Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3

by Isabelle Peterson

  Chasing the Dream

  by Isabelle Peterson

  Copyright © 2014 Isabelle Peterson

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient Please note, this book is only distributed by the following vendors: Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Noble/Nook or Kobo, as are all Dream Series books. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER: This book is a work of fiction.

  fiction |fikSHen|

  noun

  literature in the form of prose, esp. short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

  The characters are not based on anyone I know in real life, nor are the events described.

  WARNING: This is an EROTIC ROMANCE. That means that there is sex. There are explicit descriptions of sex. BECAUSE of this, I advise that only those 18 & over read it.

  Cover by Kari Ayasha of Cover to Cover Designs

  Formatting by Paul Salvette of BB eBooks

  Other titles by Isabelle Peterson

  THE DREAM SERIES

  Ditching the Dream

  Not in My Wildest Dreams

  Chasing The Dream

  Planned Titles in the Series

  Unexpected Dreams

  Living the Dream

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Titles by Isabelle Peterson

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to everyone trying to stand on their own two feet and be strong, and those never afraid to chase their dreams.

  Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

  —Napoleon Hill

  PROLOGUE

  At first she was embarrassed. Then angry. Then she cried, hiding in her dorm room for three days surviving on crackers, pudding cups, and Diet Coke. Her friends all came knocking and tried to cheer her up, but were largely unsuccessful. Mostly because she knew that all her friends were still maintaining their friendship with the lying, cheating, man-whore known to his friends and family as Danny Fitzsimmons. To Phoebe Fairchild, the fucking bastard would forever be known as “Dickwad Danny.”

  The worst part was she was going to be missing the Spring Break trip to Florida with her friends. She was absolutely not going if he was going. That said, of course he was going because it was his parent’s place in Daytona that everyone was staying. Drowning her misery in her bad diet and country music, a new song came on. Sarah Darling’s new release, Little Umbrellas, flowed through her iPod. Phoebe let the lyrics soak in. I could go, she thought with a touch of malice, and flirt with the cabana boys and see how he likes it. But it was more than that. Danny wasn’t only flirting with girls in front of Phoebe. He had been fucking them behind her back.

  No, a summer hot spot with her friends was not in Phoebe’s future for spring break. She looked around her dorm room and considered staying there for the week-long break, but after the past three days, she was sick of the white, cement block walls, and her turquoise bedding with hot pink accents sprinkled throughout the room, and her roommate, Lucy’s, animal print and PETA posters. The university was nice enough, but the town it was in wasn’t really her cup of tea. She picked up the phone and called home.

  “Hi, Dad. Is Mom home?” she asked when her dad picked up the phone. She almost thought she had the wrong number because her dad never answered the phone. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her dad, but she wasn’t exactly close to him. If he asked why she was suddenly not going to Daytona, she didn’t feel like telling him that it was because her boyfriend wasn’t her boyfriend any longer. Frankly, she’d kept quiet about Dickwad all year long, especially when it came to her dad. He didn’t want her involved with anyone, especially in her freshman year away.

  “No, she’s in New York,” he said flatly.

  “New York? What’s there? Cool! When’s she coming home?” Phoebe asked, thrown for a loop.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know,” Greg Fairchild replied. He sounded dejected. Lost.

  “Are you okay, Dad?”

  He sighed heavily into the phone. “I don’t know. You’re better off calling your mom on her cell. Maybe she’ll answer your calls.” And with that, he hung up.

  Phoebe looked at her phone wondering what was up with her dad, and why her mom was in New York. But then she got to thinking… She wasn’t going to Daytona, but maybe New York was just the place to get over Dickwad Danny.

  And maybe I’ll look at transferring schools while I’m in New York, she thought. She was a physics major and chose to minor in dance. Her dad was ‘amused’ with her passion for dance, but he was dead set against Phoebe getting a degree in it. He would only pay tuition for a degree that could get her a job. She loved physics in high school, but in college it wasn’t as much fun. Bottom line, her current C+ average even made her upset. She loved to dance, but wasn’t anywhere near as good, or as thin, as the other girls in the program for dance minors. To dance professionally, you’d need to major in dance, and not at a traditional type of college. She’d have to be at Juilliard or UC Berkley or Oberlin. Ultimately, the whole dance thing didn’t hold her interest the way it had when she was younger. New York could be exciting. And offer more choices.

  Phoebe had been sitting in on seminars and classes with Dickwad Danny, who was a communications major. She started to think about how much she loved performing. Maybe she should consider a communications degree. What better place to do that than in New York City? All the major networks were there. Maybe one day she could be an anchor for a news program. Or even better, she could be the Access Hollywood reporter for the happenings in New York. It was a zillion miles from Dickwad. Yes, Phoebe decided. That’s the plan.

  Phoebe pulled up her mother’s cell phone number and placed the call to her mom. Her mom didn’t answer, but Phoebe got her voice mail, so she left a message: “Hi Mom. It’s Phoebe. Dad says you’re in New York? How cool! Can I come visit? I’m thinking of changing my major and a visit to New York could help me a lot with making my decision. I have spring break next week. The girls and I had planned to go to Daytona, but Steph
anie didn’t make the reservations in time so we’re stuck without plans now. Would I fly into JFK airport? I’m looking at airfares now. Call me.” A small fib about Stephanie not making the reservation, but she didn’t want her mother to know about Dickwad either, and was grateful that the voicemail meant no questions.

  Some might say that she was chasing a dream, but Phoebe viewed it as fate.

  CHAPTER 1

  One month later… Thursday, May 16, 2013

  My roommate Lucy and I hugged a teary goodbye, and promised to keep in touch, even though she would be leaving for Africa in a few weeks for some Peace Corps mission bringing water to a remote town. As she headed off to her sunrise yoga group, I climbed into the rented minivan with my mom, dad and all my worldly possession that were in my dorm, to settle in for the long drive from Ohio to New York.

  “I’m so excited for you, honey. You’re going to love actually living in Manhattan. Visiting is one thing, but the day-to-day is really something,” my mom gushed. “And your internship really sounds really exciting. Have you been in touch much with your mentor? What is her name again?”

  “Valerie Cocozza,” I said. “We’ve had a few emails, but I’m looking forward to meeting her on Tuesday.” I sat back and hoped my mom wouldn’t be talking the whole time. I was exhausted from the previous week of studying for final exams, my friends from school giving me a farewell party, and the excitement over moving to New York. I tossed and turned the whole four hours I was in bed.

  It was early in the morning, just before seven, and my parents had flown into Ohio last night. I’d spent all day yesterday boxing up my dorm before the party, and now they were going to drive me to New York. My dad had been curiously quiet. I don’t think it was the ungodly hour at which we were loading the car. The super early start was his idea so we didn’t arrive in New York after dark. Clearly he was not very happy about something, probably my move. I, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more excited to move to New York, where I had landed an internship and was transferring to NYU; a little thanks to a friend of my mom’s. I couldn’t exactly read how Dad felt about my leaving the small private college in the tiny Ohio town to go to a huge university in the largest city in America. He was always a small town kind of guy, and, I don’t know, I was more of a big city kind of personality. I knew that for sure when I visited my mom in New York last month. He said he was fine with the transfer and the internship, that it was other stuff on his mind preoccupying his thoughts. That’s my dad, I thought, and shrugged it off. Bad Mood Dad was never fun. He usually got this way when he had a big project at work. If he had a big project going on, he shouldn’t have come.

  Moving to New York City—excuse me, Manhattan—was the coolest thing I’ve done in my entire life. To go to school, a new school, a huge school, and with an internship at a major network in the Public Relations division, was a dream come true. After the last exam of my freshman year, (a year I’d like to forget), I had only five days to get to New York, settle in, and start my summer internship. With so little time, instead of me flying home to California and then flying out to New York, my parents flew to Ohio, rented a minivan which we had loaded up with my stuff, and were planning to drive twelve straight hours to the city that never sleeps.

  On the long drive, my mother chatted excitedly, my father was nearly silent, still preoccupied with whatever project was on his desk at work. Mom talked about Manhattan, places to go, things to keep in mind, and warned me about eating from any food establishment that didn’t have a placard in the window with an ‘A’ grade from the city health inspectors. All Dad told me was to stay away from the subways and guys in limousines. He even promised me a hefty allowance to pay for cabs. I wasn’t sure about what his was deal with guys in limousines. Mom had an old friend in New York who used limos a lot—Jack Stevens. He was a great guy. He was the friend who helped me get the interview for the internship, and he knew whom I needed to talk to at NYU for my transfer.

  The strange part of the long drive was the interaction between my parents. Not that my parents were typically talkative with each other, but they seemed more distant than usual. Last month my mom had taken that spur of the moment trip to New York, something about self-discovery. Dad was left at home to fend for himself. After a few weeks, Mom came around and went home. I guess my dad was still kind of bugged over her little adventure. But watching the two of them now, I wondered if Mom’s trip to New York was because of some fight they’d had and still hadn’t fully resolved. Mom had given me some cryptic advice about waiting to get married, living on your own, standing on your own two feet. But Mom did go home. Dad should be grateful.

  The whole marriage advice was kind of out of left field as far as I was concerned. In fact, it was so far down on my list of things to do, a big part of me wondered if I’d ever get around to it. And it wasn’t just this whole Dickwad Danny situation. I wanted to be single, to travel the world without tethers. Since my interview for this internship, I’d started thinking about all of the exciting things a career in PR and broadcasting could offer. I hoped to make some connections with the broadcasting department and maybe I could be an international correspondent. Of course I’d have to study politics or international finance or something in addition to the communications. Or maybe I could be a reporter for the Olympics and every couple of years jet off and cover the events. The possibilities were endless, but I was hoping to learn more in the coming couple months. After the whole fucked up bit with Dickwad Danny, I resolved to take off dating for at least a year anyway.

  And speaking of marriage, I noticed that Mom’s wedding rings were gone, and in their place was a sparkly new infinity ring. It was a beautiful piece and I was impressed with my dad’s taste in jewelry. Maybe he’d gotten it for her when she went home?

  As we got closer to New York, my mom got unusually quiet, and my dad incredibly agitated. In fact, if he were a cursing kind of guy, he’d be swearing with every word in the book. When my dad pulled up to the apartment my mom lived in last month, she practically sprang out of the car. Entering the building, Mom re-introduced me to the doorman, Dominic, and then we went upstairs to re-acquaint with the apartment. Along the way, Mom pointed out the neighbors, specifically Kevin’s and Mrs. Hanlon’s apartments. I wanted to knock on Kevin’s door and say ‘hi,’ but Mom said that he probably wasn’t around. The tattooed, muscled, Latin man with the American name, Kevin Parker, was going to be living down the hall from me!

  When I visited my mom back in April, he took me to a Luke Bryan concert, which was amazing, followed by a little touristy turn in Times Square. Even though he insisted that there was nothing going on between him and my mom, I think Kevin wanted things to be more-than-friends. However, my mom was a married woman, and Kevin was a super-upstanding guy. He would never get involved with someone who was married or in a committed relationship. He was the total opposite of Dickwad Danny. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if Kevin took an attraction to me. I was more mature than the average nineteen-year old, and he was only twenty-nine. That’s just ten years. Kinda sexy, if you ask me. The added years have to mean added maturity. Besides, Kevin and I really hit it off when we were at the concert. I was hoping that now that my mother wasn’t around, having gone back to dad, he would loosen up and I could light a little spark with him while I was here.

  I felt her reasoning for not stopping by his apartment was lame, but one glance at my dad, and I decided to let it lie.

  During that visit last month, I chatted with my dad to assure him that Mom was doing great. I told him, maybe stupidly, that her neighbor, Kevin was super hot and was really nice to Mom, helping her out…and that maybe Kevin was a bit sweet on her. I had hoped that it would encourage my dad to make a move and apologize to mom for whatever stupid, bone-headed, man thing he’d done inspiring my mom to transverse the continent for her hiatus from Napa. And maybe it did work—Mom went home.

  After we lugged all of my stuff up to the apartment and put fresh sheets on the bed, Mom
brought me to the small grocery store which was just a half block away on East Eightieth and Third, to stock the fridge and cupboards. By the time we returned to the apartment, I was beyond ready to crash. The late nights cramming for final exams and the long car ride had wiped me out.

  “Kevin and Mrs. Hanlon are right down the hall if you need anything,” my mom said hugging me tightly. “But call me, or text, every day. Okay?” Dad just stood nearby, his hands shoved into his pockets.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, pulling from her and hugging my dad. He was taking this really hard.

  When Dad was finished giving me a really nice hug, and making me feel bad about regretting that he’d come along, he pulled back and fished his wallet out of his pocket. He thumbed out several twenties and pressed them into my hand. “For cab fare,” he said with a stern look. “Figure out how much you’ll need monthly, and I’ll set up an account for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile and tucked the money into my pocket. “Are you guys flying back to Napa tomorrow? Want to get breakfast tomorrow morning?” I asked.

  Dad shook his head. “My flight is in,” he started, checking his watch, “four hours. I—uh, we, should go,” he said, agitation thick in his tone.

  “Okay. Well, I’m ready to crawl into bed and crash,” I said back. “Thanks for everything guys. I promise, I’ll check in regularly. I’ll be good. I’ll eat good food. I’ll watch out for strange men in limos,” I joked with my dad, who didn’t look like he appreciated my joke. Oh well, he was never a very funny one. My brothers and I must have gotten our sense of humor from our mom.

  We said our last goodbyes and I closed the door. About ten seconds later there was a knock on the door. I opened the door surprised to find my dad still there. “Lock the door, honey. It is New York,” he said. I gave him a quick hug and noticed my mom hanging back. She blew me a kiss and I closed the door, locking it. “Thank you,” my dad said from the other side of the door.