The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (313 page)

“True,” I said, finding it harder and harder to bite back the grin that threatened to give away my secret. “But you’re seeing it from a new angle today.”

She turned in a circle, inspecting all directions. “Which angle is that?”

“The angle of our future bedroom window.”

“Our future ...? What are you talking about?”

I opened my mouth, ready to give her the speech I’d rehearsed in my mind, but at the sight of her standing there my mind went suddenly blank. What the hell would I do if she said no? I couldn’t walk away from her again. Nothing in the past few months had given me reason to doubt her feelings, but suddenly, I was scared out of my head. Did proposals normally do that? I supposed when you loved someone this much...

“Um.”

“Yes?” she prompted.

Nerves hit me like a freight train, and I swallowed back a bout of nausea. How did men, century after century, get through something like this? I toed the dirt as I finally answered, “I checked it out a while back. This hill we’re standing on is city owned, you know.”

“I think you told me that once. What does that have to do with a window?”

I would’ve swallowed but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. I forced myself to meet her gaze. Something in the way she looked at me—with the tiniest of smiles—gave me the courage to forge on. I slipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the velvet box I’d hidden there. “I made some calls. It’s not officially listed for sale but everything is available for the right price.” I paused and then gave her the punch line. “I bought the hill.”

She stared at me, mouth ajar, clearly dumbstruck. “You bought the hill?” she repeated.

“Your mom helped.”

“My mom ... You’re serious.”

“Yeah. We close in sixty days.”

“You ... You’re going to build a house?” Clearly, she’d not been expecting this. That made me grin. I’d made a plan—a ginormous monster of a plan—and I’d taken her off-guard. Seeing her speechless made all the preparations and nerves worth it.

“No.
We’re
going to build a house,” I corrected.

“What—?”

“Summer, shut up for a second,” I said, stepping close to her with a grin wide enough to chase away all the panic I’d felt a moment ago. This was Summer. This was my girl. No question. No doubts.

She closed her mouth and gave me a wry look, one brow raised. I loved that sarcastic expression of hers. Something deep inside my chest did a flip. I pressed on, talking faster. “These last months with you have been amazing. You’re amazing. Every single day I’m blown away by you—your beauty and passion and the way you see the world. You make me happy. And I want to spend the rest of my life right here making you happy too.”

“The rest of your life is a long time,” she said.

“Not if he pisses you off enough.”

At the sound of Casey’s voice, Summer whirled. One by one, Casey, Dean, Cathy, and Mazie appeared from the trailhead. Summer turned back to me slowly, eyes wide. “Ford ... what exactly are you saying?”

I pulled the velvet box from my pocket and began to lower myself to one knee in the dirt in front of her. “I’m asking you to marry—”

“Yes!”

I was halfway between standing and kneeling when she threw her arms around me. Her momentum knocked me backwards, and I barely managed to hang on to her as I tumbled to my back with her above me.

Summer laughed and looked down at me, her eyes shining with joy so bright my breath caught.

“You didn’t even let me finish asking the question,” I said.

“You’ve been asking the question since the day we met,” she said. “My answer’s always been the same.”

Our lips locked to the sound of her family hooting and cheering behind us. In that moment, risk didn’t exist. Doubt and fear and uncertainty were no longer part of my vocabulary. I had found my new dream. And I was living it.

H
eather Hildenbrand
was born and raised in a small town in northern Virginia where she was homeschooled through high school. (She’s only slightly socially awkward as a result.) Since 2011, she’s published more than eight YA & NA novels including the bestselling Dirty Blood series. She splits her time between coastal Virginia and the island of Guam and loves having a mobile career and outrageous lifestyle of living in two places. Her most frequent hobbies are riding motorcycles and avoiding killer slugs.

Heather is also a publishing and success coach bent on equipping and educating artists who call themselves authors. She loves teaching fellow writers how to create the same freedom-based lifestyle she enjoys. For more information visit
www.phoenixauthorink.com
and find out how to create your own Outrageous Life.

She is represented by Rebecca Friedman. You can find out more about Heather and her books at
www.heatherhildenbrand.com
.

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––––––––

“K
arma Points, get your ass down here right now!”

Seriously?
Karma groaned and threw the comforter off her. She tossed her long legs to the side and grabbed ahold of her bedpost, pulling herself to standing. What the hell did her father want now? He was really ticking her off these days. Now that she was over eighteen, he was always holding it over her head that he didn’t have to allow her to live in his house.

Why couldn’t she just stay in bed all day? She hated mornings. Pissed off, she yanked her robe off the back of the chair, causing the chair to tumble to the hardwood floor with a loud thud. She glared at the collapsed chair, but didn’t bother to pick it up.
Ugh!
She wrapped the white fluffy robe snug around her waist and stepped over the piles of clothes on the floor, nearly tripping when her foot got tangled in her backpack strap. She kicked her foot loose and made her way out the door.

Half asleep, she stumbled down the long spiral staircase and into the kitchen. The bright light from the large open window caused her to blink a couple of times until her eyes adjusted.

“What?” Karma demanded, still rubbing the sleep from her blurry eyes. She flicked her eyes to the clock on the microwave. Ten forty-five, aka, way too damn early. It should be against the law to wake before noon.

“I missed you too,” her father said sarcastically before launching into his lecture.

“You’re a God damn slob, Karma. Clean up this mess now or start looking for a new place to live. This has gotten ridiculous.”

Karma looked around the kitchen at the stacks of dishes piled high, pizza boxes strewn across the table, and finally down at her ugly pug, Princess, who stared up at her with its beady little eyes and its slobbery tongue wagging out the corner of its mouth. She hated that freaking dog. Who the hell named a pug Princess? Oh yeah, her crazy-ass-mother, that’s who. “Sorry,” she mumbled under her breath, tucking her unruly hair behind her ear.

“Jesus, I leave you for four days and come home to a disaster. It looks like a damn cyclone tore through the house.”

Karma grunted and rolled her eyes. Her father was so dramatic. It wasn’t
that
bad...was it?

Besides, if he was that worried about it he should hire a maid. It’s not like he didn’t have the money for it; that man was just a damn tightwad. Well, that wasn’t really true, he just didn’t like strangers touching his stuff. He was meticulous about everything. Karma’s dad was for sure borderline OCD; Karma was virtually his polar opposite.

Not meeting his eyes, she flipped open one of the discarded pizza boxes and snagged a slice. She was starving, and her head throbbed.

Her father’s nose scrunched up in disdain. “That’s disgusting, how long has it been sitting on the table?”

“Yeah, well, your shirt is ugly.” Karma took a big bite and leaned against the kitchen counter trying to hide her smile. Her father was so predictable.

He glanced down at his bright blue and orange shirt and back at her with apprehension. “You really think it’s ugly? Matt bought it for me. I wasn’t sure if the colors worked, but he insisted it brought out my eyes.”

She swallowed the cold pizza. “It really doesn’t. Matt needs to have his own eyes examined, and that shirt needs to go to Goodwill.” Karma took another bite. She knew talking about his clothes would distract him from the mess. She’d been using that technique ever since she was little and had figured out fashion was something he took
very
seriously.

He’d been threatening to kick her out for a while now, and Karma was starting to get concerned that he would actually go through with it. Most girls her age were dying to get out on their own. Not her—she was going to mooch off her father as long as he allowed it. She really wasn’t ready to grow up quite yet. And most of the time her father was pretty cool. Actually, her father was pretty amazing. She just liked to give him a hard time, especially this time of day; she was clearly not a morning person.

“Have you talked to your mother?” her father asked as he swiped a pile of trash off the table and into the garbage can.

Karma walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda, popping the top. “She called the other day. She won’t be able to make it for my birthday—big surprise.”

Next week, Karma would be twenty, and to her own dismay, she had still not been accepted to any of the colleges she applied to over the summer. This meant she was still living with her dad and his boy toy, Matt. And on top of that, she had to attend her second year at a local community college while all her friends were enjoying life at prestigious universities, or had recently finished up a gap year backpacking through Europe. Although the idea of lugging around a heavy bag on her shoulders, and rarely showering, was not her idea of a good time, even if she did get to see the world. They could keep it. Of course, none of her so-called friends had much to do with her these days. Whatever.

Her father’s demeanor softened. “What’s her excuse this time?”

“Apparently, she’s decided to check herself into rehab—again.” Karma rolled her eyes. Her mother was a basket case. A beautiful, selfish, controlling nut job.

A frown creased his forehead as her father flipped on the coffee pot. Almost instantly the wonderful, rich aroma of coffee flooded the room and she inhaled deeply. She wasn’t crazy about the taste, but she loved the smell.

“That woman is a poor excuse for a mother,” her father said, sighing.

Karma waggled her finger at her dad with a smile. “Dad, rule number one—no talking badly about Mom. Remember?” Karma had been in therapy for as long as she could recall; at her mother’s insistence, of course.

He returned the smile, showing off his perfect white teeth. Her father was a rather famous plastic surgeon, and he looked the part. “I’m glad you can make light of it, sweetie, but that woman drives me insane.”

“That’s because that woman
is
bat-shit crazy. I don’t even know what you ever saw in her.” Karma plopped on the bar stool, wrapping her feet around the wood, and watched her father as he continued to pick up her mess. She should offer to help—hell, she’d made the mess, she should be cleaning it all by herself—but she really was tired.

“Well, she gave me you, the only good thing that came out of that disaster of a relationship.”

“I don’t even know why you tried to fight your attraction to men,” Karma said, resting her chin on her hand. “Although I guess if you hadn’t I wouldn’t have been born. But seriously, what were you thinking?”

Her father smiled sadly. “Your mom made me believe anything was possible. However, mostly it was the partying and the fact that your mom’s a knockout. If anyone could set me straight it was her. Obviously, that didn’t work out too well.”

“Obviously.”

He was right about one thing. Her mother was a knockout—even in her forties, she still turned heads. Karma still to this day had to see her mom half naked on billboards. It was not an easy thing to grow up with a lingerie model for a mother. Unfortunately, Karma hadn’t inherited her mother’s good looks. She was more of a plain Jane. Her nose was a bit too large, her eyes too wide set, and her hair was a mousy brown wavy mess that frizzed up with even the slightest temperature rise. Sure, she was pretty if you’re into the girl-next-door look, but she was not a head turner. This was fine with her. At least, that’s what her shrink tried to convince her.

But seriously, her mom was a nut job. Really, who named their child Karma Points? It was beyond cruel. Absurdly, her mother thought it was cute, saying she must have earned enough karma points to get a gay man to give her a wonderful daughter. How lame could you get? And if Karma was so wonderful, why was her mother never around?

Thanks to her mother’s cruelty, she’d been teased her whole life about her damn name. They didn’t even give her a middle name, claiming it would mess up the flow. Seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up. No matter how many times she begged her father to change her name, he would not budge. She was old enough that she could do it herself now, but—though she’d never admit it to her parents—the name had kind of grown on her over the years.

“I’m sorry she’s not coming, honey. We’ll do something fun for your birthday.” Her father gave up on cleaning and sat down next to her.

“You’re a great dad,” Karma said, and she really meant it. She’d been living with him since she was four and really couldn’t imagine her crazy life any other way.

Her mother, Isabella, swept in and out of her life when the mood struck her, a free spirit. Karma rolled her eyes.
Free spirit my ass
. More like a selfish bitch that cared more about herself than anyone else, and didn’t want the responsibility of having a child.

“I’ll make your favorite, lasagna. We’ll rent movies and stay up all night.”

“Sounds good. Just like every year.” Karma forced a smile. The idea of turning twenty was not appealing in the slightest.