by Kyra Lennon
Sidelined
Kyra Lennon
Sidelined © Kyra Lennon 2014
E-edition published worldwide 2014 © Kyra Lennon
All rights reserved in all media. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.
All characters and events featured in this book are entirely fictional and any resemblance to any person, organisation, place or thing is purely coincidental and completely unintentional.
Other books by Kyra Lennon
Praise for Game On
"Loved this book! Radleigh might be loathsome, but he's magnetic! Kyra has a witty style and excellent character development." - Elizabeth Seckman, Author of Past Due
"Game On is a moving, emotional, very real contemporary romance filled with fun, friendship, laughter, and a look on the human condition" - Clare Dugmore, Writer
Blindsided (Game On Book 2)
Praise for Blindsided
“Once again, Kyra Lennon has brought some fantastic characters to life, and as with Taylor in Game On she hasn't shied away from a love-to-hate character Mischa.” - Annalisa Crawford, Author of Cat and The Dreamer and That Sadie Thing
“I absolutely loved this book! It was such an easy read, had it done in two sittings, and the love story was so cute and sweet. I think it was a perfect fit for Jesse, because he deserves this kind of love story.” - Becca Ann, Author of Reasons I Fell For The Funny Fat Friend
“Blindsided is another first-rate romance from Lennon. It's quite cute at first glance - with attractive teen characters and a snowy, festive setting.” - Nick Wilford, Writer
If I Let You Go
Praise for If I Let You Go
This is an amazing contemporary romance novella that makes you giggle, cry, and swoon. It has powerful cast of characters and a clean modern style. I highly recommend If I Let You Go to anyone who loves a good love story. – Christine Rains, Author of Fearless
“With a fast-paced plot and relatable characters, Kyra Lennon's IF I LET YOU GO is a must read.” - Cherie Reich, Author of the Gravity series
Acknowledgements
To Annalisa Crawford, Clare Dugmore, and Alex Tanner – thank you for the super fast edits and beta reads. You guys helped in so many ways, and restored my confidence in myself!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Rodeo Drive, Make-Up Tips and Zumba
Chapter 2 – A Real Life Cinderella
Chapter 3 – I Was More On Track With The Pet Hamster
Chapter 4 – The Day That Changed My Life
Chapter 5 – The Age Of Curiousness
Chapter 6 – She Sounds Absolutely Tedious, Darling
Chapter 7 - Storm
Chapter 8 – My Mind Was Like A Jigsaw Puzzle
Chapter 9 – Gone Too Soon
Chapter 10 – I Just Want To Feel Something Real
Chapter 11 – That Girl Really Loved To Write
Chapter 12 – Stupid, Selfish, Not Worth It
Chapter 13 – He’ll Never Really Be Gone
Chapter 14 – I’ll Remember The Daisies
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About the Author
Chapter 1 - Rodeo Drive, Make-Up Tips and Zumba
“Stop calling me!”
“Bree, I just-”
“I don’t want to hear it, Taylor. Leave me alone!”
I flung my cell onto the bed and threw myself backwards against my soft, fluffy pillows. So over having the same conversation. I should have stopped answering the phone to her but Taylor’s calls didn’t always come from the same number, and what if it was someone important? I hated missing calls from friends – any excuse for a good chat, right?
Taylor was no longer a friend. Not since she broke Jesse Shaw’s heart, broke my trust, and called me a gold-digging tramp. Who needs that kind of negativity in their life? Not me for sure. I’d run out of patience with her endless calls. She’d tried to apologise for the things she said and the crappy things she did, but she hurt so many of my friends. She hurt me.
“Bree, honey?”
My husband, Jude, appeared in the doorway looking all soccer-player-sexy in his Westberg Warriors training gear. Okay, blue wasn’t really his colour but he still looked hot as he stood in the entrance to our bedroom. His sandy blond hair needed a trim, even though the way it swept across his forehead, slightly covering his brown eyes was sorta cute.
Mmm.
“Bree?”
“Huh?” I said, shaking my head. You’d think after three years together I wouldn’t have been quite so mesmerised by him. Thankfully, Jude adored my ditziness.
He smiled fondly. “I gotta go to work now. You’re going out soon, right?”
I hopped up from the bed to give him a goodbye kiss and bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, grinning. “Yes! I’m going to Jesse’s first then I’ll meet Freya and Leah for lunch!”
There was no point in trying to hide my excitement. Leah moved back to L.A from England a few days before to finally be with Radleigh McCoy. That was a drama. I always knew their love/hate thing swayed more towards love than hate. Well, sometimes. Whatever, Leah had been gone for several months while they worked things out and I’d missed her like crazy. I couldn’t wait for shopping and girly lunches, and spa treatments and talking for hours.
“Right.” Jude gave a slightly forced laugh. “Well, have a good time.”
Leah wasn’t Jude’s favourite person in the world since she cheated on his best friend a year ago and he hadn’t gotten over the incident as quickly as Miguel had. Jude had this weird idea me being friends with her would mean I’d be influenced by her actions and start screwing one of his team mates. That wasn’t me and Jude knew it, yet he still battled with my closeness to her. I hated that he’d gotten such a bad impression of her. She’d made a horrible mistake but who lives their life without stuffing things up now and again?
“We will have fun,” I told him. “It’ll be so good for us to all be back together! I mean, except for Jesse. I’m still totally bummed out he can’t leave the house for a while.”
“Not as bummed out as we are that he’s gonna be out of action this season. Poor kid.”
Jesse hated being called a kid and I knew because I hated when people thought of me that way, too. Since I’d turned twenty-one the label started to come unstuck, but for the whole time I’d been with Jude some of his friends treated me like a greedy child looking for a sugar daddy to take care of me. Pfft. I’d dealt with more crap in the first eighteen years of my life than most people deal with in a lifetime; I didn’t need to be taken care of.
“He’ll be okay, though, right?” I asked. “His knee operation will make him better?”
“No way to tell yet. Let’s hope so.” Jude pressed his lips to mine again. “Gotta go, beautiful. I love you.”
I smiled up at him. “I love you too.”
With Jude gone, I went back into our bedroom and finished getting ready. A day spent with my friends was my favourite kind of day. I couldn’t wait.
**
“Thank God you’re here,” Jesse said as I walked into his room carrying two mugs of coffee his mom had made for us. He lay on top of his bed, his leg plastered up after his op. While he was on vacation in London he’d had a scary ordeal which led to him ripping the main muscles in his knee. In spite of what he’d been through, he looked pretty good, just a little tired. I figured it must have been hard to sleep with a huge cast wrapped around his leg. I mean, does anyone really sleep lying flat on their back without moving all night? Staying in one position for eight hours is unnatural.
“I was only here a few days ago,” I said with a laugh, placing the drinks down on his bed
side table before perching on the edge of his bed.
“Bree, a few days is an eternity when you can’t get up. My mom’s driving me crazy.”
“Your mom’s adorable!”
“She is, but I’m used to having my own space. Living with my parents again is weird, and now I have to rely on them for everything.”
“Don’t take them for granted. They want what’s best for you, Jesse.”
He groaned. “Come on, help me out! Let me bitch and moan.”
“Uh-uh. I’m here to take your mind off the bitching and moaning.”
Jesse grinned. “Well, you are my ray of sunshine right now so I’ll take it. What’s new?”
A smile spread across my face. “You know Leah’s back, right?”
“Yeah, she came over yesterday with Radleigh. She said you’re meeting for lunch later.”
I did another small bounce of joy. “Yes, it’s going to be so awesome! I’m super excited.”
“She’s excited, too.” Jesse shuffled towards me a little to pick up his mug. “She can’t wait to see you and Freya now the jet lag’s wearing off.”
“Good because there is so much to catch up on, and…”
I barely remembered any of the following words that left my mouth. It pretty much amounted to a long string of excited chit-chat... or pointless drivel, depending on who you asked. Jesse was one of the only people whose eyes didn’t glaze over when I started wittering
“I’m sorry,” I said, after I eventually ran out of steam. “Like you care about Rodeo Drive, make-up tips and Zumba.”
Jesse laughed. “Hey, I wanna hear about everything that has happened and will happen outside of these walls. Okay, the girly stuff isn’t my thing, but I need to live vicariously through someone until I’m allowed to leave the house again. It may as well be someone who loves everything instead of someone who basically wakes up every day and goes through the motions.”
Positivity was built into my genes. As a kid I was always the first one up, ready to start the day. If I were a child in current times, I’d probably have some kind of attention disorder slapped on me. I had no problem concentrating, I just… got carried away sometimes.
“Glad to be of service,” I told him. “But with all my babbling you haven’t had chance to tell me what’s happening with your girl.”
His eyes lit up at the mention of her, and butterflies flapped in my stomach at seeing him so happy. The story of how he met her was too cute! A never-ending holiday romance. That was one of my childhood dreams; to be swept off my feet by a man from a different country. Maybe Italy. Italian men are hot!
“Not much to tell,” Jesse said. “She might visit over Spring break, and by then I should be able to walk again.”
“Do I get to meet her?”
Jesse tilted his head to one side in mock thoughtfulness, and broke into a laugh when I smacked his arm. “Of course you can! I want her to meet everyone eventually. She’s shy, though. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”
“Does she like to shop?”
Jesse laughed harder. “Oh God, Bree. She’s a student so she probably won’t be able to keep up with you.”
“But I can help her pick out cute outfits!”
“She’s not a dress-up doll. Her sister treats her that way sometimes and she hates it.”
“Okay. I’ll think of a different way to welcome her to Los Angeles.” I glanced down at my watch. “Crap! I need to get going or I’ll be late.”
I picked up my purse and quickly checked I had everything. Weird habit. I hadn’t taken anything out, and Jesse was unlikely to have robbed me. Some habits are hard to break.
“Say hey to the girls for me,” Jesse said as I leaned over to give him a hug.
“I will. You take care of yourself and I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay. Bye, sunshine.”
I poked my tongue out, and laughed at my new nickname. “Bye!”
Chapter 2 – A Real Life Cinderella
Girly lunches didn’t usually mean eating at the diner across from the Warriors’ training ground, but Freya had to work so we couldn’t go too far. We were cool with it, though. The food was good, and waiting until the next weekend before getting together was not an option. The three day wait almost killed us.
Leah and Freya were already at the diner when I arrived, chatting in one of the booths. I sped across the room towards them. Leah stepped out of the booth and I flung my arms around her.
“Welcome home!”
I took a step backwards, grinning at my best friend. When she came over right before Christmas, Leah was the happiest she’d ever been. She looked even happier now than she had a couple months ago. Her eyes sparkled; a million miles from the Leah I hung out with in London. The one who pretended to be okay when she wanted to hide away. Don’t get me wrong, Leah would have coped without Radleigh, but there would always have been a part of her that wasn’t complete.
Urgh, you sound like a total sap.
I was a sap. A real-life Cinderella. I wanted my friends to get the same happy ending I got.
I shook my head to clear the usual mess of never-ending, galloping thoughts. Maybe I did suffer from some kind of attention disorder.
“Bree!”
I jolted at the sound of Leah’s voice. She and Freya laughed, completely used to my dizziness. I slid into the seat beside Freya, giving her a hug too. We took a few minutes to order our food before getting down to the important business of filling each other in on what we’d been up to. Stupid, really. We spoke at least once a week, often more. We’d had more than the occasional night of webcam silliness and group chats with Jesse, Miguel and Will, too. Wasn’t as good as this, though. Being together.
“Before we get started,” I said, “Jesse says ‘hey’.”
“How is he?” Freya asked, placing the menu back in its holder.
“Bored. Real bored. He’s about one more of his mom’s homemade cookies away from jumping out the window.”
“Yeah, he was the same way yesterday,” Leah said. “Radleigh and I stayed for a few hours to keep her at bay but she’s a sweetheart and it’s hard to be annoyed by her when she cares so much.”
I nodded, a pang of long-buried jealousy shooting through me. Jealousy probably wasn’t the right word. I didn’t want Jesse not to be part of a caring family, I just missed having one of my own. I hadn’t been fussed over by my own parents for a long time.
“We should go over together sometime.” I smiled to hide my inner discomfort. “I still haven’t heard enough about his Isabelle.”
Leah laughed. “Leave the guy alone, hasn’t he told you enough already?”
“Maybe. Meeting a girl in another country and falling in love is so damn cute.”
“Radleigh met her when we were in England. He said she’s a cutie pie.”
Freya laughed. “Radleigh ‘Macho Man’ McCoy used the term ‘cutie pie’? What have you done to him?”
A blush coloured Leah’s cheeks. “He’s still a macho man, thank you very much! Anyway, enough of the Jesse talk.” She turned her attention to Freya. “I want to hear about you and Will!”
Honestly, the Westberg Warriors should have had their own reality show. How cool would that be? Seeing our hot guys on television, not just playing soccer, doing normal stuff too. Hmm, scratch that. My life was fairly boring away from the pitch. Nobody would want to see Jude reminding me to make the bed, and me puttering around our house until my friends finished work. There’s only so much shopping a girl can do.
Where was I? Right. Freya and Will. Romantic stuff. Those guys took forever to admit they were in love. I knew from the first time I met them, and I’m positive everyone else did too. They were best friends as well as a couple. Pretty neat, right?
“We’re really good,” Freya said. “I have some news.”
I exchanged a curious glance with Leah, and Freya continued, “Will and I decided it’s silly for us to be renting separate apartments when we spend so much time toget
her. One of our apartments is always empty so he’s gonna move in with me sometime in the next few weeks.”
“Awesome, Freya!” I said, and Leah gave her hand an excited squeeze. “You need some help moving him in?”
“We will. We’d appreciate any help you can give us.”
“Count us in,” Leah said. “I’m all for bringing you two closer together.”
“Speaking of close,” Freya said, smiling. “You know we’re desperate to hear how you’re settling in with Radleigh.”
Leah laughed. “Being here with him is brilliant. We lived together in the UK for a while anyway, so we’re already pretty used to being together all the time. I …” she paused, shaking her head. “I can’t get over how big his place is.”
“Your place,” I corrected. “It’s yours now, too.”
“I’m still getting used to that. Freya, you know how long I took to call your apartment ‘home’.”
“True story.”
“I love living there. I love knowing that when he goes away for matches, it’s only one night, not weeks we’ll be apart. I’m not looking forward to my first night alone, though.”
“Stay with me,” I offered. “I hate being alone in a big house, too.”
“I might just do that.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Freya asked. “I mean, now you’re here, what will you do? You said you wanted to find a job.”
Leah puffed out her cheeks and slowly breathed out. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, I actually have something to tell you. Keeping this from you has almost killed me.”
“Oh my God!” I jumped out of my seat and slid in beside Leah, almost knocking over the salt and pepper shakers in my excitement. “He proposed, didn’t he? You’re not going to search for a job because you have a wedding to plan! Oh, can I be bridesmaid? Please? I’ll help you with planning and everything!”
