Pretty thing, p.15
Pretty Thing, page 15
I put Kali’s Jeep back together with lots of cool custom options and then designed a lightweight off-road trailer to pull behind it. At first I was thinking this would be great for families. Little space to carry gear while on the trail. Gas cans, and water, and shit like that. Maybe a pop-up tent on the roof.
But most of the trailer was made out of aluminum and it was so light when I was done, I decided to turn it into a little camper instead. And then I thought… you know what? I bet people might like to eat a cupcake or two when they’re out at these crawler competitions.
And oh, hey? Would this be the perfect way to advertise Kali and Alison’s new baking business and give out samples on the trail?
So that’s what I did. That’s what I turned Kali and Kyle’s Jeep into. A Custom Crawler Cupcake Creation.
The whole thing is teddy-bear blue. Which was not a real color before Clyde mixed up a special batch just for this occasion, but it is now.
It was a hit. Especially with Alison and Kali driving it around.
To say things only got better from there would be an understatement. Kali and Alison got their business off and running and Kali stayed in the city most days to bake. But she came to see me on the weekends. Or I went to see her.
But their six months is almost up at Alison’s parents’ house and I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited about that.
So excited. Because Kali’s parents gave her Kyle’s house and helped her turn it into the perfect commercial baking kitchen. So she will be moving home and we won’t be living in Kyle’s house—or above the garage. Which means we’re house-hunting now.
“What are you smiling about?” Kali asks.
“Just thinking about our future, that’s all.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” she says. “Tell me again why we’re at our parents’ townhomes in the middle of the night?”
“You’ll see,” I say, leading her across the guest parking lot towards the woods.
“What?” She laughs. “What are you doing?”
“Just come with me. Kyle and I had a little chat about tonight.”
“Did you now?”
I nod at her and smile.
After Kali told me that Kyle has secret messages for her I went looking for some on my app. It took me weeks to find them. Fucker. Wanted to make me work for this until the end, I guess.
But I did find them eventually. Just a few. Nothing like the cache he left for Kal. But the last one I found was an idea for a perfect date—should I ever get up the nerve to ask Kali out.
It makes me sad that he never got to see us together. I think he would’ve loved the idea. And while I don’t need his date advice—at least not the way he intended it—I’m using it tonight for another reason.
“You’re seriously taking me into the dark woods in the middle of the night in December?” Kali says.
“I really am,” I say, giving her hand a squeeze.
“OK.” She sighs. “This better be good.”
I just smile. Pretty confident.
“OK,” I say, once we enter the woods. “Don’t let go of my hand. I wouldn’t want you to trip over the tree roots.”
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.”
“Just… come on,” I say. “We’re almost there.”
“Where? There’s nothing out here but—” She stops. Then gasps. “What did you do?”
“Come see,” I say, tugging her by the hand in the direction of the light.
“Aiden Edwards!” Kali giggles. “You built me a fort!”
“Hell, I don’t have skills like that anymore. I paid the local kids to help me.”
We stop in front of the fort and admire it. It’s more than a fort. It’s practically a twig cabin. “Took us two weeks to weave the walls together. Then it rained, so the roof took longer. But that was a good thing because it reminded me that we needed a floor. They helped me lay down mats and build the fire pit. It even has a chimney.”
“How in the world…”
“I told them they could play here after I was done with it. So they didn’t mind. We never had a fort this nice when we were kids, that’s for sure.”
“No,” she laughs. “We didn’t. We had a few logs and used our imaginations for the rest.”
“Yeah,” I say. A little wistfully. Thinking back on the great childhood we shared in these woods. They were good enough though. All we needed back then. Just a spark to ignite our imaginations and carry us away to the land of kids.
But tonight is special. I have a question to ask her and I want everything to be perfect. The only way it could’ve been better is if I’d waited until summer.
But I couldn’t wait that long. I need her to know that this thing between us is more than just a thing. It’s forever.
“Come inside,” I say, swiping away a curtain covering the front entrance.
“Oh, my God.” Kali laughs, crawling through. Then she gasps and pauses. “What have you done?”
“Keep going,” I say, getting on my knees behind her. We’re all bundled up in coats and gloves. But inside there’s no wind and there’s a bed of straw on the ground. She scrambles inside and moves out of the way so I can follow her in.
“Let me light the fire,” I say, crawling over to the fire pit and flicking my lighter to the kindling. “Then we can take our coats off and have a drink.”
She glances around and spies the bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. She hands it to me and hugs her knees to her chest, smile so big I can see all her teeth. “You’re incredible. And this is perfect.”
“Almost perfect,” I say, reaching for a wooden box where I have food waiting. “Can I make you a s’more?” I ask, unable to hide my laugh.
She laughs with me. “S’mores and champagne totally go together.”
I pop the cork on the bottle, pour us each a drink in a plastic champagne glass, and hand her one. “To us,” I say.
“To us.” She sighs.
We sip, then kiss a little and eat s’mores. And it really does feel like we’re kids again. Like life never happened. Like we’re on summer break looking forward to fifth grade. Like we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us and Kyle is still here.
But he is here. Because this was his idea.
“Aiden,” he said in that message. “Treat her like the pretty thing she was that day you met her. What would Kali, age eight, think was romantic? Then do that. Trust me, she’ll love it.”
“I have something to ask you,” I say, once we’re warm and settled. Our coats discarded in a pile in the corner. Our shoes off and our bodies pressed up against each other.
Kali sucks in a deep breath and looks at me.
She knows. She has to know.
I take out the little velvet box and open it up so the firelight can dance its way across the diamond ring inside.
“Will you marry me, pretty thing?”
And then I get a kiss. And a “Yes,” and more kisses.
I put the ring on her finger and we lie back. Relaxed and happy as we enjoy Kyle’s perfect date.
Ready for what comes next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - KALI
I knew I would miss my brother on our wedding day. I knew it would be a hard milestone.
But I found a message from Kyle a few days ago. Hidden deep in the secret system called Dead Notes. Triggered by… I have no clue. Just… triggered by Kyle, I guess. Watching over me. Always ready to help me when I start to get sad again.
The baking business is going really well. Not only do Alison and I have quite a few regular online customers, but I bake bread and goodies for the restaurants and coffee shop in town.
Aiden and I moved in together several months ago. There was a townhouse for sale near our parents and it was just too perfect to pass up. I can’t think of a better place to raise a family. Not that we’re there yet, but who knows. After today I’ll be Mrs. Kali Edwards.
But that can’t happen until I get my dress on and walk down that aisle with my father.
Alison is here, bustling around like a manic bee as she bosses the women doing my makeup and hair.
“Don’t mind her,” I whisper to them. “This is her excited face.”
I don’t think they find Alison as endearing as I do, but hey. Can’t please everyone. She is my people and we are good together.
“OK,” Alison says, once I’m done with hair and makeup. “Dress time.”
My mom is in here, and so is Aiden’s mom. And the three of them help me with the dress. The tight, form-fitting bodice is woven with white pearls and the open back goes all the way down past my waist. Just thinking about Aiden placing his hand on the small of my back when we meet at the altar gives me chills.
But when the music finally starts and I take my father’s arm to walk down the aisle, I’m not thinking about the dress.
My eyes are locked on Aiden and his best man.
Not Clyde, though Clyde is there.
But the empty space meant for Kyle.
It’s really empty. We knew he’d want to be here so we made room for him.
And even though there was no wedding day message hidden in the Dead Notes, I don’t need an app to let me know how Kyle feels about today.
When Aiden and I turn to face each other I lose track of everything but him. We say our vows and kiss, and when I turn to face our family and friends a buttercup falls out of my bridal bouquet.
I bend down to pick it up and show it to Aiden.
Because I didn’t order any buttercups in my bouquet.
Aiden just plucks it from my fingers and tucks the tiny stem into my hair, then kisses me and whispers, “Thank you, Kyle,” into my mouth.
And we take a little piece of our childhood and my brother into our new life.
EPILOGUE - AIDEN
The day my son is born I go looking for Kyle. I have left him hundreds of messages over the years since he passed and even though I ran out of his messages a while back I just know there’s one more hidden in here somewhere. I press combinations of buttons inside the app trying to find it. Pound sign, O for operator, even 911.
But the one that finally unlocks that last final message from my best friend is… today’s date.
I don’t know what to make of that. I still don’t believe in other realms, or ghosts, or anything like that. But I believe in us. I believe in Kali, Kyle, and me. And the bond we forged back when we were eight. I believe it’s the kind of connection that lasts forever. That transcends life and death.
Maybe he just pushed a set of random numbers when he made the trigger for this message. Maybe he did some kind of weird calculation based on how long he figured it would take for Kali and I to realize we were in love, get married, and have a kid.
Or maybe… maybe he knew? Maybe he really did see something in the future and this is proof of the many unexplained coincidences that have happened since he died.
It’s impossible to know for sure.
“You’ve reached Kyle,” Kyle says. “OK, dude, this really is the last fucking message. You really need to let me go. But since you’re here, poking around like a fiend who needs his fix, I’m gonna make good. One thing though—it’s a choose-your-own-adventure kind of message. Ready? Press one if you married Kali and had a baby. Press two if you didn’t. Go.”
How did he do this? There’s a little part of me that thinks someone else is doing it. Like… watching us or something and then adding messages as life goes on and milestones pass.
But it can’t be anyone but him because it’s his voice. It’s really him.
I press one and wait.
“So,” Kyle says, more subdued on this message than he’s ever been in the past. “Married with a baby. Born today, I’m assuming. And let me guess. It’s a boy and you named him Garfield.”
I laugh, then whisper, “Dumbass,” into the phone.
“All joking aside,” Kyle says. “I just want you to know… I love you guys. And I know you’re going to be happy. So tell little Garfield I said hello. And I hope he knows how lucky he is to have my two best friends as parents. I’ll see ya all again one day. Not too soon, I hope. Love you, brother. Kyle.”
The call ends. Like just cuts off, like this really is the last of the messages Kyle left for me. But then I have an idea. There’s one more at least. The other option in my choose-my-own-adventure menu.
So I call back, repeat the process to gain access to the first message, and then, instead of pressing one, I press two.
Kyle comes on with a sigh. Then he laughs. “Fuck you, asshole,” he says through that laugh. “Now you’re just messing with me. Hang up the damn phone and go be with your wife and child.”
And this time, when the call drops, I don’t call back.
I just sigh as I gaze down at my son in my arms. Both Kali and the baby are sleeping and I don’t want to wake them.
So I lean down and kiss my son on the forehead and say, “Welcome to your life, Kyle."
WHAT TO READ NEXT
WHAT SHOULD YOU READ NEXT?
LEARN MORE ABOUT FIVE in the Rook & Ronin series.
The entire series is FREE in Kindle Unlimited!
Or read about grown-up FIVE in The Mister Series!
The entire series is FREE in Kindle Unlimited!
END OF BOOK SHIT
Welcome to the End of Book Shit where Julie gets to blab about anything she wants. If you’re new to the EOBS (as we like to call it) then there’s two things you need to know about it. One – it’s never edited. I write these after the edits and proofs are finished. So you have to forget about all the fucks you give about typos when you read it. Second—I do have a tendency to ramble so sometimes they totally pertain to the book or the process and sometimes they don’t. Also, I like to swear and generally just say anything I want. So if you’re offended at the end, I don’t apologize for that.
OK. So this book definitely didn’t start out the way it ended. And I don’t know why that surprises me anymore. After more than fifty books you’d think I’d get this by now. But every time I write the end I’m always surprised about how it turns out. I think this is why I have superfans who just read everything I write. I truly do go along for the ride with you guys.
OK, let me explain a few things about this book before I get to the all the really cool things that happened to this story while I was writing it, because things have changed for me as an author and I feel the need to clue you guys in.
Yesterday I wrote the EOBS for another book that will be releasing the last week in May. It’s nothing like this book (but then again, it is. Kinda. Because I wrote it.)
But I say this for two reasons:
One – I wrote it under the pen name KC Cross. If you’ve been hanging out in my fan group or listening to the podcasts Johnathan McClain and I do (called Love Notes, BTW. You should really subscribe to it on iTunes) then you already know I’ve had this pen name in the works for several months.
Two – the reason I’m using a pen name is because this other book I just wrote that EOBS for is not Contemporary Romance, it’s sexy Sci-Fi Romance and sexy paranormal romance.
Now you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this because a lot of you probably give no fucks at all about my new sexy sci-fi and paranormal romance books. Here’s why it’s important:
First – you may have noticed this book is shorter than most of the other contemporary romances I’ve written. There’s a good reason for that and I’ll get to it in a minute. This book comes in right around 51,000 words. Even the shortest of my other books are at least 67,000 words. Most of them are over 80,000 words and almost all of my bestsellers are nearly 100,000 words.
I write fast. Very fast, actually. A leisurely writing schedule for me is about 2000-3000 words a day. So on that slow schedule I write a new book about once a month. 2000-3000 words a day is about three hours of work. It’s quite a nice day. I get up early, knock out a chapter or two, then I spend the rest of the day doing other stuff not related to writing, but essential for the business of being an author.
I did this for about two years. Even last year when Johnathan and I were knocking out books almost every month this was my schedule. I’d write my chapter, send to Johnathan, and he’d do this thing and send the manuscript back in a day or two. In between our collaborative books I wrote five solo books too. But it was still a pretty kick-back schedule compared to the number of hours I spent writing from 2012 – 2016.
But I’ve kinda gotten a handle on this whole book-writing thing so in 2017 and 2018 I could write a book a lot faster than I could in the early days. I don’t think I actually realized how good I’d gotten at pulling together a story and typing it up on my computer until this past January when I got an idea for a sexy sci-fi romance series.
If you know me as an author you know I only read science fiction books. The first series I ever wrote was new adult science fiction with a romantic subplot. But those books had a hard time finding an audience for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I had no idea what I was doing and they didn’t fit neatly into a specific genre. They were fun, and cool, and well-written, but not a lot of people were looking for that kind of book.
So I switched it up and started reading and writing new adult romance. That’s how I got my start. After that I spent a few years writing dark romantic thrillers and dark erotic psychological thrillers. And people loved the hell out of those. I love them too. I’m not gonna stop writing dark erotic thrillers, so if you’re into them, don’t worry. I have some cooking up in my brain this very moment.
But listen, I’ve written over fifty contemporary romance now and to be honest I need to write something else. So that’s why I have the new KC Cross pen name and I’m writing sexy sci-fi and paranormal romance. I’m not going to stop writing books like Pretty Thing or The Dirty Ones or 321 etc. I’m just going to do them a little different because even though I write fast, I can’t write two 85,000 word books a month. I just can’t. And I don’t use ghostwriters. That is something I will NEVER do. I don’t write books for the money. Believe it or not I have a lot of other talents that could pay my bills without the agony of pulling together a fictitious world filled with characters who feel real enough to keep readers coming back for more.
