Hiding from hope, p.1
Hiding from Hope, page 1
Cover: Leevi Crawford
Editing and Formatting: Indie Proofreading
Copyright © 2024 Brittany Rianne
All rights reserved. No part of this manuscript may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction.
Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Central Sparks Series
Falling for Fury
For the girls waiting for their epic love
The girls who want a gentleman, but wouldn’t mind being man-handled
Who support feminism, but are dying for a possessive caveman to growl, “Mine”
I give you, Jessie Jenkins.
Contents
Playlist
Content Warning
1 – Reminder: Off Limits: Sister’s Best Friend
2 – Everybody Needs Somebody
3 – Thirteen Years Ago
4 – Eternally Curious Ray of Sunshine
5 – Lost in Caramel Bananas
6 – Star of the Sea
7 – A Horrible Worthless Dick-Bag
8 – Eleven Years Ago
9 – Omelets are for Sharing
10 – Who did this to you?
11 – So Many Bad Ideas
12 – Not Being Enough Still Hurts.
13 – Dinner or Dessert?
14 – Lame Lane
15 – Princess-Worthy Romance
16 – Comfortable Friendship, or Painful Pining?
17 – Six Years Ago
18 – The, ‘I Could Build You a House’ Kind of Muscles
19 – Stop Pretending That We’re Just Friends
20 – Have An Orgasmic Day
21– Surprises With a Side of Dinner
22 – C’mon Man, We’re Buddies!
23 – Partners Yoga Was an Excellent Idea
24 – You’re Not Ready.
25 – You Pierce My Soul
26 – My Darling
27 – The Missing Piece
28 – Denial With Sideline Support
29 – Ace, Sunshine, Baby?
30 – Little Bubble of Peace
31 – The Goodbye We Needed
32 – You Are My Guiding Star
33 – We Don’t Have to Wait Any More
34 – Why Am I Such a Mess?
35 – I Wouldn’t Survive You
36 – Seriously, Who Says ‘Item’ These Days
37 – The Caveman Gives An Epic Orgasm
38 – Sixteen-Year-Old Casey Would Murder Me
39 – Our Sunshine Is A Super Dark Grey Cloud of Doom
40 – Feminism Has Left The Building
41 – Stella Mea
42 – Promise Me
43 – Lumberjack Lunch Reminders
44 – Dessert Is Served
Epilogue - Ten Years Later
Acknowledgements
1 - Lost in the Light - Bahamas
2 - Everybody Needs Someone - Noah Cyrus, Vance Joy
3 - Firework - Katy Perry
4 - Mr. Forgettable - David Kushner
5 - I am Woman - Emmy Meli
6 - Free - Florence & The Machine
7 - You’re Gonna Go Far - Noah Kahan
8 - I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons
9 - Delicate - Taylor Swift
10 - Something in the Orange - Zach Bryan
11 - Ordinary People - Blake Rose
12 - Feeling this bad never felt so great - Tai Verdes
13 - Bejeweled - Taylor Swift
14 - Jealousy, Jealousy - Olivia Rodrigo
15 - adore you - Fred Again
16 - Letting Go - Ziggy Alberts
17 - Back to You - Selena Gomez
18 - Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish
19 - Lose Control - Teddy Swims
20 - Scared to Start - Michael Marcagi
21 - Hey Girl - Stephen Sanchez
22 - Burn, Burn, Burn - Zach Bryan
23 - Everything to Everyone - Renee Rapp
24 - Skin and Bones - David Kushner
25 - Like you mean it - Steven Rodriquez
26 - What would I do without you - Drew Holcomb & The
Neighbours
27 - Slingshot - Zach Seabaugh, Chance Peña
28 - Tiebreaker - The Head And The Heart
29 - Burning - Maggie Rogers
30 - Stand by you - Rachel Platten
31 - See the Light - Stephen Sanchez
32 - Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield
33 - High - Stephen Sanchez
34 - Lavender Haze - Taylor Swift
35 - She Burns - Foy Vance
36 - Home - Good Neighbours
37 - Heartbroken - Diplo, Jessie Murph, Polo G
38 - TV - Billie Eilish
39 - Work song - Hozier
40 - Walk - Griff
41 - Fall into me - Forest Blakk
42 - Until You - AHI
43 - King of my heart - Taylor Swift
44 - Tennessee Whiskey - Stan Walker, Parson James
Book contains adult themes and is not suitable for readers under 18 years.
Included are explicit sex scenes, involving rough sexual encounters, coarse language, and moments where there is very light choking involved. Book also contains discussion and emotions surrounding a miscarriage and struggles with pregnancy in general.
Reader discretion is advised. Your mental well-being will always be the number one priority. If any of these topics are triggering for you, please proceed with caution or do not proceed at all.
If you believe any triggers have been missed, please reach out to the author so this content warning can be amended.
Jessie
“Shoosh! Everyone shut the fuck up!” Rosie whisper-shouts to the sixty-odd people currently filling the function area of Bozzelli’s Bar. Addison, one of my younger sisters, has thrown a surprise birthday party for her boyfriend, Noah, roping in Casey and Rosie to help. Hence the angry whisper-shouting Rosie pairs perfectly with her trademark death stare, that essentially says, ‘I’ll murder you if you disobey me.’ Except, it only makes me roll my eyes at her.
Rosie and Casey have been good friends with Addison since pre-K, back when we all lived in Great Falls, Virginia, so I’ve known them for pretty much their entire lives, and as a result, her scare act doesn’t work on me. Not to mention, Casey is like a dose of sugar to Rosie’s spice. With her radiant smile and permanent glow of sunshine standing right next to Rosie, I don’t think anyone is listening.
“They’re here! Places!” Casey’s commanding ‘mothering voice’, as Addy calls it, carries over the room like a spell and everyone hushes and bundles together in anticipation for the guests of honor to arrive.
“You Addison’s brother?” I turn to my right from my position in the back, leaning against the bar, and see a tall guy with an almost smile looking at me like he is ready to have a great conversation. Oh, perfect.
I nod and sip my beer, but instead of taking the hint, he throws his hand out. “Caleb. I’m one of Noah’s friends. From college. We also work together,” he supplies, despite not being asked. I look at his hand and then release the tension in my shoulders, reminding myself of the warning Addy gave me. ‘Be nice. They are my friends, too. It wouldn’t hurt you to socialize and make some friends, you social pariah.’ Addison’s teasing isn’t exactly wrong, but it’s not like I’m alone by accident. I deliberately chose this life.
Friends require commitment, consistency, and caring. I’m shit out of all of that.
I reluctantly shake Caleb’s hand and give him a pleasant enough smile before I direct my attention back to the entry, waiting for Addison to hurry up and drag her boyfriend through that door so I can say the obligatory ‘Happy Birthday’, and ‘Good job, Ads’, and then get the fuck out of here. He seems to take the hint, awkwardly nodding his head before he pretends to hear someone call his name and scurries away.
I love my sisters, all three of them, but really, this is not my scene, and they know that. Addison is the one I was closest with growing up. Despite the six-year age gap, she was the closest to me in personality, and we used to have a great time causing havoc for the sister between us, Ava. She was a prim princess and so fucking easy to rile up. I suppose because Ads and I only really made up properly about eight months ago, when all the drama with our family went down (dad arrested, family trust funds evaporated, parents divorced, Addison clocked dad in the jaw–the usual), I felt obliged to come when she asked. Eager to make up for the last two years that I’d been a shit absent big brother, add in her big sad green eyes that usually nail me in the gut, and I caved. It was the same look she’d give me when we would get into trouble for picking on Ava. She’d throw me the sad eyes, and I’d take the fall for the lot.
Anyway, that’s why I’m out on a Saturday night socializing and not holed away in my tiny Upper East Side apartment. That is why I’m here and putting up with people trying to make small talk, anxiously twisting the ring I inherited from my grandfather that warms my pinkie, instead of sipping a whisky and finishing The Brothers Karamazov.
I was trying to get through my Top-Ten-Always-Wanted-to-Read list; I’m at number four. It’s pathetic, especially for someone who owns a fucking bookshop.
“Surprise!” The room erupts at a stupi
I shake off the nervous fidgeting, straighten from my lean on the bar, and make my way to the guests of honor. As everyone embraces Noah and gives him well-wishes, Addison makes her way through the crowd to me.
“You came!” Her smile beams up at me, the short ass barely reaching my shoulders, and I pull her into an embrace.
“You asked. Of course I came.” She returns the hug and then pulls back.
“Yeah, but I fully expected you to bail at the last minute.” She giggles softly, the version of her I haven’t seen since she was a kid staring back at me. It warms me at the same time as it sends a pang of guilt straight to my heart. I hate that she didn’t expect anything but disappointment from me.
She looks a bit over her shoulder before continuing in a lower voice. “Really, though, I know how much all this bullshit makes you uncomfortable. I appreciate you coming, really.” She gives me her honest smile, and it feels a little like my frozen soul defrosts. Only a little.
I toss the mop of blonde hair she has down around her face and roll my eyes. “Alright, rascal. I know you’re dating a Greek, but you don’t have to get all fucking sappy on me.”
“Is that where Ads gets her potty mouth from?” Speak of the Greek.
“I don’t have a potty mouth, you’re just delicate. My gentle giant.” Addison swats at Noah’s chest, and the affection in which they stare at each other threatens to make my dinner escape. Whether it’s twisting from the sickening thought of these two in love, or the jealousy of the love and hope they seem to beam at each other. Hope for the future, for happy things that will, no doubt, now fall into their laps.
Hope. Love. Adoration. All very foreign. At least that’s how it feels now.
“Okay, I’ll leave you love birds to it, then. Happy Birthday, Karvelas.” I shake my thoughts, refusing to bring any of it to the surface as I nod at Noah. He returns it before I head toward the bar. A weird friendly-not-friend thing we have going on. Despite me being happy for Addison, I still think she can do better. Ava could, too.
“Hey, JJ! You came!” Casey sidles up next to me at the bar, pulling me from my thoughts.
“I was invited,” I give by way of greeting to the ray of sunshine, and she laughs softly to herself.
“I haven’t been to your neck of the woods in a while. I forgot how surly you were.” She says it, and like always, her words sting, but her tone is kind. I honestly don’t know how she manages that delicate balance.
“You too good for the boutique bookshops now, Case?”
“I could never be too good for the coffee you brew. That stuff is elite.” She all but moans. This woman has never understood her presence around the opposite sex. I’ll never forget the first time I escorted her, Rosie, and Addison to a bar when they all turned twenty-one. She wore a tiny piece of material people call a dress, twirled, and shook that perky ass around like it was nobody’s business. I stood there on the corner of the dance floor, essentially playing bodyguard, while she gave almost every guy in there a fucking stroke from lack of blood in their brains.
Myself included.
“You drinking?” I ask as I wave the bartender over.
She nods, and her smile grows, shining as bright as a million suns. “Yes! I’ll have a gin please!”
“G&T and a whisky—”
“NO! Ew, gin and soda, with fresh lime,” she corrects, and the bartender walks away with a blush as Casey smiles at him. “Tonic is disgusting, don’t ever use tonic.” She levels me with a look I think is meant to be stern, but she fails and it just looks… cute? Is it weird to find my sister’s friend cute?
“How much have you already had to drink?” I ask, noticing the glaze to her eyes and the way she is leaning on the bar.
“Oh, we pre-gamed good. Rosie said she would need the alcohol to deal with Noah’s douchey friends, apparently. Although, I don’t know that she has ever even met them properly.” She manages to get the sentence out without slurring, but not without closing her eyes in slow motion. The bartender places the drinks on the bar, and she beams at him again. The guy practically drops his jaw and leans in as though he wants to take it further before I place my body in between them, directing Casey toward a high table. Obviously, drunk-Casey forgets about Boyfriend-Connor. Although I’m unsure why I felt the need to intervene, what she does or doesn’t do isn’t my concern.
She takes a huge swig of her gin and places it on the table before she takes a seat and I pull one next to her. Guess I’m babysitting the drunk tonight.
“Where’s Connor? I assumed he’d be glued to your hip.” The dweeb used to follow her around like a lost puppy at functions. The two of them were long-term, probably the marrying kind, considering Casey screams hopeless romantic. Seemed like a nice kid, but… he was just that–a kid. I still thought she could do better. Apparently, I don’t discriminate with that line of thinking.
“Oh…” She looks stunned at me, then bursts out with a melodic laugh that almost has the corners of my lips tipping up. That realization has me shaking the stupid expression from my face.
She settles, leaning on the table with her hand propping her head up as she speaks through her trademark smile. “I broke up with Connor ages ago! Where have you been? That is like old news.”
I let that thought settle in my mind for a moment.
Casey is single.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to bring it up,” I say, sipping my drink and trying to analyze her reaction. Was it a psychotic, ‘I’m going to have a mental breakdown’, kind of laugh, or does she really not care? They were together for so long. Something sours as I remember another woman who didn’t seem bothered about ending a long-term relationship. Dropping it like a bad smell, like a snake shedding a skin.
I’ve never been good with feelings, and not knowing where this sudden piece of information is going to take me is making me itchy. Feelings are, in my experience, just pointless. They get in the way; they destroy things. I learned a long time ago to bury those. I don’t want anything to do with them.
“Oh, please, don’t be. He was a child, I’m better off. Literally better at getting off–without him.” I turn my head slowly, unsure if I just heard her correctly. She skulls the rest of her drink and throws her hands in the air in a ‘woo!’ before she turns back to me, conversation forgotten. “Want to go dance?” she asks in a husky voice that shouldn’t have any effect on me. Except, I’m a man, and she is a stunning woman, who’s apparently now single and talking about getting off.
It does affect me.
Sister’s best-friend.
Sister’s. Best. Friend.
I silently chant the reminder as I mentally list poets and authors to reduce the swelling below the belt.
It doesn’t work. Instead, I fixate. Connor really couldn’t get her off? Surely, I didn’t hear that right. Was he blindfolded, with tape over his mouth and hands tied behind his back? Literally so many ways to do it, and he just couldn’t? What a fucking child.
I realize she is beaming up at me and waiting for an answer, and I shake my head at her.
“No. I don’t dance.” She scoffs and rolls her eyes.
“Boring! Fine, I will dance by myself.”
She drags herself from the chair, and spins toward the dance floor, practically skipping as she goes.
I can’t tear my eyes from her. She practically glows from where she spins and dances on the dance floor, the tiny spot of sunlight in the darkest room.
“Hey, man,” Noah greets as he makes himself at home at my table. I nod at him in greeting and sip my drink. “Thanks for coming. And for just making an effort in general. It means a lot.” I side-eye him cautiously because that was a lot of thank-you’s for simply turning up at a party.
“Uhh… you’re welcome?”
“I’m serious. And I don’t just mean me.” He holds up a hand. I normally am not one to trust this level of kindness, but the look in his eyes tells me he is sincere. “I mean for Addy. You trying, being around and filling in the big-brother shoes again, makes her happy. She missed you, and it’s nice to see her get excited. Any day that she smiles and is happy is a win.”
