Out of Love Read online

  Out of Love

  Jewel E. Ann

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Jewel E. Ann

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-7345182-7-6

  Cover Designer: © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  Formatting: BB eBooks

  Dedication

  To Jack and Jill, thank you for telling me your story. It will always be my favorite.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter-Forty

  Epilogue

  Sign Up For Jewel’s Newsletter

  Preview of End of Day

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Jewel E. Ann

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Livy Knight Age Fifteen

  “Ethan said your dad’s a psycho.”

  I slammed my locker door shut and scowled at my best friend. “You can’t be serious.”

  Maggie’s nose scrunched. “I know. Your dad is way better than my dad. And he’s hot as fuck. My dad … well, you’ve seen him. It’s not pretty.”

  “Maggs … yuck! You know I hate it when you talk about my dad like that. He’s a computer geek and my dad. Please stop saying as fuck in the same sentence as my dad.”

  “He has tattoos and knows martial arts.” Maggie ambled toward algebra. “And he doesn’t have a dad gut. And he doesn’t make rude bodily noises around your friends. That makes him hot as—”

  “Lalalalala!” I covered my ears and then fell into a fit of laughter. “Seriously, lots of people have tattoos. And martial arts? Whatever … he’s all talk. I mean … he teaches a community education self-defense class. He knows how to break someone’s nose if they try to steal his wallet, and he gets pepper spray at a discount. I’d call that paranoid, but not psychotic.”

  Maggie gripped the straps to her backpack and shrugged. “Ethan said he was risking his life by telling anyone, but he swears your dad was waiting for him last night when he climbed out of your bedroom window.”

  “My dad wasn’t home. Ethan’s full of shit.” I grabbed a sports drink from the vending machine.

  “He’s telling people your dad threatened him. Said he could either play football with two functioning legs or date his daughter from a wheelchair.”

  I coughed on my drink. “No. He didn’t say that.”

  “I’m just telling you what Ethan’s telling everyone. But seriously, Livy … what was Ethan doing in your room?”

  I smirked, opening the door to the classroom. “Just stuff.”

  *

  Livy Knight Age Sixteen

  “DAD! STOP!” I chased after my dad as he stalked up the sidewalk after Brendon. Poor Brendon wasn’t wearing pants or a shirt, just a red pair of boxer briefs and the most terrified expression I had ever seen. His clothes remained scattered on my bedroom floor—abandoned—just like his car across the street because … his car key was in his pants.

  “Livy Eloise Knight …” Dad pivoted toward me when Brendon’s half-naked body took a right at the street corner. “Get. Inside. The. House.”

  My bare feet slapped the concrete in the ordered direction, pounding the rhythm of my displeasure with each step—a retreat to my prison. “You are such a hypocrite!” I spun around as soon as the front door clicked shut behind him. Crossing my arms over my chest, I canted my head and squinted at the overprotective warden.

  His gaze inspected every inch of me. The transparency of his thoughts fed my anger. He didn’t like my tight, ripped jeans, my pierced belly button, or the thin fabric of my top. I hoped he could see the transparency of my thoughts too. It’s my body.

  “Bring me his clothes and his car key.” The muscles along his jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.

  “You’re ruining my life!” I balled my hands into fists.

  “Livy …” His eyes narrowed at me.

  “Were you a virgin at sixteen, Dad? Huh? Were you?”

  He didn’t flinch.

  “That’s what I thought. So … whose dad tried to kill you when you screwed his precious little daughter? Did you, Mr. Rule Abiding Jackson Knight, get chased up the street in nothing but your underwear?”

  Still no reaction.

  “I miss Mom,” I whispered on a sigh and fled to the solace of my room.

  *

  Livy Knight Age Seventeen

  “I’ve heard rumors …” Garrett said as I slid his shirt over his head.

  It wasn’t ideal, but the back seat of his SUV had enough room to do what we couldn’t do at my house or his. Four out of seven of the lights in the vacant parking lot were burned out. And I was a week away from turning eighteen.

  Two weeks away from graduation.

  Three months from starting college.

  “What rumors?” I tossed his shirt aside.

  “About your dad.” He unbuttoned my blouse.

  “You can’t believe everything you hear.”

  Garrett moved to San Francisco at the end of the previous semester. It was pretty shitty of his parents to make him move to a new school one semester shy of graduation.

  “I heard dating you is a bad idea.”

  “Who said we’re dating?” I smirked as his gaze fell to my breasts barely hidden behind white cotton lace.

  “Is this …” He scraped his teeth along his full bottom lip, eyes drunk on the sight before him.

  “Is this what?” I reached around to unhook my bra.

  “Your first time.” His jaw relaxed, drawing in a shallow breath.

  “First time in the back of a vehicle?” My bra shifted a few inches, fully exposing my chest.

  “First time … you know … having …”

  “Sex?” I brought his hand to my breast, letting my eyes drift shut when he gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Y-yeah.” Garrett’s voice trembled, and his hand shook as if he was afraid my boob might break like a water balloon. His whole body vibrated beneath me.

  My eyes flew open, unblinking with realization. “You’re a virgin?” I whispered.

  His gaze slid up to mine. “Not … necessarily.”

  “Garrett …” I blew out a slow breath while biting my upper lip. “You’ve been accepted to Stanford. Not necessarily isn’t a real or intelligent answer to your virginity status.”

  His hand fell away from my boob as all six feet of him deflated, leavin
g me perched atop a heap of bones, muscles, and shriveled confidence. I’d seen videos of him playing lacrosse—taking and giving hits so big my own lungs gasped for air. What a really terrible assumption I made, relating sex and sports. Any working dick could have slid into a vagina.

  “You’re not a virgin?” he asked with a pensive expression.

  “Well, it’s hard to explain.” I grinned, leaning in to kiss him.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  We turned to the window and the angry fist rapping it three times.

  “Who the hell is that?” Garrett asked.

  I sighed, pulling my bra back on and buttoning up my blouse. “I’m going to get out on that side. You get out on the other side.”

  “Why? Do you know him?”

  “How fast can you run, Garrett?”

  “What? Why? Livy, who is that?”

  I slid off his lap and unlocked the door. “My dad. Now run, Garrett!”

  “Livy Eloise Knight. Get your ass in the car.”

  Chapter Two

  Livy Knight Age Twenty-One

  “Livy, you’re a walking disaster.” Aubrey glowered when I rushed into the kitchen with my shirt half on and the handle of my backpack cutting into my hand.

  I dropped it to the floor and fished my other arm through my shirt while stealing a slice of Aubrey’s bread and plopping it into the toaster. “I’m late.”

  “No shit. And you left the peanut butter out last night—lid off, spoon still in the jar.”

  “Oops …” I wrinkled my nose. “Sorry, I was starving when I got home last night.” After depositing my water bottle into the side pocket of my bag, I shoved my feet into my white sneakers sans socks.

  “Surfing isn’t an excuse for leaving messes or being late for your first day of classes.”

  “It’s my last year.” I grinned. “They can’t fail me now.”

  Aubrey rolled her eyes while slicing veggies and fruit for juicing.

  She was starting her junior year as a sociology major with no clue what she planned to do with that degree. I was a senior in political science—President Livy Knight … after law school, of course.

  She acted thirty, making daily chores schedules for all four of us in the house while I played the part of a sixteen-year-old, putting surfing above all else.

  She was responsible. I was fun.

  We made it work.

  Hooking my bag over my shoulder, I snatched my toast and winked at Aubrey. “Muah! Bye, bae. Have a great day at school. Don’t forget to take your teacher an apple.”

  I didn’t have to glance over my shoulder to know she wore a scowl and secretly had fantasies about a shark devouring me. Responsible people hated fun people. They also got ulcers, died of heart attacks, and remained virgins well into their thirties. In all fairness, the two-story Mediterranean style house with a red roof, white paint, and teal arched front door belonged to her parents—ageless hipsters who worked for an animation studio but lived in a posher house in Santa Monica. They kept the house close to campus just so Aubrey had a place to live while going to school. I never fully understood the uber-wealthy, but if knowing them meant cheap rent, my own room, and a pool … then I wasn’t going to judge.

  The second scowl of the morning came twenty minutes later when I arrived late to my first class. Two minutes … I wasn’t sure that truly counted as late, like less than five over the speed limit never resulted in a ticket. Professor Patel paused her opening statement, curling her pale lips around her veneered teeth as she waited for me to take a seat. Of course, all of the open seats were in the front row, but I’d have sat on some dude’s lap before I walked down several flights of stairs to the front row.

  A nice, non-glaring student moved over one seat to let me sit on the end of the third row from the back. I stepped around the German shepherd perched at the end of the second to the last row to get to the open seat. After shrugging off my backpack, I made a quick glance over my shoulder while easing into my seat. The owner of the service dog eyed me, delivering the third scowl of my morning.

  Turning back toward the professor, I begged with an apologetic smile for her to keep talking, diverting the room’s attention from me to her again. Once she started speaking, I stole another peek at the guy behind me.

  Why did he seem so pissed off? Two minutes. I was two fucking minutes late. And why did he have a dog in a college lecture? If he were blind, he wouldn’t have seen me walk in late.

  I tried my best to focus on Professor Patel and her overview of the snooze fest clean energy and technology course, but I caved to my curiosity, sneaking another glimpse at dog guy. He had to be new, a transfer, a drop out coming back.

  It wasn’t that I knew everyone in my graduating class. However, sexy, scowling guy with a German shepherd would have snagged my attention long before my last year.

  After class, I grabbed my backpack and turned to strike up conversation with dog guy and maybe to apologize for being two minutes late—and see if he’d let me love on his German shepherd.

  “Where’d you go?” I mumbled to myself, lifting onto my toes before fighting my way up the stairs and through the crowd. There was no way he got away that quickly. He must have ditched class early which made him infinitely more mysterious and appealing.

  “Way to show up late.” Karina elbowed me as we spilled out of the building with the rest of the herd.

  “Hey.” I grinned while we navigated down the mountain of stone steps. “Two minutes.”

  “Last year, bae … are you ready for this?”

  I slid my arm through the other strap of my backpack. “Hey … did you see the guy with the dog?” My gaze continued to survey the area.

  “Uh … yeah. He was the topic of whispered chatter from the moment he walked into the auditorium until class started … two minutes before you arrived.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And?”

  “Slade Wylder. He would have been a senior our freshman year, but he disappeared for a few years. Not sure why or where he went. Anyway … he’s back, and he lives across the street from you—maybe three or four houses east. Someone said he’s renting the firehouse that was condemned.”

  “Dickerson’s?” My head whipped toward her.

  “Yep.” Karina’s lips popped.

  Patty Dickerson’s husband kidnapped a freshman girl the year before I started college. He kept her drugged in their dungeon for six months without Patty having a clue. Patty was in a wheelchair from some degenerative disease, so she never knew. There were some rumors that Patty didn’t even know they had a basement/dungeon—they weren’t exactly common in SoCal.

  The one beneath the firehouse was small and sounded creepy as fuck: dark, windowless, and accessed by a trapdoor. A bunker for sick bastards to hide their victims. The girl managed to start a fire after Professor Dickerson—yep, he was a psychology professor, go figure—left a lit cigar near her.

  The girl died. Patty got out. Professor Dickerson went to prison.

  Someone bought the place and fixed the damage from the fire, but it had sat vacant with a For Rent sign out front ever since I’d lived on the street.

  “How is it he has a dog in class? He’s not blind.”

  “Someone said he’s deaf.”

  I wrinkled my nose. That didn’t make sense.

  “I suppose he reads lips.” She shrugged.

  “Then he should sit in the front row, where he can actually see her lips.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s an emotional support dog.”

  “When did they start allowing emotional support animals in classes?”

  Karina laughed. “I don’t know anything about any of it. I’m just telling you what people were saying before class started. I’m this way.” She nodded to the right.

  “Okay. I have an hour break.” I yawned.

  “Nap?”

  I nodded, still yawning.

  “Set an alarm. See ya.”

  I found my tree, but it wasn’t vacant on the east sid
e in the sun. It was always vacant because … My. Tree.

  Black tee.

  Black jeans.

  Black leather boots.

  German shepherd.

  Dog guy took my spot.

  “I wouldn’t,” his deep, clipped warning prickled along my skin.

  I liked it.

  I liked the angle of his shadowed jaw and his prominent cheekbones—sharp like his tone.

  I liked his deep brown hair trimmed close on the sides and long and messy as fuck on the top, as if he didn’t give it more than a quick comb through with his fingers before stumbling out the door.

  My hand paused. I wasn’t petting the dog, just letting it smell me. And how did he know I was there? He mimicked a log, his head resting on his bag, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankles, hands interlaced on his chest.

  Unmoving.

  Eyes closed.

  “Are you deaf?”

  He didn’t move—not a flinch, a peek of one eye opening, a flutter of his long eyelashes.

  I took that as a yes.

  Then he must have seen me coming, felt my presence or the vibration of my footsteps.

  Dropping my bag to the ground on the opposite and sunless side of the tree, I retrieved a pear from my backpack and took a bite while settling onto my side, resting my cheek on the bag. Something rustled behind me, and I glanced back. The German shepherd shifted to face me.

  “Jericho,” Mr. Stole My Spot warned.

  A couple girls veered off in our direction. “Oh my god! What a beautiful dog.” One leaned down to pet him, and he growled. The girls jumped back. “Whoa … okay.” They skittered off just as quickly as they’d detoured toward the tree.

  Spot-stealer reached over and gave Jericho a scratch on his head as if to praise him for growling at the girls. However, Jericho’s gaze remained affixed to the pear in my hand.

  I took another bite of pear and slid the chunk out of my mouth. Then I tossed it in front of Jericho.

  “Leave it.”

  I smirked at the gruff voice.

  For a deaf person, he missed nothing. I peered in that direction again. Maybe he sat up and saw the piece of pear.

  Nope.