Between Never and Forever (The Hometown Heartless), page 1
BETWEEN NEVER AND FOREVER
BRIT BENSON
CONTENTS
Playlist
Content Warning
Prologue
Then
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Then
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Now
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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Also From Brit
Sneak Peek
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright© 2023 by Brit Benson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other noncommercial use permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons and things living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. Except for the original material written by the author, all mention of films, television shows and songs, song titles, and lyrics mentioned in the novel are the property of the songwriters and copyright holders.
Cover Design: Kate Decided to Design
Editing: Rebecca at Fairest Reviews Editing Services
Proofing: Shauna Casey, The Author Agency
PLAYLIST
cardigan – Taylor Swift
Your Name Hurts – Hailee Steinfeld
Matilda – Harry Styles
hope ur ok – Olivia Rodrigo
Feelings – Lauv
Miss You a Little – Bryce Vine, lovelytheband
Live Forever – Bazzi
Girl Almighty – One Direction
Ain’t It Fun – Paramore
Help I’m Alive – Metric
No One Compares to You – Jack & Jill
Gasoline – Halsey
Blame Me – The Pretty Reckless
Wish I Never Met You – Loote
Serial Heartbreaker – FLETCHER
If I Died Last Night – Jessie Murph
Beggin for Thread – BANKS
Name – The Goo Goo Dolls
feel something – Bea Miller
Another Life – Surf Mesa, Josh Golden, FLETCHER
All I Wanted – Paramore
Back of My Mind – Two Feet
Healing – FLETCHER
Goddess – BANKS
Criminal – Fiona Apple
Dazed & Confused – Ruel
Cardiac Arrest – Bad Suns
the 1 – Taylor Swift
Backseat (Kiss Me) – Jutes
Sex on Fire – Kings of Leon
Bright – Echosmith
cardigan – Taylor Swift
For the extended playlist, please visit my website, authorbritbenson.com
CONTENT WARNING
Please be aware, Between Never and Forever contains some difficult topics that could be upsetting for some readers.
Topics that take place on page are: vulgar language, sexually explicit content, physical and verbal abuse of a child*, violence, drug use and addiction, sexual assault*, unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancy, near-death experience*, traumatic religious experiences*
Topics that are referenced but do not take place on page are: rape, overdose, addiction relapse, loss of a loved one to terminal illness.
*If you require a content-specific chapter guide for these topics, you can find one one my website.
This one is for the brats.
Go off.
PROLOGUE
A high-pitched scream wakes me, and I shoot upright in my bed.
My heart is in my throat and my breath is straining my lungs when I hear it again. Another high-pitched scream. Brynn. My feet hit the floor just as a chanted stream of oh my god begins, and I sprint down the hall toward her room.
I have never known fear like this.
For these few seconds, terror turns my blood to ice, and the need to protect overpowers everything else. Logic, reason, self-preservation—they all disappear in the seconds it takes me to cross the house. Only the primal instinct to protect, to defend, remains.
I shove through the bedroom door at the end of the hall with my fists raised, ready to fight. Ready to kill, if necessary. When I find Brynn sitting cross-legged on her bed, alone, my eyes immediately dart around the room to find the threat.
The closet door is open, displaying clothes on hangers. The second-floor window is closed tight. Everything seems as it was hours earlier when I hugged her goodnight.
“What’s wrong?” I say, my voice urgent. I glance back at her and find her staring at her tablet with her hand covering her mouth. She doesn’t answer.
“Brynn?” I say again, rushing to her bed and dropping to my knees, reaching for her shoulders while scanning her body for injury.
She jumps with a gasp as her eyes shoot to mine.
“Dad!” she shouts. “Oh my gosh!” Her hand splays over her chest. “What the heck? You scared the crap out of me!” She takes off her headphones and lets out a laugh, her eyes wide. “Oh my gosh, Dad, you look like a ghost. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
My jaw drops, and I suck in a breath. Possibly the first one since being jarred awake.
“You screamed,” I say. “I thought something was wrong! I thought you were...that something...”
I can’t stop my eyes from scanning her features, my sleep-fogged brain still not grasping that fact that Brynn is fine. She is not hurt. She’s not in danger. I don’t need to beat the life out of an intruder. She’s safe in her room.
I consciously unclench my fists.
“Oh,” she says sheepishly. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Brynn,” I breathe out, dropping my head to her mattress and trying to get my heart to calm down. “Jesus Christ, Brynnlee.”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
We sit in silence for a minute, and when my chest no longer aches with panic, I bring my eyes to hers and raise a stern brow.
“Why the hell are you screaming in the middle of the night? You know you’re supposed to be asleep, and you’re not allowed to be on your tablet after 7 p.m.”
“I know,” she says a smile stretching over her face. “I was asleep, I swear, but then Cameron messaged me and—”
“Cameron messaged you at—” I check my watch “—three in the morning?”
“Yes, because—”
“Why were you screaming?”
“Ohmigod, Dad, I’m trying to tell you,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Cameron messaged me because Sav Loveless is coming here!”
My shoulders tense again, but Brynn doesn’t notice. Her voice rises in pitch with each word as she bounces on the bed, speaking quickly.
“She’s coming here, Dad! Here! Here to our dumb, boring town. Nothing good ever happens here, and she’s coming, like, right here. Maybe I can meet her? Maybe I can actually get her autograph? Can you take me to meet her? And get a photo or a hug or—”
“I thought that band broke up?” I say calmly, trying to ignore the pain in my hands as my fingers curl back into fists.
I know that band broke up.
Brynn has been sobbing about it for two weeks, and I’ve felt terrible. I’d planned to let her go to one of their shows on the next tour, but now she won’t get the chance. They announced that their current tour will be their last, and there are only three shows left, all at the Garden in NYC. They’re sold out, and of course, now with the news, scalped prices have skyrocketed.
Brynn’s only just stopped tearing up every time one of their songs comes on the radio, and their songs come on the radio constantly.
“Actually, Dad, they didn’t break up,” Brynn corrects, a slight edge to her voice. “The Hometown Heartless is on a hiatus, and now I know why.”
Brynn shoves her tablet into my hand, tapping the screen to show me the news headline.
“Sav’s going to be in a movie,” she squeals. “The movie that’s filming here next month! Oh my god, Dad, I can’t even believe it. This is prodigious. This is...this is...immaculate!”
Brynn continues to chatter excitedly, but her voice fades into the background as I focus on the tablet screen. The headline confirms what Brynn said.
Sav Loveless, frontwoman for rock band Th
It’s the same woman whose face taunts me daily from the posters plastered on Brynn’s bedroom walls. The same face I avoid in every grocery store checkout, smirking or scowling from the covers of magazines boasting tell-alls about her various rehab stints, numerous Hollywood hookups, and scandalous on-again-off-again relationship with her bassist.
It’s the same face I’ve seen in my dreams. In my nightmares.
Sav Loveless is a lesson in contrasts.
Every detail about her directly contradicts another. Silver hair and soft, pale skin, with swirling, storm gray, depthless eyes. A heart-shaped face. A delicate jaw. Cupid’s bow lips. Her angelic features suggest innocence and kindness, but the stories that precede her prove the exact opposite. She projects this façade of fearlessness, as if nothing can hurt her, while her lyrics rage with pain. Her tongue slices as sharp as a jagged piece of glass, but I know from experience how plush the lips are that contain that tongue, and I know how gentle it can be when coaxed.
She’s ethereal and untouchable, yet she was so soft under my palms...
I close my eyes quickly, severing the invisible line of tension between myself and the woman in the photograph.
I’ll never forget the way I felt the first time I saw her photo in a tabloid. I almost crashed my car the first time I heard her voice on the radio. My gut still twists at the memory.
After years of nothing, she was everywhere overnight. Then, as if her global popularity wasn’t enough, my own daughter had to go and become a diehard fan.
It’s been a poetic sort of torture. Perhaps deserved.
Most people get to move on from their first love. Heal from their first heartbreak. Learn from their first big mistake.
But me? I can’t seem to escape mine.
I take Brynn’s tablet and tell her she needs to go back to sleep. She’s got school in the morning, and even though there’s only two weeks left until summer break, she still needs to be awake for class.
In theory, anyway.
I think Brynn might be a bit more advanced than the average seven-year-old. I had to download a dictionary app on my phone just to look up the words she uses on a regular basis, and the other day she spent an hour lecturing me on ways to make my business more environmentally friendly.
I’m proud of her intelligence, but it makes me nervous for the years to come. I can barely keep up with her now.
Once Brynn’s light is off and her room is quiet, I make my way out onto the back deck. The rhythmic sound of the water flowing from the ocean and the briny scent of the air, usually so relaxing, do little to calm my nerves. I have an early job in the morning, but I’ll never get back to sleep. I might as well make some coffee and enjoy the sunrise in a few hours.
I brace my hands on the deck railing, the cool band on my left ring finger glinting in the moonlight and drop my chin to my chest. I close my eyes, focus on the sounds of the water, and take a deep breath, letting reality settle over my skin.
It prickles uncomfortably, and I grit my teeth.
Savannah is coming here. Back into my life.
She’s occupied a space in my head for years. A space that I’ve tried like hell to avoid. To forget. But here, in my town, avoiding her will be impossible. I have to prepare myself for that.
Savannah may be coming here, but I can’t let her back into my heart.
And I can’t let her upend my life again.
THEN
PART ONE
1
15 years old
“Hey.” Savannah steps in front of me and kicks dirt onto my clean tennis shoes. “Lemme see your math homework.”
I flick my eyes across the street toward my house. My mother’s face is peeking through the gray curtains of our front window, watching the bus stop like she’s started doing ever since my bike got stolen and I had to stop riding it to school. I glance back at Savannah, but I don’t speak. Her eyebrows scrunch before she looks toward my house and sighs.
“You’re such a weenie, Cooper,” she grumbles loudly, making the other kids at the bus stop laugh. My ears heat, but I still don’t talk to her.
Savannah rolls her eyes and takes a dramatic step away from me before crossing her arms over her chest and setting her attention on my house. She doesn’t break her stare with my mother until the school bus pulls up in front of us.
I step onto the bus and make my way down the aisle until I reach the seventh seat from the front, then I sit on the hard bench. Savannah drops down next to me, shoving my shoulder with hers and slinging her backpack to the floor between her feet.
I hate the bus. The seats are uncomfortable, and it always smells like feet. The only okay thing about taking the bus is Savannah.
“Gimme your math homework, Weenie,” she taunts with a smirk. I roll my eyes and pretend to be annoyed, but I open my backpack anyway.
“You really should stop copying my work, Savannah. You’ll never learn how to do it on your own,” I tell her flatly as I hand her the sheet of paper.
Savannah snorts. “Why would I wanna learn how to do this crap?”
She scribbles the equations from my worksheet onto hers, changing the answers to a few so she doesn’t get them all correct. She does this every time. She’s been doing it since fifth grade. I asked her once why she didn’t just copy my work exactly as it is to get the better grade, and she said it would be too suspicious if she suddenly started getting As.
I’m a C student, Weenie. Gotta stay a C student.
I didn’t bother pointing out that the math she had to do to make sure she would always get a C was proof that she could be an A student if she wanted to be. She’d have just slugged me, anyway.
I wait quietly as she finishes copying the work, then she hands it back to me and I put it back into my backpack. She doesn’t say thank you. She never does.
“You goin’ to The Pit tonight?” I feel my cheeks warm as I shake my head no. “Oh, right,” she says wryly. “I forgot.”
She didn’t forget. She just likes to give me crap about it.
“I wouldn’t go there even if I didn’t have youth group, Savannah. That place is lame.” I try to sound confident even though I’m not.
“You’re lame.”
She’s such a brat. I shake my head.
The Pit is a place out of town where kids race their cars and bet on fights and drink beer. It’s mostly juniors and seniors, some college kids who come back to visit and some who never left, but Savannah started going last year when we were in eighth grade. She’s always sneaking out of her house. One of these days, she’s going to get herself into some real trouble. Or, at least, that’s what my mother says. It makes me nervous for her.
I glance quickly at her before swinging my eyes back in front of me, then forcing myself to sit up a little taller.
“You can always come with me, you know. To youth group, I mean. You might like it.”
Savannah barks out a laugh.
“Oh, I bet your momma would love that one.” She screws her face up in disgust and changes her voice to imitate my mother. “That girl is trouble, Leviticus! Trouble, I tell you. She’ll corrupt you with the drugs and the curses and her demon woman breasts!”
