The Valentine's Dare (The Sycamore Serial Book 1)
Read The Valentine's Dare (The Sycamore Serial Book 1) Online
Authors: Nicolette Owens
Chapter One - Bricks and Books
Chapter Five - The Heart, What it Wants
Chapter Seven - One and Two, You and You
Chapter Nine - Saints and Sinners
Chapter Ten - Just like the First Time
Chapter Eleven - Every Little Beat
Dedicated to my BFF, who totally shouldn’t read the sex scenes. I mean it.
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The Valentine’s Dare is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2015 Nicolette Owens
First Edition ebook
The Valentine’s Dare
Kierra Adair has
more
than had enough of February 14
th
. To this college sophomore, the date is nothing but a black mark on her romantic past, leading to heartbreak and disappointment on an annual basis. So when her college house asks for a volunteer to be the Valentine’s Day Designated Matchmaker, she jumps at the chance to remove herself from the dating pool. What better way to celebrate love than to arrange it for her two best friends?
Suave senior Mason Pryor has other plans for Kierra. Every year, he’s made it his mission to charm the VDDM into breaking her no-dating matchmaker vow, and every year he’s succeeded so well that the boys of Sycamore House have a betting pool running on his success. This year will be no exception - especially with $1,000 and his reputation on the line. But Kierra is a tough nut to crack, and he’ll soon find himself wanting more than just a one-day date from this gorgeous, sarcastic, and vulnerable woman.
Kierra is having none of his wiles - even though he is the kindest, funniest guy to show interest in her, and he makes her smile. Just when she’s about to give in and let him in, a darkness from her past returns to remind her why she swore off love…
Note: if you pre-ordered this book prior to February 14
th
, you are reading the first edition.
Please consider updating your edition to the revised, second edition manuscript to be released after the publication date.
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CHAPTER ONE
Bricks and Books
“What did I pack in this, my brick collection?” Kierra groaned as she tried - and failed - to pick up a particularly heavy box. “Whatever is in here, I don’t need it. I’m getting rid of it right now. Leave it here.”
Lacy turned her head to read the messy upside-down scrawl on the outside of the box. “Rook… collection? I didn’t know you played chess, Kierra.”
“
Books,
” Leila said, grabbing the box and picking it up like it was nothing. “Book collection.”
“Oh.” Lacy blinked her wide blue eyes, then shrugged and pushed a tuft of downy pink hair behind her ear. “That makes a lot more sense.”
Kierra watched Leila carry the crazy-heavy box
and
one other, smaller box besides down the stairs and out to her car. She thought briefly of helping her freakishly strong friend, but quickly dismissed the thought in favor of sitting on the couch and doing nothing.
After all,
someone
has to,
she thought, taking a seat with a sigh.
“So,” Lacy said, crossing her arms and surveying the near-empty room Kierra had once lived in, “are you going to miss living by yourself?”
“And eating in the Elm House mess hall? Fuck no. They have
vegan gluten-free
Wednesdays, Lace.” She shuddered at the thought.
Rabbits have eaten better than Elm House residents.
“It’s a jungle out there. A deodorant-free, clay-eating, white-people-with-dreads jungle. Plus, I’m excited to live with you two.”
“Oh,
me too!
” gushed Lacy, clapping her hands like a little girl. “We’ll have movie marathons, and eat snacks, and we’ll get along really well!”
Kierra couldn’t help but smile at her short, bouncy, fun-loving friend. “You don’t think we’ll get on each others nerves?”
Lacy thought, then frowned. “You don’t chew loudly, do you?”
Leila reentered the room then, giving Kierra the evil eye for just sitting there. It was all Kierra could do not to squeak and duck for cover under those disapproving brown eyes. The tall one of the three, Leila could be intimidating when she chose to be. “Lace
hates
the sounds people make when they chew. She once punched me in the head for eating tortilla chips, carrots, and cinnamon candies all in one day.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that when I don’t need sustenance to survive.” Kierra stood up, trying to pretend like she wasn’t doing it just because Leila had glared at her. “This is all of it, right?”
“There’s just one box left.” Lacy pointed under the couch. “What’s that?”
Oh no,
Kierra thought, realizing she hadn’t gotten rid of
that
before winter break.
God, the last thing I want is that shit.
“Just leave it!” she said, waving Lacy away from the couch. “No one needs to look at it or open it up or anything like that, just leave it there as a gift for the next person who lives here. Okay let’s go c’mon out the door okay-“
“I’ll get it.” Pushing past her, Leila knelt beside the couch and grabbed the box, unintimidated by Kierra’s mumbling and feeble hand-waving. “You didn’t.”
Cringing, Kierra shook her head. “No, I definitely didn’t. Who would keep a box of stuff dedicated to a relationship with their shithead of an ex-boyfriend? Not me, oh no.”
Leila opened up the box and stared down inside it. Kierra couldn’t look, but even with her eyes averted she could see the black leather jacket, old T-shirt, copy of
Catcher in the Rye,
and an infinity scarf he’d given her for her birthday.
“It’s okay, Kierra,” Leila said, closing the box and picking it up. “I don’t expect you to throw away everything that asswipe gave you.”
Kierra looked at her, puzzled. “You didn’t?”
“Now we get to burn it instead.”
One thing about burning you ex-boyfriend’s shit: it’s really only satisfying if you’re at least a little bit tipsy.
Kierra found herself standing in Leila and Lacy’s apartment-style dorm - really,
her
apartment-style dorm - staring at a cupboard full of empty liquor bottles.
“Remind me again why you keep them after all the good stuff is gone?”
“So we remember which ones we liked,” Lacy said, rummaging through the bottles for one that still had something in it. “I swear we don’t have an alcohol problem.”
“She swears
she
doesn’t. I acknowledge nothing to that affect,” Leila said, tossing her glossy back hair over one shoulder, a frown on her face. “I think all we have is-“
“Ah-ha! Baileys!” Lacy pulled the little bottle out with a squeal of triumph. “Now what to mix with it?”
“Like I was about to say, all we have is Baileys and cocoa.”
Nose wrinkling, Kierra shook her head. “I
hate
hot drinks.”
“It’s like 30 degrees outside.
30 fucking degrees.
” Lacy looked at her peculiarly. “I didn’t know you hate hot drinks.”
“Put some ice in it.”
Leila yanked the Baileys out of Lacy’s hand and grabbed a box full of cocoa packets, getting to work with the drink mixer and the microwave. Within minutes they had three steaming mugs of Irish coffee - and a handful of ice cubes for Kierra.
This can’t be the way you’re supposed to do it,
she thought, dropping the cubes in and watching them water down her now-lukewarm drink.
Sighing in delight, Lacy closed her eyes and savored her own drink, then whipped them open and turned them on Kierra. “Do you have the matches?”
Kierra patted her jacket pocket. “Check.”
“Box of shithead’s shit?”
Leila picked it up and carried it on her hip, mug in the other hand. “Also check.”
“Let go make some mothafuckin’ fire.”
They did it out in the courtyard, sheltered from the cold rain beneath the eaves of the house roof. It was easy enough to empty a trash can and throw all of Brooks' stuff inside it. Kierra lit the match, thinking of their history and the memories she had of him for a while; and then she dropped it in, enjoying the satisfying feeling of the flames consuming her past.
The burning leather jacket smelled funny. Kierra took another sip of her lukewarm Irish coffee only to find she’d drained it all.
“My liquor is gone.” Frowning, she turned the cup upside down. “Do you think we can get high off the fumes?”
“Don’t go down that road,” Lacy said, pulling her back from the fire. “Is it just me, or does the fire smell funny?
Leaning forward, Leila took a whiff of it. “Totally. It smells like my grandmother’s feet.”
Kierra stared at her. “Okay weirdo. Lay off the analogies for a bit and maybe stop smelling old lady feet.”
“I feel like we should be chanting something.” Lacy screwed up her forehead in thought. “What’s Latin for ‘burn this jerkwad’s penis off along with his stupid things,’ or whatever?”
“Alohomora carpe diem,” Kierra said.
“Really?”
“No.”
Just then Kierra saw three figures on the other side of the courtyard, leaving the dorms well after weekday curfew. “Who’s that? And couldn’t they get in trouble?”
