Misadventures on the Rebound
Misadventures On The Rebound
Lauren Rowe
This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2018 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press
Cover photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
To Dad. I’m awfully glad I’ve got a great one.
Contents
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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About Lauren Rowe
Prologue
Savannah
Las Vegas, Nevada
Five and a half years ago
My heart thudding in my ears, I walk slowly down the hallway of my high school toward him. Mason Crenshaw. His back is to me. His muscular, beautiful, captain-of-the-football-team back. The back I gripped on Saturday night when I unexpectedly lost my virginity to him at a Halloween party. In a closet. While dressed like a chicken. But I try not to think about that last detail. Pretend I never mentioned the chicken part.
Mason Crenshaw.
The gorgeous boy I’ve had a crush on since fourth grade but hadn’t uttered a single word to until two weeks ago. That’s when my multi-variable calculus teacher asked me to tutor Mason in basic algebra because he’d been offered a full-ride football scholarship to UNLV. “But he won’t be going anywhere on scholarship—not UNLV or clown college—if he can’t pass algebra,” my teacher explained. And now, just two weeks after uttering my first algebra-induced word to Mason, he’s no longer my secret crush with whom I’ve never spoken. He’s the boy who unexpectedly pocketed my virginity on Saturday night.
I wasn’t even supposed to go to that Halloween party. I only went because my next-door neighbor and lifelong best friend, Kyle, dragged me there. Apparently, one of the football players is secretly gay and had invited Kyle to the party. “Bring a fake date or don’t show up at all,” the guy told Kyle. So, yeah, I finally attended my first “cool kid” party during my senior year of high school…as my gay next-door neighbor’s beard while dressed as fowl.
And guess what crazy, unexpected factoid I discovered the moment I walked into that party. Cool-kid high school girls don’t dress like egg-layers for Halloween. Nope. They dress like sexy French maids and naughty nurses and Catholic schoolgirls gone awry. There wasn’t a hen or turkey or even a peacock to be found. And that made sense to me, actually, once I thought about it. Popular girls like Amanda Silvestri and her friends have perfect bodies anyone would want to proudly show off—not imperfect bodies they desperately want to hide behind oversized feathered suits.
The minute I realized my feathered faux pas, I fled into a corner of the large living room to await Kyle’s return…and not thirty seconds later, someone grabbed my wing and shouted, “Hide, chicken! We’re playing truth-or-dare hide-and-seek, and Mason Crenshaw is counting!”
I’d never heard of truth-or-dare hide-and-seek, of course. But that didn’t stop me from running like a chicken with my head cut off to find a hiding spot. If Mason Crenshaw was playing the game, whatever it was, then I was playing it, too.
In short order, I had myself safely ensconced in a closet in a quiet back room. A minute after that, I’d taken my chicken head off to keep from hyperventilating. And a minute after that, the door to the closet swung open, and there he stood: Mason Crenshaw. Dressed like a pirate and looking gorgeous as ever in the moonlight streaming through a nearby window.
“You’re a chicken?” Mason asked, a smirk lifting one side of his mouth.
Not knowing what else to say, I did what I always do in times of stress: I cracked a joke. “Buh-gawk?” I said feebly, flapping my arms…and Mason laughed. Okay, well, he kind of half-chuckled. But, still. It was an electrifying moment. I’d made the boy of my fantasies since fourth grade semi-chuckle on purpose.
Mason leaned against the open closet door. “Truth or dare, Savvy?”
Yet another electrifying moment. Prior to that moment, Mason had only addressed me as “Tutor Girl” during each and every one of our tutoring sessions in the library. Indeed, before then, I’d have bet anything Mason hadn’t actually known my name.
I took a deep breath. “Truth,” I said.
“Have you ever fantasized about having sex with me?” Mason asked, his dark eyes blazing.
My heart lurched into my throat. But since I’d agreed to tell the truth…I slowly nodded.
Mason bit his lip. “Are you a virgin, Savvy?”
“I’ve already answered a question.”
“I get ten questions.”
“Ten?”
“It’s the rules of the game.”
I opened and closed my mouth. Surely, if I’d known I’d have to answer ten questions, I’d have picked dare.
Mason smirked wickedly. “I’m guessing you’re a virgin. Am I right?”
I nodded. “I’ve never even been kissed.”
Mason leaned farther into the closet. “Do you wish you could kiss me?”
Holy shit. I nodded again.
“Right now?”
I nodded a third time.
Without hesitation, Mason entered the closet, shut the door behind him, placed his warm hands on my cheeks, and graced me with my first ever kiss. And it was everything. It was so amazing, in fact, I continued nodding each and every time Mason asked me another question until, eventually, my chicken suit was unzipped, my panties were down, and Mason’s condom-covered erection was positioned at my entrance. I felt a quick flash of pain as Mason entered me. A couple thrusts. And then a faint rippling sensation inside me. And that was that. I was no longer a virgin.
I felt the urge to blurt “That’s it?” But before I’d said a word, Mason pulled off his condom, put his index finger to his lips, and left the closet, leaving me sitting alone on top of my rumpled costume in the dark, feeli
ng more like a deer in headlights than a chicken.
And now, here I am, two days later, walking down the hallway of my high school. Mason’s back is to me. He’s laughing with a group of friends. And my heart is pounding.
When I reach Mason, I walk around to face him. “Hi,” I say, shooting him a clipped wave. “I just wanted to tell you I had a nice time on Sa—”
Without warning, Mason grabs my arm and pulls me away from his friends.
“Let’s not talk about what happened on Saturday night,” he says when we’re alone. “It’s our little secret.”
I’m flabbergasted. Isn’t that my line? Whenever I’ve seen this scenario played out in teen movies, isn’t it the boy who wants to brag about getting laid and the girl who wants to keep mum? “Why?” I ask lamely.
“It’s the first rule of truth-or-dare hide-and-seek. Whatever happens in the hiding place stays in the hiding place.”
Boom. Full understanding crashes down on me. “You’re ashamed you slept with me?” I blurt.
“Sh,” Mason says, looking around nervously. “Jesus, Savvy. No, I’m not ashamed. It’s just that we don’t fit together. You must know that.”
I’m too embarrassed to reply. I’m well aware that Mason and I don’t travel in the same social circles. But, honestly, I don’t see how that means we don’t fit. To the contrary, I think if we got together, we’d make an adorable “opposites attract” kind of couple.
Mason continues. “Look, I was willing to make your fantasies come true on Saturday night. But that’s all it was: wish fulfillment. Be grateful for the awesome memory, and let’s just leave it at that.” With that, Mason jogs down the hallway, leaving me standing alone, feeling dirty and stupid and ugly and fat and swearing to myself I’ll never again give my body away to another asshole who doesn’t love and respect and appreciate me as long as I fucking live.
Chapter One
Savannah
Present Day
San Bernardino County, California
Wednesday, 12:08 p.m.
My legs and heart pumping and my mind reeling, I continue hiking up the steep mountain trail. I can’t believe I lost my job this morning—and with zero notice or severance! And only two months after using every dime of my savings for the down payment on a fixer-upper condo in West LA!
Crap.
When I bought my condo, I knew a huge conglomerate was sniffing around my employer. But my boss assured me all employees of my company’s cybersecurity division, especially an “up-and-coming hot shot” like me, would survive any rumored acquisition. “You’ve already made a name for yourself around here, Savvy,” my boss said. “You’re one of four people being considered for promotion to team manager. Trust me, if there’s a merger, you’ll be safe. I guarantee it.”
Of course, I relied on my boss’s assurances and went ahead with the condo purchase. Why wouldn’t I? I truly believed buying, renovating, and then flipping a condo for a tidy profit would be a fantastically smart thing for me—a twenty-three-year-old with her first corporate gig—to do. And now, here I am, eight weeks later, house-poor, shitcanned, and freaking the fuck out.
And yet…now that I think about it…the thing that’s freaking me out the most in this moment isn’t my finances. It’s that I feel like I’ve been abruptly stripped of my dream. I wanted to become the youngest person to get promoted to team manager at Kidwell, Kasner & Barnes. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it. And I wasn’t just sitting around wishing and hoping to make my dreams a reality. I was working my ass off. For the past month—on my own time during evenings and weekends while working on my personal laptop at home—I was slaving away on a secret project designed to get the attention of the decision-makers for the promotion. And now they’ll never see my hard work!
My phone rings, and I stop on the dusty trail to check the screen. It’s Kyle, my lifelong best friend. Surely, he’s calling back after hearing the blubbering, pathetic voicemail I left him this morning.
“Hey,” I say into my phone.
“They fired you with no notice?” Kyle bellows.
“None. And no severance, either. And this after my boss guaranteed my job would be safe.” I sigh. “Why does every man in my life, other than you and Derek, lie to me? What am I doing wrong, Kyle?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong. Getting laid off wasn’t your fault. And neither was that whole clusterfuck with your dad.”
At Kyle’s mention of my father, I glance down at the ruby heart ring on my finger—the “valentine” my father gave me, his favorite Valentine, on my sixteenth birthday. I sigh audibly, my heart squeezing.
“Aw, Savage,” Kyle says. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve been a whole lot better,” I mutter. I glance around at the boulders and foliage surrounding me on the dusty trail. “But don’t worry. Just being out here in nature and finally getting to hear a friendly voice today is working wonders. Derek is at a fitness conference in San Diego today and didn’t pick up when I called.”
“Back up. Did you just say you’re in nature?”
“Yeah, I’m hiking up a mountain about two hours east of LA. It’s this place Derek took me a couple weeks ago. We hiked to an overlook at the top, and Derek pulled out a bottle of champagne and two plastic cups and told me he’d developed feelings for me.”
I smile at the amazing memory. Who knew the hot-as-hell personal trainer I hired eight months ago to whip me into shape for my upcoming five-year high school reunion would eventually become my hot-as-hell boyfriend?
“Feelings?” Kyle says.
I can’t help smiling into the phone. “He told me he loves me.”
“Wow, Savvy. Champagne and an ‘I love you’ at the top of a mountain? It doesn’t get better than that.”
Well, actually, it does get better than that, but I’m not a girl who has sex and tells, not even to Kyle. But the truth is that, after Derek shocked me by saying he loves me two weeks ago, he led me into a nearby thicket of trees, laid out a plaid blanket atop the pine needles and sticker balls littering the ground, stripped off my clothes, and made love to me in the dappled sunshine.
Kyle says, “So why’d you drive all the way out there to hike?”
“I wanted to show myself, in a tangible way, I’m strong and powerful and nothing, not even losing my dream job, can keep me down. A year ago, I couldn’t have made it a quarter of the way up this steep trail, let alone all the way to the top. Plus, I figured if Derek can’t be here to comfort me in person, then hiking to our special spot is the next best thing. But enough about me. What are you up to this fine Wednesday afternoon?”
“I’m in Denver, babysitting a rock star. Lucas Ford had a meltdown at his concert here last night, so I put him up in a hotel, and now I’m making sure he stays put and writes some songs like a good little rock star.”
“Wow, Lucas Ford has been on a downward spiral lately, hasn’t he? I thought I saw something about his leaked sex tape the other day.”
“You sure did. Mr. Ford is the gift that keeps on giving.” Kyle sighs with exasperation. “How the hell did I become a glorified babysitter for a living? I took a job with a record label because I wanted to discover awesome new artists, not fetch coffee and weed and babysit entitled rock stars.”
“Aw, Kyle, I’m sorry. I know how excited you were to get that job.”
“Meh. It’s okay. The good news is I’m almost positive I’ll still be able to make the reunion on Saturday night to see you.”
“Actually, now that I’m unemployed, I’m not sure I’ll be going to the reunion anymore.”
“What? You have to go, Savvy.”
“I’ll still go to Vegas. My room at the Bellagio is prepaid for three nights, beginning tomorrow, and, of course, I want to see you. I’ll probably hang out by the pool and go to the spa and stuff like that, so text me when you get there on Saturday, and we’ll meet for drinks or whatever.”
“No way. You’re going to the reunion.”
“Why? I want
ed to go to show Mason Crenshaw and everyone else that the captain of the math and coding teams grew up to achieve the holy trinity of hotness: hot body, hot boyfriend, and hot career. What’s the point in going now that I’ve only got two out of three?”
“Hey, two out of three ain’t too shabby. Especially when, for eight freaking months, you’ve been consuming nothing but kale and boiled chicken and working out like a fiend for the sole purpose of making Mason Crenshaw’s eyes bug out of his head at the reunion.”
“I didn’t get in shape for Mason. He was the dangling carrot I’ve used on myself to stay motivated during tough workouts. At the end of the day, I got fit and healthy to become my best self.”
“Okay, Oprah. Regardless, you’ve got to come to the reunion for me. You need to be my hype-man and tell everyone I’m an actual music scout, not a glorified babysitter.”
I sigh with resignation. “Fine. I’ll go. But only because you said the magic word.”
“Hype-man?”
“Oprah.”
Kyle laughs. “Thanks, Savage. I can’t wait to see you. And you’ve got to admit it’ll be fun to have Mr. Fitness Trainer Man Candy on your arm in front of Mason Crenshaw.”