Plastic Confidence (Good Bye Trilogy #1)

PLASTIC CONFIDENCE
BOOK ONE
THE GOOD BYE SERIES

A Rock Star Suspense New Adult Romance

A
novel

By Alisa Mullen

T
his book is a work of fiction and all persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Plastic Confidence is meant for mature audiences (ages 17+) only. Due to explicit sexual scenes and murder details, please do not read this book if you are sensitive to that subject matter in any way.

Copyright © 2014 Alisa Mullen

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1500494889

ISBN
-10: 1500494887

Edited by
Melissa Borucki and Krysta Anderson

Cover Design by
Margreet Asselbergs

Rebel Design and Edit

DEDS AND CREDS

~ To my editors Melissa Borucki and Krysta Anderson. There are no words and I am a writer.

~ For
my fabulous assistants, Marina Acosta(US) and Kelly Byrne (INTL). You keep me from drowning daily.

~
LOVE and GRATITUDE to Rachael Berkebile, Sarah Ratliff, Alexandra Lied, and Vanessa Lofton.

~
This book required a plethora of research so thank you to Nikki Deatherage, Matthew Kohl, I. McFarland, and Jeff McDonald.

~
To the Official Street Team Boston Babes–Find the words.

~
Thanks to the beautiful Margreet Asselbergs at Rebel Edits and Design for my awesome cover design. You are a miracle worker.

~
Thank you to Dana Hook and Nina Ceves just because.

~
Love and hugs to William, Shea, and Tyler.

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.”
 
–Max Lucado

~For the twelve year old girls out
there who live by their labels.

You are you in SO MANY words and beautiful is one of them.
~

PLASTIC CONFIDENCE

BOOK ONE

THE GOOD BYE TRILOGY

A ROCK STAR SUSPENSE NEW ADULT ROMANCE

PROLOGUE

2009

I woke up singing Don McLean’s
American Pie
... again. It wasn’t the first or the last time the up tempo opening notes would startle me wide awake. No–I most certainly did not write the book of love–and God? We still weren’t on speaking terms. It went hand in hand with the nightmare or dream or whatever it was. Memories. It was the memories from one summer when I was twelve years old and lost a great chunk of my innocence. This morning, however, was different for one reason. I woke up naked and sweating, smelling like body odor and sex. I felt like I was going to throw up. The dream was so real this time. I was living it all over again and I didn’t fucking want to. I wish there was a button I could press or a pill I could take that would erase that one stupid summer from my brain. I would pay millions of dollars, travel to any psychic healer, invest in any drug company, and maybe even cut off a finger. I would do anything. I just wanted it gone from my head.

Grace Miller. Jason
#2. Emmy. Angie.

Kids
from my past were making their casual and unwanted appearance in my present. It wasn’t that the dreams necessarily haunted me but this one was so extremely vivid that it left me feeling like I was missing something. Over the years, I had purchased every dream book out there. From the murder to the OUIJA Board to the night I lost my virginity, the books all said that I am facing a big change. A brand new path. It was time to let go of what is comfortable. Whatever it was, it had been years and my path was steady and solid. No changing paths now. My life was pretty fucking great.

I rolled over to
try and locate the blankets but found a blond haired, tatted up hunk of sex laying next me.

In my
hotel bed.

In the morning.

Oh hell no!
Sure, he was cute but I was most definitely too far gone last night to kick his ass out after we screwed.

I racked my brain, as I tapped my fingers to my head. Oh! He kissed like a lizard but that was o
kay when he went down south. No! Shit! That was the guy from the night before.

Oh! He was the one that had a small dick but still knew how to use it
... pretty well actually. Multiple times. Yes, that is why he was still here. I was too exhausted after three hours of him pleasuring me.

Still, it had to be done. I smacked his shoulder.

“Wake up, Casanova. Time to hit the road,” I shouted at him. He groaned and as he rolled over to face me, he slowly opened his eyes.

“
Jules Delaney,” he smiled as he, too, remembered who he was in bed with.

“Up and
at ‘em! Now you have to get out.” I was a little more forceful with my tone.

“What? Why? We could
... you know,” he said suggestively as he started for my neck. I pushed his face back with my entire palm. Hard.

“Hell
no! You were lucky that I didn’t toss you at four this morning. Time to go,” I repeated and I swear to fucking God if he didn’t listen this time, I would start screaming rape.
Grace Miller was raped. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

I started off the bed and
purposely shoved the memory back into my brain. I didn’t have the energy to think about what I was supposed to do. Obviously it was something huge since my subconscious was bringing it to my conscious once again.

He grunted out something foul in reference to me. Cold bitch, fucking tease, slutty whore,
or you label it. I had heard them all.
Just go, douchebag. Yes, I am all of those filthy names but much, much more. Now leave...Please.

“
Hey,” I called out. I hadn’t bothered to learn this one’s name. “I am going to take a shower. If you aren’t gone by the time I am out, consider spending the next four hours in a police station, answering the age old question about what the word ‘no’ means. Okay?” I smiled brightly at him. “By the way, you were amazing last night.”

I walked into the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush as I looked in to the mirror. Not too bad for a late night gig, hours of sex, and hardly any sleep.

“The name is Jason by the way,” he shouted to me. I heard the door of my hotel room close.

“Jason,” I repeated. “Of course it is.”
The memory of that summer pops up everywhere. Call it serendipity. Call it fate. I call it suck ass.

ONE

1993

Merrimack, New Hampshire

JULES ~AGE TWELVE

I leaned into Frank for a final kiss good bye. He was twelve like me and had been my first kiss ever.
Sigh
. I was now a person who kisses. A kisser. I kiss boys. Well, I kissed a boy. I knew how to make out. All thanks to you, summer camp! Rock on.

Camp Wimberley sat in the White Mountains and had been a constant summer staple for me and my two best friends. Angie, Emmy, and I booked early for two weeks
at the end of June every year since we were eight. We would skip out of the last day of class and know in less than two weeks we would be in one of our favorite places. We loved the crystal blue pond with the mountains surrounding it. Mom always commented on how great I was at taking pictures of them but all anyone had to do was point and click. Every view was a post card waiting to happen.

The
log cabins were hot but so comfortable. Emmy, Angie, and I took up three of the cabin’s four bunks and every year we made a fourth best friend forever in the last bunk. Throughout the school year, we would keep in touch with that girl until the next summer when we would get a new bunkmate. We told her how lucky she was because we knew the ins and outs of Camp Wimberley. We knew the ropes. We were sleek and total mission impossible at night to retrieve food from the cafeteria or enjoy a late night walk around the lake. We got away with a whole heap of stuff over the years.

Swimming, boating, and
field games took up most of our daylight camp hours. The mess hall was a huge building and it allowed us three or sometimes four a place to play tricks on the camp counselors. One little frog dropped in the pudding made for a lot of ruckus but no one could pinpoint us as we were already walking through the sea of campers back to our reserved table. I think they eventually caught on after two years but they loved the three of us nonetheless. We were entertaining.

Now that we were in the older group, we enjoyed more freedom
–nightly dances, later curfews, and interactions with boys from the camp down the road. Frank and I kissed the first night we showed up for registration and the opening dance. I liked him right away. He was funny and made me feel special. We swapped love notes and slow danced to
American Pie
at every dance, where he would sing all the words to me. It became
our
song. Angie and Emmy also met boys but Frank and our love connection cemented my growing up. Being twelve was so rad. Boys and Junior High were the future life of Jules Delaney.

I heard someone clear their throat behind me and I turned my head to see my mother with her hands on her hips.

“Jules Delaney!” She admonished me. I immediately stepped back from Frank and flushed.

“Mom!
You are early! Pick up isn’t for another two hours,” I stated firmly.

“Yes, well, all of us wanted to get you girls home now. Something extremely tragic happened yesterday and we got permission to
pick you girls up early.” She was her normal, cold self. No hug, no smile.
Pick up the kid from camp, check.

I looked around to see Angie with a miserable face and speaking to her parents
, who were comforting her with hugs and hushed tone. Emmy was listening to her parents–stoic and emotionless–with no reaction at all. She nodded every once in a while but seemed resolute. Obviously she didn’t mind our early departure. I turned back to Frank and smiled at him. I pulled out an envelope with pre-stamped postcards, addressed to me. He grinned down at them.

“I will send one today. I will put my phone number on it for you to call me, okay?” Frank seized my hand and kissed it. I blushed again.

“Jules!” My mother snapped. I rolled my eyes as I twisted back to face Frank. Catching his wondrous gaze, I mouthed ‘I love you’. He brightened up and mouthed it back to me.
Yes!
We finally admitted it. Summer camp was magnificent through and through. I could go home knowing that I was a new girl, almost a woman. A boy had kissed me and he told me he loved me. There was no better feeling.

With one final look at
Frank, I trailed my mother with my trunk in tow. I waved over to Angie and then to Emmy. They made the phone signal with their hands and I nodded quickly with wide eyes. Something was most definitely happening. Were we all in trouble for something we had done before we left for camp? I tried to remember but all I could think of was Frank. I sighed as I looked back to him, but he had already moved from our spot. I looked at my best friends again. Both girls had stunned and freaked out expressions on their faces as they handed their own trunks over to their fathers.

I had what my mother referred to as an absen
t father. He was alive and well, but to me, it wouldn’t affect my daily life if he wasn’t. He left Mom when I was five. He got himself a brand new family, who I liked enough to visit on occasion. Okay, that wasn’t true, I didn’t like his wife. I called her my step-monster.

The day
my dad left my mother for that woman, two things changed. I knew what it actually felt like to hate someone and the joyful light in my mother’s eyes completely flickered out the day my dad left for good.

My brother, Kent, and I are
our father’s afterthoughts. To be fair, he is
my
afterthought, too. Rarely do I have memories of our family all together and they fade just as quickly as I try to grasp more detail from my brain. I don’t remember very much of my life back then. Everything I know is from what mom tells me. I believe what she says because, well, he isn’t around to give me his side of the story. It is times like these that I wish a fatherly figure could make an appearance and show everyone that I am loved by two parents.

As I hoisted the trunk into the back seat, I dismissed the thought. I was a twelve year old who was in love for the first time.
Nothing
else matters. I just wish I didn’t appear different in any respect from my friends. Explaining a divorce to my friends is just as uncomfortable for me as it is for them. Daddy just didn’t love us anymore.

I threw my seat belt on and played with my silver bangles on my wrists. Mom started up the old Buick and I watched the luscious green grass and trees as we made our way out of the most magical place. My summer camp experience was unforgettable and I sighed heavily as I started to
long for it already. I had to switch gears and get back into home mode which was heavily clouded by my mother’s mood. Mom was upset and more than a
usual
upset. It wasn’t like she was a cold person but hugs and kisses just weren’t her way of showing affection. Talking was her thing.

“Communication is
key,” she announced at the beginning of every argument. I decided to take her stance and use it against her. I would not let her mood ruin mine.

“So what is wrong with you Mom? I like Frank. He is very sweet. We kissed.
So what?” I asked incredulously.

“Frank?
Was that the boy you were with? Yes, well, I suppose it is time for a trip to Planned Parenthood. I suppose you are growing up, huh? I was around your age for my first kiss, but my mother would have cut off my lips with an exacto knife if she saw me.
See
, I can be hip.” Her humorous laugh faded off into silence.” She shook her head. I balked at that image. Geesh, it was only a kiss.

She continued.

“As much as I would like to be solely concerned about you kissing a boy, that is not what is upsetting me and the community back home,” she croaked out, as she started to straighten her body in a protective stance. She meant business. I, myself, sat up a little taller in the seat.

“What is going on, Mom?” I asked
, alarmed. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong at home before I left for camp?”

She shook her head again. She was silent, probably trying to figure out how to fix the problem inside her
own mind. She could do it, too.
My mother, the world class Ms. Fix-it.
The pipes are leaking? Call the plumber. Failing math? Hire a tutor. Kissed a boy? Go on the pill.

My mom was
good to us despite the circumstances. With a full time job and a single mom, she was stretched thin. Kent and I got away with a lot. Her expression morphed back into a nervous consideration as she handed me the
Merrimack Daily
newspaper and asked me to read it. A photo of Grace Miller was on the front page. She was a year ahead of us in school. She was already in Junior High, so we would be at her school next year. Pretty blond. Popular socially. Trendy clothing. Sometimes snobby to people outside her circle of friends. On the rare occasion, she said “hi” to Angie because they knew each other from gymnastics camp. Emmy and I would give Angie crap for that. We teased mostly, saying she would ditch us for the popular crowd when we started school.

As I read the story below her photo, I saw the words rape, strangled, and murder. How was Grace’s picture associated with murder?
I tried to tamp down the car sick feeling when I read words in the car but it was too late. I was focusing too hard on each word and my head started to throb. My stomach became a pit of snakes that were eating their way underneath each rib.

“Mom, reading is making me car sick and I don’t understand what I am reading here. Just tell me what you want me to know.
Gracie Miller is dead?” I asked as the sluggish, nauseated words stumbling their way out of my mouth.

“She was strangled to death,” she emphasized
, and then paused so she knew that I understood the enormity of what she was telling me. “She was riding her bike home from the camp at Merrimack Elementary.”

She looked at me pointedly like I should
have already been aware of whatever she was telling me. My friends and I, and especially Grace, were too old for that camp at the school. It only went up to fifth grade so it didn’t make any sense that Grace would have attended. The words from the newspaper replayed over and over in my head as I felt the headache start to subside.

“
Whoa, that is... ” I didn’t know what to say. I suppose I had more questions than knowing what to say.
A murder.
That didn’t happen in our daily life. Murder was made for television and newspapers that highlighted those high crime areas in the bigger states. New Hampshire was safe. I felt safe but maybe now, I wasn’t? Was I?

“Mom, what is rape?”
I felt my eyebrows were pinched together with curiosity and it seemed to make my head feel better.

My mom’s lips went into a thin line and she paled. I could tell she was trying to reign in her feelings. Maybe she didn’t mean to show me that portion of the
newspaper story? It appeared that before she was strangled, she was raped. Whatever that meant. Mom took a deep breath like she always did when she about to say something that she didn’t want to, like the day she told us our father was never coming home.

“Rape is something that is very cruel. It is an illegal crime when someone makes someone else do things they don’t want to do,” she explained. “Sexually,” she added.

“Oh,” I peeped. I couldn’t manage to say anything else. Rape wasn’t something I knew about but the word itself sounded awful. I had seen someone being strangled on television and it was a cruel way of killing someone. I couldn’t imagine trying to suck in air. The victims always fought against the hands. They always shook their heads and bodies to get out of their grasp. The fear hit me then.

“Mom, did they get h
im? You know, the man who strangled Grace?” I asked, as I felt my stomach inch its way into my esophagus.

Mom shook her head. I watched her shake out her hands and firmly put them back on the steering wheel. I stared at absolutely nothing for a long beat before I
sat back in my seat. I stayed silent while she sniffled and looked devastated. She was driving but her vision was all over the place, like she was looking for something. I wanted to ask her more but this woman was someone I hadn’t seen before.

Her face proclaimed that she was furious. Her jaw set implied that she didn’t want to start crying. Her
absent minded hand to rub her breastbone admitted that she was scared. I watched her and wondered what else she knew about Grace Miller’s murder that I didn’t. What was she not telling me? Did Emmy and Angie know more than I did? I would call them as soon as I could.

She held the front door open for me at our white ranch style house in Merrimack. The familiar country smells were welcoming. I was home. Our home was set up in a small but family focused town. Everyone knew everyone. I had great memories
of camp but the summer still had a great deal of time left. I couldn’t wait to get on my bike and spend every day scrounging up coins for the penny candy down at the MM Country Store. Emmy, Angie and I would ride the long country roads for miles and enjoy the butterflies and small lakes. We were always on a mission for an adventure.

My brother, Kent, was in the front room reading a magazine. He was seventeen and I was surprised to see him home. He was never ever home. Either he was playing baseball and hanging out with the
Jasons
. Yes, all three of his good friends were named Jason. If he wasn’t with them, he was trying to stick his tongue down his girlfriend’s throat.