Live Like You Mean It
Page 25
I could only blink at him. How could he possibly have it all worked out?
“I talked to a consulting firm in DC this afternoon. Mr. Price got me the call. Sounds like a great company. Anyway, I can start with them in January. They have month long training with a couple other recent grads, then I’d go out to client sites. They work four days a week. Monday through Thursday and fly home on Thursday night. I know that’s not ideal, but I’d be home four nights a week with you and Aiden. After you graduate we can figure out what comes next. The money’s better than I would have thought. And I can even stay with the band, play gigs on the weekends. Weekly practices are out of the question, but Jason rarely shows up anyway, so…”
He really had tried to figure it all out. I couldn’t help but smile. “You’d do all of that for me? Give up the lights and crowds and…”
“The lights and crowds are awesome.” His blue eyes lit like he was remembering that very thing. “And maybe Desolate Sun will swing some major deal and we can figure out that whole tour thing, you and me.” He shrugged. “But if it’s not with those guys and if you’re not right there with me, then I don’t want any part of it.” Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.
My eyes fluttered closed and he gently pressed me back against my pillows. And it was heaven, the sweetest, most all-consuming heaven I’d ever experienced. Kissing him was like a balm for my tired soul, washing away the months we’d spent apart. It was like nothing else in the world and I never wanted it to end. It had been forever since we’d been like this and I couldn’t keep my hands from trailing across his chest and tugging the edge of his shirt upward.
Brody ended our kiss and grinned down at me. “So, is that a yes?” he asked.
I smiled wider than I’d ever smiled in my life and I nodded. “If you’re crazy enough to marry me.”
He laughed. “Babe, I’m getting the better end of the deal here, trust me.”
But he was wrong, if anyone was lucky it was me. And I was never going to let him go.
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Coming February 17, 2015
AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-SALE
In her roommate's borrowed dress, Brynne Wright doesn't look like herself. In trying to capture the attention of a certain keyboardist, she somehow captures the interest of the sexy guy from her history class instead.
Wheston baseball catcher Nate Carey is in trouble. A failed history midterm lands him on academic probation, which puts his baseball scholarship in jeopardy. Looking for a one-night distraction from his problems, a girl at a local club captures his full attention. But when the sun rises the next morning, and he has to focus on his academic troubles, will he be able to put the sexy blonde out of his mind? Or will she capture his heart when he least expects it?
I tipped back a bottle of Miller and closed my eyes, blocking out the lights and the crowd in the club and wishing everything was different. The band was decent enough. Desolate Sun usually was, but I just wasn’t in the mood to be social. I might not ever be in the mood again.
Academic probation. Two words that really shouldn’t ever be together. I’d certainly never wanted to hear them in the same sentence. But I had that afternoon. Academic probation meant no baseball. No baseball meant no scholarship. No scholarship meant I was fucked. I tipped the bottle back one more time.
“Whoa, whoa.” A hand clapped me on the back, and then Mike Willett, our first baseman, dropped into the seat across from me at the dingy little table. “Don’t get too far ahead of me.”
I snorted at the absurdity of that statement. There wasn’t anyone I was getting too far ahead of, not anywhere it mattered. “You don’t have to babysit me, Mike. I’m not gonna throw myself from the bell tower or anything.”
He stared at me like I’d lost my mind for saying something like that.
I was on academic probation with a shit GPA, and I was dyslexic. But I wasn’t stupid. “I know Coach wants you keep an eye on me.”
“I don’t mind, I just…” Willett breathed out a breath and shrugged. “Well, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to help you, Nate.”
I laughed even though I didn’t feel like laughing. “If you ever figure that out, you’ll far surpass every teacher and every counselor I’ve ever had.”
He shook his head. “You’re just always studying. It’s not like I can have a talk with you, get you buckle down and put school first. You already do that.”
I’d always done that with the same results. “You know how many major leaguers have a college degree?”
“Twenty percent?” he guessed, before taking a drink from his own bottle.
“Four point three.” I frowned. “You know what percentage of draft picks end up in the majors?”
“Twenty percent?” He grinned.
He was closer that time. “Seventeen. Essentially one in six. But not all of us will get drafted. Now I’m a good catcher— “
“You’re a great catcher.”
“I’m good,” I said again. “If I was great, if I was better than everyone else out there, that four point three percent wouldn’t bother me.” I shook my head. “But I’m not better than everyone else out there. And the odds are not in my favor, Mike.”
“Well, now you’ve got me depressed.” He took another swig of his beer.
“I have a high IQ,” I told him, and I held up my thumb and forefinger. “This close to genius, believe it or not. But my grades have always been shit. Probably shoulda picked a different school. Hindsight.” I blew out a breath. I’d always known that very few of us had any sort of real shot at the majors, and if Wheston University was gonna let me play ball and give me a degree that was gonna mean something to me later on in life in the process…Well, a degree from Wheston was better than a degree from ninety percent of the other schools out there. So I’d jumped at the opportunity, swore to myself that it would be different in college. I would study morning, noon, and night. And I’d done that, but I was still fucked.
And the last thing I wanted to do was go home to Texas, my tail between my legs, and work for the same chicken company my dad had all his life. But that’s what it was looking like.
Mike frowned at me. “Did you know my dad was the head of the medical school?”
“Yeah.” I’d heard that. Mike’s dad had been killed on some kind of trip for the university several years ago. Something like that. I wasn’t gonna ask for details.
“He always said talking to your professors was the best thing to do. You gotta appeal to their human side. They’re people too at the end of the day.”
I nodded. “Uh, yeah, when you’re dyslexic you’ve had those conversations your whole academic career.” And, honestly, most teachers, most professors were pretty understanding, but… “Professor Giraud does not give a shit. Told me he was tired of incompetent student athletes looking for a pass and he wasn’t giving one out this time. So I either ace the final at the end of the term or no baseball for me.”
And I’d never aced a test in my life, not one time. I knew the material. I knew it backward and forward, but me knowing it and me getting it down on paper were two very different things. God, what I wouldn’t give to be fucking normal. I took another swig.
“20th Century History, right?” he asked. “You want me to help you study?”
Studying was not the problem. Mike Willett was a good guy even if he didn’t understand shit about what it meant to be in my mind. “I’ve never aced a test, Mike. It’s not gonna happen.”
“You can’t think that way.” He shook his head. “You’re doomed if you think that way.”
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br /> “Don’t give me that positive thinking bullshit, ‘cause I’m not buying.” I pushed out of my chair and scanned the crowd. There was a sexy blonde on the other side of the club. I’d noticed her when she’d first walked into The Keep, and she caught my interest once again. Shoulder length hair, pretty lips and a tiny dress that barely touched her thighs.
“So what are you gonna do?” Mike asked.
I was gonna do the one thing that would put a smile on my face. “I’m gonna get laid.” And I was gonna do it while I still had the prestige of being Wheston’s catcher.
Mike laughed. “Yeah, ok. Just stay away from the bass player’s girlfriend.”
What? I dragged my eyes from the blonde to our first baseman “The bass player’s girlfriend?”
He grinned. “My sister. “ Then he shrugged. “The bass player’s a dick. You don’t wanna mess with him.”
I did not want any drama, just a little break from all the bullshit swirling around my life. I nodded toward the sexy blonde. “That girl over there?”
Mike shook his head. “Not my sister. Go for it.”
AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-SALE
WEEK AT THE BEACH
A Desolate Sun Short Story
* Travis & Georgia
CATCH ME NOW
A Desolate Sun Novella
* Nate Carey & Brynne Wright
LIKE IT’S THE FIRST TIME
A Desolate Sun Novel
* Jason Cole & Emery Reid
ONE MORE ON THE ROCKS
A Desolate Sun Short Story
Part of the 50 Ways to Kill Your Larry Collection
* Brian Gilles & Kristen Cooper
USA Today Bestselling Author Ava Stone has penned more than 20 Regency Historical novels before meeting the guys of Desolate Sun. She was so charmed by the band, that she decided their individual stories needed to be told.
You can find Ava’s New Adult romances featuring the guys from the band as well as Desolate Sun’s original music at www.desolatesun.com. And updates from the band can be found at www.twitter.com/DesolateSun.
You can find Ava’s historical romances at www.avastoneauthor.com
You can keep in touch with Ava on Twitter www.twitter.com/Ava_Stone and on Facebook www.facebook.com/avastoneauthor