Summer, page 1
part #3 of Seasons Series
SUMMER
A
Seasons Series
Novel
by
Tara Sosa
BY TARA SOSA
The Beauty Series Novels
Unexpected Beauty
Chaotic Beauty
Changed Beauty
Unbreakable Beauty
The Seasons Series Novels
Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall (coming soon)
Other Titles
Love on the Line (coming soon)
The Brightside of Me and You (coming soon)
Big League (coming soon)
Beautiful Nightmare (coming soon)
SUMMER
A Seasons Series Novel
by
Tara Sosa
SUMMER
SUMMER. Copyright © 2023 Tara Sosa
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express permission from Tara Sosa.
Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with this publication for book reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without permission from Tara Sosa.
This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters, incidents, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Dear Readers,
If you’ve read the first two books in this series, you’ll see some overlapping of scenes that have already happened between Reed, Emma, Jax, Sky, Jenks, and Liv. This time for obvious reasons it will be told in the POV of Emma and Reed. While not many occasions arise, some scenes were critical to include to get this book started, and some were detrimental to getting to the end.
If you have not read Winter (Jax & Sky’s story) or Spring (Jenks & Livvie’s story) it is recommended that you do so, especially Winter. Winter introduces the backstory of Reed and Emma, and it also has the first appearances of both characters. Their story, though minor in comparison to Winter, continues in Spring. And it definitely gets complicated and combustible—in the best possible way—here in Summer.
It is up to you what you want to do—what you want to read.
Either way, I hope you love Reed & Emma’s story…and the rest of the entire Inked Crew!
For Rosemarie J. Fedor, my grandmother.
1935-2020
A woman who lived her happily-ever-after with her husband for over 65 years.
A woman who loved her husband longer than that, and who will love him into eternity.
A woman who loved her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and God.
A military and shift-worker’s wife. A devoted mother. A worker in the education system. A friend.
Unwavering in her faith.
Entangled and proud of her roots.
Believer of second chances, dreams, wishes, earning and obtaining them.
And romance.
A woman who was treasured, cherished, adored, and loved.
A woman who will be remembered always, forever, and beyond.
We love you: “Gram,” “Mom,” “Hon,” “Rose,” … and “Schmoo.”
For Freddie.
2020-2021
I didn’t realize at the time how much I loved you or needed you in my life.
How much of a presence, a constant, a light.
Joy. Beauty. Fun. Friendly. Fearless.
I realize it all now—including how much I miss you.
Beyond words or measure—just like my love.
Not one day is the same.
It never will be again.
I hope you & Allie are together living your best lives as best friends.
Love you, buddy.
And for Samantha. My Sam. My Silly Sammy.
2011-2023
My first fur-baby. My…baby.
This dedication was never supposed to be any time soon. Because it wasn’t your time.
One minute you were up and running and playing. The next, you weren’t.
One second you were here. The next, you were gone.
She was a lover of plush blankies, catnip sticks, toys with bells, hammocks and perches and tunnels, playing and running around after dinner, grass, naps, snuggles and rubbies, all things Halloween, sitting in the window and feeling the breeze, the opening of boxes, laying IN boxes, and in baskets, bowls, lasagna pans, her carrier, cardboard cat houses and tents, on warm towels and clothes right from the dryer, and very recently laying on her unborn little sister’s reading chair and rocker.
She was a lover of sneaking in swipes of sweets, any type of treats, hairbrushes and playing with running water, feathery wands and fuzzy balls that she’d carry around the house in her mouth making the cutest sounds, laying by my feet and in my spot or on my pillow, my good-morning pets and her daddy’s morning treats, laying on or with her daddy no matter the time, head booping him and sometimes me, walking and sitting on his keyboard, popping up for virtual meetings with his co-workers, being the center of both our attention, but completely and wholeheartedly being her daddy’s favorite. She was his number one and she knew it. We ALL knew it. He always said it.
She was and always will be HIS cat no matter how much I loved her too and tried to steal HER attention.
I love you so much Silly Sam. I always will. I’ll never, ever forget you.
There’s not one day that’ll go by that I won’t wish you were still here.
You were and always will be my first little girl.
Forever and beyond.
I hope you & Allie & Freddie and the others are together living your best lives as best friends.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
-Maya Angelou
“If you ever get a second chance in life for something, you’ve got to go all the way.”
-Lance Armstrong
PROLOGUE
REED
18 Years Old
“Bands. Best ever.” Jax picked a new topic before shoving a fry into his face.
“Dave Matthews Band,” I said without hesitation. I knew it wasn’t going to be a popular opinion and I was right.
“No way. They’re trash,” Jax said. “I’m going with Nirvana.”
“Linkin Park or Green Day. And Jax is right, Brooks. They suck,” Ryan chimed in.
“Screw you guys. Just you watch. Decades from now people will still be singing ‘Crash Into Me.’ Or—”
“I hate that song. It’s played out. And it’s one song. Also, I’m adding Metallica. And Guns N’ Roses.”
“R.E.M.”
“How about old school?”
“The Stones. The Who. The Eagles.”
“How about solo artist?” Liam asked, but we all shook our heads. He got here late so he already missed that round. “Fine. Maroon 5.” We all groaned at that.
“What? That asshole over there—” Jax pointed at me “—picked Dave Matthews Band. Don’t give me any shit.”
“Talk about played out” …and lame. I shook my head at the guys like they were peasants. But it was true. They didn’t know shit about music. Their choices weren’t bad—I knew some of them were good like The Stones, The Who, Metallica, Nirvana. Some of those bands would go down in history as legendary. But mine? Top tier. Screw them and their hating.
I ate some more while Jax, Ryan and Liam went back-and-forth. I didn’t offer my opinions while complete stupidity came out of their mouths. They didn’t get music like I did. They listened to it just for the hell of it while driving in their cars, getting ready for games, background noise while getting laid.
But me?
It was all I had most of the time. It was my outlet. I grew up with everything I could ever want, but nothing that I truly needed. Music was one of my only escapes from my fucked up life.
No way in hell was I getting into that shit with them. Sharing my feelings. They’d call me a pussy and then rag on me for the rest of my life.
Assholes.
I looked at the time on my cell and knew I had a bit more time with my friends before I had to be home. If I didn’t get home on time—I didn’t want to think about the consequences. I was having a good time with the guys, eating burgers and fries, shooting the shit. Taking jabs, dishing out zingers, talking about girls, making plans for our senior year.
A few more days and we’d be living like kings. Though at our school with our last names, the teams we played o
Fuck, I hated my life. But some of it wasn’t so bad. My friends, my teammates, the girls.
“Any more garbage bands you want to contribute, Reed?”
I’d just opened my mouth to tell Ry to go screw himself sideways when a voice over my shoulder said, “DMB isn’t garbage. I’m not too sure about R.E.M. or Maroon 5, but Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Nirvana are decent picks. And so is Linkin Park. I could listen to them forever. Just not like DMB.
“But as a number one? No way. That spot belongs to either The Stones, The Who, or Queen—hands down, no question. Honorable mention goes to U2, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin. Oh—The Beatles too. And CCR. How the hell could I forget them?”
I looked over my shoulder and my eyes landed on our new waitress. Our usual server, Betty, said she’d be leaving in a few minutes when she dropped off our food, and that ‘the new girl’ would be by to check on us in a few.
And the new girl—she was beautiful. Gorgeous. A total knockout.
I was used to beautiful. Being a Brooks, a team captain of our football and baseball teams, and having my looks—yeah, I said it again—looks—I was around beautiful girls all the time. But not like this. She wasn’t made-up beautiful in low-cut, skin-tight, painted-on.
She was wearing a pink waitress apron over a plain black tee, black jeans, and she had on black chucks that’d see way better days. She had her hair pulled back in a messy bun and barely any makeup on other than some shit on her lips that I’d bet a thousand dollars was Chapstick. And not even the cherry kind. She was authentic, real, and rare. She was like no one I’d ever seen before. She was all eyes and lips and curves and hair—hair that I wanted to see tumbled down her back so I could sketch the color and texture the right way.
She was more than sketch worthy though. She was made for canvases, sculptures, and statues.
She evoked sassy and sweet, and she obviously didn’t give a shit that she just told Liam Sullivan, Ryan Flannery, or Jax Raines to pretty much go pound sand. Or that she was looking at me, Reed Brooks—football god and sometimes God’s gift to women—in a way that no girl ever had before. She wasn’t saying something just to get me to notice her. She wasn’t agreeing with me just to get on my good side. She wasn’t giving me “those eyes” so I’d give her the time of her life. The way she was looking at me—goddamn, I loved the way she was looking at me.
I also loved the way she smelled. Like toasted marshmallows underneath the grease and batter. I was used to girls wearing expensive things—clothes, accessories, perfume. But her? She knocked me off my axis with a bare face, dirty sneakers, gooey marshmallows, and string-bracelets.
I needed to know more about her. It felt essential. Vital.
I turned away from her even though I didn’t want to—because I knew I had to do it fast. Because I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking the same thing. Possibly feeling the same way.
I quickly looked at each of my friends and gave them “the signal.”
Yeah, we were the douchebags people talk about who had a signal to call dibs. Fucking dibs. I know it’s messed up, but Ryan and Jax started it after they both found out they screwed the same girl. Being guys, you’d think it wouldn’t matter. But it did for us. So, the douchebaggery signal. And I was using it. Because right now, I didn’t give a shit how it made me look. Or how screwed up we were in starting that stupid signal in the first place. I wanted her. Or at least the chance to get to know her and see where things went. They all needed to back off. I’d never done this shit to them before. Never once. But I knew the signal just in case. And once I did it…they all looked at me…stunned.
Which is sort of how I felt when I looked at the girl and felt the electric pull between us. It was like in summer when the air feels charged, and you know it’s going to storm. But not just any storm. It’s a storm that produces all this energy and electricity, all these elemental things that should make sense because there is a scientific reason that it happens, but it makes no sense at all because it seems miraculous, otherworldly, beyond any and every explanation. Things that cause lighting to splinter and unleash and thunder to crash and warn.
It’s amazing and scary all rolled into one. The beauty. The danger. The promise. It’s a storm that makes you want to stand outside and watch the performance—the majesty of it all—even though you know it’s dumb and you might die.
I turned back around to look at the girl and it was still there. The feeling inside of me. It wasn’t unwanted. But it was definitely unexpected. The tightening and tingling in my gut and groin. A breathlessness, an ache. Also, an eagerness, an anticipation I’ve only felt during competition. She was more than beautiful. She was captivating. She had a mass of red hair and the lightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. I’d say they were arctic, but that would imply they were cold, frigid, glacial, and nothing about her was that.
The lightest of blue skies on a warm summer day full of sunshine and endless hours of freedom and fun. Perfection. That was her.
I sucked in a breath and shook my head trying to clear it from these thoughts. They weren’t terrible or terrifying, but they also weren’t me. I was slick and smooth, and when I needed to be, I turned on the sexy and sinful. I might only be eighteen, but once again, I was a Brooks, a varsity captain, and part of a crew of guys just like me. I knew how to charm not only the young but the old to get what I wanted. I knew how to get girls.
I slipped between roles and worlds and thighs with ease.
But something told me with this girl, I couldn’t be any of what I was used to being for everyone else.
The Reed who lived and breathed music, the one who loved sketching and wanted tattoos and thought piercings were cool, the one who couldn’t wait to get the hell out of his parent’s house and out from under the last name Brooks and their thumb and boot, the one who wanted to live a normal life and not bury who and what he truly was—that’s who I needed to give her. The me I could sometimes be with my friends and my younger sister, Livvie. The me I could never be with Hiram and Angeline Brooks.
I met Blue-Eyes’ gaze and held out my hand, using a bit of that suave and charm. But when she looked down at my hand and then back into my eyes, she looked at me like I was thirty instead of barely legal. And my friends fucking laughed. The dicks. But in for a penny and all that.
“Hey. I’m Reed Brooks,” I said, all casual and shit when inside I felt anything but.
Blue-Eyes raised a brow and her lips and then she put her hand in mine and said, “Emma Jameson.”
Emma.
My Blue-Eyes.
My?
Yeah. She’d be mine.
And I didn’t say that as a Brooks, a football and baseball god, or the big man on campus.
It was just me as I am right now saying that. Knowing it. Wanting it. I wanted Emma. Fuck, but I wanted her.
What I was about to do was either going to be the best thing I’ve ever done, or it was going to be the absolute worst.
How crazy was it that this all started because of music?
Music, ink, and random hookups were kind of my thing.
Sports and my friends—they’re things I like. My sister—something I love, without question, always have and will. But Emma? A few minutes in her orbit and I had a feeling that she’d end up being something I could be in love with. And something I couldn’t live without. A real passion. A true love. An always love. A forever love. My everything.
And I was right.
Emma got underneath my skin. She got right to the heart of me. She got my heart.
I fell in love with Emma Jameson, and she fell in love with me.
It wasn’t lust at first sight. It wasn’t puppy-love. It was full-blown. It was undeniable and true. It was also reckless and unabandoned. We were a force, we were fierce, our love was fiery.
