More Than This (More Than, #1)

by Jay McLean

I couldn’t undo what had been done. I couldn’t change the future. I couldn’t even predict it.

One night when everything changed. It was so much more than just the betrayal.

My family is insane, but I love them anyway.

Exactly, Mikayla.

“Sure.” But it comes out more like “shaw.” It’s the accent.

It's the accent for me

“Ready?” I nod and smile up at him. He smiles back. “Well, let’s go then.”

“She’s on the last few chapters of some book she’s been reading. She can’t stay away from it. We’re used to it by now. We always find her reading at the oddest times. Don’t we, babe?” He says the last sentence a little louder to get her attention.

embarrassment and try to hide my face on Jake’s shoulder. He chuckles into my hair and shifts so he can put an arm around me. I’ve known this guy for less than an hour, and I’m already comfortable with him.

Dylan’s one of those guys who doesn’t say much, so you listen when he does.

“Get your hands off me, before I get Dylan to break your arms!” I say it like a joke, but I’m serious. “I don’t think it’s Dylan I have to worry about,” he mutters. Jake gets between us and shoves him aside. “Leave her alone, asshole,” he says to Logan. He holds his hand out to me. “Come with me.”

shrugs. “I don’t know. It just seems disrespectful to Mikayla if, you know, she were my girl.”

Oml boyyyyy!

Megan and I are not as similar as you’d imagine best friends are. We’re polar opposites in almost every way.

There’s only one thing Dylan loves more than basketball, and that’s his girl.

Find me a boy like Dylan

He’s not the hearts-and-flowers kind of guy—he’s the heart-and-soul kind, and fuck if every girl would rather have that than the flowers.

“It’s okay.” She smiles. “I’d rather be here than anywhere else.”

Before I can react, Jake wraps his arm around my waist and sits me down on his lap. I lean against his chest, my legs to one side. “I think she’d rather not,” he says to Logan. His accent makes it sound like “ruh-thuh nawt.”

It’s all I need to keep going and believe that everything will be okay.

“To not letting bad people dictate whether you have a good time.”

Three gurneys. Three body bags. And one so small it can only be a child’s.

Then I remember. My entire family is dead.

Then I remember more. How can everything be taken from me instantly?

There’s nothing left. No one. Nothing can hurt more than this.

“Sure . . .” It sounds like “shaw”—his accent again.

Accent though

I suddenly feel claustrophobic. The walls closing in, I rush to the door and pull it open. I stop in my tracks.

If she needs me, I’ll be there for her.

“Jake makes things hurt a little less. He’s home for me now. If being around him takes the pain away just a tiny bit, then it doesn’t matter how or why he’s here with me.

“You can, and you will,” my mom says firmly in a tone that means the subject is closed.

I let go of her hand and bring her head to my lips, kissing her on her temple. She doesn’t seem to mind, so I’ll keep doing it until she tells me to stop.

“It feels like so long ago. Today has gone on forever.” I look at Jake. “Is this, like, the longest day in history? What is with today?”

He puts his arm around my shoulders and kisses the side of my head. I love it when he does that.

“This isn’t awkward at all,” he sighs, shaking his head. Then we both start laughing. For a second, I almost forget about the pain. Almost.

We end up at the batting cages. Of course we do.

And I think, for just a second, that maybe my heart can learn to love again.

“Why does he get to call you Kayla, and everyone else calls you Micky?” I shrug. “Because my family called me Kayla.”

It’s at this moment that I know. I don’t just think it anymore—I know it. I love this girl. I’m in love with this girl.

I take his hand between mine and kiss the knuckles one by one. I feel him tense at my display of affection then stiffen under me. That’s my cue to get off him and do something—anything—else.

Oh my God. Jake fucking Andrews.

Then Jake and I head home, too. Home.

She looks at Jake. “And this is your boyfriend?” “Oh, he’s not—” What is he? I look at him. He’s eyeing me, waiting for my response with a goofy expression on his face. I laugh a little and take his hand. “This is my Jake,” I say proudly.

“Hey, Jake?” “Yeah, Kayla?” He’s drifting off. “I more-than-a-lot like you.” He’s quiet for so long again that I don’t know if he heard me. Then he says, “I more-than-a-lot like you, too—so much more-than-a-lot.”

He’s my Jake. And I’m his Kayla. I like it. I more-than-a-lot like it—so much more-than-a-lot.

“I’m thinking that I far from more-than-a-lot like you, Mikayla Jones,” Jake says, and the flash goes off.

“I believe in happily-ever-after.” She looks at me with so much emotion, I hope to hell that I’m reading her right—that the look she’s giving me is telling me everything I want to know. She believes in fate, in love—in us, forever.

“Explain to me why the fuck you’re playing family with my girl and my sister?”

Talking without speaking. Feeling without touching.

“Jake?” “Yeah?” “It’s just you. It’s only ever been just you. It will always only ever be just you.”

The position is so intimate—like we’re more than whatever it is we are, more than this.

Seriously—fuck my life. There’s only so much shit I can take before all the fucked-up things in my life consume me.

Same here

“You have the right to ask, Jake. But you have no reason to.”

I finish my days and I got no one to go to. Nobody gives a shit if I have a bad day or not.”

Ohh Logan I feel ya!