More Than This (More Than, #1)

by Jay McLean

“I just can’t believe I didn’t see it coming.” I pick imaginary lint off my dress. “No one suspects the people they love of douchebaggery.” Heidi looks at me sympathetically. “Or slutbaggery,” Lucy adds.

I fall asleep in Jake’s arms, sheltered from all the evil in the world.

“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. I just

“I hate to state the obvious here, but Megan’s kind of a shitty person.” I let out a tiny laugh. He strokes my hair from roots to tip, which is making me drowsy. “You know who isn’t a shitty person?” I say through a yawn. “You, Jake Andrews, are not a shitty person—not even a little bit.”

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

Oh my God. Jake fucking Andrews.

“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.”

“Why should I be jealous?” I ask. He shrugs. “Because I’m your Jake,” he says, “and you’re my Kayla.”

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.

We look at our hands. Our skin is only lightly grazing—a soft touch, yet it feels so intimate, like we’re more than what we are. I know I want to be more—more than this.

Every day she’s here, and I can’t have her. To have to be around the person you love, and not be able to love them, is the hardest thing to do.

“I need to be more than this.” He points his finger at himself then me. “You need to pick. It’s all or nothing.”

“Jake saw you at your worst. He was there when your life changed and your heart shattered. He was there to help you piece some of it back together. He’s seen it all, Micky. He’s seen you at your worst, and he still fell in love

with you—like, truly the forever kind of love with you. And I’m sorry, because I think you’re making a mistake. Maybe you don’t need to be a complete person, or maybe you do. But maybe he’s it—maybe he’s the other half of you.”

He didn’t need to kiss me to make me his. I was his the moment he asked me to move here with him and the moment he held my hand at the funeral. I was his when I had nowhere else to go, and he took me into his home. I was his the moment he held me while I cried in the back of that ambulance. He was my strength when I had none.

But something needs to be said, because I never want to go another day without his knowing. “Jake, I am so much more-than-a-lot in love with you.”

“Your very first kiss with your prince will change your life. When your lips touch for the first time, the earth will feel like it has stopped moving, but at the same time the world around you spins. It’ll feel like fireworks in the night sky—a bright light in the darkness. You’ll feel your heart beat fast in your ears, but silence will surround you. When you pull apart and open your eyes and really see each other, you’ll know in that moment from that kiss that you’ve

just let someone own a piece of your heart, and you’ll live happily ever after.”