Title: Everything I Shouldn't (Nashville Nights #2)
Author: Stacey Mosteller
Release Date: May 20, 2014
Cover Design by Ashley at Ashbee Designs (http://www.ashbeedesigns.com)
Cover Models – Kathy Riddle Hodge & Brandon Lowman
Photographer – Kathy Riddle Hodge & Ted Alley
Synopsis
It’s been eight days, sixteen hours and forty-seven
minutes since life as I know it ended. I know, it sounds so melodramatic and
teen-soap worthy, but it’s the truth. Eight days, sixteen hours and forty-seven
minutes since David found out. Since he kicked Jeremy out, ended their
friendship and told me I could never see him again.
I didn’t plan on David getting suspicious, and I
definitely didn’t plan on getting caught. My selfishness has cost Jeremy
everything, my brother won’t even look at me, Lyric must hate me for
practically blackmailing her to keep silent and my best friend is barely
speaking to me.
Now my life is full of secrets and lies. The people
around me have been affected by the choices I’ve made and the lies I’ve told.
But what will they do when they discover the biggest secret of them all?
Jeremy is everything I shouldn't want, and the person I
can't live without.
SarahBeth
I've been in love with my brother's best friend, Jeremy, for as long
as I can remember. Just saying the words aloud causes my heart to clench. I’ve
never admitted it to anyone other than Olivia, but I knew she’d never tell a
soul. She encouraged it actually, went out of her way to help me find sexy
outfits to wear around him and helped me come up with some crazy plan to make
him notice me. Those usually ended with him scolding me so they probably
weren’t the best way to get his attention.
I’m not really sure when my feelings for him started changing.
First, my love for Jeremy was the love any child has for her hero. My dad was
always busy, and while, my brother David loved me, Jeremy was the one who
kissed my knee when I fell off my bike, the one who taught me how to climb a
tree, all the things my brother - who even as a teenager was over-protective of
me - didn't want me to do. He never grouched about having to watch me like
David did, he was always willing to play games with me and include me in
whatever he and my brother were doing.
I was heartbroken when David went away to college, but the fact that
Jeremy was gone too devastated me in a way that not even losing my parents did.
All of a sudden I was alone. They both kept in touch after they left for
school, at least at first. The phone call came every few days for months, but
gradually became only once a month or less, especially after David came back
for Christmas and argued with our dad. After that, the only time David would
call was when he knew Dad was gone.
Then, when our parents died and everything fell apart; Jeremy was
there to comfort me, to hug me, to dry my tears. That doesn't mean that my
brother wasn't there, because he was. He was just stuck being the grown-up.
David had to deal with funeral arrangements, lawyers, wills, the court and our
grandparents.
Once Jeremy and David moved back home, David became more of a parent
than a brother, and Jeremy made every attempt to fill that role. Unfortunately,
my feelings for Jeremy were never that simple. The fact that he became as
over-protective now as my brother is did nothing to discourage my growing infatuation
with him. Up until recently though, Jeremy never gave any indication that he
saw me as anything other than David's little sister.
I’ve been chasing after Jeremy since about a month after my brother
moved back and brought him with him. We spent a lot of time together because he
was trying to distract me from the life I was thrust into, taking me to the
movies, hanging out, helping with homework… all the stuff that brothers do with
little sisters. It didn’t take long for hero worship to turn romantic. But
looking back, it’s clear I wasn’t the only one with a secret. At the time, I
thought that the reason my brother didn’t react the same way Jeremy did when I
really started dating was because he was so preoccupied with getting his
business off the ground and raising me. Now, I can see that the reason Jeremy
always did his best to scare away any guy I brought around was because he was
jealous.
I imagined that convincing Jeremy to give me a chance, to really
look at me like a woman, instead of his best friend’s baby sister would be
impossible. But just when I thought I should give up, he kissed me. We
continued our relationship in secret because I was afraid of what David would
say and how he would react. It didn’t take much to convince him to keep it a secret,
even though I know it bothered him to not be able to tell him.
I finally got everything I wanted, but I fucked it up royally. I
lied to my brother, my best friend, even Jeremy. I was so concerned with what I
wanted that I didn’t give anyone else a thought. Jeremy wanted me and maybe
even fell in love with me, but now, everything I had, all the people who loved
me; none of them are here. It’s all so completely screwed up, and I have no
idea where to start fixing anything. Jeremy's friendship with David is ruined,
my brother broke up with Lyric, Olivia won't even speak to me. I'm completely
alone for the first time.
I have so much to make up for. I’m the hateful bitch who destroyed a
friendship, made someone who could have been a friend lie to my brother, and I
kept secrets and lied to my best friend’s face. I have no idea how to even
begin to make things right, but I know I have to try.
Jeremy
I fucking knew this thing with her would blow up in our faces. I
should have known better, but instead, I went for it. It’s always been
SarahBeth for me, always. And not in a dirty old man way, don’t call Chris
Hansen and To Catch A Predator because it’s not like that. When it started, I
was jealous of David. He had a dad and a mom, which was already something I
didn’t have, and then came SarahBeth. She was this tiny little thing with big
eyes and curly blonde hair, I swear to God, she looked like an angel the first
time David showed her to me. He was disgusted and pissed because she was crying
all the time and taking all the attention. Meanwhile, I would have given
anything to have the life he had.
As she got older, she worshipped her brother, and me by association.
Following us around, trying to imitate us and running after us on her short
little legs. By the time she was old enough to chase us, we were thinking about
cars and tits not little sisters, and she drove David crazy. He’d get impatient
and yell and she would cry. Big, fat tears that broke my heart, even back then.
We grew up, moved out and then moved on, leaving SB behind us. At
least for a while. Then, the unthinkable happened. That night, it almost broke
David. I think it did in some ways, but SarahBeth? Man, it destroyed her. In
the blink of an eye she lost her parents. In a way, she gained a new parent in
David because he took the “guardian” title to a whole new level. In fact, and
it makes me feel like an asshole to say it, but I think Dave may have been more
her father than her actual dad was.
When we moved back, David spent a lot of his time building his
business. It was easier for me in a way because I just had to get hired. David
built his job from the ground up, which took up the majority of his time,
leaving me to entertain SarahBeth. We got extremely close during that time. I
knew she had a crush on me, but I thought it was more hero worship than true
romantic feelings. I was wrong.
The older Sarah got, the more beautiful she became. Gone was the
tiny tomboy who wanted to follow us everywhere, and in her place was a
beautiful woman. The more time I spent with her, the more I started noticing
things about her; the smell of her hair, how soft her skin was. The more I
noticed, the more I tried to stay away. The sister of my best friend shouldn’t
be the girl I can’t stop thinking about. I did everything I could to distance
myself from her, making excuses when she asked me to take her places, showing
up with a date when I knew she would be there, even though I knew it would hurt
her. The lengths I went to were atrocious and shameful, but I was trying to
avoid this situation. Instead of thinking of her like a sister, I was thinking
of her as someone I wanted to own. She became the girl I wanted to claim, to
make sure everyone knew she was mine.
Finally giving in and taking her should have brought relief, but
instead all it brought was more stress and in the end more heartache. I’m old
enough to know better. Hiding things never works, secrets always come out. I
wanted her more than I wanted his friendship, and look where it got me. He
hates me, she’s devastated, and everything is completely fucked up.
I have to make things better; I need to fix this. Fixing my
friendship with Dave and deserving SarahBeth is the only thing that matters to
me now. He has to understand that hiding our relationship wasn’t to hurt him;
we weren’t trying to deceive him. We were only trying to figure out how to tell
him. David discovered us before we were ready, before we could figure out what
to say to him. We should have just been honest from the beginning. If I had
just gone to him before, explained that I do love her, that I will be good to
her, maybe he would have given his blessing.
At least then, we would know. David’s reaction might have surprised
us. Instead, I let the fear of losing his friendship, of no longer being like
brothers color my reactions and influence my decisions. I’m done being afraid;
I’m done hiding. Making him understand just how much I want to be with her,
that she is it for me has become my top priority. Now I just have to figure out
how to get him to talk to me without him kicking my ass.
Save Me From Myself (Nashville Nights #1)
Southern Seduction Box Set – featuring Never Wanted More (Nashville Nights #0.5)
About the Author
I am a wife and mom to 3 boys, ages 15, 14, and 8! After spending the first half of my life in a small town outside of Philadelphia, PA, my parents moved my brother and I to another small town outside of Greensboro, NC. I moved to Hickory, NC after marrying my husband. We dated a total of three months before getting married, and we’d known each other for a total of six! People thought we were crazy, but 2014 marks our 10 year anniversary, so it obviously worked out!
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