Fairytale Love
by
Melanie Shawn
Copyright © 2014 Melanie Shawn
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.
This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Design by Hot Damn Designs
Copyedits by Mickey Reed Editing
Proofreading Services by Raiza McDuffie
Proofreading Services by Melani Bruce
Proofreading Services by Tiesha Brunson
Book Design by BB eBooks
Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
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
Coming December 2014: My Love
Other titles by Melanie Shawn
About the Author
Chapter One
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Becca explained to the elderly woman seated beside her on the crowded airplane—for the third time. Then, softening her tone, she smiled as she added the obligatory, “We’re just friends.”
When Becca had boarded the plane, the woman had asked if she wouldn’t mind switching seats. She explained that she had a fear of sitting by the window and wanted to know if Becca would give up her middle seat. Becca had a fear of flying, period. It didn’t matter if she was in the middle, window, or aisle seat, so she agreed to switch. But not before she’d heard Patrick Swayze’s voice from Dirty Dancing in her head say, “Nobody puts baby in the corner.”
’80s movies and television were her all-time favorites, and whenever she was stressed or overwhelmed, lines from the shows or movies would pop in her head. She used to think she was weird because, seriously, who does that? But over the years, she’d learned to accept it and even think of it as a coping mechanism; her psyche’s way of trying to ease her stress.
“Oh well, you two sure do make a lovely couple, dear.” Nodding her head up and down, the woman smiled sweetly as she reached out and lightly patted Becca’s hand, which was resting on the laptop that sat on her lap.
Becca wasn’t sure if the woman had heard her, ignored her, or if she just hadn’t understood what she’d said. A fleeting thought buzzed through her head that she should attempt to clarify her platonic relationship once more, but Becca quickly decided that would be as pointless as asking Stevie Wonder how many fingers she was holding up.
Not to mention, hearing herself say the phrase she’d been spouting since she had been in middle school—“We’re just friends”—didn’t seem to ring as true to her as it once had, and Becca wasn’t really comfortable with lying, even if it was to a stranger on a plane.
So, instead of addressing the fact that the woman had the wrong idea, Becca turned her attention downward to her laptop screen, which displayed the large family photo that featured her three sisters and their men and her five cousins and their wives. The picture that she still wasn’t sure why she’d made her screensaver. The picture that had prompted the woman next to her to ask the question Becca had been asked by more people than she could count since puberty, “Is that your boyfriend?” The picture that had been taken at her sister Haley’s wedding six months ago. The picture that captured the night that had drastically (hopefully not irrevocably) changed the way she thought-slash-felt about her best friend in the whole world, Brian Scott.
Every time she looked at the picture, she got a funny feeling deep in her belly. Her eyes always shot directly to Brian’s large hands, which were resting against the sides of her waist. His tan skin stood out against the rich blue hue of her dress. If she just closed her eyes, she could still feel his fingers brushing over her hips.
No, she quickly reprimanded herself. Stop. It.
Popping her eyes open, she turned to look out the small window to her right. As she watched the clouds roll by, Becca tried to remember what it was like to think of Brian as just a friend. Her mind drew a blank. The switch to her hormones had been flipped to the turned-on position, and no matter how hard she tried, she simply wasn’t able to get that sucker back down to turned-off. It was stuck.
“So how long have you two been together?” Becca heard the woman’s voice beside her say.
“We’ve been friends since pre-kindergarten, but we aren’t together. He was just my date to my sister’s wedding.” Becca hoped that would satisfy the woman’s curiosity, but she doubted it.
“Wow. Since pre-kindergarten?” the woman smiled sweetly, her wrinkled cheeks pushing the corners of her eyes shut. She shook her head and the helmet of white curls, that didn’t have one hair out of place, moved with her. “That is so wonderful. So, when did you know he was the one? I’m Stella, by the way.”
Disappointment niggled deep inside of Becca as she resigned herself to the fact that this was not going to be a throw-your-earphones-on-and-chillax flight, which was exactly what she had been counting on.
She was exhausted. Her finals had kicked her in the rear, chewed her up, and spit her out. Luckily, she’d performed better than she’d anticipated and maintained her three-point-eight GPA, but it was by the skin of her teeth that she’d pulled it off.
School had always centered her. Whenever anything in life seemed overwhelming or out of control, Becca had always had her studies. She would throw herself into them and come out ahead. It gave her quantifiable results. If she applied herself, she succeeded. There was security in that. Yes, it was hard work, but like her dad always said whenever she called to check in and he could hear stress in her voice, “If it weren’t hard, any moron could be a doctor.” ‘Moron’ was her dad’s go-to insult of choice.
Being a pediatrician had always been Becca’s dream. When she was eight, she’d come down with a rare strain of strep throat that had sent her to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with a hundred-and-five-degree fever. The experience had been somewhat of a blur. She’d slept through a lot of it, thankfully. But what had stuck out in her mind was her doctor, Dr. Corbin.
Now, Dr. Corbin was the chief of surgery at Harper’s Crossing Community Hospital, but at the time, he’d been the head of pediatrics. Becca remembered how amazing he’d been with not only her, her parents, and sisters, but also the other families and kids.
The girl in the bed next to her had been diagnosed with leukemia, and Becca had woken up in the middle of Dr. Corbin explaining the diagnosis and treatment options to the girl and he
r visibly upset parents. Even at eight years old, Becca had been aware that, while he hadn’t given the family any false hope, he’d been reassuring. By just the strength of his presence and his confident words, he’d calmed them by exuding an air of unflappable competency.
After she’d witnessed that display, Dr. Corbin had become like a superhero in Becca’s eyes. That day, lying in that hospital bed, she’d decided that that was what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wanted to help people in their time of need.
Up until this last summer, Becca had had no problems whatsoever staying focused on her goal. She’d been like an academic machine. A pre-med piranha. A studying stallion.
That was until her dreams (day and night!) had started featuring an unwanted co-star, Brian, and had also had the fun, added bonus of turning X-rated in nature.
“And what’s your name, dear?” Stella asked, lifting her penciled-in brows.
“Sorry. I was just… Never mind.” Forcing herself to be friendly and not take out her personal frustrations on this woman who’d been nothing but sweet to her, Becca smiled and offered her hand in greeting. “I’m Becca Sloan. Nice to—”
“Jumping jelly beans! Is that Chase Malone?!” Stella interrupted with a shriek as she pointed at Becca’s screen to the spot where the rock star was standing behind her sister Krista.
“Yes,” Becca confirmed. At this point, she was getting used to that reaction. “It is. He is my sister Krista’s fiancé.”
Chase was a musician who had been in a wildly successful band, Midnight Rush, but was now promoting a solo project, causing his popularity to skyrocket even further into the stratosphere. Chase and Krista had been childhood sweethearts who hadn’t seen one another in years but had reunited last summer when Abby, Chase’s mom, had been hospitalized.
Their wedding was in five weeks. Becca was a bridesmaid, and Brian had, once again, agreed to be her date since neither of them was seeing anyone. They’d had that arrangement since their freshman year, when they’d gone to the Spring Fling and Morp High School dances. Any time an event would come up in either of their lives, if they both happened to be unattached, then they would go as the other’s default plus-one. It had worked out splendidly…until Haley and Eddie’s wedding.
Where everything had changed.
That change is what had made it almost impossible for Becca to concentrate on her studies for the past six months. Between last summer and her sister’s Christmas Eve wedding, Becca’s dreams and thoughts had been progressively getting worse—or better—depending on how you looked at it.
After the wedding, Becca’s mind had been so consumed with Brian, the dreams and thoughts had gotten so frequent and graphic, that it had started affecting Becca’s life. She was having a hard time concentrating on scholastics. The few, precious hours that she did have to sleep were spent tossing and turning in restless fits, her mind filled with images of Brian, dreams of Brian, fantasies of Brian. All very, very naughty in nature.
The worst part about this whole hormone-twisted state of affairs was that the person Becca would normally talk to about this kind of ‘situation’ was totally out of the question—since he was the source of her current lust-addled condition. Brian. Her best friend.
She was close to her sisters, but the idea of talking to them about her predicament did not appeal to her in the least. Maybe it was because she was the baby of the family, or maybe it was because she had never had anything—other than scholastic achievements—that was even in the ballpark of personal to share before now. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t listen to her, and she was sure that they would be more than happy to share their advice on the subject. Still, thinking of starting off a conversation with, “Yeah, soooo… You know how I’ve always said that Brian and I are just friends, and that nothing is going on between us? Well, guess what? I can’t stop thinking about seeing him naked,” made her feel nauseated.
“Do you know him?” Stella’s light-gray eyes were wide with excitement.
“Yes,” Becca replied, her brow knitting. She’d already told the woman that she and Brian were ‘just friends’ and that they’d met in pre-K. Of course she knew him.
“Have you ever been to one of his concerts?”
Oooh, right. That makes a lot more sense. Just because Becca’s mind was all Brian, all the time, did not mean that he was all anyone else could think about.
“Um, yeah. I have. Once when he was in Midnight Rush and once since he’s been solo,” Becca explained.
When she’d gone with a few of her friends her freshman year to see Midnight Rush, the seats had been nosebleed. She hadn’t told Chase that she was going because he and her sister had been broken up for years by then. But when she’d gone and seen him this past fall with Krista, they were front row in the VIP section. Becca was probably the most low-key, low-maintenance, no-frills, no-fuss girl she knew, but even she had to admit that, although both concerts were amazing, front-row seats and backstage passes were a lot better.
“Is Chase going to be picking you up from the airport?” Stella asked, hope brimming from her eyes.
“No, Brian is,” Becca explained, pointing to his picture once again.
“Oh, right.” Stella nodded and patted the back of Becca’s hand again. “That makes sense as to why you’re not dressed for paparazzi pictures, sweetie pie.”
Becca looked down. She was wearing jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt and Converse tennis shoes. Stella was right—she was definitely not dressed to have her picture taken. Now that she really looked at herself, she started to question whether or not she was dressed to see Brian for the first time in six months.
Why hadn’t she put more thought into her appearance before leaving this morning? It wasn’t like she hadn’t put thought into the fact that she’d be seeing Brian again. That’s all she’d thought about for months.
Shoot. She couldn’t even apply some makeup to sexy herself up a bit. All of her beauty products were in her suitcase.
Nerves bubbled up inside of her like a volcano ready to erupt at the prospect of Brian seeing her like this. For the last two weeks, she’d been lucky if she’d even gotten three hours of sleep a night. She hadn’t plucked her eyebrows since…since…crap, since Christmas, which was the last time she’d seen Brian.
It doesn’t matter, Becca reminded herself. They were just friends.
“Are you okay, dear?” Stella asked, looking genuinely concerned. “You’ve gone as white as a ghost.”
Becca had always had extremely fair skin, but whenever she got nervous, upset, or scared, it was as if any skin pigmentation she did possess drained out of her completely.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” Becca wasn’t sure if she was assuring herself or Stella. Probably both.
“So, who are all of these other lovely people?” Stella asked, her voice sounding a little high in forced interest.
Becca appreciated the woman’s not-so-subtle attempt to distract her, even though she knew that Stella had no idea what was weighing on her mind. “These are my sisters. The bride is Haley. She’s the oldest, and behind her is her husband Eddie. Then the redhead is Krista. She’s the second oldest. And you know her fiancé Chase. Next up is Jessie, and that’s Zach, who is her husband now, but at the time this pic was taken, they were just ‘pretending’ to be a couple.”
“Ooooh, that sounds like fun.” Stella’s eyes sparked with excitement as she rubbed her hands together conspiratorially.
“It was certainly fun to watch.” Becca smiled, thinking back on watching her extremely private sister have to ‘pretend’ to have a very public relationship. “So that’s all my sisters. Then these guys”—she pointed to the back row of Sloan men—“are my cousins.”
“My, what a good-looking family you have,” Stella said with appreciation.
“Thanks.” Becca hadn’t really given it much thought before now, but looking down at them all together, she guessed Stella had a point. They weren’t a bad-looking group. “This is Seth. He�
��s the oldest of the five boys. And that’s his wife Amber.”
“She is stunning,” Stella breathed.
“She is,” Becca agreed. She remembered the first time she’d met Amber. She’d thought that she was the most beautiful person Becca had ever seen in real life. That was ten years ago and she was still the most beautiful person Becca had ever seen.
“And who is that?” Stella asked, pointing to Riley. He stood out among her cousins as being the only blond. Also, all of her cousins were in amazing shape, but Riley looked like he could be on the cover of a fitness magazine.
“That’s Riley. He’s the second oldest, and next to him is his wife Chelle, who is Haley’s husband Eddie’s little sister. Also, fun fact, Riley and Eddie have been best friends since grade school—”
“Oh boy,” Stella interrupted. “How did Eddie take it when Riley started making moves on his little sister?”
Becca laughed that Stella had picked up on that. This woman might be up there in years, but she was still sharp as a tack. “From what I heard, not well. But they worked it out.” Then Becca continued. “Next up is Jason, and that is his wife Katie. Then there’s Alex and his wife Jamie, and the baby of the family is Bobby, and that’s his wife Sophie.”
“And then you and Brian,” Stella said, her eyes glimmering with affection.
Yep. And then me and Brian.
* * *
“Oh come on!” Brian hit his palm against the steering wheel. He could not believe that traffic was this bad. It also didn’t help that people were driving like idiots because of it. He’d just been cut off for the fifth time in less than twenty minutes.
Normally, he was not a road-rage guy, but he hated being late under normal circumstances and today was not normal circumstances. He would be seeing Becca for the first time in six months. His nerves had been shot for the last couple of weeks leading up to this day, and they weren’t improving while he was sitting here, trapped, in bumper-to-bumper gridlock.
He’d even left for the airport an hour earlier than necessary to give himself some extra time to arrive and then prepare himself before he laid eyes on her again. He wanted to have time to try to set the scene of their meeting in his head so he could mentally rehearse acting like the guy he’d always been to her, like the guy she depended on, like the guy he was—her best friend. Nothing more. He had to make absolutely sure that Brian—the man who’d realized that, sometime over the last decade, he’d fallen madly, totally, completely in love with Becca—did not make an appearance.
Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian Page 1
