Finding Us
Authors: Harper Bentley
Finding Us
True Love Trilogy #2
By Harper Bentley
Copyright © 2014 Harper Bentley
Digital Edition: February 2014
Editors: Sam & Franca
Cover image licensed by www.shutterstock.com
Cover Photo design by Jada D’Lee Designs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. If certain places or characters are referenced it is for entertainment purposes only.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the Author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First off, t
hank you to Sheyla from Mrsleif’s Two Fangs About It Book Reviews for being so sweet in suggesting all kinds of ways to get the word out about the True Love Trilogy. I appreciate it so much, girly! To Ena from Enticing Journey Promotions and Kimmi from LipSmackin GoodBooks for all the fun in getting this thing rolling. You guys are awesome! There are several other bloggers who’ve been so supportive and I thank you guys so much: Paula and Cheryl from A Pair of Okies, FS Meurinne, Cecily’s Book Review, Steph’s Book Retreat, and The Book Whisperer. Thank you to Liezl for her gorgeous teaser pics! Also to Jada for always listening to my ideas and making them come to fruition in your gorgeous covers. In addition, much love to Sam and Franca for painstakingly reading my drafts repeatedly. Finally, to the readers, thank you. I’ve gotten so many encouraging emails, tweets and FB posts. You guys make it so much fun to do this! For those of you who’ve suggested that friends read or have promoted my books in any way, I’m eternally grateful!
I don’t have any fancy fucking
quotes
to explain how I feel, but if I had anything to say, it’d be that you don’t die from a broken heart. You just wish you did.
My name is Jagger Jensen,
I’m twenty-seven, should be in the best place in my life as a star pitcher for the Dodgers, making a mint for every ball I throw, yet I can’t get my head in the right place because of all that’s happened with my girl over the past couple years which is why she’s not here with me now.
To say I screwed up royally
with her would be an understatement, but it’s damned near as close as I can get to telling the truth.
The love of my life walked out on me because I’m an asshole.
See, Ellen Reese Love had been a part of my life since I was six or seven and she was four or five. Hell, I don’t remember stuff like that, specific ages or dates, but guys aren’t supposed to remember that shit, right? That’s why we’re always getting in trouble for forgetting anniversaries or birthdays. But I swear, women have built-in calendars in their heads or something because El remembered every date there was. Like, she knew that July 24
th
was the first time we met and that August 26
th
was National Cherry Popsicle Day (which I only remember because when we were little, she’d insisted that her mom buy us several boxes of them, and we’d eaten them for an hour straight until our tongues seemed to be permanently stained red, which we, of course, had to show to everyone by sticking them out every five seconds. And then we’d both thrown up on her driveway).
So as far as dates go, I’m a typical guy.
But thing is, when it comes to El, it seems I remember just about everything. And I’ve yet to decide whether that’s a blessing or a curse.
Anyway, we met
when we both ran to the ice cream truck that was making its way through our Chicago suburb neighborhood. The Spiderman pops that we both ordered seemed to cement our friendship from the start. A girl who liked superheroes was awesome, I decided, and from that moment on, she became a part of my life.
We played together nearly every day since there were no other kids in our neighborhood, but that was fine by me because El was
cool as hell to be around. She challenged me to see who could climb the massive oak tree in my backyard fastest, and it almost always ended up a tie, which, if I’d developed my fragile male ego at that age, I’m sure it would’ve pissed me off. But as it was, I was in awe of her since she was an agile little thing, and I was just glad to have a friend to play with.
Summers we’
d compete to see who could swim from one end of the pool in her backyard to the other, and my little boy mind couldn’t comprehend why she’d cry when I won. I’d end up calling her a baby, she’d yell back through bitter and abundant sobs that she wasn’t, punch me in the arm, sniff a time or two, wipe her big, green eyes free of tears then all would be well and we’d move on to the next thing on our playtime agenda. Winters we’d have snowball fights, building our own little forts across the yard from each other, compiling clusters of ammo, and let me tell you, the girl threw a wicked screwball. I’d think it was going to go one way, I’d move to get away from it and end up being nailed right in the head. I couldn’t help but smile that she was as adept as she was at throwing especially since I’d begun pitching lessons by that time and knew all the pitches, so I told her she should become the first woman to play in the pros.
El and I
were inseparable until puberty hit and the testosterone in my body arrived guns blazing. Suddenly, girls were all I saw. God, they smelled so good, were so pretty and most were just so sweet it was hard to ignore them.
F
unny thing was, I tried looking at El as if she was a girl, but I just didn’t see her in that way. She was my friend. The friend who laughed when I bit it hard after attempting a pop shove it nosegrind nollie flip on my skateboard. The friend who called me a sissy when a grasshopper landed on my head and I wigged out trying to get it off until she walked over, picked if off me and proceeded to coddle the fucking thing in her hands before setting it free.
So
it’s easy to see where this is going. Yep. I totally ditched her… for five years. I know. I was a dick. But that was the problem—my dick. For some time, it seemed to be doing all the thinking for me. But by senior year, I’d matured a bit and finally started thinking with my bigger head some, but by then I figured it was probably too late to reestablish things with her.
Oh,
I’d kept an eye out for her over the years we were apart, but I hadn’t paid much attention to her in the guy-checking-out-a-hot-girl way. It was more the we-were-best-friends-when-we-were-little-and-you-saw-me-squirt-milk-out-of-my-nose-once-so-that-made-us-buddies-and-now-I’m-just-making-sure-you’re-okay way.
But
when I was a senior and she was a sophomore, I happened to be driving by her house one day when she’d gotten home and was walking up the driveway to go inside. Doing a damned double take when I saw her, I almost had to slam on the brakes.
She
had on a short skirt and somewhere along the way, she’d grown legs that seemed to be a mile long. Her long, auburn hair flipped around her shoulders as she walked, catching the sun and shooting out blondish sparks here and there. When she stopped and bent down to tug on the strap of her sandal and I saw that her breasts swayed gorgeously with her movements, not to mention her skirt that rode up a little in back teasing me with a glimpse of her gorgeous ass, I almost ran into a car that was parked on the side of the street. Damn.
As much as I wanted to ask her out,
I knew I’d be heading off to college soon to continue playing baseball, and I didn’t want the responsibility of having a girlfriend possibly thousands of miles away.
I know, I know. I had a huge ego because I’d just assumed that she’d want to be with me. What can I say? I was eighteen.
But not wanting the burden of a long-distance relationship was the reason why I’d broken up with Blair Adams. Well, one of the reasons. To say she was clingy was an understatement, and I hated clingy. To say she was easy was more of the same, except I didn’t hate easy so much. Yeah, I dated girls who’d been around the block a time or two and knew I could score with. Already told you I was a dick. Sue me.
So I let things go with El almost the entir
e year until March 27 (See? She’s burned that shit on my brain for eternity) when I couldn’t stay away any longer.
After
baseball practice that day, I was driving out of the parking lot in my badass ’69 Camaro when I saw a group of guys at the south end standing around laughing. I drove over to see what was going on only to find that they were surrounding El who was sitting on the rail pretty much ignoring all their tactics to get her attention. I couldn’t help but chuckle because it was so typical teenage guy.
Seeing her sitting there looking so goddamned beautiful, the wind blowing her ponytail everywhere, oblivious to the guys’ antics, made my heart stop. I knew I should’ve just driven away, but I kept telling myself it’d be okay. We’d just start up our friendship again and that was it. Nothing more.
I asked if she needed a ride, and after a little contemplation, which was a total slam to my ego, mind you, she agreed and got in my car. And I’m telling you, when she did, it was all I could do to keep from putting the car in neutral, pull up on the e-brake and jump out to pound my fists against my chest, showing the guys that I’d won the prize.
And that’s where it all started.
What comes next explains how she and I got to the mess we were now in. And how I continued being a prick, earning my Assholes Anonymous card. But don’t be too hard on me. I’m just a man who had it all and lost it… and has lived to regret it each and every day thereafter.
My intention
s with El were to get
our friendship back and that was it. I’m not lying. Okay, actually, I guess I kind of am. But come on. She was hot, I wanted her, and I secretly hoped that something would happen between us, consequences be damned.
But l
ogically, I
knew
we couldn’t go there. It would just get too complicated, immediately taking things right to the corner of Serious Avenue and Commitment Boulevard and that wasn’t cool. So the plan to keep things purely platonic worked perfectly until a month into our renewed friendship when I ended up kissing her.
Strike one.
Then I took her to Prom and that night she tried to give me her virginity.
Strike two.
And that very night I told her I loved her.
Strike
three, annnnnd you’re out.
Now, I
’m a guy. We like sex. Lots of it. So don’t think I
wanted
my sex life to consist only of me and my right hand. But, let me repeat, I knew things
had
to be the way they were because if they weren’t, I felt we’d have been in over our heads.
I
finally decided South Carolina University was where I wanted to play baseball. It was thirteen hours away, so I felt my decision not to get too serious with El had been a good one until one night, spring of my junior year, everything changed.
I was at a party in Columbia when my friends
back home in Chicago started texting me pictures of El at a party they were at, and she was hanging on some beach bum looking guy.
Let’s just say that didn’t sit well with me.
The next thing I knew, I was headed back home, driving thirteen hours to find out what in the fuck was going on.
Now, I hadn’t gone to see her only because I’d become insanely jealous. I’d gone because I missed her, and seeing another guy’s hands on her convinced me that I needed to finally make her mine, commit myself to her on a deeper level. And when you know something’s right, you just have to follow your instincts.
So once I got there and we figured things out, we ended up making love for the first time that morning, and I could’ve kicked myself for waiting as long as we had. It was good,
we
were good and things progressed from there.
A few month
s later, I was drafted by the Dodgers which was a dream come true, and that’s what got the ball rolling to the not-so-good part of El’s and my story.
I received a huge signing bonus, moved to Gle
ndale, Arizona, to play on the minor league team, got called up to the Bigs the next spring, moved to LA and started my career as a pro. And El stood beside me through it all, encouraging me, having my back and even moving to LA to be with me.
Then I went and screwed everything up.
Other than just playing the sport, there’s so much more to being a professional athlete, including endorsement deals. I’d of course hired an agent and he’d immediately started signing me up to back various products. Everything was going great until he’d cut a deal for me to shoot a three-part commercial with Alessandra, the underwear model who lived in the condo down the hall from El and me. And there’s where the problem started.
There was no doubt that Alessandra was beautiful. No one in their right mind co
uld deny it. And the commercial ended up being a bit racy. I knew it was a little risqué, but I got caught up in the whole career and marketing aspect of it and didn’t even look at it from that viewpoint.
But El did. So did my mom, El’s best friend Rebecca, and
Gwen, one of the players’ wives who she’d become friends with. But I still didn’t get it. I only had eyes for El. I think I’d always only have eyes for her, so I didn’t understand why it became such a big damned deal.
We argued over it, and me being the stubborn-headed bastard that I was,
refused to look at it from any point of view other than my own. We’d had angry sex afterward, which had been great, by the way, and for weeks afterward, I thought things were fine until I noticed her losing weight and not being as cheerful as she normally was. So, again, being the stupid son of a bitch that I was, I ignored it all, chalking it up to her being focused on crucial tests she had coming up for her physical therapy degree.
In my defense, I was playing
anywhere from five to seven games a week, sometimes all of them on the road, and this was all very new to me, so my focus wasn’t exactly pinpointed on El or what was going on with us.
The defining mome
nt in our relationship was reached when my agent, Dirk Dixon, informed me that the lingerie company I’d done the commercials for was holding a gala for the CEO’s birthday and I was to attend. It was black tie and El had been thrilled that she got to buy an evening gown. I’d told her to buy whatever designer she wanted, sparing no expense. And I’d buy her a new gown each week if she showed her gratitude each time the way she did then.
So a
lthough she was still losing weight and there was a little tension around the house since I’d begun filming the second installment of the commercial, she acted as if all was well when she wasn’t consumed with studying, so I thought things were good.
T
he day of the gala arrived and I’d had to chuckle at how excited she was.
But
that was as far as the good times went that day.
When she’d gotten home from her various appointments, I
’d run to get my tux, and while I was out, Dirk had called telling me that I was to attend the function alone. I’d argued with him telling him that El was at that very moment at home getting ready, that she’d been looking forward to the party for weeks. When he didn’t budge on it, I told him that I wouldn’t be attending. He’d apologized but informed me that I was contractually bound to go and that I had to heed what was requested of me.
The moment I arrived home and saw how beautiful El looked, I wanted to
punch Dirk’s lights out for making me have to tell her she wasn’t going. The disappointment on her face killed me, and it hurt even worse when she accepted what I’d said without any argument.
When I arrived
at the damned affair, I found Dirk and told him that I didn’t appreciate what had happened with El. He apologized again (I could tell it wasn’t really sincere) but he told me it was a misunderstanding, that my contract with the company stated I was to promote the product as they deemed necessary, and they wanted me with Alessandra that night. Jesus.
I was so angry
, feeling as if I were just their fucking puppet that I was basically a zombie throughout the entire party, even with Alessandra hanging all over me. But I couldn’t have cared less about her. My mind was back at the condo with El.
I
made it through the event and was ready to head home when Dirk cornered me then proceeded to talk my ear off about upcoming promotions and endorsements that he’d booked for me. One hour turned into two then he started introducing me to some of the big wigs of other companies that I might be called upon to represent, so I couldn’t leave.
When I finally brok
e away to go home, I called El and left a message telling her not to wait up, but apparently she hadn’t since she didn’t answer her phone. I knew I’d have to make this up to her some way, and I hoped she wasn’t mad at me for what had happened. I didn’t want to argue with her anymore.
So on par with the way the evening was going
, right after I hung up, El’s brother Robbie called me to, first of all, cuss me out, telling me what a no-good motherfucking son of a bitch I was because I’d gone to the party without El, second, that I had some fucking nerve to “hang all over that cunt model who’s brain was the size of a goddamned pea,” and lastly, that I was only hurting El with everything that was going on, I was no good for her and she’d be better off without me.
Fuck.
As distracted as I’d been through the whole dinner, that finally seemed to wake me up, forcing me to face everything that’d been going on the past several months with El and me.
Maybe Robbie was right. Since
she’d come to LA to stay with me, things had progressively gotten worse between us. She was clearly not happy, and I didn’t seem to know how to change that.
To make matters worse
(I couldn’t believe that matters could get worse but they fucking could), Alessandra had had too much to drink after she’d gotten in an argument with another model, and now needed assistance getting home. Since I was going that way, Dirk volunteered my services. Great.
By the time I got home, my mind was scrambled with everything that’
d been running through it since Robbie had called. On top of that, Alessandra was at her finest, bitching about everything that’d been wrong about the party and how the other model she’d gotten into it with needed a good slap in the face.
When we got out of the car
, Alessandra was so plastered she could barely walk, so I had to assist her to her condo. El had heard us in the hallway and opened our door, and, man, was she pissed.
Christ.
I took Alessandra to her condo and put her in her bed. Well, not after she begged me to stay the night with her as she tried grabbing parts of me that she shouldn’t be grabbing and saying that she’d make it worth my while.
And now
I
was pissed. The whole night was about as fucked up as it ever could’ve been, but I’d been patient. My patience had now run out and I just wanted it to be over. I left Alessandra’s condo when she’d finally passed out and went back to ours only to be faced with a very angry El.
Shit.
To make a long story short, she yelled at me and I’d had it. Then the six words I never thought I’d say to her came out of my mouth of their own accord:
Maybe we should take a break
.
On the drive home, I’d thought about what Robbie had said and realized it’d made perfect sense, so at her questioning gasp, I basically repeated his words.
At that, she released a salvo on me that I knew I totally deserved, ending with her telling that she was leaving me.
She turned and ran to our room, slamming the door, but she was in no danger of my following her because my feet were glued to the floor as I
stood in shock at what’d just occurred. I finally shook myself out of my stupor, yelled a very loud
Fuck!
and went out the door.
I’
d never known such agony before, never known that a heart could shatter so completely, yet you could go on breathing anyway.
When I got to my car, I heard her yell my name, but
all I could do was turn and look at her, the anguish inside consuming me so thoroughly I felt that only death could take away the pain.
I couldn’t go back right then because I was broken.
We
were broken.
So
I took off and just drove, finally ending up at Logan’s, one of the team’s catchers who’d taught me how to surf, who was more than happy to listen to my problems and help me drink away my sorrows, and, man, did I have plenty of them.
I didn’t wake up
until two the next day. The hangover I had just about did me in, and it was tempting to stay on Logan’s couch until it passed, but I needed to get home to fix things with El. Fuck Robbie. This was between her and me, and I had no doubt we’d work it all out.
Upon returning to our condo, I
went inside, immediately knowing that something was very wrong. I ran to the bedroom and saw that most of her things were gone. Panic set in as I raced through the house calling for her, getting no answer but my own voice echoing off the walls.
I
stopped in the kitchen when I saw a piece of paper on the bar on which she’d written information for a flight to Chicago.
It took a
few seconds for everything to sink in before the realization hit.
S
he’d left me.
And she’d taken my heart with her.
