The Boyfriend Thief - Shana Norris excerpt

excerpt

Chapter 1

If there was one thing I hated more than anything else in this world, it was Giant Hot Dog Day. The late April sun beat down on me, heat radiating from the sizzling sidewalk as I stood outside Diggity Dog House in a big red hot dog costume complete with two zigzags of mustard and ketchup snaking up my stomach and enclosed in a fluffy pillow of bun.
The costume always smelled suspiciously like sweaty, fungus-infected feet, and the current heat wave settled over Willowbrook made it much worse. I tried to breathe through my mouth as much as possible when inside the hot dog to spare my nose from the fumes. Seeing anything through the screen mesh over the small hole in front of my face was nearly impossible. The only good thing about this was that anyone standing outside the costume was unable to see who was inside, so at least the cheerleaders I vaguely recognized as sophomores from my school didn’t know who exactly it was they laughed at. I gave them my best wave with my puffy white gloved hand as they passed into the diner, causing them to giggle even harder.
I really, really hated Giant Hot Dog Day.
“Look, Bailey,” a woman said, clutching the hand of a boy who didn’t look more than three. She pointed at me and grinned down at him. “It’s Bob the hot dog!”
The kids of Willowbrook loved the giant hot dog. When you were forced to live far away from Disney World or Six Flags or any place that might have cute and cuddly mascots walking around, a giant hot dog worked to fill the void.
“Hot dog!” the boy cried, giving me a drooly grin.
I patted him on the head and turned around to continue my mascot duties.
But the little boy wasn’t done with me yet. “Dance!”
Oh, no. Not happening, kid. I’d wear the costume, but there was no way I would do the Hot Diggity Shuffle. Not on the corner of Hawkins and Main Streets in one hundred degree heat for everyone in town to see.
“Dance!”
I raised the roof with my arms a bit, hoping that might appease him. I attempted some telepathy with his mom. You’re starving for a Diggity Dog Loaded Special, I sent the silent message her way. Go inside the restaurant and leave me to my misery in peace.
Apparently telepathy wasn’t my strong suit. The mom and the boy remained where they stood on the sidewalk in front of me.
“Dance! Dance! Dance!” the boy ordered, stamping his feet.
That kid could really screech for someone barely three feet tall. If he kept this up, my manager Mr. Throckmorton would come outside to see what was going on and then I’d get written up for not doing the shuffle. Again. I was on dangerous territory already because I had received two strikes against me in the last month. One for sneaking a milkshake to my best friend Molly five minutes after ten and the second for forgetting my hot dog hat at home on a day I was supposed to run the register.
There were only three Unbreakable Rules at Diggity Dog House:
Number 1: Closing time was at exactly ten o’clock. Not one minute after. Ten on the dot.
Number 2: All counter attendants must wear the hat featuring a big plastic hot dog across the forehead at all times during their shift.
Number 3: Bob the Hot Dog has to do the Hot Diggity Shuffle whenever asked.
“Okay, okay,” I growled. The shuffle was this stupid dance Mr. Throckmorton made up involving a kind of tap dance move—step, step, shuffle, step, shuffle, repeat—while swinging your arms from side to side. And then for the finale, you jumped around and shook your bun at your audience.
Totally humiliating.
But the little boy loved it. He grinned wide and clapped his pudgy hands.
Just as I jumped around to shake my bun to the little boy’s screeching laughter, a voice shouted, “Look out! Runaway shopping cart coming through!”
Being encased in a bun of foam made sudden movements impossible. I managed to see a blur of blue and gray before something slammed into my hip, sending me flying backward. I landed flat on my back on the sidewalk.
Getting up in giant foam hot dog was also impossible. I flailed back and forth, trying to work up enough momentum to flip myself over.
This must be what it felt like to be a turtle.
Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me into a sitting position. “Are you okay?” a vaguely familiar voice asked.
I opened my mouth to say I was fine—foam hot dog was surprisingly good for pillowing a fall—but another, much more familiar voice stopped me.
“I told you to leave the shopping cart alone,” Hannah Cohen snapped.
Her boyfriend, Zac Greeley, knelt in front of me, holding my puffy gloved hands in his as he tried to help me up. A rusty shopping cart lay on its side next to us, one wheel still spinning.
Zac and I only vaguely knew each other from school. I didn’t know what he and Hannah could possibly have in common. While Zac’s wrinkled clothes and eternal cowlick in the back of his hair indicated that he apparently rolled out of bed and threw on the first thing he grabbed from the floor, Hannah always looked neat and put together. She was president of the junior class student council (I was vice president), vice president of math club (I was president), and the girl who was currently tied with me for highest GPA in our class. In other words, Hannah was my official arch nemesis.
She was also once my best friend, a lifetime ago.
They didn’t know it was me inside the giant hot dog. Thankfully, the costume included foam legs and feet in addition to foam arms and gloves, so I was completely covered and they couldn’t see the embarrassed flush creeping up my neck at this fiasco.
“Sorry, sorry!” Zac pulled me to my feet, grabbing hold of my arms when I stumbled a bit as I tried to catch my footing. “Next time I’ll remember to figure out how to steer before I decide to ride a shopping cart down the sidewalk.”
He grinned, looking like an impish little boy. From what I knew of Zac, riding a shopping cart down the street was only one of many things he’d done, or was rumored to have done. I still wasn’t sure I believed the rumor that he’d danced an Irish jig in nothing but green boxers in the cafeteria on St. Patrick’s Day.
Again, what did he and Hannah have in common?
There was no way I would speak and let Hannah hear my voice, so I gave him a thumbs up. Or at least, as close to a thumbs up as was possible with the huge glove engulfing my hand.
Hannah waited by the door, her arms crossed over her chest. “Can we go get your hot dog now, before the weekend is over?” Back when Hannah and I were friends, she was silly and fun. These days, as we got closer and closer to our senior year, all anyone ever saw of her was the stressed out, serious overachiever who was determined to knock me down to salutatorian.
I knew a lot of people probably said the same thing about me. But my case was different. One day I had a mom. The next I didn’t. My mom’s disappearing act when I was twelve changed everything. And from that point on, everything that didn’t put me closer to my goal didn’t matter. I had to succeed, to make things better for my dad and brother and me.
Hannah, really, had no excuse, other than the fact that she was a liar who sneaked around behind her best friend’s back and then abandoned that so-called best friend when things didn’t go her way.
Luckily, she couldn’t see the face I made through my costume as they headed into the restaurant.
Two hours later, I was on a break from mascot duties, seated in the very back corner of the kitchen. The hot dog body laid crumpled on the floor beside me as Elliott Reiser and Tara Watkins worked nearby. They were on hot dog duty today—as in, making them, not wearing them—and they stood awfully close to each other at the counter. Since Elliott had started working at Diggity Dog House three weeks ago, he and Tara had become cozier and cozier with each other.
I absolutely despised Elliott Reiser, but he and my best friend Molly Pinski had this thing going on between them. Not quite dating yet, but definitely headed in that direction.
Elliott had swept Molly off her feet when they both reached for the same computer game at Valu-Mart. Leave it to Elliott to cast his charms on an innocent girl like Molly when I wasn’t around to make her see reality.
And the reality was, Elliott was a jerk. Plain and simple. Maybe once he had been a pretty decent guy, but now he always had some obnoxious comment to make, thinking he was funny. Who knew what went on between him and Tara when no one was around. I had tried to tell Molly this, but she always said Elliott was friendly and outgoing and she didn’t care if he talked to girls.
It wasn’t like I’d actually seen Elliott do anything with Tara other than talk, as Molly constantly reminded me. But they talked a lot. More than he talked to anyone else. From what I’d seen of the secrets and lies within the halls of Willowbrook High, guys and girls could not be “just friends.” There was always something going on behind the scenes.
I cleared my throat a little too loud and Elliott and Tara both looked my way.
“Well, if it isn’t Avery James, resident hot dog,” Elliott said, giving me that stupid grin of his. “Doing all right over there?”
“Fine,” I said. “And you?” I looked pointedly at him, then Tara, and then him again.
“Great.” Elliott grinned wider and then went back to preparing hot dogs.
The Diggity Dog House office door opened and Mr. Throckmorton appeared, looking disheveled as always. Every day, he arrived at the diner before noon looking nicely pressed. But within a couple of hours his hair stuck out all over his head and his clothes were stained and wrinkled. Apparently, running a hot dog diner was incredibly stressful.
“James!” he barked when he saw me. “Am I paying you to sit around?”
“I’m on a break,” I said.
“That’s no excuse. Get outside when your break is over.”
I saluted him. “Yes, sir!”
“And don’t get sassy with me,” Mr. Throckmorton said before marching toward the door leading to the counter area.
According to Mr. Throckmorton, no matter what I said, I was “getting sassy” with him. I was beginning to think he had a predisposed prejudice against sixteen-year-old girls with red hair. Or maybe just sixteen-year-old girls with red hair who always grumbled about having to shuffle and wear hot dogs across their foreheads.
“Better get back out there, Avery,” Elliott told me. “Your boyfriend is waiting.” He nodded toward the crumpled costume on the floor.
Tara apparently found his stupid joke hilarious.
Think about the money, I reminded myself. One thousand sixty-four dollars and thirteen cents and six weeks left to go.
If it weren’t for the money, I would never put up with this job and Elliott. But unfortunately, Diggity Dog House, in addition to being the most embarrassing place to work, was also the best paying in town. Mr. Throckmorton basically had to pay us a little more than the other restaurants to get employees willing to make idiots of themselves on a daily basis.
So I publicly humiliated myself once again. The next couple of hours outside passed slowly, and then once the sun had set, I came inside to wander around the dining room and greet people while they ate. Frankly, I’d be a little annoyed by a six-foot wiener interrupting me while I ate my dinner, but the customers at Diggity Dog House loved Bob. They all grinned wide and waved me over to their tables. A little old woman whose head barely reached my armpit had her husband take a picture of her with me.
Finally, it was ten and the last customer had been literally pushed out the door by Mr. Throckmorton. He had a strict closing time policy because he liked to be at home in his pajamas and watching reruns of The Facts of Life at exactly eleven.
The foam hot dog peeled from my sweat soaked skin as I shook it off. I tried a different deodorant each week to see if anything was strong enough to stand up to Bob’s inner core, but so far no luck. At the end of the night I always smelled. It was like a science experiment: Which Brand of Deodorant Can Withstand the Giant Hot Dog? Normally, I loved science experiments, but this one was a little too much.
The money, I reminded myself again as I wiped my forehead with a wad of napkins. I needed the money.
I headed toward the kitchen, bumping the door open with my hip since my arms were full of crushed foam. Elliott and Tara were alone in the kitchen and they jumped back away from each other when I entered. Tara busied herself with wiping down the stove while Elliott gave me a smirk.
“Taking your boyfriend home for the night?” he asked me.
I narrowed my eyes as my gaze flicked between the two of them. Elliott looked unconcerned about anything, but I detected a slight red tinge to Tara’s cheeks. What exactly had I walked in on?
Molly never supported my theory that relationships were a waste of time. She had let her hormones take over her common sense. She didn’t even realize how much she needed me around to protect her.
“So,” I said as I returned Bob to the closet where he was stored, “you two seem very friendly these days.”
“I’m a friendly guy,” Elliott said.
I’d bet he was. “I’ll be sure to tell Molly how friendly you are. You remember Molly? The girl you follow around drooling over every day?”
My words didn’t have the effect I hoped for. Elliott smiled at me and reached for the broom to sweep the floor.
Okay, there may have been one thing I hated more than Giant Hot Dog Day: Elliott Reiser. Ever since that summer after seventh grade, I’d hated him almost as much as I hated my mom. But I couldn’t tell Molly about that incident unless I wanted her to drop me like last week’s shriveled hot dogs.
Somehow I had to make her see the light and get rid of his sorry butt.
“Everyone ready to go?” Mr. Throckmorton asked as he walked into the kitchen. He looked at his watch and clapped his hands together. “Come on, let’s get moving!”
I followed Mr. Throckmorton back to his office, trying to figure out the best way to ask for a raise. He jumped a little when he turned around.
“James, what did I tell you about sneaking up behind me?”
“Sorry, Mr. Throckmorton,” I said, twisting my hands together. My eyes darted around his office. Towers of boxes and paper leaned precariously throughout the room, mixed in among various signs, a few old takeout bags, and a couple of sweat-stained shirts tossed into one corner. My fingers itched to spend a few hours in there organizing everything, but Mr. Throckmorton would have a gigantic conniption fit if I moved even a paperclip out of place.
I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets to keep them from wandering toward the old tax records nearby. “I wanted to talk to you about a possible raise—”
Mr. Throckmorton held up one hand. “Stop right there. You know I can’t give you any more money. Your yearly evaluation isn’t until July.”
July would be too late. I didn’t plan to be stuck at Diggity Dog House for another summer come July.
“I know, but I thought maybe I could get an advanced raise?” I said, trying to sound as sweet as possible.
“It doesn’t work that way.” Mr. Throckmorton shuffled through some papers on his desk. He studied one for a moment, then tossed it toward a pile to his left. The paper flipped a few times through the air before fluttering to the floor. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other employees.”
I forced myself not to look at my boss’s inadequate filing system, trying to shut up the voice in my head that screamed, “FILE CABINET! For the love of argyle socks, use the freaking file cabinet!”
“Then could I get some more hours each week? I’ll do anything.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, James. I’m working you as many hours as I’m legally allowed already. I have nothing else to offer you.”
I suppressed a frustrated sigh and forced myself to smile. “Thanks anyway, Mr. Throckmorton,” I said as I turned to walk out of his office.
When I pulled my car to a stop in my driveway twenty minutes later, a light shone through a single window. The kitchen, exactly where I’d expected them to be. Dad and Ian always sneaked in a late night snack whenever I wasn’t home. Usually something greasy and extremely fattening.
I found my dad and younger brother trying to sweep the remains of chili cheese fries into the trash as I entered the room.
“Hi, sweetie,” Dad greeted me in an overly enthusiastic voice. “Have a good day at work?”
“Sure,” I said, raising an eyebrow at them. “Have a good day clogging your arteries?”
Dad’s mouth dropped open and he tried to look indignant. “I have no idea what you mean—”
Ian let out a loud, rumbling burp. “Excuse me.”
“Nice,” I told him as I sat down at the scratched wooden table. “Can’t you stifle your bodily functions until you get to your own room?”
“If it has to come out, it has to come out.” Ian was thirteen and still stuck in that phase in which he thought bodily noises were the most hilarious things in the world.
“Ian, stop tormenting your sister,” Dad said. “And, Avery, stop tormenting me. A little chili cheese won’t hurt us.”
“Remember that when your heart decides go into cardiac arrest,” I said.
“I can live with that.”
“If you keep eating so much junk, not likely.” Without me, Dad and Ian would eat cheeseburgers and pizza for every meal.
Dad wiped a spot of chili from his chin with a napkin. “I’m going to bed. I have a date with Trisha tomorrow after work, so I won’t be home until late.”
I rolled my eyes at the mention of Trisha. Ian and I still had yet to meet Dad’s latest girlfriend, though I knew it was only a matter of time before she showed up at our dinner table. Dad had this two-month rule: If the relationship lasted more than two months, then he’d bring her home to meet us. I thought the idea was brilliant. It had saved me from putting up with a few nameless women who hadn’t made it past a second date. But honestly, a two-year rule would have made me even happier.
Dad had now been dating Trisha for two months and one week.
“So there’s a lasagna in the freezer,” he continued. “And make sure Ian works on his history paper.”
“I don’t need a baby-sitter,” Ian grumbled.
“Yes, Dad,” I said. Sometimes it seemed as though Dad believed Ian and I were still little kids unable to take care of ourselves. Like we hadn’t been mostly caring for ourselves for four years now.
Dad leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Okay, I can tell from your tone that you don’t need baby-sitting instructions from your old dad. Good night.”
Once Dad left, I grabbed a washcloth and wiped down the table and counters. I silently recited the names of the bones in my hands as I worked. Distal phalanges, intermediate phalanges, proximal phalanges, metacarpals, carpals. The words had a nice, soothing rhythm in my head as I put everything back in its place, making sure the bowls were stacked neatly and the spoons weren’t toppling over in the drawer. Returning everything to its rightful place, neat and organized, always made me feel calm and in control.
Under a pile of junk mail, I found one of the countless self-help books Dad always bought. The New You: Getting Over Disappointment and Heartache So You Can Find Happiness. I tossed the entire stack, junk mail and the book, into the trash.
“Try not to get into trouble tomorrow,” I told Ian as I turned toward him. “Just because Dad won’t be home doesn’t mean you can go wild. I can’t be called out of work again because you were caught sneaking into the movies.”
“Correction,” Ian said, “I was caught sneaking out, not in.”
“Only because you sneaked into the wrong movie in the first place. Next time I’m telling Dad.”
“You’re a traitor to the sibling oath,” Ian muttered.
I headed back to my room to get ready for bed. As I walked toward my closet, the brochures stacked on the corner of my dresser caught my eye.
“Spend the summer in Costa Rica!” the bold orange letters on the front proclaimed.
I’d read the brochures so many times they were coming apart at the folded edges. It wasn’t a vacation, it was a three week stay on the outskirts of San Juan, volunteering with doctors and humanitarian workers. It was very educational and would look great on my college applications, giving me a little head start on my future career in medicine. It was the experience of a lifetime.
It was also four thousand dollars.
I had over two thousand saved up, after working part time at Diggity Dog House for over a year and saving my birthday money from my grandparents. But I still had a long way to go and with only two months until the program started, I wasn’t feeling confident that I’d get to Costa Rica this summer.
But I had already paid the deposit to reserve my spot, which was non-refundable even if I didn’t manage to save up the rest of the money in time. It had to be this summer, before my senior year. Colleges would be looking at my applications and this trip would go a long way toward securing my acceptances.
The little voice in my head knew I was lying. I could have chosen a similar program much closer to home, but I’d picked this one specifically because it took place in Costa Rica. My eyes moved to the map tacked on the wall over my bed. There was a huge world out there, but the yellow thumbtacks marked only a few places: Belgium, Hong Kong, South Africa, Vancouver, and Costa Rica.
If I closed my eyes, sometimes I could picture her sitting on the edge of my bed, telling me stories about all these far off places she wanted to see. While Hannah Cohen’s designer-dressed mother dreamed of strolling past the Eiffel Tower or drifting down the waterways of Venice, my mom wanted to get lost in jungles, forests, and mountains. She wanted to hide from the whole world.
But I had never imagined she wanted to hide from us as well.
It had taken every ounce of bargaining ability I had to convince Dad to let me go to Costa Rica in the first place. The idea of sending me thousands of miles always still didn’t thrill him, but he had finally said I could—if I saved up the money to pay for the trip. Extra money wasn’t exactly something that my single-parent, one-income family had an excess of. Begging Mr. Throckmorton for another raise had been my last hope for extra money from my regular job.
I sighed as I tore my eyes away from the brochures and opened the closet to grab my pajamas from their place on the center shelf. I would make it to Costa Rica, no matter what it took. And I would search every bit of the country until I found the answers I was looking for.

Excerpted from The Boyfriend Thief - Shana Norris. Reprinted from author’s website www.shananorris.com

Black Ties and Lullabies - Jane Graves excerpt

excerpt

Chapter 1

Bernadette Hogan wished that when this night was over, she could tell Jeremy Bridges to go to hell. She was about ten times more emotionally stable than the average person, but if she had to spend one more evening watching him pick up vacuous blond women for fun and recreation, she was going to go insane. Yeah, he attended all these charity events as the philanthropic CEO of Sybersense Systems, but in the end it wasn't about generosity. It was about putting one more notch in his hand‑carved Louis XIV bedpost.
But it wasn't Bernie's job to plan a principal's itinerary. Her job was to protect him wherever he decided to go. And, of course, there was the small matter of the outrageous amount of money he paid her to put up with this nonsense, money she was going to need desperately in the coming years. So she kept that resignation letter only in her head, staring at it longingly with her mind's eye every time he aggravated her to the breaking point.
Tonight would be one of those times.
Carlos pulled the limo into the driveway of the San Moritz Hotel behind a string of unusually small and sedate vehicles. Tonight, it seemed, the filthy rich of Dallas society had left their Mercedes and Beemers and gas‑guzzling Hummers in their five-car garages, opting instead for their hybrids and electric cars.
Bernie sighed. "So which environmental cause are we championing this evening?"
Jeremy's brows drew together thoughtfully. "Hmm. Good question." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an invitation. "Ah. Global warming. Emphasis on diminishing polar bear habitats."
"And here you are in your limo. Last I checked, it gets about nine miles to the gallon. People are staring."
"People are hypocrites."
"True, but it's all about appearances."
"It's all about comfort," Jeremy said. "I didn't make all this money to cram myself into a car the size of a shoebox."
"You don't seem to mind cramming yourself inside your Ferrari."
"The Ferrari doesn't count. It's the only vehicle on earth that makes it worth giving up my wet bar and HDTV."
With that, he drained his Glenlivet and set the empty glass down with a contented sigh. There wasn't much that Jeremy denied himself in the way of creature comforts. He drank the best Scotch, lived in a gazillion-dollar house, traveled the world, and dated women who were knockout gorgeous with brains the size of golf balls. Nice to look at, Jeremy had told Bernie more than once, without all that pesky intelligence to get in the way of a good time.
Bernie sighed. With that one statement, he singlehandedly set feminism back fifty years.
There had been a time when total professionalism had dictated the way she dealt with Bridges. Yes, sir. No, sir. Very good, sir. But the longer she worked for him, the more she spoke her mind. Her attitude didn't mean she didn't take her job seriously. It just meant she had an outlet for the irritation she felt around him just about every minute of every day. Fortunately, because Jeremy was a bored rich guy who refused to play by the rules, a smart-ass bodyguard seemed to suit him just fine. Good thing, because if she had to hold her tongue around him, she'd probably end up killing him herself.
"Are you planning on tying that tie?" she asked him.
Jeremy looked down at the tie dangling around his neck. "The invitation said I had to wear a black tie. It didn't say how I had to wear it."
"Did it also say you had to wear athletic shoes?"
"No," he said with a smile. "That's my fashion statement."
Truth be told, Jeremy could show up in what he usually wore in his spare time‑‑crappy cargo shorts, a Ranger's T‑shirt and flip flops‑‑and they'd still let him in. If he wrote a big enough check, he could show up stark naked. But it wasn't like him to be in their faces about it. He always dressed well enough that they would admit him without question, but just shabby enough that they wished they didn't have to. Now that he was thirty-seven years old, Bernie thought maybe he ought to knock off the eccentricities and play it straight, but hell would probably freeze over first.
Over the years, the press had tried to dig up any dirt that might explain his quirkiness, but except for the basics, his background remained somewhat of a mystery. He grew up in Houston with his father. Mother unknown. Graduated from Texas Southwestern University. Short stint as a software engineer before starting his own company that eventually became Sybersense. Except for more current professional and civic activities, that was about it.
Bernie looked at the rich folks strolling into the hotel and sighed. "Must we do this?"
"Now, Bernie. This is a very special occasion. After all, how many times in this city does somebody have a benefit for such an outstanding cause and invite all the rich, pretty people?"
"About once a week."
"Exactly! Not nearly often enough. It's time for us to party."
"Us?"
"Okay. So it's time for me to party and you to watch for bad guys. Everyone should stick with what they do best."
Bernie glared at him. "It's a credible threat this time, you know."
"That also happens about once a week."
Bernie felt pretty certain this event would be the harmless experience it seemed to be on the surface, but there was no way for her or Jeremy to know that for sure. All Bernie knew was that every time she tried to figure out why he behaved the way he did, she realized how pointless that was and merely concentrated on keeping his body and soul together.
"Don't you ever get bored doing this?" she asked him.
"What? Going to charity events?"
"No. Going to charity events, picking up Paris Hilton wannabes, and having your way with them."
"Oh. Well, when you put it like that..." His mouth turned up in a cocky smile.
"Nope. Doesn't bore me at all."
"Good God, I hope you practice safe sex."
"Of course. You never know when some dread disease will rear its ugly head. Your concern is heartwarming."
"Concern, my ass. I just want you to do the world a favor and keep your genetic material to yourself."
"Not to worry," he said, patting his pants pocket. "I'm nothing if not prepared."
She shook her head. The man singlehandedly kept the latex industry afloat.
"Why go to all the trouble of attending these events?" she asked. "Why not just stay home and order out?"
"Order out?"
"Haul out your little black book and take your pick. Send Carlos to pick her up."
"But if I did that, I wouldn't have the opportunity to...what is it we're doing again?"
"Saving the polar bears."
"Oh, yeah. We have to think of the wildlife."
"Come on, Bridges. The only species you're interested in preserving is the Perpetual Bachelor. Unfortunately, the world's never going to run out of those."
"Now that's where you're wrong, Bernie. Polar bears are at the forefront of my consciousness nearly every minute of every day."
"And I'll believe that the moment polar bears grow blond hair and big breasts."
"If you object so much to this event, stay in the limo. I restocked the DVD collection. Terminator, Alien, Die Hard--all your old favorites."
"I'm paid to stick close to you."
"Not too close. You have a tendency to cramp my style."
"I have a tendency to keep you alive."
"Do you have to be so dramatic?"
Bernie narrowed her eyes. "Are you forgetting the London incident?"
"That was an accident."
"That was an out-of-control car that may not really have been out of control."
"We'll never know for sure, will we?"
"Fine. Die. See if I care."
"Of course you care. Would you be able to abuse another client the way you abuse me?"
"Abuse you?"
Jeremy leaned forward and tapped the Plexiglas window. "Carlos?"
The window came down. "Yes, sir?"
"Would you categorize Bernie's attitude toward me as abusive?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely."
"Thank you, Carlos."
As the window went back up, Jeremy turned to Bernie. "Now, there's a man who knows who signs his paychecks."
Bernie glared at Carlos. "Ass kisser."
"Tell me something, Bernie," Jeremy said.
"Yeah?"
"Exactly where do you hide your weapon when you're wearing a skirt?"
She met his gaze evenly. "That's none of your business."
Jeremy's gaze slid away from her eyes, slithered down to her breasts, fell to her thighs, then lazily made its way back up again. "So you're leaving it to my imagination?"
For a moment she felt the oddest twinge of awareness, as if she was one of those glowy, showy, magazine‑perfect women he was so fond of. Just the sound of his voice made her heart beat a little faster. And those gorgeous green eyes. Good God, it was no wonder women fell in his wake.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know he was pushing her buttons. Jeremy thrived on knocking people off guard, and he wasn’t above using every weapon in his arsenal to do it, including sex. But that didn’t mean she was immune to him as a man, and when he looked at her with that unrelenting stare, she couldn’t help the hot, sexy thoughts that entered her mind.
In a few minutes, though, he'd be zeroing in on some dazzling daddy's girl or elegant divorcee, at which time he'd suddenly go Bernie-blind. In the end, she was just one more employee at his beck and call, like his housekeeper or his pool boy. And that was fine by her.
"Knock it off, Bridges. All you need to know is that I'm armed, I'm dangerous, and whether it's good for the world or not, I'll get you home in one piece."
"Actually, I doubt you'd even need a weapon," Bridges said. "Didn't I hear that you once killed a man with a Popsicle stick?"
"A Popsicle stick?" She made a scoffing noise. "That's ridiculous."
"So the rumor isn't true?"
"Of course not." She paused. "It was a Q‑Tip."
Jeremy just smiled, then turned his attention to a glittering Barbie doll standing near the front door of the hotel beside a planter full of periwinkles. Her mile‑long legs protruded from beneath the hem of a sheath of silvery fabric that clung to her body like Glad Wrap, and her headful of stunning blond hair glinted in the evening light.
The car ahead of them drove away, and Carlos pulled to the curb directly in front of the hotel. A uniformed man opened the door of the limo and gave Jeremy an deferential smile. "Good evening, sir." Then he turned to Bernie, and his smile faltered. She could read it in his eyes as clearly as if he'd shouted it: What's a woman like you doing with a man like him?
He cleared his throat. "Uh...good evening, miss."
Miss? Bernie cringed. Nobody had referred to her as "Miss" since...well, ever. And it was none of his damned business what she was doing with Jeremy, anyway.
The man dutifully held out his hand to her, as if she needed help getting out of a car. She ignored him and climbed out, quickly scanning the area for anything out of place. She and Jeremy headed for the front door of the hotel, and she got a good look at the blond for the first time.
Even though the woman wore enough mascara to sink a freighter, Bernie thought she recognized her. Two days ago, outside the gates of Jeremy's house, a woman had been standing at the curb, watching as they pulled through the gates. Bernie also remembered a woman loitering outside a restaurant yesterday where Bridges had met his chief financial officer for lunch. Bernie couldn't say with absolute certainty that it was the same woman, but her instincts rarely failed her.
Two sightings was a coincidence. Three was a pattern. And even though the woman was dressed to the nines, she didn't mesh with thesophisticated crowd here tonight. Bar hopping in the West Village seemed more appropriate. Hermakeup was tooextreme, her dress too flashy, her heels too high.When somebody didn't fit the profile of the occasion, it was always a reason for a heads-up.
As they passed her on their way into thehotel, the woman turned slowly and gave Bridges a suggestive smile. Not surprisingly, he matched her smile with one of his own. But Bernie sensed something about the woman's demeanor that went beyond the usual high society mating ritual she'd witnessed a hundred times before.
Then the woman shifted her gaze to Bernie.
Her smile vanished, replaced with an oddly irritated expression that made a chill snake between Bernie's shoulders. In spite of the fact that Bernie had arrived with Jeremy, there was no way on earth this woman considered her a romantic rival. Something else was going on, which meant Bernie needed to keep a close eye on her for the remainder of the evening.

Excerpted from Black Ties and Lullabies - Jane Graves. Reprinted from author’s website www.janegraves.com

Lola and the Boy Next Door - Stephanie Perkins excerpt

excerpt 

Chapter One
I have three simple wishes. They're really not too much to ask.
The first is to attend the winter formal dressed like Marie Antoinette. I want a wig so elaborate it could cage a bird and a dress so wide I'll only be able to enter the dance through a set of double doors. But I'll hold my skirts high as I arrive to reveal a pair of platform combat boots, so everyone can see that, underneath the frills, I'm punk-rock tough.
The second is for my parents to approve of my boyfriend. They hate him. They hate his bleached hair with its constant dark roots, and they hate his arms, which are tattooed with sleeves of spiderwebs and stars. They say his eyebrows condescend, that his smile is more of a smirk. And they're sick of hearing his music blasting from my bedroom, and they're tired of fighting about my curfew whenever I watch his band play in clubs.
And my third wish?
To never ever, ever see the Bell twins ever again. Ever.
But I'd much rather discuss my boyfriend. I realize it's not cool to desire parental approval, but honestly, my life would be so much easier if they accepted that Max is the one. It'd mean the end of embarrassing restrictions, the end of every-hour-on-the-hour phone-call check-ins on dates, and—best of all—the end of Sunday brunch.
The end of mornings like this.
'Another waffle, Max?'
My father, Nathan, pushes the golden stack across our antique farmhouse table and toward my boyfriend. This is not a real question. It's a command, so that my parents can continue their interrogation before we leave. Our reward for dealing with brunch? A more relaxed Sunday-afternoon date with fewer check-ins.
Max takes two and helps himself to the homemade raspberry-peach syrup. 'Thanks, sir. Incredible, as always.' He pours the syrup carefully, a drop in each square. Despite appearances, Max is careful by nature. This is why he never drinks or smokes pot on Saturday nights. He doesn't want to come to brunch looking hungover, which is, of course, what my parents are watching for. Evidence of debauchery.
'Thank Andy.' Nathan jerks his head toward my other dad, who runs a pie bakery out of our home. 'He made them.'
'Delicious. Thank you, sir.' Max never misses a beat. 'Lola, did you get enough?'
I stretch, and the seven inches of Bakelite bracelets on my right arm knock against each other. 'Yeah, like, twenty minutes ago. Come on,' I turn and plead to Andy, the candidate most likely to let us leave early. 'Can't we go now?'
He bats his eyes innocently. 'More orange juice? Frittata?'
'No.' I fight to keep from slumping. Slumping is unattractive.
Nathan stabs another waffle. 'So. Max. How goes the world of meter reading?'
When Max isn't being an indie punk garage-rock god, he works for the City of San Francisco. It irks Nathan that Max has no interest in college. But what my dad doesn't grasp is that Max is actually brilliant. He reads complicated philosophy books written by people with names I can't pronounce and watches tons of angry political documentaries. I certainly wouldn't debate him.
Max smiles politely, and his dark eyebrows raise a titch. 'The same as last week.'
'And the band?' Andy asks. 'Wasn't some record executive supposed to come on Friday?'
My boyfriend frowns. The guy from the label never showed. Max updates Andy about Amphetamine's forthcoming album instead, while Nathan and I exchange scowls. No doubt my father is disappointed that, once again, he hasn't found anything to incriminate Max. Apart from the age thing, of course.
Which is the real reason my parents hate my boyfriend.
They hate that I'm seventeen, and Max is twenty-two.
But I'm a firm believer in age-doesn't-matter. Besides, it's only five years, way less than the difference between my parents. Though it's no use pointing this out, or the fact that my boyfriend is the same age Nathan was when my parents started dating. This only gets them worked up. 'I may have been his age, but Andy was thirty,' Nathan always says. 'Not a teenager. And we'd both had several boyfriends before, plenty of life experience. You can't jump into these things. You have to be careful.'
But they don't remember what it's like to be young and in love. Of course I can jump into these things. When it's someone like Max, I'd be stupid not to. My best friend thinks it's hilarious that my parents are so strict. After all, shouldn't a couple of gay men sympathize with the temptation offered by a sexy, slightly dangerous boyfriend?
This is so far from the truth it's painful.
It doesn't matter that I'm a perfect daughter. I don't drink or do drugs, and I've never smoked a cigarette. I haven't crashed their car—I can't even drive, so they're not paying high insurance rates—and I have a decent job. I make good grades. Well, apart from biology, but I refused to dissect that fetal pig on principle. And I only have one hole per ear and no ink. Yet. I'm not even embarrassed to hug my parents in public.
Except when Nathan wears a sweatband when he goes running. Because really.
I clear my dishes from the table, hoping to speed things along. Today Max is taking me to one of my favorite places, the Japanese Tea Garden, and then he's driving me to work for my evening shift. And hopefully, in between stops, we'll spend some quality time together in his '64 Chevy Impala.
I lean against the kitchen countertop, dreaming of Max's car.
'I'm just shocked she's not wearing her kimono,' Nathan says.
'What?' I hate it when I space out and realize people have been talking about me.
'Chinese pajamas to the Japanese Tea Garden,' he continues, gesturing at my red silk bottoms. 'What will people think?'
I don't believe in fashion. I believe in costume. Life is too short to be the same person every day. I roll my eyes to show Max that I realize my parents are acting lame.
'Our little drag queen,' Andy says.
'Because that's a new one.' I snatch his plate and dump the brunch remains into Betsy's bowl. Her eyes bug, and she inhales the waffle scraps in one big doggie bite.
Betsy's full name is Heavens to Betsy, and we rescued her from animal control several years ago. She's a mutt, built like a golden retriever but black in color. I wanted a black dog, because Andy once clipped a magazine article—he's always clipping articles, usually about teens dying from overdoses or contracting syphilis or getting pregnant and dropping out of school—about how black dogs are always the last to be adopted at shelters and, therefore, more likely to be put down. Which is totally Dog Racism, if you ask me. Betsy is all heart.
'Lola.' Andy is wearing his serious face. 'I wasn't finished.'
'So get a new plate.'
'Lola,' Nathan says, and I give Andy a clean plate. I'm afraid they're about to turn this into A Thing in front of Max, when they notice Betsy begging for more waffles.
'No,' I tell her.
'Have you walked her today?' Nathan asks me.
'No, Andy did.'
'Before I started cooking,' Andy says. 'She's ready for another.'
'Why don't you take her for a walk while we finish up with Max?' Nathan asks. Another command, not a question.
I glance at Max, and he closes his eyes like he can't believe they're pulling this trick again. 'But, Dad—'
'No buts. You wanted the dog, you walk her.'
This is one of Nathan's most annoying catchphrases. Heavens to Betsy was supposed to be mine, but she had the nerve to fall in love with Nathan instead, which irritates Andy and me to no end. We're the ones who feed and walk her. I reach for the biodegradable baggies and her leash—the one I've embroidered with hearts and Russian nesting dolls—and she's already going berserk. 'Yeah, yeah. Come on.'
I shoot Max another apologetic look, and then Betsy and I are out the door.
There are twenty-one stairs from our porch to the sidewalk. Anywhere you go in San Francisco, you have to deal with steps and hills. It's unusually warm outside, so along with my pajama bottoms and Bakelite bangles, I'm wearing a tank top. I've also got on my giant white Jackie O sunglasses, a long brunette wig with emerald tips, and black ballet slippers. Real ballet slippers, not the flats that only look like ballet slippers.
My New Year's resolution was to never again wear the same outfit twice.
The sunshine feels good on my shoulders. It doesn't matter that it's August; because of the bay, the temperature doesn't change much throughout the year. It's always cool. Today I'm grateful for the peculiar weather, because it means I won't have to bring a sweater on my date.
Betsy pees on the teeny rectangle of grass in front of the lavender Victorian next door—she always pees here, which I totally approve of—and we move on. Despite my annoying parents, I'm happy. I have a romantic date with my boyfriend, a great schedule with my favorite coworkers, and one more week of summer vacation.
We hike up and down the massive hill that separates my street from the park. When we arrive, a Korean gentleman in a velveteen tracksuit greets us. He's doing tai chi between the palm trees. 'Hello, Dolores! How was your birthday?' Mr. Lim is the only person apart from my parents (when they're mad) who calls me by my real name. His daughter Lindsey is my best friend; they live a few streets over.
'Hi, Mr. Lim. It was divine!' My birthday was last week. Mine is the earliest of anyone in my grade, which I love. It gives me an additional air of maturity. 'How's the restaurant?'
'Very good, thank you. Everyone asking for beef galbi this week. Goodbye, Dolores! Hello to your parents.'
The old lady name is because I was named after one. My great-grandma Dolores Deeks died a few years before I was born. She was Andy's grandmother, and she was fabulous. The kind of woman who wore feathered hats and marched in civil rights protests. Dolores was the first person Andy came out to. He was thirteen. They were really close, and when she died, she left Andy her house. That's where we live, in Great-Grandma Dolores's mint green Victorian in the Castro district.
Which we'd never be able to afford without her generous bequeathal. My parents make a healthy living, but nothing like the neighbors. The well-kept homes on our street, with their decorative gabled cornices and extravagant wooden ornamentation, all come from old money. Including the lavender house next door.
My name is also shared with this park, Mission Dolores. It's not a coincidence. Great-Grandma Dolores was named after the nearby mission, which was named after a creek called Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. This translates to 'Our Lady of Sorrows Creek.' Because who wouldn't want to be named after a depressing body of water? There's also a major street around here called Dolores. It's kind of weird.
I'd rather be a Lola.
Heavens to Betsy finishes, and we head home. I hope my parents haven't been torturing Max. For someone so brash onstage, he's actually an introvert, and these weekly meetings aren't easy on him. 'I thought dealing with one protective father was bad enough,' he once said. 'But two? Your dads are gonna be the death of me, Lo.'
A moving truck rattles by, and it's odd, because suddenly— just that quickly—my good mood is replaced by unease. We pick up speed. Max must be beyond uncomfortable right now. I can't explain it, but the closer I get to home, the worse I feel. A terrible scenario loops through my mind: my parents, so relentless with inquiries that Max decides I'm not worth it anymore.
My hope is that someday, when we've been together longer than one summer, my parents will realize he's the one, and age won't be an issue anymore. But despite their inability to see this truth now, they aren't dumb. They deal with Max because they think if they forbade me from seeing him, we'd just run off together. I'd move into his apartment and get a job dancing naked or dealing acid.
Which is beyond misguided.
But I'm jogging now, hauling Betsy down the hill. Something's not right. And I'm positive it's happened—that Max has left or my parents have cornered him into a heated argument about the lack of direction in his life—when I reach my street and everything clicks into place.
The moving truck.
Not the brunch.
The moving truck.
But I'm sure the truck belongs to another renter. It has to, it always does. The last family, this couple that smelled like baby Swiss and collected medical oddities like shriveled livers in formaldehyde and oversize models of vaginas, vacated a week ago. In the last two years, there's been a string of renters, and every time someone moves out, I can't help but feel ill until the new ones arrive.
Because what if now is the time they move back in?
I slow down to get a better look at the truck. Is anyone outside? I didn't notice a car in the garage when we passed earlier, but I've made a habit out of not staring at the house next door. Sure enough, there are two people ahead on the sidewalk. I strain my eyes and find, with a mixture of agitation and relief, that it's just the movers. Betsy tugs on her leash, and I pick up the pace again.
I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. What are the chances?
Except . . . there's always a chance. The movers lift a white sofa from the back of the truck, and my heart thumps harder. Do I recognize it? Have I sat on that love seat before? But no. I don't know it. I peer inside the crammed truck, searching for anything familiar, and I'm met with stacks of severe modern furniture that I've never seen before.
It's not them. It can't be them.
It's not them!
I grin from ear to ear—a silly smile that makes me look like a child, which I don't normally allow myself to do—and wave to the movers. They grunt and nod back. The lavender garage door is open, and now I'm positive that it wasn't earlier. I inspect the car, and my relief deepens. It's something compact and silver, and I don't recognize it.
Saved. Again. It is a happy day.
Betsy and I bound inside. 'Brunch is over! Let's go, Max.'
Everyone is staring out the front window in our living room.
'Looks like we have neighbors again,' I say.
Andy looks surprised by the cheer in my voice. We've never talked about it, but he knows something happened there two years ago. He knows that I worry about their return, that I fret each moving day.
'What?' I grin again, but then stop myself, conscious of Max. I tone it down.
'Uh, Lo? You didn't see them, by any chance, did you?'
Andy's concern is touching. I release Betsy from her leash and whisk into the kitchen. Determined to hurry the morning and get to my date, I swipe the remaining dishes from the table and head toward the sink. 'Nope.' I laugh. 'What? Do they have another plastic vagina? A stuffed giraffe? A medieval suit of armor—what?'
All three of them are staring at me.
My throat tightens. 'What is it?'
Max examines me with an unusual curiosity. 'Your parents say you know the family.'
No. NO.
Someone says something else, but the words don't register. My feet are carrying me toward the window while my brain is screaming for me to turn back. It can't be them. It wasn't their furniture! It wasn't their car! But people buy new things. My eyes are riveted next door as a figure emerges onto the porch. The dishes in my hands—Why am I still carrying the brunch plates?—shatter against the floor. Because there she is. Calliope Bell.

Excerpted from Lola and the Boy Next Door - Stephanie Perkins. Reprinted from publisher’s website www.penguin.com.au

My Beating Teenage Heart - C.K. Kelly Martin excerpt

excerpt 

Chapter One
The first moment is utter darkness. The absence of thought, the absence of everything. An absence which stretches infinitely backwards and threatens to smother your sanity—if there was a you, that is. But there's not. I am nothing and no one. I never was. I must not have been because otherwise, wouldn't I remember?
Don't look back. Don't let the darkness inside you.
If I'm talking to myself, there must be a me. That in itself is a revelation. I exist. The second before was starkly empty and now I'm swimming with celestial stars. They're as silent as stones but they shimmer, glimmer and shine. I think…I think I can hear them after all but not in a way I've heard anything before.
The sound isn't music and it's not whispers. I don't have words to describe it. If teardrops, blinding sunshine and limitless knowledge combined to make a noise, it would be the one the stars hum while I float amongst them. I don't know much but this is something I'm certain I'm learning for the first time: the stars know things that we don't and they always have.
And then, just as my mind begins to expand with questions
— who am I?
— where is this?
— how am I…

I'm falling, plummeting through the glittering darkness at a speed that would normally make your stomach drop. Instinct kicks in and makes me throw out my hands to break my fall. Only, I don't have any—no hands and no stomach either.
The fear of falling exists in my consciousness and nowhere else. There's nothing I can do to stop my descent. Beneath me continents of light beam their brightness as I speed towards them.
Catch me, stars. Help me.
But they're not stars, as it turns out. They're the lights you see from a jumbo jet when you're coming in for a night landing. They make civilization appear minuscule and for some reason that makes me want to sob but I can't do that either. No hands, no stomach, no tears.
What happens when I hit bottom?
I'm so close now that I can spy individual cars, streetlamps, house lights left on.
Is someone, someplace, waiting for me, leaving the light on?
Where am I supposed to be?
A pointed suburban roof reaches up to meet me, and if I have no body, surely there are no bones to shatter, no damage to fear, but my consciousness flinches anyway. It quakes and tries to yank whoever or whatever I am away from the solid mass shooting up underneath me.
In the split second it takes to realize I've failed, I'm already through the ceiling. Inside, falling still. Falling…and then not.
I don't crash. I don't even touch down. All I can do is stare into the pair of blinking eyes below me. They're not even a foot away. They're the distance you hold yourself from someone when you're on your way to a kiss. I don't remember my own kisses but I remember the concept the same way I remember what a roof or a jumbo jet is. I remember romance, yearning, love and hate in a way that has nothing to do with me. Maybe I've never been in love—or maybe it's happened a hundred times but so very long ago that I've forgotten each of them. I can't decide which idea is sadder.
The eyes open and close as I stare at them. His eyes. The white boy's. They're not staring back at me, but looking clean through. If I had a body I'd estimate it was hovering just above his, toe to toe and head to head with him.
It's night and we're cloaked in darkness, the two of us. But he's the only one who's truly here. Here. Wherever that is.
I'd move if I could, give him the space he doesn't realize he's lacking. I feel awkward, embarrassed about all I can see from here—his pores, his nose hairs, a cracking bottom lip that could use lip balm—even though he doesn't appear to have a clue he's being spied upon. But there's nothing I can do about it. I'm like a camera, picking up images but not in control of angles or focal length.
So I watch the boy's eyelashes flutter and listen to him breathe. What his lungs expel sounds like a steak knife slashing into meat. Not like an asthmatic but like someone so steeped in despair it's a wonder he hasn't drowned in it. How long can someone live like this? It hurts to hear. My nonexistent hands clamp themselves over my nonexistent ears.
Outwardly, my focus barely shifts. I'm still floating over him, listening to breaths of bottomless anguish. Wait…
I must be asleep. My fall from the stars and the hurt I hear in this boy's breathing, they can't be real. This vision I'm watching is nothing but a wildly vivid dream. When I wake up tomorrow, with my stomach, my hands and all my memories intact, I'll shake my head at my panic. Then I'll grab a pen and jot the details down before they fade to nothing. I imagine how crazy every bit of this will seem when I read it back in the morning. Stars that make a noise of wisdom. The power to read emotions through someone's breath.
Insane. Even for a dream. Why not dream of something my eyes would want to linger on—the rapturous merging of two bodies or a purple sky hanging over a majestic blue-green waterfall? Why dream of this sad boy?
I examine him, attempt to cement the details in my mind so I can record them when I wake up, and as I'm watching I realize I can shift the camera here and there after all—not much, but a little. Yes, I can stare at him from the end of the bed if I prefer, or from a blue acoustic guitar leaning against the wall near his window. Maybe I can even…No, I can't escape the room, can't leave him behind. That's beyond my power. He's meant to be the star of this dream for reasons my unconscious isn't ready to share with me. I notice that when I turn away from him to study the room my, gaze jumps inadvertently back to him before long.
And when it does this is what I see: a white boy of about sixteen or seventeen, curly brown hair framing his face. His pupils are light but in the dark I can't determine whether they're green, blue or even hazel. The boy's lying in bed in a gray T-shirt, his bare arms stretched over the covers. He's motionless. Stiller than still except for the blinking. The horrible breathing has stopped, or so it seems. When I listen more intently I realize I can still hear it if I choose. There are some things I can control within this dream, evidently, and this strange audio ability is one of them.
I watch the teenage boy close his eyes. A cell phone rings on the bedside table next to him. My eyes follow his as they dart to the phone and I wonder if the call is important in the scheme of this dream fiction. Perhaps the real action is finally getting started.
Who wants to stand by and be a helpless witness to the grip of misery? I hope, since I'm being forced to take in this vision, that the dream's preparing to morph into something more entertaining—maybe something more closely resembling an action movie or thriller. Do I like chase scenes and gunfire in movies? Shouldn't I be able to remember that, even in my sleep?
Once the phone falls silent, the boy reaches for it, looks to check who called and begins to set it down again. It erupts in his hand and I could swear this time it's louder, almost like a siren. If I have to guess I'd say I'm hearing the phone the same way he is—with added urgency. This time he switches his phone off before returning it to its space on the bedside table.
The boy's gaze flashes away from his cell and towards the alarm clock next to it: 12:23. He lies back in bed, his eyes glued to the ceiling where I both am, and am not. Long moments pass like this. 12:24. 12:25. 12:26. I begin to feel like I'm waiting for a change of scene that will never occur. At last a light tap at the door breaks the spell.
The boy's eyes snap shut as if on cue.
"Breckon?" a middle-aged man with a receding hairline whispers as he pops his head around the now-open door. The man's tie is askew and he smooths it down with one hand and then eases the door open wider, waiting for the boy— Breckon—to stir.
Breckon does no such thing, although I know he's awake. The man pads towards him, sighs silently and sits on the side of his bed. He does this carefully, so as not to awaken the boy I now know to be Breckon. I wonder if the man is his father and if he wishes Breckon would open his eyes and speak to him or whether he prefers this false silence.
The sound of Breckon's breath still hurts if I let it, but I don't. I use the special volume control that allows me to swing down the audio on that alone. His father, or whoever the man is, doesn't seem to hear anything unusual. At first he surveys the moonlit walls—a key-chain collection hanging from four curtain rods mounted one beneath the other on the far wall, a surreal Dali print tacked up close to the door and nearer the bed posters of Pink Floyd's The Wall and a photographic image of a soccer ball sailing through a blue sky.
Dali. I remember Salvador Dali. Jumbo jets, kisses, Salvador Dali and Pink Floyd too. How I wish, how I wish you were here. I hear the lyrics play inside my head and the memory of them makes some currently unknowable part of me ache.
Breckon's father curves his hands around the edge of the bed. He transfers his attention to the boy next to him, peering down at Breckon until his eyes well up with tears.
The movie inside my head isn't an action film but some kind of tragedy, and I've seen enough for one night. I begin to struggle with my brain. Wake. Up. Open your eyes! My subconscious brain is obviously stronger than my conscious one. It's not ready to depart yet. No matter how many mental shakes I give myself, my focus holds on Breckon and his teary-eyed father. Please, please, please let me wake up. I try it like a chant. Please, please, please. With profound longing.
But no matter how much I plead with myself I can't regain consciousness. I'm trapped inside these fours walls.
Slowly, Breckon's father rises and starts back towards the door, closing it gently behind him. That leaves me as Breckon's sole witness and, helpless, I continue to watch him pretend to sleep, his lips parted and his breathing shallow. I suppose at some point the pretense becomes the truth because it lasts until morning light. What should unfold in hours feels more like minutes, and when the sun rises and birds begin chirping outside Breckon's window, I'm no clearer about who I am but at least there's more to see.
Breckon rolls onto his side, curling into the fetal position. He lifts his head and then tugs the rest of his body out of bed with it. In the daylight his eyes are a smoky blue. They match the stripes on his sweatpants. Now that he's standing I can see that he's lean and medium-tall. There's a bump in his nose, which could mean it was broken at some point, but don't ask me how I know that when I couldn't tell you my own name. Breckon's fingers dig into his head and scratch. I circle him, testing out my camera skills now that I have an active subject. I'm able to swirl 360 degrees around his body or sharp-focus on his bare feet or the back of his skull, if I like.
I can cling to the ceiling or dart over to the window at the speed of light, but the real trick—soaring through it and fleeing into the open air—is a magical feat that I can't muster. Meanwhile Breckon himself has opened his bedroom door and is shuffling into the hall. My being follows like we're attached by an electrical current. Staying in his bedroom is suddenly as impossible as leaving it was just moments ago.
In an instant a dog that is little more than tufts of fiery orange and white races towards Breckon with a high-pitched yelp. It launches its front paws up to rest them on Breckon's left leg. The dog stares at him beseechingly.
"Moose," Breckon scolds. It's the first thing I've heard him say and his voice is deeper than I would've guessed. Breckon bends to push the dog roughly away from him. First his father and now the dog. Is there anyone this boy does want to interact with?
I home in on his breathing, only for a moment, but that's long enough for the ache to register. Things aren't any better for him this morning than they were last night.
Moose whimpers as he's shoved aside. He lets Breckon pass, his eyes trailing him, when a forty-something-year-old woman appears in the hallway in pale linen pants and a cardigan. Her long brown hair's back in a ponytail, and her eyes are near enough to the same color as Breckon's. It would be difficult to decide which of them looks more tired.
"Morning," the woman says. She leans in towards Breckon to wrap her arms around him and he lets her.
"Morning," he mutters back.
"I was just about to go down for breakfast," the woman tells him as she straightens and steps back, one of her hands still touching his arm. "Is there anything you'd like?"
Breckon rubs his dry lips wearily together and shrugs.
"How about some eggs?" she suggests.
"Sure." He scratches at his T-shirt. "Thanks."
As they head downstairs together, Moose following, I've begun to doubt my initial assumption that the woman is Breckon's mother, but she's clearly someone he knows well. Someone who wants to make him eggs because at least that means she's doing something for him. Or am I reading too much into their exchange? Perhaps she doesn't have an inkling about the pain he's feeling.
Down in the kitchen, Breckon collapses into a wooden chair and watches the woman pull eggs out of the refrigerator and retrieve a frying pan from the shelf beneath the stove. He clears his throat and sets one of his bare feet on the chair across from him. "So did Sunita get home okay?" he asks. "Did you talk to her?"
"I did." The woman pivots to face Breckon. She smiles for him, but the wrinkles in her forehead proclaim something other than joy. "About an hour ago. She complained that the man in the seat next to her was sneezing nonstop during the flight last night, but other than that she seemed fine."
Breckon nods in response, a yawn creeping into his mouth and making him open his jaws.
"Do you want some toast too?" she ventures. "Juice?"
Breckon shrugs like he doesn't care but the suggestion of juice jolts through me. I remember. And this is different than with jumbo jets or Dali. I remember something specific about me. I like orange juice. Apple too but orange more. I'm not even thirsty, but the mere mention of it sends me into an orange craving that would rival an alcoholic's yearning for vodka or whiskey. Nothing in the world seems more appealing than a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice at this exact moment.
Wake up, I urge. Don't you want to get out of bed and pour yourself some real-life orange juice?
While I'm busy having a personal revelation (I love orange juice!), a second woman has entered the kitchen. In many ways she resembles the first. In fact, if the first woman didn't have her hair tied back, I might mistake them for the same person.
"Dawn," the first woman announces, reaching out to stroke the second's arm. "I'm about to fry Breckon up some eggs. Can I put a couple on for you too?"
Dawn cradles her chin like this is a difficult, almost unanswerable question. One of her blouse sleeves is unbuttoned at the wrist but she either hasn't noticed or doesn't care.
"Go on, sit down," the first woman adds, leaping over her original question. "I won't be a second with the eggs."
Dawn bobs her head and trudges towards the table, where she stops and studies the apricot-hued wall behind it. What appears to be a recent school picture of Breckon hangs next to an empty hook and then a family portrait. I study the photos along with her, confirming that Dawn and the man who sat on Breckon's bed last night are his parents. I haven't worked out who the woman making breakfast is yet, and there's a girl in the family portrait—young with white-blond hair cut as short as a boy's—who has yet to make an appearance.
"Oh," the woman at the stove remarks, her mouth drooping around the word as she notices where Dawn's stare has landed. "I have to drop by the funeral home and pick up the photos. I'll do that later today."
Oh. I feel the sting of the implications behind that syllable too and I hope I'm wrong. The girl in the family portrait is much too young to die. In the photo she can't be older than six. But the woman's reference to a funeral home could mean anything—an older relative's passing. It's only a dream anyway, I remind myself. Nobody's died, not really.
Breckon's mother sits across from him at the table. They nod at each other but remain quiet. The sole sounds in the kitchen are of a wall clock the shape of a sunflower ticking and the woman at the stove scraping a spatula against the bottom of the frying pan.
"Lily?" Breckon says, breaking the silence.
The woman with the ponytail turns to look at him. "Hmm?" she says, tilting her head.
"I'm going to hit the shower," he tells her, already on his feet. "I'll have the eggs when I'm finished, okay?"
"Sure, honey." Lily's face is gilded with sympathy. "Whatever you want. I'll keep them warm for you."
Breckon glances down at his mother. Her eyes are blue too, but brighter than his, and she points to her feet, where Moose is sitting on the tile floor, dazedly watching the three of them. Dawn's mouth flaps open as she struggles to formulate her thoughts. "He's been so—"
"I know," Breckon cuts in. He turns abruptly away and makes for the stairs, taking them two at a time like he can't escape the kitchen quickly enough.
"Breckon," his father calls from the top of the stairway. Breckon's shoulders curl towards his chest as he looks up at his father. "I heard your cell ringing in your room just a second ago," his dad continues, hands dipping into the deep pockets of his navy-blue robe. His face radiates the same unhappiness that everyone's inside this house does. And still no sign of the little blond girl, I note. But can't people change their dreams if they want to?
If I concentrate hard enough, imagine the face from the family portrait and wish her into being with all my might, will she materialize in front of us, white-blond hair still mussed from being flattened against her pillow? Can I create a miracle in my sleep?
They call that lucid dreaming, I think, but either I'm doing it wrong or it's a phony concept in the first place, because nothing happens when I envision the little girl in the hallway with us. Absolutely nothing.
"I'll…" Breckon's fingers dive into his curls. "I'll check messages when I get out of the shower." He squints as he continues his climb, maybe remembering the same thing I am—didn't he switch his phone off last night?
Breckon passes his father on the stairs, and lurches through the second-floor hall and into the bathroom where I watch him tear off his T-shirt and sweatpants. He leaves them in a heap on the floor and reaches, naked, for the shower tap. Inside he stands under the stream of water, bowing his head and letting droplets run down his face. He closes his eyes and hooks his fingers into his armpits. His shoulders begin to shake. His face crumples. He cries quietly into his own chest as the tremble takes hold. Breckon's face is red with agony. He quakes and sobs under the sound of running water, and the sound of that undercover weeping is worse than his tormented breathing, though I can still hear that too.
If I've ever seen anyone cry like this, I can't remember it, but I'm certain that even in my waking life, I won't forget, and with the pain of that thought finally, finally my brain changes gears and starts to release its hold on my dream world and let me go. Not through the roof and stars the way I came, but with a simple fade to gray and then black, Breckon dropping away from me as I fall into pure, blessed silence.

Excerpted from My Beating Teenage Heart - C.K. Kelly Martin. Reprinted from author’s website www.ckkellymartin.com/

Every Last Kiss - Courtney Cole excerpt

excerpt

Prologue

“Charmian! Is there any sign of her?”    
I hurriedly rushed back from the outer room of the mausoleum, looking nervously over my shoulder as my bare feet padded lightly on the cool stone floor.
            “No, my queen.  Only the guards.”
Queen Cleopatra nodded solemnly, her golden armbands glistening in the lamplight. She rose from her perch on a jeweled chaise lounge and gazed sadly at the golden sarcophagus that glittered mutely in front of her.  Ornate and beautiful, it held the remains of her husband.  Lovingly, she slid her hands along the golden shell that would protect him for eternity. 
From the open windows of the outer chambers, the tangy sea breeze blew softly into the inner rooms and I found myself wishing that it could carry me away, somewhere far from here.  I fingered the birthmark on my wrist.  It was not throbbing, not even an ache, and I knew that I would not be leaving this crypt.
A sudden, soft knock on the doors echoed in the quiet room, causing both of us to whip around.  Tension immediately formed in my neck.  This was it.  It had to be.  Cleopatra squared her shoulders, then bent to brush a soft kiss on the golden mask covering Marc Antony’s face.
“Forgive me, my love,” she murmured.
There was another low knock and I felt my shoulders ripple with the stress that they carried as Cleopatra reached out to grasp my hand.
“Iras, love… could you answer that?” Cleopatra whispered.  She squeezed my hand tightly, but I barely noticed.  
Cleopatra’s other handmaiden nodded obediently and slipped silently from the room to answer the door.  She returned a scant moment later with a tiny shriveled woman who looked not a day younger than 200 years old.  The glinting eyes that stared from under her brown hood were ageless, full of wisdom and I felt my heart begin to race.  It was time.  There was no doubt.
            Cleopatra squared her shoulders, her face a perfect regal mask as she walked purposely toward the old woman. 
            “Do you have it?”
            “Yes, your highness,” the old woman rasped throatily. 
She held out a woven reed basket.  I wouldn’t have thought it was big enough to conceal anything and apparently the Roman guards hadn’t either.  Nowadays, they checked everything that came in for the queen. 
            I rushed to Cleopatra’s side and we peered into the interior of the basket together.  It was full of plump figs and I inhaled their sweet, heavy scent.  My eyes raised questioningly to the old healer. 
            She nodded at my unspoken question.  “It is hidden under the figs.”
            “How long will it take?” Cleopatra whispered, her voice not reflecting even a bit of the fear that raced through my veins.
            “Only a few moments. No longer.”  The healer’s faded eyes searched Cleopatra’s bright ones.  “You must be certain, your highness.  Once the poison enters your body, there can be no turning back.”
            Cleopatra nodded.  “No, there is no turning back, old woman.”
            The healer nodded gravely and held out the basket as if it were an offering.  Cleopatra took it and sank back into her chaise lounge, staring absently at the opulence surrounding her as she reached into the basket, withdrawing a fig.  Slipping it into her mouth, she chewed it delicately, then smiled.
            “Delicious,” she announced, swallowing calmly. 
She eyed the basket again pensively.  I sucked in my breath.  It was time.  I felt it coming, the air crackled with it.  Death was an unseen presence in the room, waiting for our last breaths. 
            Reaching into the basket once again, Cleopatra withdrew a long, thin black snake.  It draped itself along her arm and she stared into its black slitted eyes. 
            “You will take me to the afterlife,” she instructed it firmly. “And do it quickly.”
            Leaning back into the silk cushions, she shook the snake lightly.  It hissed, its large mouth yawning open ominously, revealing glistening fangs.  As it stared at her, one drop of deadly venom dripped from its mouth.  Nothing more.  Impatient, Cleopatra shook it again.  It struck her so quickly that I barely had time to register the movement before I heard her gasp. 
            “It is done then,” she murmured, dropping the snake once again into the basket.  I flew to her side, my arms around her slender shoulders.  Two drops of blood dripped from her breast.
            “Cleopatra…” My voice broke as pain flooded through me.   
            “Charmian, do not fear.  We have done what we must.  All is well.” 
Her obsidian eyes met mine and I saw peace in them. My breath caught in my throat just as she drew her last.  Her lips quivered and then she was still, her dark eyes staring sightlessly at me.  My heart shattered silently. 
            “All is well,” I whispered as I reached out and gently closed her eyes.  “Is it?  Is it well where you are now, my queen?” 
Her face was peaceful and even in death, she was beautiful.  I swallowed hard as I looked up at Iras.  She was shaking her head in grief as she rocked back on her heels.  The old woman watched me silently, waiting to see what I would do, waiting to see if I would follow our queen. 
            Shakily, I picked up the basket and reached inside.  The snake’s body was surprisingly dry, not scaly in the slightest.  It writhed beneath my hand, agitated already.  My fingers closed around it determinedly, pulling it back out into the light.
            Staring into its flat black eyes, I implored it softly. 
            “Please be quick.”
            And it was.

Excerpted from Every Last Kiss - Courtney Cole. Reprinted from authors website http://courtneycolewrites.wordpress.com