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(Theme
Song) Monster : Imagine Dragons

Haunt : Bastille

Wanted Man : NeedToBreathe

Fall Into These Arms : New Politics

This : Ed Sheeran

The Baddest Man Alive
: Black Keys

Atlas : Coldplay

Shark Attack : Grouplove

Wait : M83

Waiting Alone : Shiny Toy Guns

Laura Palmer : Bastille

Thank you

to the readers who have waited patiently for this story, knowing what I have going on, and still want to be there to read the next book, swoon over the next book boy, fall in love with the next love story. Thank you. You are the reason I do this.

Thank you, Chelsea Fine, for being my sister in that “thing” that we don’t speak of. I’m so happy that I got to
meet you and I get to text stalk you. It’s a privilege. You’re the cream to my coffee, the chili to my hotdog. I love your guts, chick.

Thank you, Jamie Magee, for your emails and texts asking where I am and whether Enoch was behaving. It meant a lot. And no, Enoch was never behaving… *wink*

Thank you, Lila Felix, for caring enough to text me when I had doctor visits and even when I didn’t. You get me. I <# you.

Thank you, Rachel Higginson. You got me over the book hangover for this book and it was a doozy. You know what I mean. Milkshakes and yards and Hellcat islands. You and me, one day. I love ya, babe. Thank you.

             
Shelly is a
New York Times
&
USA Today
Bestselling author from a small town in Georgia and loves everything about the south. She is wife to a fantastical husband and stay at home mom to two boisterous and mischievous boys who keep her on her toes. They currently reside in everywhere USA as they happily travel all over with her husband's job. She loves to spend time with her family, binge on candy corn, go out to eat at new restaurants, buy paperbacks at little bookstores, site see in the new areas they travel to, listen to music everywhere and also LOVES to read.
              Her own books happen by accident and she revels in the writing and imagination process. She doesn't go anywhere without her notepad for fear of an idea creeping up and not being able to write it down immediately, even in the middle of the night, where her best ideas are born.

Shelly's website:

www.shellycrane.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/shellycranefanpage

https://twitter.com/AuthShellyCrane

Now, please enjoy an excerpt from
Shelly Crane’
s
newest Contemporary novel,

WIDE OPEN
, available now.

Milo

My mouth tasted like vomit. That wasn't unusual. The arm creeping over my middle wasn't unusual either, nor the way I felt completely repulsed and sick. I worked so hard drinking, doing any drug I could get my hands on, sleeping with any girl who looked in my direction and didn't slap me for my foul mouth as I told her all the things I wanted to do to her. Slurred, really.

I knew it wouldn't be long until Mason was there to pick me up. The small get-togethers he wouldn't get wind of, but the big ones, he always came and tried to save me. It had been about a month since I'd seen him. He just didn't get it. I didn't want to be saved.

At least, not at first.

I hated him. I hated him with every fiber of my being for what he did to Mom. I couldn't stand to look at him let alone live with the bastard. So I started going out all the time just to get away from him, only seeing Mom during the day when I skipped school and Mason was at work.

But she never remembered me the right way, so it was pointless to keep seeing her. I tortured myself by staying there, and I
wouldn't
feel guilty for leaving. I spent so much time gone that it felt like I didn't live there anyway, so I stopped going home.

Mason texted me so much that I eventually tossed my cell out the window of my friend's car one night. They laughed and laughed, whooping and telling me how free I was. We smoked enough dope to chill for the next day and a half. I never went back to school after that. I never went back home either. Why would I? No one understood me; no one really cared about me. They all just wanted me to "make something of myself".

How can you do that when you don't even know the parts that make you up? The parts that make you
you
? The parts that piece together and make you feel whole? I hadn't felt whole in a really long time. I felt older than I was. I may be a seventeen year old, but inside I felt like I was fifty.

The girl next to me groaned and dug her nails into my side a little. "What time is it?" her raspy voice breathed against my shoulder.

I leaned over the side of the bed and lifted my phone from my pants pocket. My new cell was dead. "Don't know. Does it matter?"

"I have to work tomorrow." She yawned and stretched.

I started to get up, but she grabbed my arm. I winced at the burn on the inside of my elbow. I looked down at it, seeing the bruising from the needles under her fingertips.

"I'm outta here." I shook off her hand.

"Wait. Why so eager to get away?" She rolled over on her stomach, her naked behind peeking out from the sheet, her feet swinging back and forth in the air. "You weren't so eager to leave earlier."

I scoffed. "Passing out and wanting to stay are not the same thing."

"Sometimes they are. Sometimes it just doesn't matter." She watched as I zipped my jeans, commando. "I'll cook you breakfast," she bribed.

I paused. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd eaten. I was so thin that I had to belt my pants to keep them up. I always crashed wherever I was or with a friend, ate whatever came my way, but sometimes it didn't come very often. For all intents and purposes, I was homeless, but had yet to sleep outside.

At her mention of food, my stomach decided to throw a fit. "What do you want for it?"

"Got any blow?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little baggie. "Some."

"Split it with me," she said, biting her lip and sitting to let the sheet fall away. I stared at her chest since she was offering the view. She slithered up to me, unzipping my pants as she pressed her lips to my ear and said, "Come back to bed for a while. We'll hit the blow, and after, I'll make you some eggs."

"Why do you want me to stay?" I asked, not really caring, but wondering why she was offering me more sex and breakfast.

"Because," she pushed my pants down my hips, "my parents will be gone 'til tomorrow morning, and there's nothing better than sex after a hit."

I watched as she took the baggie from me with her fake nails. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek before dipping her pinkie nail in and sniffing the little she took up her nose. She put her finger back in the bag and I took it, rubbing what was left of the powder on my gums.

Normally, I would have bolted, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. The promise of food was almost as satisfying as the sex I was about to have.

She set up the lines and after we did them, one after the other, she pushed me down on the bed and straddled me. I rolled with the drugged ecstasy that crawled slowly through my veins as she groaned and moaned on top of me.

And that was how Mason found me.

The door opened and my head fuzzed over as I turned to look at him. His eyes locked on mine before he turned away, but not before I saw the disgust on his face. I gripped the girl's hips to make her stop, since someone coming into the room wasn't a clear enough cue for her. I pushed her onto the bed and sat up, scooting to the edge.

I stared at his back in the doorframe. "Leave. I don't need you here."

"You do, Milo," he said before turning. He looked and saw all there was left of me. I suddenly felt like I was wide open for him to see it all, for him to see all the rot and gore inside me. He shook his head, his eyes searching my face. "God, help me. You do need me."

I scowled. "No, I—"

"Milo…when's the last time you ate something?" He rubbed his hair. I noticed how good he looked. He looked like he'd gained some weight, the good kind. His arms and torso were bigger, new tattoos peeking out from his shirtsleeves. I realized it had been weeks since I'd seen him.

I stood and yanked on my jeans, spitting my words, hating how good he looked, knowing he was happy with that girl I'd seen before. "None of your fu—"

"Milo!" he scolded, just as a hand crawled around his arm. The girl—his girl—looked around him, the sympathy pouring off her in droves as she looked at me. He touched her arm, his fingers caressing, smoothing. He looked back at me. "Don't use that filthy mouth with Emma here."

She gulped as she looked at me. Her eyes lingered on my stomach before she looked up at my face. She smiled, just barely. "I've got some hot coffee in the car if you like mocha," she offered.

He looked at her again as she came to his side. They barely fit in the doorframe together. He circled her waist with his arm, looking strung out and guilty. It angered me that he felt like he deserved her or anything else that would make him happy. "Trying to lure me out with hot coffee," I mused angrily. "Wow, Mason. Getting the girl to do your dirty work for you."

"Milo," he snapped.

"It's my coffee," she smoothed over, "but you're welcome to it. I haven't drank any yet."

She rubbed his chest and he sighed. He looked at me again, renewed determination in his eyes. "Let us take you to get some food at least. Anything you want."

"No." I searched for my shirt and tugged it on roughly. I realized it was inside-out too late, but left it. I didn't care.

"Come on, Milo. You can still hate me, but do it while you're eating something." I gave him a droll look. "Milo…you look like hell, bro."

"Aw, thanks," I sneered.

"I'm serious," he said quietly. "Please, Milo."

He begged me. He had never begged before, just ordered me around, dragging me back to the house to my room, and then I'd sneak out before he woke up. He'd never tried to feed me before.

"Come with us, Milo," his girl asked. "There's an omelet place five minutes from here that's pretty amazing."

I gritted my teeth. I didn't want his charity. As if she read my mind his girl said, "I'm buying."

She smiled and tilted her head. I sighed, sticking my dirty-socked feet inside my boots without tying them. "Whatever. I eat, then I'm out." I looked over at them and glared. "Don't try to stop me from leaving."

"We won't," she insisted. She rubbed Mason's arm and looked up at him sadly. She looked as if she were about to cry. I had no idea why. It couldn't be for me. I didn't even know this chick.

I led the way from the room. The girl I'd left on the bed yelled something at us. I could tell she was mad, not understanding what was going on, but I kept walking. I was pissed, really, because she had gotten my last hit and I hadn't gotten off before Mason interrupted us.

Mason's car wasn't parked on the street. I looked for it, but Blondie passed me and went to a big truck in the driveway. He got a new truck? How the heck did he have money for that?

I didn't say a word as I climbed into the backseat. She handed me the coffee, and I snatched it from her hands, tossing the lid off, and gulping it down. It burned my tongue and lips, but my fogged brain was past the point of caring or stopping. As I finished it, I watched as she scooted all the way over to press against his side. They whispered things back and forth that I couldn't hear. The drive was short. Blondie had been right about that. We piled into a booth in the back, them on one side and me on the other, and I didn't even pick up the menu.

It pissed me off just smelling the food. My stomach growled so loud and hard that it hurt. I was cold and rubbed my neck. When the waitress came, I ordered a root beer and a western omelet with cheese and hashbrowns. Mason ordered the same and the girl got waffles.

Before an awkward silence could settle in, she started talking.

"I'm Emma, by the way." She smiled. I stared at their intertwined hands on the tabletop. Mason had never had a girlfriend before, really. He wasn't the touchy-feely type either. I was oddly fascinated at the way his thumb ran over her knuckles, over and over.

"Hi, Emma," I spouted sarcastically and let my gaze settle on her face.

She was one of those girls who was gorgeous by design and didn't even have to try. Her eyes, her nose, her cheeks. They all seemed to fit so perfectly. Her lips—they were Mason's favorite thing, other than her legs, which I knew were his absolute favorite. He'd always been a legs man. And she had some nice twigs on her, from what I'd seen. I settled my eyes lower on the barely-there sliver of cleavage that peeked from her top.

It was the first time I'd seen a girl blush in what felt like years. The girls I kept company with didn't blush. They were beyond that point, beyond the level that allowed them to feel embarrassed about sexual things. They'd done it all.

This girl… I shook my head and smirked at Mason. "Not sampled the goods yet, brother? She's mighty skittish."

"Shut your face, Milo," he stood and growled.

I was actually taken aback a little. This was as worked up as I'd ever seen him. And over a girl of all things? Holy crap. He was in love with this chick. I felt my hatred soften a little before snapping it back in place. I rubbed my neck again on that itchy, cold spot.

"Whoa, Nelly," I joked. "Calm the eff down. It was just an observation."

I laughed. It sounded strange even to my ears. It sounded like a sick person's laugh. I glanced at Emma and felt a little bad at the embarrassed way she tucked her hair behind her ears. I squinted. Was there a story there I didn't know?

"I'm Milo," I mocked. "Nice to meet you, princess."

"We've met before, and you know it," she countered easily.

"Yeah," I muttered and rubbed my cold neck. "I remember. You held my hair back as I puked." I laughed condescendingly.

"Basically." She smiled, not falling for my ploys to piss her off. "You're welcome, by the way."

I didn't respond to the beauty queen. I just pointlessly stirred my root beer. She was beautiful to the point of distraction—sweet and annoying all wrapped up in one—and I could tell she had my brother wrapped around her finger, whether she knew it or not.

And it pissed me off. Mason shouldn't be so freaking happy.

And he was, I could tell. He watched her when she wasn't looking. His entire presence shifted when she did. Thankfully, the waitress brought our food, and just as I was taking a bite, I saw the ring on Emma's finger.