“Um…” Aly started, eyes blinking, head turning toward the audience as they cheered her on. There, right then, I saw the panic. Aly’s blinking stopped and she lifted her chin, held her shoulders straight. She didn’t like being put on display. She didn’t really like attention. That had been another reason she wanted to leave Florida. She hated being Ransom Riley-Hale’s girlfriend when the cameras and fans were around.

Looking at her now, trying like hell to fight back the inclination to jump up on that stage and pull her away from this Ethan jackass, I caught the worry, that strained panic bunching up the corners of her eyes.

“Um…” she said again and her mouth got tighter, the smile so wide and worried that I almost wanted to laugh. Almost. “Yeah…yeah sure,” she finally managed and I stepped back, dropping to the seat behind me when my knees hit the cushion.

Mom’s fingers on my shoulder were tight. The crowd was stupid with cheers and noise. All around me there was sensation, sound, the thrill of activity and the hope of what would happen for Aly in the coming months. It all made me want to vomit.

“Ransom…sweetie,” Mom started, kneeling in front of me. “Are you okay?”

No. I wasn’t. I’d had the most beautiful, the sweetest woman in my arms for six damn years and I’d let her walk out of my door. I didn’t chase after her.

“Keiki kane…”

“I’m…it’s fine,” I said, fighting to keep the shake out of my hands.

“She’s only known him for a few months,” Mom offered and the idea that she’d say yes to this jackass after three months and no to me every time I’d asked her for six damn years had me more than a little confused.

“Months?” I asked, shaking my head when my mother nodded.

“It’s not…serious.”

“No?” I stood, stretching my neck when my mother touched my arm. “Saying yes to a proposal sounds pretty damn serious to me.”

I started to walk away, head for the Exit, but Mom grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her. “She doesn’t love him, Ransom.” I moved my head back as though I couldn’t stand hearing that from my mother, but Mom pulled on my arms and I knew the glare on her face wasn’t made because she was angry. That was the Determined Keira Glare. “She loves you.”

I could have argued. I could have told my mother that she was meddling, that I didn’t need her telling me how to run my life. But of anyone in the world, Mom knew what it was to want someone you couldn’t have. She knew what it was to walk away and know you can never go back again. I wasn’t an idiot. I was stubborn and distracted and maybe a little selfish, but as my mother’s glare got harder and I looked up on the stage to find Aly nervously showing off the ring on her finger, I knew time had long passed for me to get back what had slipped through my fingers.

“The question is,” Mom started, “What are you going to do about this?” She nodded to the stage, ignoring the people around us leaving the auditorium. We were four rows back, right in the center and as Aly nodded to her dancers, at their parents up on that stage with that poor bastard’s hand draped possessively around her shoulders, she searched the audience, finally stopping on my face.

“Ransom?” Mom asked.

I kept my gaze at the stage, focused on the beautiful features of Aly’s face and the way she fought the relief I knew she felt. Someone spoke to her, got no response and divided Ethan’s attention so that Aly could return my stare uninterrupted. I didn’t know if she meant to hide her hand, but it curled into a fist and then moved behind her back as though Aly had moved it unintentionally.

“Keki kane, you got a plan?” Dad asked.

Finally, when she didn’t seem able to stand my gaze on her, or the way I moved it over her face, down that lush, beautiful body, Aly shook her bangs out of her eyes and plastered another grin onto her face, pretending like she actually cared what her new fiancé was saying.

“Oh, I have a plan,” I told my parents, grinning at my mother when she laughed.

And I did, one that I’d put into action that night and I didn’t care if Aly wasn’t ready for me, if she thought being with some asshole she didn’t know was easier than staying with me. I didn’t care if she thought she’d gotten over me, if she expected me to have gotten over her. I hadn’t. Neither had she, I saw that plainly just seconds ago.

You don’t walk away from your own heart and expect to keep living. And you don’t look at someone you’re not supposed to love like their smile, their eyes are the only thing in life that feeds you. That’s how Aly had looked at me. That’s how I know I’d looked at her for years.

That’s how I knew I was still her everything.

“I’m not an easy person to love,” I told my parents, walking away from our seats. I spared one more look at that stage, smiling when I noticed Aly still watching me. “But that woman does it anyway. She just needs reminding.”

To be continued…2016

Acknowledgments

I have no idea what it’s like to be JK Rowling. I’m nowhere near to her success, might never be, but I got a miniscule peek into what it’s like to write a book that many folks are anticipating. Bottom line: that experience sucks. As a writer you cannot hold out for or expect universal approval. Someone, somewhere is going to hate your work. Hell, one reviewer absolutely hated THIN LOVE because I didn’t reference the New Orleans Saints (who, let’s be honest, have sue-happy owners) and because I had the audacity to invent a make believe university capable of beating LSU. (Come on, lady, we exist in a make-believe world). The point is, no matter how eloquent your prose, how detailed your setting or how spicy your smoochy scenes, someone is going to hate your book. That was a huge worry for me after I’d completed the first draft of THICK LOVE. It is very different from THIN LOVE. But, I think it was supposed to be.

Ransom and Aly are still very, very young. They’ve yet to truly branch out into the real world and have both been protected in one form or another by the adults who love and worry about them. So, as I mentioned in my Author’s Notes, it was never going to be the same book. Still, I hope you found this book just as passionate, just as satisfying as its predecessor.

Immense gratitude goes out to my (sweet) street team Butler’s Bebes. They each held my hand a little. They each supported and cheered me on as I fretted over the quality of this book and the fear I had that you guys wouldn’t enjoy it. So thank you: Jazmine Ayala, LK Westhaver, Heather Weston-Confer, Trish Finley Leger, Judy Lovely, Allison Coburn, Kayla Jagneaux, Jennifer Jagneaux, Joy Chambers, Naarah Scheffler, Chanpreet Singh, Betsy Gehring, Melanie Brunsch, Allyson Lavigne Wilson, Carla Castro, Emily Lamphear, Heather McCorkle, Jessica D. Hollyfield, Laura Agra, Lorain Testaburger, Michelle Horstman Thompson, Sammy Jo Lle and Joanna Holland. LK Westhaver and Heather Weston-Confer especially helped me make some final decisions so thank you so much!

Thank you to my Ride-Or-Die, Chelle Bliss for the wonderful headers, for your friendships and support and Brian Morgan for working his magic. Thanks also to Alleskelle for the fabulous PhotoShop edits and to Steve Novack for the beautiful cover.

Sharon Browning, thank you for the fierce, fabulous edits and to Karen Chapman for the eagle eye copy editing and for talking sense to me when I thought I’d have to trunk this novel. Massive, appreciation to Kele Moon, Chelle Bliss and Trish Finley Leger for the first reads and to Lila Felix for all the marketing and PR advice and for being such a superwoman. Many thanks and my biggest hugs to my day-job cheerleaders Marie, Sherry, Barbara B., Sarah and Kalpana. You ladies are amazing. To Penelope Douglas, Ing Cruz and Danielle Bonaventure LeFave for all their support and encouragement. As always, to my CHPP, aka, my bints, I love you all and miss you like crazy.