Breakaway: A friends to lovers romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Also by Heather M. Orgeron

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Also by Heather M. Orgeron

  Copyright © 2017 by Heather M. Orgeron

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, photocopying, mechanical or otherwise, without express permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, story lines and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, locales or any events or occurrences are purely coincidental.

  Edited by Edee M. Fallon, Mad Spark Editing

  Cover Design, Interior Design & Formatting by Juliana Cabrera, Jersey Girl Design

  For anyone who’s ever fallen in love with a friend and wondered: What if?

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  COLTON (AGE 13)

  IT WAS MY THIRTEENTH birthday, and Momma was finally letting me have my first boy/girl party. Well, technically Alex had been at every party I’d ever had, but she didn’t count. Alex was...well, Alex. We’d been friends since we were in diapers and our mothers best friends since they were just little girls. We’d lived next door to each other our entire lives and still had sleepovers every weekend. She was like a sister...only not.

  Anyway, the boy/girl party was a really big deal. Momma said we could have it in the pool house and promised not to bother us as long as we behaved. Allie and I had spent the entire day prepping, and I thought she was as excited about it as I was, but there I was...chasing her scrawny butt through the yard back to her house. Most of the time, Al was really cool, but she was still a girl, and sometimes she even acted like one.

  “Alex,” I called after her, “would you just freaking stop and talk to me?”

  “I hate you, Colton Fowler!” she screamed without looking back as she climbed the porch steps and disappeared through the front door, slamming it so hard the whole porch rattled.

  Girls!

  What I really wanted to do was turn around and go back to my party, but I would have gotten in trouble for making her cry, and maybe it bugged me just a little too.

  Once she was inside, I stopped running and slowly made my way to the front door, which of course was locked. I rolled my eyes, grumbling under my breath as I rang the doorbell and waited for Mrs. Mack to let me in.

  My hands started to sweat when I heard the heavy footsteps approaching the door.

  “Hey, Colton,” Mrs. Mack said, trying and failing to hide a smirk. “What’d you do this time?”

  “Hell if I know.” I shrugged then jumped back when her hand flew out and swatted my arm.

  “Watch your language, young man.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, rubbing out the sting.

  “She’s in her room, Colt. Go on up.” Mrs. Mack stepped back so I could pass. “If her door’s locked, there’s a bobby pin in the vase on the hall table,” she added with a wink.

  I nodded then ran across the house and up the stairs to Allie’s room. I didn’t bother checking to see if it was locked. I knew it would be, so I grabbed the pin on the way and popped the door open.

  “Colton!” she screamed, covering herself with the T-shirt she was preparing to slip over her head.

  I should have turned or left, or done anything but stand there with my mouth hanging open, but that’s precisely what I did. Just. Stood. There...Staring. I hadn’t seen Alex naked in years. Our mothers had put an end to that when we were around five. Alex was tiny and not really developed, but seeing her topless and her boobs...Alex had boobs? Little ones but boobs. That was the moment it truly hit me that Alex was a girl. A real one. A real one with boobs.

  “Ugh!” she growled, turning her back to me while she pulled the shirt on. “You are such a jerk.”

  Alex turned back around, shooting me a death glare. “Uh, sorry, Al.”

  “Have you ever heard of knocking, pervert?”

  “I, uh...” I didn’t know what to say. This was weird.

  “Just go back to your party with your stupid friends and stupid Marci.” She threw herself face down on her bed, and her body started to shake with sobs.

  Shit. My eyes began to water. I hated that she could make me cry with only a few tears. “Don’t cry, Allie.” I sat on the side of her bed and stroked the long brown waves of hair strewn across her back. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not like you have big ones. I mean, it’s just like when we used to take baths together.” I shrugged, trying to make her feel better even though seeing her naked still had me feeling strange.

  Like she’d suddenly become possessed by a demon, she popped up in bed and leveled me with eyes that looked like they could burn holes right through me. “You...Colton Fowler, you are a fucking asshole!”

  I’d never heard her say the f-word before. It sounded so foreign coming out of her mouth. I was shocked. I didn’t like it at all. “What’s wrong with you, Alex?” I asked, standing. “You’re acting like...like a girl.”

  “Newsflash, I am a girl, or haven’t you noticed? That’s right, you’ve been too busy trying to kiss Marci. Oh, but she has big boobs, right? I’m just Alex. Scrawny, boobless Alex!”

  Marci does have a nic
e rack...I knew better than to say that right now.

  “Your boobs are nice too, Allie.” My voice shook with that admission.

  Alex blew out a long breath. “Just. Go. Home.”

  I grabbed her shoulder and turned her ’til she was facing me again. “I’m not leaving ’til you tell me why you ran out of the pool house crying. Al, all of our friends are still there, probably playing spin the bottle without us now.”

  “Good,” she pouted. “I don’t wanna play that stupid game anyway.”

  Ahh. “Is that why you left? Because you don’t wanna play?” I pushed her hair behind her ears. “You don’t have to kiss anyone if you aren’t ready, Al.”

  Her head shook, and her voice trembled. “You forgot...” The tears began to spill over again. I was really not liking this girly side to Alex.

  My heart was pounding because I didn’t know how to fix this. How to get out of this awkward situation with my best friend. “I forgot what, Al?”

  “You were gonna k-kiss her, Colt,” she whispered, sniffling.

  “So?”

  “So...we promised to learn together so neither of us would be bad at it. You were going to kiss her first. Then you would know how and I...I would be left out.”

  The conversation we’d had a few years ago suddenly came back. The two of us watching My Girl...We’d promised then that we’d be each other’s first kiss, just like Veda and Thomas. My throat thickened and my pulse sped up. “I’m sorry, Allie. I did forget. Do you still want to?”

  She stared at me with her big brown eyes that were glistening with the tears she was fighting as she chewed her bottom lip. “Nah, just go. It’s weird now.”

  But now I really wanted to kiss her, and it was obvious that it meant a lot to Alex. So, I didn’t leave. Instead, I sat beside her on the bed, and my stomach roiled as I scooted closer. I lifted a hand to her face and with my thumb swiped a tear from beneath her eye. My entire body trembled as I leaned forward and pressed my lips against my best friend’s.

  Her hands were suddenly on my shoulders and then around my neck. After a few soft pecks, I went in for the kill, poking out my tongue and tracing her salty lips. She opened her mouth, and I shared the wettest, sloppiest, most uncoordinated first kiss there probably ever was with my best friend. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to change something between us. After that kiss, there were times I saw her differently. Lying in the same bed no longer felt as innocent as it had in the past, and as we grew older, there were times that I was outright jealous seeing her with other guys. It was stupid. Alex and I were not together, and we’d never kissed again after my thirteenth birthday. But there were many, many times I’d regretted that kiss over the years. Maybe, if it hadn’t happened, things wouldn’t have changed...

  ALEXIS (AGE 15)

  “ALLIE, YOU LOOK SO beautiful, baby,” Momma said, lifting her fingers to her lips as tears trickled down her cheeks.

  I rolled my eyes and scoffed before mumbling out my thanks and walking past her into the hall.

  “I mean it. Colt’s a fool.”

  “For the last time, Mom, I don’t like him like that!” I shouted, stomping down the stairs in my heels. I felt like a baby giraffe trying to walk in the damn things.

  I finally looked up from my feet when I reached the bottom step, and there he was...Looking like a damned GQ model, in the foyer chewing his lip to keep from laughing at my embarrassment. Great!

  My face warmed. “Hey, Colt,” I called as I stepped onto the marble tile. “Where’s Marci?”

  He coughed. “She...uh. She’s meeting us there.”

  “Us?”

  “It’s our first homecoming, Alex. I thought we’d ride together?”

  Well, at least he hadn’t completely ditched me. It had been hard having to share my best friend with his new basketball teammates and the girls who fawned all over him at school. Skanky bitches. I felt him slowly slipping away, and I hated it.

  “A goddamned fool,” Mr. Fowler agreed as he walked out of the kitchen with my father trailing closely behind. “Alexis, you look lovely, honey.”

  I cleared my throat and looked up at Mr. Fowler. “Thank you, sir.” He was a big black teddy bear of a man, and had always treated me like his own.

  Then my own father walked over, wrapping me in a tight hug, and whispered, “A damned fool,” into my ear, and I’d had enough.

  I glanced over to Colton, whose head was now hanging in embarrassment, and felt my blood begin to boil. “Why do y’all do this to us? Why do you have to make everything so weird just because we’re in high school now? Nothin’s changed! We don’t like each other like that, okay? Stop trying to mess up our friendship. He’s like my brother. It’s gross.” I felt that lie churn in my stomach. “Just...just...stop it, okay?”

  All four of our parents mumbled and nodded, and Colt looked like he was about to punch someone. Why’d our parents always have to ruin everything?

  I walked over to my best friend and reached for his hand, tickling his palm with my newly manicured fingers. “Sorry, Colt.”

  With a tight-lipped smile, he shrugged. “Don’t worry ’bout it, Al. Like you said, it’d be like dating my sister.” He forced a laugh. “Gross,” he agreed, scrunching his nose.

  Ouch. That stung. The truth was that I’d slowly been developing feelings for Colton over the last few years and I hadn’t known what to do about them. Our parents teased us endlessly about how we’d been betrothed from the womb. Our mothers thought it would be the coolest thing ever to have their children wed. Our fathers had played ball together in school. They were ridiculously close, all four of them. They’d never monitored the two of us very closely because honestly, I think they’d have been over the moon if a relationship ever formed between us. But one hadn’t. Apart from that one kiss, Colt never showed any interest in me, and I tried for all I was worth to hide the immense attraction I had for him.

  I’d always thought Colton was beautiful, with his dark caramel skin and light green eyes. His hair was a mop of silky brown curls, and those dimples could melt the panties right off a nun. His muscles were becoming more defined. Somehow, my friend had turned into a sexy man-boy, and I wanted him. I wanted desperately to be on the receiving end of those flirty smiles he reserved for all of the other girls. Girls who I knew were only my friends to get closer to him. I wanted the stolen kisses and admiring looks. I wanted to be more than one of the guys, and I had to get over it or I’d end up losing my best friend completely.

  I dropped his hand, feeling awkward. “Let’s just go.”

  Mrs. Fowler drove us, trying to lighten our mood on the way, to no avail. Colt was pressed up against his door behind her seat and me against mine on the passenger side. We didn’t speak to each other. Not one word. I’d never felt so uncomfortable with him in all my life.

  As she pulled up behind the line of cars waiting to drop their kids off, his mom glanced at us in the back seat with a toothy smile. “You two lighten up. They were just teasin’ ya. You only get your first homecoming once...Make the most of it, huh? I’ll pick you two up at eleven. Have fun!”

  When the car finally rolled to a stop in front of the gym doors, I bolted as fast as humanly possible. Bile churned in my stomach. It felt like we’d just had a huge fight, only we hadn’t. I headed straight for the bathroom, the one place I knew he couldn’t follow, to fix my makeup and dry my eyes, and as luck would have it, bumped right into Marci and her two minions, Jessica and Lacy.

  “Hey, Alex,” Marci chimed with feigned excitement. “I take it Colton’s finally here?”

  Forcing a smile, I widened my eyes in a lousy attempt to keep the tears from falling in front of her. “Yeah, he’s somewhere around.” I hated that my voice broke.

  “Great! You know I love you, right?” she asked, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder. I could sense there was more coming.

  I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, nodded, and smiled. “Mmhmm.”

  “Just...don’t tak
e this the wrong way, okay?” she asked, smoothing her poufy pink skirt.

  I didn’t even try to hide the eye roll as I crossed my hands on my chest. “What, Marci?”

  “Well, he’s my boyfriend...yet he’s always with you. I think maybe it’s time you find a boyfriend of your own...”

  Lightbulb. Why hadn’t I thought of that myself?

  I smiled the first and last genuine smile I’d ever offered Marci Mayweather. “You know what, Marci...I think you’re right.”

  After she and her entourage left the restroom, I stared at myself in the floor length mirror. I looked good, and I knew it. My royal blue dress was form fitting with an open back. The bodice was covered in sequins, and the skirt was short and lined with layers of tulle. Coupled with my four-inch silver pumps, my legs looked amazing. So, maybe I didn’t have much going on in the boob department, yet...but my ass was to die for, and I owed it all to the rigorous workouts it took to uphold my position on the school’s track team.

  I opened my silver clutch and applied a little more lipstick and the smoky-eye I’d spent hours practicing at home. Then I released the pins in my hair and let it fall in a cascade of dark brown curls almost to my waist.

  I didn’t know when I’d become that pathetic girl pining away for her best friend. But it ended tonight.

  When I walked out of those bathroom doors, instead of hiding from the boy who’d been my very best friend for all of my life, I’d take my rightful place beside him. I wasn’t going to lose him over a stupid crush. Colton was mine first, and as long as I kept those feelings in check, he’d be mine forever.

  “Hey, guys,” I called as I walked confidently over to Colton and our usual crowd, who were huddled near the DJ booth.

  Colt visibly did a double take. “Hey, Allie, where you been? I was lookin’ for ya.” He eyed me skeptically.

  With a coy smile, I leaned in closer to whisper into his ear, allowing my lips to accidentally brush his skin. “Restroom.” The manly scent of his cologne almost made me falter...almost.

  He placed his hand on my bare back, and every nerve ending in my body sparked to life. He leaned in close, and I could smell the mint from the gum in his mouth. It took all of my resolve not to melt into a puddle at his feet. “I like your hair down like that.” His warm breath caused a chill to move throughout my body.