Losing Enough Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 2 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 3 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 4 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 5 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 6 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 7 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 8 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 9 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 10 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 11 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 12 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 13 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 14 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 15 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 16 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 17 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 18 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 19 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 20 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 21 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 22 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 23 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 24 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 25 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 26 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 27 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 28 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 29 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 30 ~ Alex ~

  Chapter 31 ~ Connor ~

  Chapter 32 ~ Alex ~

  Epilogue ~ Connor ~

  About the Author

  Upcoming Releases

  LOSING

  ENOUGH

  A Second Chances Novel

  Book #1

  Helen Boswell

  Artemathene Books

  This book is a work of fiction. References to actual locations are intended only to provide a sense of place and authenticity. All other names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real.

  Copyright © 2014 Helen Boswell

  Artemathene Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions of this work.

  Cover Art © 2014 by Designs by Lynsey

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks go to the following people that made it possible:

  Janice Pia, for initiating this journey and taking it with me, and for always setting the bar high with your evil queen treatment. Stevan Knapp, for your brilliance and outstanding editor’s humor. Elaine Braithwaite, Rosalyn Eves, Tasha Seegmiller, and Erin Shakespear, for your keen eyes, love, and support throughout the process. Kelly Schwertner, Ali Hymer, Carey Heywood, Mary Jo Tufte, Christina Pryor, Dani Morales, Keith Osmun, and Megan Paasch, for your wonderful insights and suggestions – your often humorous feedback made my day many times over. Mary Jo Tufte, Dr. Ryan Van Woerkem, Jared Wenn, for your unparalleled expertise and assistance with technical aspects. Aldo Pia, for your candor and for sharing with me your life experiences. Lynsey Taylor, for your utter genius in creation of the beautiful cover. My street team and manager Laura Helseth, for your enthusiasm and excitement as I venture into new territory. My blogger friends and readers, for your continued support and all of the hard work that you put in to support authors. My family, for your love most of all.

  And my mom, for being my inspiration and who has shown me my entire life what it means to be strong.

  To Janice P,

  for encouraging me to take the risk.

  1

  Alex

  Most of my friends go to the lake or beach during summer vacations. Not me. I spend my summers in Sin City with my parents. Have ever since I was twelve. Nine months out of the year, Dad’s a certified public accountant. The other three, he’s a professional gambler.

  It’s early June, and a blast of heat flies up my skirt as soon as I step out of the hotel and into the line for taxis. By the time I get into a cab, I feel like I’m coated in a sheen from my hairline down to my favorite strappy high-heeled sandals. The locals call it “dry heat,” but that’s what they tell visitors to make us feel inferior whenever we mention how hot it is. Even though I’m from the northeast, it’s not a big deal. I’ve learned to adjust to summer life here, and I don’t just mean the temperature.

  I sweep my long red hair over my shoulder to get it from sticking to my neck and tell the driver, “QE2. It’s on Paradise.”

  The driver nods and starts the meter, and I whip out my phone to check my texts. My flight got in a couple of hours ago, and my phone’s been going nuts since I stepped off the plane. My friend Elle, who’s a little insane in general, was crazy-thrilled when I called her up last week and told her I was coming out for the summer earlier than planned. I have a barrage of texts from her.

  2 hours ago: Text me as soon as u get off the plane

  1 hour ago: U better come by the club as soon as your ass gets in. Did u land yet?

  45 minutes ago: Dammit. Got slapped with double shift. Won’t get off work til later but come by and we’ll play

  There are more, but those are the important ones. Elle is twenty-two, has about that many tattoos, lives in black tank tops to show them off, and tends to have hordes of men drooling over her. When I met her at an over-under club a couple of years ago, she promptly spent the summer corrupting me in various ways. Besides my mom, she’s my best Vegas friend. She’s a waitress at the QE2, a club off the main part of the Strip, and I turned twenty-one last month, so this summer I’ll actually be able to get in with my real ID instead of a fake one.

  Thankfully, the driver isn’t inundating me with small talk like some of them do, and I sit back and text Elle.

  Had to check in and all that. Keep your panties on, bitch

  5 seconds later: Bitch, I don’t wear any

  I laugh out loud and stare out the window as the cab makes its way down Las Vegas Boulevard. The sights settle over me like a second skin – casinos that look like they’ve been designed by someone on crack, garish lights and advertisements plastering everything, all of the crazy tourists wandering the Strip holding drinks bigger than their heads. I love this place. The energy, the insanity, how it’s all disconnected from the rest of the world. I love all of it.

  I tap my fingernails on my knee, frowning a little as I clear the e-mails from the afternoon off my phone. Mostly junk, but one of them is from the registrar’s office at the University at Albany confirming the refund of my summer registration fees. That had been the original plan. I was going to take classes during first summer session so I didn’t have as much to take in the fall. But then Dad called me after they first got out here at the end of May. Said that he was probably going to have to cut their stay short this year, so could I come out sooner? He sounded so uneasy, anxious, but he wouldn’t tell me more than that. I tried to call Mom and ask her what was up, but she was just as vague.

  I wound up waffling on it for a day because I’d already signed up for classes, but I ultimately went with my gut and decided to come out. Classes can wait. Summer vacation is officially here.

  It’s grittier and darker once you get off the Strip, but I like it because it’s real. Elle’s not waiting for me outside the club, but she wouldn’t be if she’s working.

  The bouncer is one of the regulars that I recognize from the past two summers, a wiry guy whose body and face look as hard as steel. He scrutinizes my I.D. before staring me straight in the eye. I stare back, and he waves me through. I think that the really good bouncers play on fear, make that eye contact to see who backs down. It’s the ones with guilty consciences who get busted for having the fake I.D.’s. This is the first time I’ve used my real one, and prior to that, I never got caught.

  I automatically get a little high when I walk inside, like I
always do. Not a chemically-induced high, but because QE2 is my favorite place in Vegas, full of dark places and music so loud it makes my heart feel like it’s going to pound right out of my chest. I head straight for the bar, keeping an eye out for Elle along the way and squeezing through bodies until I make contact with the cool metal and glass surface.

  I see a familiar face, and I wave to get the attention of a guy with deliberately shaggy brown hair.

  “Hey, Tucker! You seen Elle?” I shout over the din. Tucker is the best bartender of all time because he always serves a heavy shot of sarcasm with all of his drinks. I can always count on him to engage me in a battle of smartass remarks.

  “Alex. Hey! What, has it been a whole year already? Don’t look so excited to see me.” He flashes his teeth at me in a wolfish grin. “Yeah, she’s working the floor. I suppose you’re expecting a drink on the house?”

  I grin back. “If you’re offering, I won’t argue. Manhattan?”

  “Free Manhattan. I’d die of shock if you argued. Coming right up, babe.” He slaps the bar with his hand, winks at me, and turns away.

  I look away from the bar to see if I can catch a glimpse of Elle. The crowd looks fairly mixed tonight, but the rockers and goth types dominate the place as usual. The last guy I went on a date with would have made some dumb joke about how I blend in because I wear too much eye makeup. Only part of the reason I don’t date much. Back home, I’m focused on working and school. Out here, dating doesn’t make any sense. If this summer was going to be like any of the last few, it might come with a hook-up or two, but that’s all.

  Tucker’s shout calling out my drink brings me back. As soon as my fingers close around the glass, an elbow smacks into my arm. Goddammit. My arm has more Manhattan on it than my glass has in it.

  I whip around and shoot a death glare at the guy next to me. The bar is crowded, sure. But would it kill him to wait until there was actually room before plowing his way into a spot?

  I’m face-to-face with a solid wall of dark blue, a t-shirt that’s stretched over broad shoulders and a muscled chest that would probably give Elle an immediate hard on. My gaze lifts to a face with chiseled, strong features, full but firm lips, intensely blue eyes blazing in contrast to his tanned skin. That kind of eye color should not legally exist on a human being. I’m the one who’s drenched in whiskey, but he’s the one staring at me like he’s pissed off at the world.

  I snap in his direction, “Thanks for that. Now I’m soaked and out of a drink.” I eye the stack of cocktail napkins next to him, but they’re out of my reach. Not about to dive on him to get them.

  Without saying a word, he takes a wad of napkins and unceremoniously shoves them at me. His fingers rake through his dark wavy hair, which is already messy like he’s been pushing his hand through it all night. For some reason, everything about his appearance makes me think he rides a bike. I check him out again as I blot my arm dry. Striking. Especially with the slight stubble on his face, and with those eyes. Too bad he’s kind of an ass.

  “What, sweetheart? You want me to buy you a drink now? You’ll have to sweet talk me more than that. Or I accept sexual favors, too.” He says it half-heartedly, like he’s reading it out of some stupid playbook of his.

  Are you shitting me? Okay, make that a total ass. I cough out a laugh. “Yeah, right. No thanks.”

  He shrugs. “No skin off my back. People in this city drink too much anyway.”

  His voice is low and resonant, the timbre of it sending an involuntary jolt of electricity through me. The look he gives me and the way one corner of his mouth curves up is almost mocking. Not that I’m expecting any sort of chivalry on his part, but that had to be the worst apology. Ever.

  I raise my eyebrows. “You might have noticed, but you’re standing at the bar?”

  “I’m not drinking, am I.” He says it flatly, as a statement.

  “No,” I admit. “But you seemed pretty intent on shoving your way into a spot here, and there are less crowded places to go if you didn’t want a drink.”

  He glances away, unfazed by my stellar display of logic. “Came here to talk to someone.”

  “Lucky girl. Or guy,” I say with sarcasm.

  Why am I even wasting my breath with this guy? I don’t wait for a reply before shoving away from the bar. I briefly debate circling around and going to the other end to get another drink, but my nerves are crawling with irritation. And not just because my arm is sticky. I need to get away from anti-Prince Charming before I go into total bitch mode. I’m here to have fun, and normally things like that bounce off of me and don’t leave any impression. But he got under my skin, and I don’t like that.

  I’m almost to the ladies’ room when I finally see Elle.

  “There you are!” she yells. She might be small, but she has a set of lungs on her. The volume of the music is no competition.

  She throws her arms around me and hugs me a little insanely. I squeeze her back, feeling like a behemoth. Elle is like a little willow branch on caffeine, moving with grace that’s always super sparked with energy.

  I release her, grinning like crazy. So good to see her. We message each other a lot during the year, and now she looks me up and down in the way that good friends do. We’re only a year apart and like-minded in a lot of ways. She figured out a couple of years ago that she wants to go into social work and has been working her butt off taking classes ever since. Same thing with me and nursing.

  “You look fabulous. So you’re single and free this summer?”

  “As always. Do you even have to ask?” I retort.

  “Oh, so if Wes has a friend, you’re game?”

  I shoot her a mock glare as she grins at me. Elle tends to date fast and furious, and Wes is her latest boyfriend. She goes through her men almost as fast as tissues, whereas I prefer to keep it light and not even let things get to that phase. While we differ on our attitudes, she at least gets that about me. I know she’s teasing me about setting me up.

  “Oh!” Her eyes widen like she just remembered something. “You know Alysa’s Empyre is playing tomorrow night, right? I totally tried to get us tix, but they sold out like a minute after they went on sale. I was going to hit up the scalpers, but I’m kinda short on cash right now.” There’s a glimmer in her eye as she adds, “Unless… Is there any chance your daddy can get us in?”

  Of course I know they’re playing. Elle and I have been following the alternative indie rock band in Vegas for years. She introduced me to them a couple of years ago when they were starting out and playing in joints like QE2 to crowds of ten. They’re one of the lucky ones that shot up to rock-stardom and fame, and it’s crazy to think that they’re one of the most popular indie bands in the country now.

  But the venue is The House of Blues, and I’m pretty sure that Dad can only get comped tickets for events at our hotel.

  “I can ask, but I kinda doubt it.” Though it’s not really anything I can do about, I still feel bad. Elle is a serious fan of the band. “Sorry, dude. We can try the scalpers tomorrow night. I’ll pay for you.”

  She shakes her head. “Nah, I couldn’t have you do that. ‘S okay. I guess we’ll just have to settle for telling people ‘we knew them when,’ buy their shit on iTunes to support them, stuff like that, right?”

  “Right. But hey, I will ask my dad, okay?”

  “Okay.” She threads her arm through mine but freezes. “Why are you so sticky?” she shouts. “Did you take a bath in whiskey?”

  I shoot a look over my shoulder, but anti-Prince Charming is gone. “Pretty much. Had a little mishap with some jerk and lost my drink.”

  “I have just the solution.” A few strands of Elle’s long spiky hair fall over her eyes, and she pushes them back before tugging me toward the dance floor. “C’mon. I have to do a couple of things, but I’ll set you up with a challenge first.”

  “Already?”

  My laughter tumbles out of me, the edginess I carried from my encounter with the guy at the
bar effectively wiped clean. Elle is always good like that. Thinking about ways to get us both into trouble. I don’t remember who started the glorious summer tradition of “the challenge.” It might have been me, it might have been Elle. Either way, it was inspired by one too many drinks one night. Now we play it in some form or another whenever we go out. It’s like the bar-version of double dog dare.

  We walk to the edge of the dance floor. There are a lot of bodies out there, and the deejay is playing some slow, heavy, sexy remix that’s bringing everyone close and grinding together. It’s been almost six months since I moved against anyone like that, and I feel a slow heat spread through me as I watch the couples in front of us.

  The gears in Elle’s evil brain are cranking as her eyes sweep through the crowd. I know she’s trying to pick out someone to challenge me with, and my adrenaline surges in anticipation. Elle’s challenges are usually pretty fun. That’s the entire point.

  “Him,” she decides, elbowing me in the ribs. I follow her line of sight and see them standing at the edge of the dance floor. Two guys checking out the crowd like Elle and I are checking out the crowd. One with longish dark hair, bronzed skin, and some extensive ink on his arms. The other one is broad-shouldered with good-boy surfer looks, sunned skin and blond hair falling over his eyes.

  “Your challenge, if you choose to accept it,” she says. “Dance for two songs with him and then make him buy you a drink.”

  “Which guy?” I ask.

  She shrugs one shoulder. “Your choice. Both if you want. Oh, and I like the ink on that one guy. See if you can find out where he got it done, if he got it done local that is.”

  “Ooh, is that all?” I narrow my eyes at my potential targets. “You sure you don’t want anything else? His phone number or anything?”