Rett Read online

  Finley smiled. “Follow me.”

  “There’s more?” Dray looked around. “I thought this might be it. It’s already bigger than the my house.”

  Cassie took hold of his arm. “And the sad thing about that is it’s not even your house. We just rent it, remember?”

  Finley took my hand and we walked down the long hallway. Delicious smells lured us toward the room where Cole had had his party.

  “I just remembered, I’m starved,” Jimmy said.

  Jude, Eden and Cole were playing video games on the wall-sized television. I didn’t see Finley’s dad at first and then his head popped up from behind the bar. He stared at all of us with almost as much astonishment as we stared at him. He was a bit older and skinnier than the Nicky King in my mind but his presence rendered all of us silent.

  He came out from around the bar and glanced at all of us. “What an incredibly beautiful bunch you are.”

  “Dad, this is Barrett. And these are his friends Nix, Scotlyn, Taylor, Cassie, Dray and his brother, Jimmy.”

  Nicky smiled up at Jimmy. “Bloody hell. Your poor mother. Nice to meet you all, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Sir.” Nix was the first to pull out of his star struck coma. Even Jimmy seemed to have glossed over with awe.

  “Not Sir, please. I’m already feeling as old as the Tower of London. Nicky is fine.” He turned to me and stuck out his hand. “Rett, I’m so glad to finally meet you. Now I can thank you in person. You handled the press like a pro. And if you’re ever interested in an acting career, I’ve got friends lined up to cast you.”

  “Not really the acting type, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Jude, Cole and Eden walked over and Finley made another round of introductions.

  Jude shook Dray’s hand. “I hear you’re managing Tank’s Gym? I’ve been there to watch a few fights. In fact I think I’ve watched you clean the mat with a few unfortunate competitors.”

  Dray always lit up when someone talked about fighting. “Yeah? Cool.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a state of the art gym if you want to check it out,” Jude said.

  “That’d be great. What street is it on?”

  Jude inclined his head to the doorway. “It’s down the hall.”

  Dray’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Cassie. “It’s down the hall.”

  Cassie smiled. “That’s what he said.”

  “I sure as fuck—” Dray sucked in the last syllable and shot a worried look at Finley’s father.

  Finley laughed. She pointed at her dad. “Nicky King, remember?”

  Nicky smiled. “What’s that supposed to mean, Fin?”

  She looked over at him. “Please, Dad, if the f-word was taken out of the vocabulary in this house, there’d hardly be any conversation at all between you, Jude and Cole.”

  “True.”

  Cole was the next to sweep in and thin the crowd. “Nix, I am in total need of a new tattoo artist.” He lifted his shirt to expose a tattoo that was pretty much a disaster. “I’ve got some ideas to cover it up. Do you think you could look at them and see if any of them would work?”

  “Cole,” Finley said, “Nix didn’t come here to talk or think about work.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Nix said, “I consider it my duty to fix tattoo messes.” Nix looked over at Cole. “And that definitely constitutes a mess.”

  “The food is out on the table if any of you are hungry,” Nicky said. He raised both arms and Scotlyn and Cassie each took hold of one as he led them to the food. Jimmy and Taylor followed, leaving Finley and me alone.

  “Well, I know I’ve only been here a few minutes but do you think he liked me?” I’d never met any girl’s father before and only I would make my first dad meeting one with a rock star.

  Finley leaned against me and I wrapped my arm around her. “I told you if I like you then he will like you.”

  I peered down at her. “Again with the ‘like’ word.”

  She shrugged in my arms. “Maybe I’m waiting for my extremely hunky boyfriend to say love first. Because something tells me that, just like the dad meeting, saying ‘I love you’ will be new to him as well.” She lifted up to her toes and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  I leaned down and kissed her. “There is a first time for everything, I guess. And lately my life seems to be filled with first time moments.”

  She smiled. “Like the wall slamming sex?”

  I paused. “Well, I was thinking more about being swarmed by the press, standing inside a mansion, feeding nacho chips to a pig, but the wall slamming sex works too . . . at least on that particular wall.” Her bottom lip jutted out in a pout. “And with one particular girl,” I teased.

  She squirmed in my arms but I held her tightly. “Oh and then there’s the first time I’ve ever fallen in love with a girl. I guess that’s a pretty big deal too.” She relaxed and I leaned down to kiss her again. “I love you, Finley.”

  Want to read more about Finley, Eden and the King Family?

  Read their story in Strangely Normal.

  STRANGELY NORMAL is a full length novel, approximately 71,000 words.

  A unique summer job lands eighteen-year-old Eden Saxon into a lifestyle completely different than her own. She becomes a companion for nineteen-year-old Finley King, the daughter of a rock legend. Finley suffers from severe anxiety, and her father fears her being alone. Eden leaves her loving, but wildly dysfunctional, parents and dreary apartment and enters a world where no luxury is overlooked. She instantly adores Finley and her charming, quirky personality. The whole situation has only one flaw- Finley’s older brother, Jude. Jude King is cocky, arrogant and irritating. Unfortunately, he’s also completely irresistible.

  Eden realizes she’s underestimated the depth of Finley’s problems, and suddenly her dream job turns out to be a lot more than she’d expected. Eden soon finds herself in over her head . . . and her heart.

  NOW AVAILABLE

  READ NOW ON KINDLE

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chater 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Strangely Normal

  Tess Oliver