The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (204 page)

“I'm sure,” I said, my voice a little shaky.

He smiled at me and I felt my heart jump into my chest. We'd been together for just a few months but I knew how I felt about Kellen, knew how he made me feel.

Whole. Complete.

I reached for Kellen's hand. He folded his fingers into mine and squeezed.

I couldn't remember the exact last time I'd been in the water. It had been right before Luke's death, before my life had changed completely. And after he died, every time I'd looked at the waves, all I could see was an empty ocean. It represented everything I wanted to forget.

But now I was moving forward. I wanted to take a chance, to take a step into that cold, blue water with Kellen and see something else.

I shuffled my feet forward on the cool, hard-packed sand and shivered as the very edge of the Pacific washed over my toes. I hesitated, then walked forward a couple more steps, the waves surging toward our ankles. I squeezed Kellen's hand tighter.

“You alright?” he asked.

I nodded as the first wave crashed into our knees and I rose up on my toes. We stood there for a moment, the water ebbing and flowing around us, the white foam fizzing on the water's surface.

Everything was okay.

I pulled Kellen toward me and kissed him, another small wave crashing into our knees. I stumbled a little to the side, but he caught me, kept me upright.

I laughed and looked up at him. “I'm in.”

“Me, too.” He smiled back at me. “All in.”

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many wonderful readers and bloggers out there who have really welcomed me into the writing world and embraced the books I've shared. There are no words to express my gratitude to each and every one of you. Thank you!

And to those of you who have gone the extra mile – Tawnya and Jood at
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, Kendall at
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, Tessa at
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, and Brandie at
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– thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

ABOUT ANNA

If this is your first read from me, I want to say
thank you
. Thank you for taking a chance on a new-to-you author. I hope you enjoyed Kellen and Gina's story and I hope you'll check out some of my other titles.

If this is your second or seventh or somewhere-in-between Anna Cruise book, I want to say wow-wow-wow thank you! It means the world to me that you've added my stories to your library.

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Do Anything

Copyright © 2014 by Wendy Owens

Cover design by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design

Interior book design by Stacey Blake, Self Publishing Editing Service

Editing services provided by Madison Seidler of MadisonSeidler.com

Proofreading provided by JS Nelson Editing

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted, in any form without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

This book is a pure work of fiction. The names, characters, or any other content within is a product of the author’s imagination. The author acknowledges the use of actual bands and restaurants within this work of fiction. The owners of these various products in this novel have been used without permission and should not be viewed as any sort of sponsorship on their part.

***

Dedicated to the man in my life who would Do Anything for me. I love you Joshua.

***

A
s the rain falls on the metal roof, I stare, my head cocked back sharply in the chair I am slouching in, and watch as the droplets gather together in the ridges of the skylights, veining outward across the glass. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here; it seems time has lost meaning in recent days. I run my fingers over the tan line on my finger. I don’t need to look at it because the place where the ring had been has become an obsession. I’ve tried everything to lighten it. I scrubbed it with soap, and I even tried bleaching the area in hopes it would fade, even slightly. All it did was give me a headache and leave my skin dry and irritated.

I hear Kenzie running around my apartment frantically, rambling on about something or other, but I tuned her out at least twenty minutes ago. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not sure where I’d be without her. She is the one person who has been there for me through all of the drama; it’s just that sometimes she can go over the top with the pep talks. A girl can only hear ’you need to get back up on that horse,’ or ’there are plenty more fish in the sea,’ so many times before she wants to physically remove her ears from her head.

On the other hand, when I told my parents what happened, they expressed what a shame it was and how much they liked Jack. Leave it to them to point out the strong qualities of a man who pulled my heart out of my chest cavity before stomping it into a thousand pieces.

I know they had undeniably truthful arguments, but even though there were a lot of amazing qualities about Jack, there were some things that couldn’t ever be undone. I met him during college; I was a freshman and he was a senior. He had the greatest smile I’d ever seen. You know, one of those where the teeth are so perfect and white that you can’t imagine they’re natural, but then there was a slight lift on one corner of his mouth that made it all come together perfectly. He came from a prominent political family, and I couldn’t believe out of all the girls on campus, he noticed me. It really is such a cliché when you think about it.

He was smart and funny; he always knew what to say in a crowd of people. I’d preferred the characters in my books to the real thing. People made me nervous—they always had. But not Jack, and I never had to worry about other people, because I always had him.

When we met, I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, but that didn’t matter to him. He had been so suave about it, too. I didn’t even know his name, but one day, while reading at the campus cafe, he came over and asked, “Should we meet there, or do you prefer I pick you up?”

“Excuse me?” I’d asked.

“This Friday, at six ... oh, I mean, I assumed you would be going.”

I had peered at him, quite puzzled, but he didn’t miss a beat. “You must have me confused with someone else,” I assured him.

He looked around the cafe, then pressed his finger against the book I’d been holding. “Nope, you’re the only girl around here I see reading a Jonathan Franzen novel.”

“What?” I remember my voice had cracked slightly when I spoke.

“He’ll be signing at the campus library this weekend, and I assumed you were a fan given what you’re reading. But hey, if you don’t want to go, I guess I can go by myself.”

“Are you serious?”

“About Franzen or the date?” That was the first time I saw that sly and captivating smile from him, that lip that curled at the edges. I wanted to climb into the tiny ridges around his lips and stay nestled there for an eternity.

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, wishing I could erase the memory from my mind somehow. Jack wasn’t someone you could just forget, though. I didn’t even want a boyfriend, yet after only three dates I was certain I was going to marry him one day. He popped the question at my graduation last year. Life had seemed so perfect in that moment. Jack could be very romantic, but he was also the practical type. I liked that about him. He wanted to finish law school before we took the leap, and now with his bar exam right around the corner, the wedding plans had moved full steam ahead.

While I love romance novels, I wasn’t the little girl who had always dreamed of her wedding day and what it would be like. In fact, the details of the actual day concerned me very little. I just wanted to get through the event and move on with our lives together. I didn’t have any family here in Chicago, so Kenzie took care of a lot of the planning. My mother, who lived in Ohio, didn’t seem to mind either. This was not surprising, considering we had never been what you would call close.

Had Kenzie not been planning the wedding for me, I’m not sure I would have ever discovered Jack’s dirty little secret. Would I have been at our apartment when he didn’t expect me to be, had she not sent me home from the office in the middle of a workday to pick up the measurements for the bridesmaid dresses? I’d forgotten the paper on the counter that morning, and despite several attempts at calling Jack to request he bring them to me, I found myself begrudgingly making the trek home. To think, had I not, I may have never known about Jack’s study sessions. He was supposed to be cramming for the bar, but instead I discovered him in our bed, cramming himself into our across-the-hall neighbor, a blonde bombshell who looked like a Swedish super model. I can still hear the sounds of them going at it.

The only thing I have in common with the woman is our long hair. Hers was a pale yellow in color with a silken texture, while mine is wavy and coarse with deep chestnut tones. Her skin was tanned while mine is pale; her eyes blue, mine brown; her features slight all the way down to her slender nose, while a round ball sat at the tip of mine. I’m not ugly, and I’ve never thought of myself that way. Well, not until I saw this naked goddess in my bed. That moment had definitely been a solid blow to my self-esteem.

I think I handled it well. Okay, no, I didn’t handle it well at all. When I first walked into the condo I heard them. Initially I thought an intruder was lurking around our place, and my heart had begun to race. Quickly, I realized exactly what type of noises I was hearing, so I then thought I had walked into the wrong apartment. Somehow, in that moment, it was making sense in my mind ... that my key had fit into someone else’s lock and worked. I never said I was thinking rationally. Then I saw a picture on a side table—the one of Kenzie and me during our vacation to Mexico senior year.

It was confirmed that this was my apartment, these were my things, and whoever was making those noises was in my bedroom.
What would Jack do when he found out someone was using our apartment to have random stranger sex?
When I walked into the room I wasn’t exactly quiet, but neither were they, so I went unnoticed. I just stood there, watching. Honestly, I still have no idea why I watched. It was a horrific display, like two wild animals pawing at each other, but I was helpless, a captive prisoner, forced to stare at the sweaty primal union.

The next part is where I like to gloss over the details when I tell people about what happened. I’m pretty sure most people would have started shouting and screaming at their cheating partner, or perhaps just turn and leave.
Oh God, why didn’t I just leave?
I walked up to the edge of our bed, the entire time thinking about completely pointless details, like how that bed was the first thing we had purchased together in our relationship. I suppose I was hoping one of them would notice me and stop the appalling display. And luckily, Jack did see me, eventually. He rolled off Elsa, or whatever the hell her name was, and started screaming at me.

I’m not sure what he was saying, but knowing Jack, he was probably making excuses. I couldn’t hear him because I was busy regurgitating the burrito I’d had for lunch on the way over to the apartment. Not only did I vomit, but I managed to spray it all over the bed, thoroughly dousing Jack and his Swedish Barbie. It was at that point I turned and ran out of the apartment, not looking back. I can still remember their faces; it’s one of the few things that gives me satisfaction when I think back on the horrific memory. As embarrassing as it is to vomit on someone, I can’t imagine it being nearly as traumatizing as being the recipient of the discharge.

What happened after I ran out is a blur. Somehow I’d managed to give the low down to Kenzie over the phone, who in turn came and found me at a local Mexican joint somewhere between greasy taco number four and five. I stayed with her that night, which was terrible considering she recently had to move back in with her parents due to her shopping addiction and lack of money management skills. The entire night her mother brought me baked goods and kept asking me if I was all right. Every time I would try to answer her, it came out as a whimper, which would just send her running back into the kitchen to bake more. I have no clue how Kenzie is so slender after growing up with that woman and her incessant need to cure sadness with brownies.

The next day Kenzie had gone with me to deliver the official break up speech. I’m not sure if I could have resisted his charms in my current state of mind; for that, I will always be grateful to her. Jack pulled out all of the typical statements one would expect in a situation like that. ’It was just that one time,’ which of course I didn’t believe, and ’I still love you,’ which again, I didn’t believe and was now quite confident the slime-ball had never loved me. The condo was in my name since I was the one with an actual job while he was in law school, so I told him to get his crap and be out by the time I got back. For dramatic effect, I also threw the engagement ring at him. I remember the sound as it bounced across the wooden floors. I half expected it to be waiting for me on the counter when I returned, but it and Jack were gone.