Always (Always Series Book 1) Read online

  Always

  Book One

  Lindsay Becs

  Copyright ©2018 Lindsay Becs

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except for the use of brief quotation in a book review.

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design & Formatting: AB Formatting

  Editing: Tricia Harden

  Proofreading: Jennifer Jaks

  Contents

  Playlist

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Special Thanks

  About the Author

  Find Lindsay

  Other works by Lindsay

  This is for the unconventional loves.

  The ones others don’t understand, but you do because it’s yours.

  Fierce, strong and unwavering against all odds.

  You chose love.

  Always.

  Playlist

  Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey

  Accidentally in Love – Counting Crows

  At My Best – Machine Gun Kelly Ft. Hailee Steinfeld

  Naked – James Arthur

  Rock Bottom – Hailee Steinfeld Ft. DNCE

  What About Us – Pink

  Never Be the Same – Camila Cabello

  Love So Soft – Kelly Clarkson

  Just Breathe – Pearl Jam

  Meant to Be – Bebe Rexha Ft. Florida Georgia Line

  Perfect – Ed Sheeran

  Penny and Me – Hanson

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Josie

  I’m belting out Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” at the top of my lungs, using the wine bottle I’m drinking straight out of as my microphone. I think I sound amazing as I sway and swivel my hips to the music blaring from the living room. Putting my microphone down for a minute, I reach over to grab an oven mitt so I can pull the tray of cookies I baked just for me from the oven. I continue to sing to my cookies like the song was written just for them.

  “Yeah they will!” I hear a voice say from behind me, making me jump at the unexpected intrusion.

  “Shit!” I yell, knocking my near-empty wine bottle over, the red liquid thankfully not pouring out too much. I quickly grab a towel and wipe the few red dots spotting my counter. “Travis, you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing here?” I ask because when I actually stop and look at my son’s best friend, he looks so sad.

  “I came to see if I could stay here tonight.”

  “Ollie and Tate are at their dad’s this weekend. Sorry dude, it’s just me here. Everything alright?” Travis Gellar has lived two houses down from us since the boys were eight. Now, ten years later, they are still the best of friends. Travis has always been like another part of our family. He’s stayed at our house at least half his life it seems.

  See, Travis’ parents are weird. And when I say weird, I’m not being mean. His dad works a lot and travels frequently, and while he’s gone, Trav’s mom is usually “entertaining.” I’m pretty sure she’s an escort, but I’ve never looked into it enough to find out for sure. They both checked out of his life at a young age, allowing him to go do anything he wanted way before a kid should have liberties like that.

  Our house has always been his haven when they’re gone, when they fight, when there are strangers in his living room, and everything in between. There’s never been judgment or questions, just an open door for him. Always. Because a child should always have a place to feel safe, and if he wasn’t getting that at home, then I wanted him to always know he had it here.

  “Oh...” He drops his head in defeat, and I feel my heart drop with him.

  “You can still stay if you want, but it’s just me,” I say shrugging my shoulders.

  “Well, you and all your babies, right?” He nods toward my tray of cookies with a smirk.

  “You little shit!” I laugh, throwing my towel at him.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a dollar for the swear jar already, Mrs. D.” He quirks his eyebrow at me.

  “One wasn’t my fault; you scared me. I’ll put in fifty cents,” I fight back with my hand on my hip.

  “How about I’ll give you a pass for the night if you let me stay and share your cookies with me?” He wags his eyebrows, and my eyes widen at the sexual innuendo I know is in there. “The chocolate chip cookies you’re baking, you perv,” he adds, reaching past me to grab a cookie from the rack on the counter behind me.

  “I need more wine,” I grumble under my breath as I turn away, hearing him moan as he takes a bite of cookie before he starts laughing.

  “This your dinner?”

  “You even think about telling Oliver and Tatum and I will cut you.”

  His hands go up in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “We can order pizza if you want. I was just going to have fruit and cookies for dinner and maybe watch a movie or twelve.”

  “Fruit?”

  I hold up the new bottle of wine I’m uncorking to show him I meant fermented fruit. “Ah. Got it. Feel like sharing?”

  It’s my turn to quirk an eyebrow at him.

  “It was worth a shot,” he says, hopping up on the counter next to where I’m pouring my fruit into a glass this time. I can’t show all my secrets, you know.

  “So, you want pizza?”

  “If you don’t mind. I haven’t eaten all day,” he says, dropping his head and reaching for another cookie.

  “Trav, what have I told you about that? I’m proud of you for working so hard at the shop, but you gotta eat. If you need help with groceries, you tell me.”

  Travis is anything but a lazy teen. He’s at school every day, pulling good grades while starting on the football team. He works after school and weekends at the car repair shop in town, learning a trade to basically provide for himself.

  He lets out a sigh, his head leaning back and hitting the cupboard behind him. “I just need out.”

  “You have, what, two months left until graduation? Enjoy it. Try to be a kid. You’ve got prom soon, and then it’s the real world. Enjoy being a kid these last months. Trust me, being an adult sucks.”

  “I don’t care about that stuff though. I just want out of that house, to be on my own and moving forward.”

  I give him a weak smile and pat his leg, knowing nothing I say is going to change how he feels about his home situation, and I can’t even blame him for that.

  “What do you want on your pizza?”

  “Meat lovers?”

  “How about supreme? Then you’ll get some vegetables, and I won’t feel as bad for feeding you junk food.”

  “Deal.” He jumps off the counter and crushes my body to his in a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Anytime, Trav. Always.”

  We order pizza, make more cookies,
and laugh. Because we both needed a relaxed night of laughter. Travis has his shitty home life, and my kids are meeting my ex-husband’s new girlfriend, Candy, this weekend.

  Adam, my ex, and I had a rough hand dealt to us, but I thought we were stronger for it. I was wrong. He left me after I found out he’d been cheating on me not only while we dated, but also for the eleven years we were married.

  We were high school sweethearts who got pregnant young. I had Oliver when I was fifteen. Adam stayed with me through it all. We both worked so hard, with a huge amount of help and support from our parents and graduated high school. We got married right after we graduated, and Adam got an academic scholarship to a college not far from our hometown. He went to school full time, and I worked nights. It was hard, but we did it.

  Things were great. After earning his degree, Adam landed an amazing job at an advertising agency. We had to move, but it was worth it. The pay was amazing, and we were able to buy our first house, the one I’m sitting in now, about a year after we moved to Graves. The whole process of buying a house intrigued me so much that I got my license to be a realtor.

  Then we got a surprise that we were expecting again. I had already had three miscarriages, but this time I gave birth to a beautiful girl, Tatum. Tatum, who’s now nine, and Oliver are nine years apart in age but are as close as siblings can be with that much of an age difference.

  As excited as I was to have another baby, a baby we’d been trying for for years, it put a huge strain on our marriage to start over again with a newborn. Adam started coming home less and less. I never knew where he was, and it terrified me. I finally started digging into his personal stuff and found that he had several online dating accounts and had been ‘dating’ behind my back for years. When I confronted him about it, he said he’d never loved me, but I was the easy family he needed to put on the façade for work. But at home I was too fat, not pretty enough, didn’t dress nice enough, was horrible at sex and couldn’t do anything right. Nice, huh? He had already moved his girlfriend at the time into another house. Apparently, he was going to double life it, but me finding out made things easier for him. Even though it’s been three years since we divorced, it still hurts.

  I got to keep the house, I get alimony since he was a big fat cheater, and the kids most of the time. But two weekends a month, they stay with him. They usually hate it, but unfortunately, they don’t have a choice, court mandated and all.

  So that brings us to where I am now, my ex’s new girlfriend that my kids are meeting at their weekend visit. I deal so well with this stuff, hence the fruit and cookies for dinner and why the easy laughs with Travis are nice.

  I’m feeling all emotional now though. I don’t know if it’s the almost two bottles of wine I drank or the fact that Jerry McGuire is about to say that Dorothy Boyd completes him, but I’m about to lose my shit. I can feel the sting in my nose and tears pooling in my eyes.

  “Mrs. D? Are you—”

  “Don’t fucking call me that!” I snap as a sob erupts from me. I curl into myself and cover my face with my blanket, not wanting Travis to see me like this. I’m supposed to be the strong mom, not the broken woman crying on the couch.

  “I… I’m sorry. I… Do you, um, do you want me to get you more wine or something?”

  I snort out a laugh. “No. I definitely do not need more wine, Travis. Clearly, I’ve had too much. I just hit the weepy drunk stage.” I sniff and shift to pull the blanket down a little so I can see him. He looks lost as he stands over me, and I feel bad for making him feel anything but safe and comfortable. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Trav. But you have to stop calling me that. I might not have changed my name, but I am anything but Mrs. Duncan here. Call me Josie. You’ve known me ten years and are about to be an adult. You can call me Josie now.”

  I watch as he bites his lip between his teeth and fights the smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He looks so cute all flustered, not knowing what to do. Wait, what? Did I just think he looks cute? Oh damn. I have definitely had too much to drink. I clear my throat, wipe my eyes and sit up, pretending to watch the end of the movie.

  I feel the couch give as he sits next to me. “Josie?” I slowly blink at the way he says my name, and it sends tingles throughout my body. “You know I’m already an adult, right?” I turn to him then, confused with brows bunched, not understanding. “You said I’m about to be an adult, but I’ve been eighteen for six months. I am an adult. I might still be in high school, but I am an adult.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” are the only words I manage to say as my heart begins beating out of my chest and I’m not sure what the hell is going on or why I’m feeling really confused right now. And hot. I feel hot everywhere.

  He reaches up and brushes a piece of hair behind my ear with a smirk before adding, “I just wanted to be sure you knew that. Josie.”

  With my eyes wide in surprise and my heart still beating hard, I nod my head in understanding before turning back to watch the rest of the movie. It doesn’t take long before drunkenness meets sleep.

  TRAVIS

  I’m having the hottest dream ever and feel like I’m going to blow at any second. I’m rubbing against the sweetest ass I’ve ever encountered. Her sweet scent of lavender and honey is making my senses go wild as I take in a deep inhale because I can’t get enough. I reach around the front of the girl in my dream, skimming my hand up her curves and over her soft skin. When I reach her full breasts, her nipples are already hard. I softly play with the underside of one before I run my finger between them, finally ending at her nipple that I roll between my finger and thumb. I’m hard as stone from the feel of her in my hands. She’s so responsive to every touch and trace of my fingers on her soft skin. I have her going, and she’s pushing back into my erection as I grind into her harder from behind. I switch to her other breast, not wanting it to feel left out, and kiss the side of her neck. My tongue traces her outer ear, and I hear her moan from all the sensations I’m giving her.

  I can’t get enough of this mystery girl, but damn, if this isn’t the best and most life-like dream ever. I seriously need to wake up soon to release, or I’m gonna blow in the sheets. Well, I guess that wouldn’t be all bad if this keeps going. I wonder if in this dream I can actually feel how wet she is. I decide to test it out and lightly tickle my fingers down her stomach, pausing only for a quick second before I cross the barrier of the band of her panties. My hand slides inside, and when I can feel the soft curls, I feel myself get even harder if that’s possible. The girl continues to writhe from my touch, bucking her hips, asking me to continue my travel down her body. I’m a gentleman after all, so I oblige. My breath hitches when my finger pushes between her folds and I feel how silky wet she is. “So fucking wet for me,” I breathe out.

  My eyes snap open.

  Because. I’m. Not. Fucking. Dreaming.

  I don’t know what to do right now because I’m hard as a rock with my finger in her pussy. Who, you ask?

  Mrs. D.

  Or Josie, as I get to call her now. I was mentally fist-pumping the air so hard when she told me that last night.

  Fuck, I’m a bastard.

  I don’t want this to end.

  But I know it needs to.

  And somewhere there is a cherub dying because this is every dude's fantasy come true. I’m finger-deep in the wet pussy of my best friend’s hot mom. The same one that’s practically raised me. The same one I was picturing when I started jerking off at thirteen. The same one that I’d give anything for her not to see me as a kid. The same one I’ve loved for as long as I can remember.

  I start to slowly pull my hand out of her. Oh my fucking duck she feels good. When I hear her start to moan in protest, I want to cry and throw a tantrum like a baby.

  I hold my breath, and in one quick motion, I pull my hand out, landing on her hip while my forehead falls onto her shoulder.

  I feel her body go rigid. Almost as stiff as my dick that is still between her ass cheeks.

&nbs
p; Shit.

  “What did I just do?” I hear her whisper. And my heart breaks in two that she’s blaming herself for something that was very evidently my fault. See exhibit boner.

  “I’m so sorry. I thought I was dreaming. You just felt so damn good. I didn’t want it to stop. I’m so sorry. This is all me. None of this is your fault, Josie.” Why do I keep talking? Why couldn’t I have just said sorry and shut up? Nice job, asshole.

  “We need to move, Travis.”

  “Yeah, OK.”

  But we both just stay there, unmoving, unsure, not knowing how to proceed from this situation, or position rather, that we’re in.

  “I don’t know how to move right now.” Josie says it so innocently, I can’t help the laugh that escapes me in this mess. “Ohmygosh, Trav, stop laughing.” But I don’t miss the way she tries to hold in her own laughter by the end.

  “Is it bad for me to say that it was nice snuggling with you? And other things?” I wince, knowing now is not the time to joke like that, but I can’t help it.

  “Travis!”

  I can’t contain my amusement anymore, and neither can she. I bury my face in her hair to muffle my laugh, but I’m only reminded of how good she smells. Mix that with her shaking body, and… Oh shit, I’m getting hard again.

  I place a soft kiss on her shoulder before I push myself up and out from behind her. I stand and adjust myself, walking in front of her. I watch as her eyes trail a line of fire from my feet up to my face, and I don’t miss the linger at the tent in my shorts.