by Aubrey Gross
Funny how the only one of those things that had happened was number seven.
Jo brushed away a lone tear that rolled down her cheek, hating herself for feeling maudlin but realizing that if she was there was probably a good reason for it.
She hadn’t gone on to become Oprah’s therapist, and instead of opening her own practice had decided to help out high school kids. God knew as a high school counselor she certainly wasn’t making a six-figure salary, her student loan debt was mind-boggling and her dreams of owning a shiny new BMW had been replaced with the reality of driving a Ford Fusion. Mr. Right still hadn’t come along, and at thirty-two she was beginning to wonder if he ever would. The only guy she’d loved as an adult had been shipped off to Afghanistan, and he’d ended things before leaving the States. And she certainly wasn’t a member of the Junior League or planning on running for office any time soon. As for her current town……well, she sure hadn’t pictured herself back in Del Rio taking care of her grandmother, but she supposed her adopted town of Austin was pretty cool. At least that’s what people and dozens of weekly Top Ten lists always told her.
Jo continued to flip through the memory book, smiling at the photos and random pieces of high school life she’d glued to the pages. Towards the back, folded up and tucked underneath a photo of her, Jenn and Chase, was a lined piece of notebook paper, which she unfolded.
Dear Chase,
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you much. I think I’ve hurt your feelings. I never meant to do that.
But I can’t. I can’t talk to you knowing that my mom has a thing for your dad. It’s weird and gross and makes me embarrassed and ashamed.
My dad doesn’t care who she sleeps with. I think the whole town knows that by now. He probably doesn’t care if I sleep with someone, either.
But I’m not my mom. And I can’t be around you because I’m too embarrassed and hurt and afraid you’ll hate me.
You’re my best friend. You, Jenn and me. We’re the Three Amigos. I don’t want to hurt you.
I’m so sorry.
Love,
Jo
She folded the paper back up and placed it in the book again, tucked neatly under the photo of her, Jenn and Chase. They’d been going into the ninth grade, the best of friends since elementary school. Until that awful day when Jo had overheard her mom on the phone with Chase’s dad. The things her mom had said had made her hot with embarrassment and shame, and even though she didn’t think Chase’s dad would ever cheat on his wife, Jo still felt awful and as if it was somehow her fault. If she and Chase hadn’t been such good friends, her mom might not have ever met his dad. So she’d done what seemed best to a fourteen-year-old girl—she’d distanced herself from her best friend even though it had killed her.
She’d written the note to him to try to explain, but in the end had chickened out. She couldn’t. She was too embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t want Chase to think she was like her mom.
Instead, she’d folded the note and tucked it into her diary. That night, after eating supper with her parents and being told not to eat so much—that “thinness is perfection!”—by the woman everyone thought of as The Easy Mom, was the first time Jo made herself throw up.
#
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Coming in Fall of 2015
Big Girls Need Love Too
Are best friends always meant for each other?
After years of believing, Molly Sampson is beginning to have some doubts. Despite the fact that she’s waited on her best friend Benjamin Davis for years, he’s dating a woman who might as well be the definition of “perfect.”
Fed up, Molly makes a New Year’s resolution to fall out of love with Benjamin. Along the way she goes on some horrendous dates, quits her job, and meets Joe Connolly—a cute coworker she can’t help but be drawn to.
When Benjamin and Abby break up, Molly’s forced to make the toughest decision of her life—keep waiting for Benjamin, or take a leap of faith with Joe.
Chapter One
Molly Sampson mentally catalogued her flaws. She’d become more than aware of them after being her older sister’s maid of honor a few months ago.
Five foot four inches. Forty-eight. Forty. Fifty-two.
Her measurements also served as the numbers to the combination lock she used when she went to the gym. She looked at them as a motivational tool.
Despite having a gym membership, she didn’t know what number corresponded with her weight, since she only stepped on a scale when she had a doctor’s appointment. She’d done her best to erase the memory of that particular measurement from her mind.
So really, why was she sitting here in Clicks—a smoky pool hall a mile away from her apartment—knowing good and well her best friend Benjamin intended to hook her up with some unknown guy? Especially when the population of their hometown of Waco, Texas consisted of spoiled, rich Baylor brats, men who were already married or single dads who barely managed to pay their child support—if they paid it at all.
What were you thinking, asking Benjamin to set you up on a bunch of blind dates? Molly took a sip of her Pineapple and Parrot Bay. Oh, yeah, it was that whole trying new things, meeting new people, attempting to date resolution you made.
She rolled her eyes. Whatever had possessed her to make a New Year’s resolution like that—hell, to make one at all for the first time in her twenty-six years of life—was beyond her. But she’d only made the resolution a few days before, and she didn’t like to renege on a promise, even if it was a silly one made in the early hours of January first to no one but herself.
She sneezed. Man, she knew this had been a bad idea. Not only was the cigarette smoke aggravating her allergies, but she had to have been temporarily insane to agree to meet a guy in a bar of all places. Could she get any more cliché? How romantic could neon Lone Star beer signs and Corona advertisements be anyway? Although she did have to admit that the grass-skirt wearing Spanky the Monkey—the pool hall’s mascot who hung from the ceiling in the bar area—did add a certain amount of class to the establishment.
“Earth to Molly. Did you hear a word I just said?”
Her head snapped up at the sound of Benjamin’s voice. He stood across the table from her, holding one of the bar’s famous Big Ass Beers in his hand, with an impatient expression on his bearded face. Man, she must’ve really zoned out, because Benjamin rarely got impatient.
“Sorry, hon. I was thinking.”
“Stop doing that.”
“But thinking is good.”
“Not when you’re mentally cataloguing every single flaw you think you have.”
She tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear. “What makes you think I was doing that?”
He raised a brown eyebrow.
“Okay, you’re right. Get out of my head.”
The problem with being best friends with someone you’ve known since junior high was that they also knew all of the things you obsessed over.
“Moll, you know I love you, but sometimes you just think way too damned much.”
“I know. I know. It’s just…” she paused, trying to find the right words. “I haven’t been on a date in three years. I haven’t kissed someone in almost two. And it’s been so long since I last had sex that I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to do it. So right now I kind of feel like I’m jumping into the deep end of the pool and all I know how to do is doggie paddle.”
He took a swig of his beer before responding. “At least you know how to doggie paddle. And I know it’s a big step, Molly. But don’t you think it’s time to get back out here in the world and try to meet someone? You’re great. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
I don’t want just “any guy,” though. I want you.
And that was the one thing her best
friend didn’t know about her—that her other New Year’s resolution had been to fall out of love.
#
About the Author
Aubrey has been reading and writing since she was about two and a half and has been an avid romance reader since she read her first romance novel in the 6th grade. She wrote her first novel in high school. It was an awful imaginative historical romance that involved a cross-country trip via covered wagon, and maybe some Indians. She thinks it’s still on a floppy disk somewhere (DOS computer, y’all), but can’t be too sure. These days, she writes contemporary romance with a lot of humor and sass and characters that have issues.
She graduated from Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction program with a Master of Arts in 2008. When she's not writing, she can be found with her husband and their two dogs at home in Austin, on their ranch in west Texas, watching a football or baseball game, or with her nose stuck in a (usually virtual) book.
Connect with Aubrey:
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Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Aubrey Gross
All rights reserved.
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 publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Publisher's note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book layout © 2015 Aubrey Gross
Book cover © 2015 by Aubrey Gross
Baseball and Other Lessons/Aubrey Gross -- 1st ed.
Epub Edition June 2015 ISBN: 978-0-9962821-2-3
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-9962821-3-0
