AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
Everly
Love stories typically begin with boy meets girl. Ours did. Yet, our story is anything but typical.
I had always thought the heart led us to ‘the one.’ But, I’ve learned the heart doesn’t have a memory. Its beat is steady until our brain triggers an emotion, making the beat so unmistakable it takes your breath away. It’s blinding, life-altering and sometimes earth-shattering. The feeling of true love. We grow up with the grand illusion there is only one person made for us—our soul-mate. But what if your memories are stripped from you? Your soul-mate forgotten. The unmistakable heartbeat gone. The love that completely filled your heart, now an empty space.
That was my heart. Vacant.
He was a stranger, determined to make me fall in love with him. He made it easy. Even though I didn’t know him, he felt familiar. The scars that riddled my body, illustrating my past, he made them feel invisible. Made me feel like I deserved to be cherished and loved.
He was also lying.
Doctors told me my memories were locked in my brain. Eighteen years of my life was under lock and key inside my head somewhere. It was Pandora’s box.
I wish I had never found the key.
Our love story began with boy meets girl. Now…
I love two men.
He loves two women.
Chapter One
Kase
The second she opened her eyes I couldn’t look away. Gray fog rolled in, blanketing the blue in her eyes, the storm was about to release and wreak havoc. Her fist cocked back and landed right smack on his cheek. I heard a crunching sound; I wasn’t sure if it was his cheek or her tiny fist. Cheers erupted around us. “That’s for snapping my bra,” she screeched at the boy doubled over, crying. In that second, I knew I needed her in my life. We were ten, and I was already sure I would marry that sassy girl.
“Have I told you how much I’m going to miss you?” I trace the lines in Everly’s palm with my finger.
“In the last hour? At least, fifty times,” she giggles, squeezing her hand shut on my finger.
“Overkill?”
“Absolutely not. You can tell me every second of the day, and it still wouldn’t be enough,” she pouts. She sits up and straddles me in the bed of my truck. “It won’t be forever though.”
I try to hide the satisfaction of her sitting on top of me. She can’t fault me for having a hard-on. I’m eighteen. It takes one kiss and I’m hard. But when she’s sitting on me, holy shit, all bets are off.
“It’ll feel like it.” I swallow, trying to ignore the heat coming from her core. “Eight weeks is a long time.”
“Don’t remind me.” She wrinkles her nose at me and jabs her finger into my chest. “Have you told your dad?”
Why would I do that?
“Screw him,” I growl as I focus on the cloudless blue sky before finding her gaze again. “He won’t even notice I’m gone.”
She doesn’t push the subject. It won’t make a difference. My mom died five years ago. The cancer was God’s way of setting her free from the devil himself. My dad. I begged her to leave him. She wouldn’t, no matter how hard he hit her. I wasn’t old enough or big enough to stop it. When she died, things got worse. He turned his rage on me. I took it for a couple of years. The hits, the bruises, the pain. Those exact things lit the fire inside me, making me stronger so that one day he would never touch me again. I didn’t run. I fought back.
It makes me smile, thinking about the day my dad tried to hit me two years ago. He ended up in the hospital with two broken ribs and a broken arm. Nothing compared to what he’d done to my mom or me over the years. The cop looked the other way when my dad tried to bring charges against me. Everyone in town knows what type of man my dad is. A coward. God should have taken him instead.
“I’ll notice that you’re gone.” She bends down again and kisses me softly on the lips. Her pouty lips are one of my favorite things about her. Their plump softness makes me go crazy every time they touch my skin. Wrapping my arms around her narrow waist, I pull her closer.
“I love you, Everly,” I whisper before our lips fuse.
The shade of the tree offers little to no relief from the heat coming off her body. Or maybe that’s just my body. Either way, it’s freaking hot. Tires spinning on the dirt road drown out the buzz of the surrounding locusts. We both sit up and stare at the black Ford pickup coming at us.
“Great,” Everly says, sarcastically. “Why can't Wayne understand you’d rather spend time with me right now?” I smirk. He knows. He’s just being an ass like normal, feeling left out.
