Second chance romance, p.1
Second Chance Romance, page 1
Dedication
For everyone who’s put their faith in the wrong place and their heart in the wrong hands. May you find love that rewards your trust with joy. ♥
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Olivia Dade
Also by Olivia Dade
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Twenty-two years ago
“I mean, look at him.” Molly tipped her head toward the other side of Principal Evers’s office, where Karl Dean was mutter-shouting an obscenity-filled rant to his tired-looking father. “He’s not slick enough to try cheating. He can’t even whisper at a normal volume.”
Her dad pressed his lips together, a telltale sign of his amusement, while her mother kicked Molly under the table.
An hour earlier, Karl, Molly, and a whiny blond kid named Ned had been handed referrals by their chemistry teacher and sent to the principal’s office. Ned, for cribbing answers from Karl’s test. Karl, for theoretically cooperating with said cribbing.
Her, for insubordination.
She’d seen no evidence that Karl had noticed Ned’s cheating efforts, much less encouraged them. When she’d informed their teacher of that fact, then protested the unfairness of Karl’s referral, she’d promptly received her own.
By all rights, the four letters spelling out Mr. Miller’s genetic code shouldn’t be A, C, G, and T. They should be D-I-C-K.
He didn’t like anyone, but he especially detested Karl. Maybe because the teacher prized neatness, precision, and absolute obedience above all else in the classroom, and Karl’s very being—his refusal to participate, his inattention to homework, and his oversized personality and physical presence—offended Mr. Miller. Or maybe he was just pissed that Karl could answer every single question correctly in class, no matter how hard the teacher tried to catch his student off guard.
Either way, when he’d noticed Ned cheating off of Karl’s test, he hadn’t been inclined to give Karl the benefit of the doubt. Even after Molly’s ill-fated intervention.
Since Principal Evers had asked the three students for their side of the story instead of simply echoing Mr. Miller’s accusations, she was hoping he’d prove more impartial. Ned had already offered his unconvincing tale of innocence and woe. Now it was Molly’s turn.
The principal—impeccably suited, as always—raised a single brow at her. “Go on.”
She met his eyes. “You’ve talked to Karl before. You know him.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment.
Karl had been sent to the office at least four separate times before today. She’d counted.
It wasn’t that she truly cared about him or his disciplinary woes. She’d moved to Maryland and enrolled in Harlot’s Bay High School only a week before the start of the school year, so she didn’t much care about anyone here. She probably never would, since her mom and dad would transfer to new defense contractor jobs and another new town soon enough.
Still, she enjoyed studying him.
Because he was a sophomore too and they’d been assigned essentially the same classes, they sat next to each other anytime the teacher seated students in alphabetical order. But even if they’d freely chosen their seats, she couldn’t have missed him.
His scruff sprang thick and lush from a pugnacious jaw and was the color of a penny, several shades brighter than the reddish brown of his hair. With that beard and his sturdy frame, he kind of looked like he could be everyone else’s uncle, especially when he scowled. Which he did continually, at least when he wasn’t glowering or glaring or frowning in a vaguely homicidal manner.
So he stood out that way. Also, she’d never met another human being so laughably bad at whispering or so attached to the word fuck in all its useful forms.
Molly had already spent a significant amount of time memorizing his mannerisms and intonations and the jut of his chin, then practicing them in private and learning to mimic them, as she did whenever she encountered someone especially expressive or memorable. In all her scrutiny, she hadn’t yet caught Karl out in a lie. He didn’t seem to be an actual dick either. Just cranky and fond of obscenities. So she’d stood up for him in class that day, even though Karl had immediately told her to sit down, keep her mouth shut, and stay out of trouble.
She hadn’t listened.
“Stubborn as a mule,” her mom called her. “Committed,” her dad always countered.
Molly continued, “As far as I can tell, Karl has one real friend.”
“Matthew Vine.” The principal sounded sure of that.
“Exactly.” She raised a finger in emphasis. “Why would Karl risk punishment for Ned, who isn’t even his friend? And why would Ned choose to ally himself with someone entirely incapable of subtlety and discretion?”
As if to punctuate her statement, Karl chose that moment to fling his substantial arms in the air and mutter-shout to his father in outrage, “I didn’t do anything! Why should I fucking apologize?”
Everyone else in the room swiveled to face him, and Principal Evers raised both brows and waited. Karl’s flush reappeared, creeping over his cheeks and up to his ear tips.
“Sorry.” The apology was brusque, but it sounded sincere. “I’ll . . . sorry.”
To draw the principal’s attention away from her hapless classmate, Molly drummed her fingernails on the wooden table. When Evers turned her way, she made her final statement.
“Mr. Miller doesn’t like Karl. That’s been clear from the first day,” she said, and met Karl’s eyes. “Which is odd, considering Dean’s famous charm and friendliness toward everyone he meets.”
Despite the narrow-eyed glare Karl sent her, his lips twitched faintly in the middle of that thick, coppery beard. “Doesn’t like you much either now,” he told her.
“From him?” She flicked her wrist in dismissal. “That’s a compliment.”
“Please stay on topic, Ms. Dearborn,” Principal Evers advised, and she obliged.
“It’s true that I was insubordinate and Ned cheated. Probably because he could use a tutor, and the school should make sure he gets the extra help he needs.” When Principal Evers frowned and scrawled Chem tutor => Daniels? on his notepad, she moved him further up her list of favorite administrators. “But Karl shouldn’t be disciplined, and he should be allowed to retake the quiz. He did nothing wrong except sit beside Ned.”
Poor, confused Ned. Last week, he’d defined an electron as “one of those machines that reads Scantron tests.”
Ned’s mom turned to him, her expression softening. “Neddy, if you need a tutor, we’ll get you one. Why didn’t you tell me you were having a hard time in class?”
“I . . .” His voice cracked, and he stopped and took a shuddering breath. Then he nodded, his eyes too bright, before dropping his chin to his chest and staring at the tile floor. “I’m sorry. I won’t cheat again.”
Looking thoughtful, Principal Evers tapped his pen against his notepad. “And Karl had nothing to do with it?”
They watched the top of Ned’s blond head shake a silent no.
In the end, the principal apologized to Karl for the false accusation of cheating, thanked Molly for telling the truth under difficult circumstances, and shuffled both families out of the conference room so he could meet privately with Ned and his mom before the final bell rang.
Outside Principal Evers’s office, Karl scratched at his beard and considered her.
“Shouldn’t’ve done that,” he finally said. “But thank you.”
“No biggie.” She shrugged. “Merely performing my civic duty.”
He rolled his eyes. “Nerd.”
“You know it,” she said cheerfully.
After that incident, she and Karl became friends of a sort. She sat with him and Matthew in the cafeteria. In the summer, when she began working at Ice Queen—the local ice cream parlor—on the weekends, he often walked to the store, bought a kiddie cone, and spent an hour or two reading his latest sci-fi paperback from the library at a table near the cash register, although he didn’t say much.
That same summer, her parents decided they’d remain in Maryland until she graduated, which was fine by her. There would be no new group dynamics to decipher. No unfamiliar warrens of hallways to navigate. No more goodbyes, at least for the next two years. With that knowledge, she allowed a few fragile roots to grow and anchor her in place at Harlot’s Bay High.
Karl was the hardiest of those roots. Strange but true.
Junior year was more of the same, although they had fewer classes together. College wasn’t in the cards for him. The Deans were struggling financially, and as soon as he graduated, he intended to contribute a full-time paycheck to the family coffers. So he hadn’t bothered with—as he inimitably put it—“AP Wha tever the Fuck or Honors Blah Blah Blah.” Especially since passing those classes without doing homework would be next to impossible. But they still saw each other at lunch every day and at the ice cream parlor on Sundays.
They didn’t share secrets. Didn’t call each other. Didn’t talk about their feelings. But he was still the closest friend she’d had in years. If she sometimes wanted more than that, no big deal. At umpteen different schools, she’d watched relationships crash and burn over and over again. She wouldn’t risk whatever they had in pursuit of something that would only end in disaster. And after so many years of studying everyone from a detached distance, she wasn’t even entirely certain how to pop the invisible bubble that surrounded her. Only her dad and her grandparents seemed to step through the barrier without any trouble.
So nothing really changed between her and Karl until senior year, when he started dating.
Someone else. Not Molly.
* * *
Twenty years ago
At first, senior year fucking ruled.
Because of all his yard work clients and his part-time job washing dishes at the bakery, Karl was able to buy his Chevy Nova and the parts it needed to run. And after three summers of watching him mow her parents’ lawn, Becky Waller unexpectedly asked him out. Which was a goddamn miracle, because she was a thousand miles out of his league.
He might be better at tests, but she was better at life. Hardworking. Easygoing. Cute as hell. Soft and warm against him when he pulled her close. Like the quilt on his bed, the one his mom pieced together before he was born.
The only real problem? She didn’t much like Dearborn. Hadn’t from the start, and he had no clue why not. The first time he’d suggested going to Ice Queen and visiting Dearborn there, even an oblivious asshole like him could see Becky’s blatant discomfort.
“How did you and Molly become friends anyway?” she’d asked, her hand stiff in his.
He shrugged. “Year before last, Mr. Miller was a dick. Accused me of cheating. She defended me and got in trouble.”
“Oh.” Becky’s stare burned into the side of his face, until curls of smoke should’ve been rising from his damn beard. “That was nice of her.”
Dearborn wasn’t nice. But she was kind. He couldn’t explain the difference to himself, and he definitely wasn’t going to try to explain it to his girlfriend. Who was, in fact, nice.
He liked that about her. Right?
In the end, they went to the movies instead of Ice Queen. And after a few weeks of dating, he rarely saw Dearborn anymore.
They’d been assigned different lunchtimes. No classes together either. Only homeroom. Her rusty Mercury Sable appeared in the school lot in September, so shared rides were out. And she didn’t seem to actively avoid him, but somehow, even in homeroom, she was never close to him and always busy.
Not because she was dating too. If his girlfriend was out of his league, Dearborn didn’t even have a league. She wasn’t playing. Didn’t want to play. Was friendly but distant with everyone. If Becky was a quilt, Dearborn was the moon, and you didn’t cuddle with the fucking moon.
Besides, she was too smart for everyone in their school, including him. If he’d have asked, she’d have said no, and he wouldn’t have blamed her. But her rejection would have obliterated him. Not worth the risk.
He cared way too damn much about Molly Dearborn. Which meant her sudden aloofness blew. Then Karl’s mom got laid off from one of her jobs a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. He had to pick up more hours at the bakery, stopped getting enough sleep, and felt more zombie than human most days. Becky didn’t complain often about how little time they had together, but he wasn’t stupid. Her unhappiness wasn’t exactly subtle.
But talking about things like that? Didn’t come easy to him.
His parents had been working their asses off ever since he could remember. Sure, Mom and Dad loved him, but they were fucking exhausted. Didn’t need to hear about his emotions or some stupid shit that didn’t matter in their fleeting, errand-packed time off. And dealing with his younger siblings’ problems was his damn job. Wasn’t theirs to deal with his crap.
No one outside his family wanted to hear about some grumpy bastard’s feelings either. He’d found that out real damn young, once a few of his dickwad classmates—the Whitley brothers, mostly—made fun of the husky kid who teared up and whined whenever they chose him last for kickball or square dancing or whatever.
It’d only taken a few shitty gym classes and recesses for him to learn. He might’ve been big and cranky from birth, but he wasn’t slow. He’d stopped playing kickball, or any team sport. Toughened the hell up. Concentrated on helping his family instead of worrying about what random assholes thought. Instead of showing them he was worried, anyway.
So, yeah. He didn’t know how to deal with emotions. Not his own. Not other people’s.
Exhibit fucking A: When he told Becky he loved her, she didn’t say it back. He had no fucking clue why not, and her silence stung like hell, but he never said word one about it. Was too goddamn cowardly to ask for an explanation or even tell her she’d hurt him.
And now, he had no idea how to handle her pissiness about his schedule either. Didn’t know what to say, or how to raise the subject himself. So he didn’t do or say anything. Let her handle things however she wanted.
She broke up with him, then came back a week later. Broke up with him a second time. Came back two months later. On-again, off-again, ad fucking nauseam, all senior year.
In March, during one of those awful off-again periods, his homeroom teacher assigned the senior project to everyone. At first, he didn’t pay much attention. Too busy trying to look at Molly without getting caught.
She was sitting across the room, her head bent over the tattered paperback in her hands.
Shit, he missed her. Had no idea why. Not like they’d been that close, right?
“—pairings for the project,” Mrs. Beanly was saying. “Wade Adams and Adrienne Bronnell. Karl Dean and Molly Dearborn. Serena Frank and—”
Wait. Had the two of them been assigned together for their senior project?
He whispered to his neighbor, asking for clarification, and Ellen winced and rubbed at her ear before confirming that yes, he and Molly would be working as a team.
Alphabetization for the damn win!
He sat back in his too-small goddamn chair. Gloried in the first taste of victory he’d experienced in months. And a group project was giving him that taste. Oh, the fucking irony.
Apparently, the senior project was due right before prom in late May. Before then, they’d need to volunteer somewhere for a set number of hours and create a written and videotaped presentation about their experiences. Which was going to be a huge pain in the ass, and he probably wouldn’t sleep much for the next two months, but whatever. He was psyched.
He didn’t give a crap what he and Molly did for their project, as long as they did it together.
She was friendly but distant when they talked about the assignment. Exactly like she was with everyone else, but had never really been with him. It fucking stung. But maybe this stupid project, this mandated time spent together, could change things. Bring them back to what they’d once been.
At Molly’s suggestion, they wound up volunteering at Historic Harlot’s Bay, and the next month and a half was painful. Borrowing a camcorder from Matthew’s family for the express purpose of getting recorded while he hit a hoop with a stick in fucking breeches almost killed him. Using other sticks to stir linen shirts and shifts in a boiling-hot copper kettle over a goddamn fire sucked ass too. Every hour he spent with Dearborn at Historic Harlot’s Bay either subtracted from his paycheck or added to his growing sleep deficit.
But somehow, Dearborn’s company made everything fine. The itchy, starched stiffness of his linen shirts. The mocking comments from the junior interpreters as they whipped his butt at Mancala time after fucking time. The distinct thunks as Dearborn’s aggravatingly accurate pitches smacked his own lawn bowls farther away from the stupid jack.
As the weeks went by, she relaxed in his company. Talked to him. Even touched him.
Every time he complained about some petty shit, she patted his arm in the most patronizing possible way and told him sweetly, “These cares are but fleeting moments of discomfort. Pray do not get your breeches in a bunch, good sir.” Which was obnoxious, but also pretty damn funny.
