Seeing Red (Bliss Peak #2)

by Shon

To everyone brave enough to chase their bliss today because they know tomorrow isn’t promised.

The first time I laid eyes on True St. John, she was dancing. Alone. In a crowded bar. With her eyes closed and face turned to the ceiling, she swayed along to the tune of Sade’s “No Ordinary Love” coming from the jukebox in the back of Lucky’s Tavern.

Somehow, the crowd around her seemed unfazed by her presence, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away. So, I sat there from my spot at the bar and watched her with a strange pit forming in the center of my chest. She danced with ease in the tight space. Like she was the only one there.

For all I knew, she was the only one there.

Her hands fisted the skirt of her dress so it wouldn’t tangle at her feet. And she kept swaying. And swaying. And I kept watching her, mesmerized by the fact that she was so caught up in her own world she didn’t think to be self-conscious. How did she do that? Lose herself so completely in the music that everything else faded away?

I absently reached for my beer to take another sip, only to realize I’d already finished it while watching the woman with the beautiful Fro...

I sipped my beer, remembering the way she’d lost herself in the music, wondering what it felt like to completely submit to something and let it move through me. It seemed freeing. Cathartic. Peace-inducing.

What I didn’t know was the next time I saw True St. John, she would be on my best friend’s arm.

I couldn’t believe I was moving to a place where the air hurt my face in winter.

How could a place be this breathtaking? Bliss Peak, North Carolina. No Bojangles in a fifty-mile radius, but with views like this, I could forgive it.

Then I was rushing to the front door, unable to contain my excitement at seeing my grandparents. Apparently, when you had grandparents like mine, the excitement never dulled, no matter how old you got.

In all my twenty-nine years, it didn’t matter what time I arrived at my grandparents’ house, it was always time to eat.

Hadn’t I just fled a house full of people hovering over me when I told them I was okay? My grandmother didn’t need me doing the same to her. If worse came to worse, I’d team up with my granddad and make sure she took care of herself.

Once upon a time, I was a romance author. But I hadn’t written a word in over a year. I didn’t even know if I could write anymore. I guess I would find out soon enough.

I didn’t stay with my grandparents for a week. I stayed for two. And to put it simply, I had zero regrets.

As much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t wanted to spend my first few nights here alone. I just wanted to be surrounded by people who treated me normal. And that’s what my grandparents gave me.

Every morning, I got up and helped my grandma get her truck ready for the drive to the farm, so she could pick up the fruit she’d sell in town that day. Every afternoon, I sat with my granddaddy on the porch and did word searches while he read the p...

Two weekends in a row I’d let my grandmother spike my lemonade with moonshine. And two weekends in a ro...

My grandparents’ house was open to everybody, and somebody was always around without...

The slow living was everything I needed to get my dysregulated nervous...

Two weeks of quality time with my favorite people hadn’t undone a year of chaos, but I finally felt l...

I could afford a new car, but a new car didn’t hold the sentimental value Camryn did. I’d been through everything in this car. I’d made it through undergrad in this car. I hit publish on my first novel in this car. I’d sped through the streets of King’s Town that night to my sister’s apartment in this car…

“If you need anything while you’re out there, your neighbors can help. Greyson and Noah. Just knock on their door and they’ll fix you right up.”

Then I went to grab the detachable shower head from its perch and my heart stuttered to a stop. Were those wings? A flutter of something black in the corner was all I needed to see before I dropped the loofah, grabbed my towel and climbed out of the shower with a quickness I would’ve been impressed by if I wasn’t running for my fucking life.

I didn’t remember much after I flung open the front door and made a run for it. But relief flooded me when I saw a black Denali parked on the side of the house I admired earlier. It looked like I would be needing help sooner than I thought.

The house was quiet, just how I hated it.

When he walked in later, Greyson would probably point out how much was going on. He didn’t understand my constant need for stimulation. I, on the other hand, didn’t understand how he could exist in complete silence for so much of his day. Every time I tried that, my thoughts got too loud and nothing good came from that shit.

My life in Bliss Peak was exactly how I wanted it.

But I agreed with him on one thing, something was missing. It wasn’t my career, but something else that left a gaping space in my chest that I didn’t understand. It had always been there. But in the past year, the hole had grown slowly and persistently, stretching until I couldn’t ignore it.

Don’t you want something else other than what you’re doing? It wasn’t what I was doing, it was the absence of who I wanted to do it with.

Somehow, I blinked and I was turning thirty last month, which meant it had officially been two years since my last serious relationship. Two years since I’d shown up on Greyson’s doorstep after my last breakup and asked ...

If I was being real with myself, I knew I couldn’t be Greyson’s roommate forever. He’d get married…eventually. Start a family of his own. He never really talked about his future, but that was the energy I’d always gotten from him. He was the settling down type, the type people took se...

Settling down was supposed to be my thing. My sister liked to call me a hopeful romantic because of how sure I used to be about where I’d end up by thirty. And for good reason; I’d wanted to be somebody’s husband my whole life. A family man. But the second I go...

“Woah, there’s a half-naked woman running in our yard.” Wait. There was a naked woman running around our house. Why was there a half-naked woman running around our house? And what was she running from?

I wasn’t going to laugh, but this woman was hilarious without trying. The visual of her in this damn towel, suds sliding down the side of her shoulder and wheezing shouldn’t have been so entertaining.

“Can you please help me chase it out of my house?” “You sure it’s still in there? The way you were running, I thought it was chasing you.”

I didn’t know her name, but I’d just seen every inch of her home. And now she was waiting in my house. Unsupervised. Wearing my clothes. This was not how my Thursday nights usually went, but I wasn’t complaining.

God, that smile. It wasn’t even directed at me and here I was losing my mind.

Stay calm, Noah. You’ve been around beautiful women before. Stay fucking calm. Unfortunately, calm was not a destination I visited often.

I found my voice and fell in step beside her. “Let me walk you back to your place.” “I promise I won’t get lost,” she said with a teasing lilt to her words. Then she met my gaze and I got lost. Invite her to stay for dinner so she doesn’t have to eat alone. Tell her to take a pair of your shoes so she doesn’t have to walk barefoot. Say…something. Anything, Noah. But I couldn’t. The signal connecting my brain and my mouth was MIA, and I couldn’t even pretend to play it smooth.

The words King’s Town A&M had never looked better than they did on this woman.

I’d had enough excitement for one day. Moving in and unpacking was eventful enough without the fear of rabies lurking in the back of my head. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a fucking bat. But if I hadn’t freaked out, I wouldn’t have run to my neighbor. And if I hadn’t run to my neighbor, I wouldn’t have met the gift that Noah was.

A grin broke across my face at the memory of his easy smile and soft demeanor. How he looked and how he acted were a study in contrast and maybe that’s what I got for judging a book by its cover.

When he’d answered the door, standing a few inches above me and I saw every inch of visible skin up to his neck decorated in beautiful art, I’d assumed I knew exactly who he was. His long, black hair was thick and flowing free around his shoulders. He looked…intimidating. Until he open...

His voice was softer than I expected and his smile was brighter than I expected. That was probably helped by the go...

I sighed, remembering the way he’d welcomed me into his home without any questions. Yes, I’d been in distress, but plenty of people would have left my scary ass shivering on the side...

It was cute how flustered he got in his room before he left me, then again in the kitchen when he saw me trying to mop. He was a giant ball of s...

When my heart rate spiked, I forced my thoughts to take a detour to his roommate, hoping his cool demeanor would get my heart back on track, but now it was spiking for a different reason. There had to be a word for the wa...

Greyson hadn’t said a word to me and yet, I was overcome with irritation just remembering the way his cool gaze slid over me before he shoved his hands in his pockets. Now that I knew he and Noah weren’t a thing, I had no idea why his gaze left ...

Unfortunately, what he lacked in manners he made ...