aren’t too busy, I’ll bring it over to you when it’s done.”
“Thank you.”
I grabbed a seat in the far corner and placed my laptop on the table. My initial thought had been to start reading ahead for my online spring classes at the Mountain College, but today, I wanted to escape instead, so I opened my saved Word document to continue writing a paranormal short story I’d been working on.
“You doing okay today?” Averie asked as she set my cup down.
I looked up. “Yeah, just a lot on my mind.”
She placed a gold envelope on the table in front of me, but when I didn’t immediately reach for it out of utter confusion, she said, “I always see you come in, but I’ve never seen you hang out and just relax. With all your classes and training, I figured it might be nice for you to take a breather. I mean if you don’t want to go that’s totally cool too, just let me know so I can open a spot on my list of plus ones.”
“Oh, wow. Thank you. This is so nice.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sliding the heavy cardstock from the envelope, I read the invitation and was glad that Averie couldn’t see the way my heart pounded as I stared at the name of the second host that was listed under Averie’s.
Ryker Stanley.
Chapter 3
Ryker
A six foot tower heater was keeping off the chill at the entrance of Glores Tavern where I was greeting our guests.
The launch party for Twisted Events, the new business venture I’d taken on with Averie, was tonight. Next to me, my brother Ashton checked off the next person in line on the guest list, a girl with black hair and a pretty round face who was still in her long twill coat.
Securing a red wristband around her wrist, I said, “To you as well.”
Red bands were for the non-drinkers, the under eighteen crowd. Black bands were for the over twenty-one crowd.
As the girl walked into the party behind me, one of my best friends took her place.
“Dude!” My fingers curled into Brody’s, and we pulled each other in for one of those bro-dude hugs where our bodies barely touch before moving back. “I need a drink,” I muttered for his ears only.
“Got it.”
Brody’s dad owned this place and not only did we have our own spot in the basement nightclub beneath the bar and grill level we were on, but also we had the hookup when it came to alcohol.
“The gold one, come on, Averie, you know that one won’t look good on me,” Brody complained from where Averie was handing out masks for the guests who didn’t have their own.
This was a masquerade after all. Possibly Alpen Springs’ first. Averie had on a blue-and-black lace half mask that matched Ashton’s. I was wearing a black one, but, as usual, Brody was just being his rich, indecisive virgin self.
