#I wonder if when you call Ryan sends it straight to voicemail

[allycat75]

You know what Boston Dumb Fuck?

You should just keep her now that you have said her name and Dodger was properly exploited as part of this manipulation. Get that evil ring sized and don't hide it in your pants anymore. You don't want to look like the pervert the general public thinks you are since you "married" someone who looks like a teenager.

And keep ASP. Have more seminars where you fool the youth of America into believing your sincerity, all while you go home to the racist and antisemetic wifey. Hell the way you babbled on and on about how Dodger follows her around the house you have never shared together and how he can read her moods he has never sensed, you lie about as good as the Toxic Orange Cheeto. Should follow in your uncle's footsteps and run for office. That is, unless your family is ashamed of you and what you are presenting yourself to be.

And keep that team of yours. Maybe they can get you into this 5th iteration of Marvel's money grab. You would be great as Captain Hydra considering your other half is a Nazi. You may have to up that special weed you are taking because based on the script they gave you for that Access interview, you don't emote at all! I had to laugh when you said playing Johnny Storm again got you a little emotional. But I guess nothing is authentic about what Marvel is doing so why should your performance be (or anything about you, for that matter).

Have your handlers update your software so you don't run out of juice when you have to face press junkets and read upcoming critic reviews. Hopefully this will provide you that permanent shushing you have been attempting for years, monetarily sedated and spiritually lobotomized.

The only one I feel bad for in this is Jinx. Here they thought they were signing up with America's dog dad, when in fact it was more like Leni Riefenstahl, turning their innocent dog food into Nazi kibble. Sure some outlets may edit out the section in the middle of the Access interview with that lazy, arrogant clout chaser you are trying to help, but the damage is done. Is this your way of "giving back"?

I am sorry I believed there was some hope that you could salvage your soul and would ever tell the truth, that you would have the courage, patience and motivation to care for that last Truffala seed to build back the beauty. But I guess it is ok, you probably would have just destroy it again with more useless Thneeds.

PS- I know this is probably to remind people you are married so it will actually mean something whenever you announce your breakup, but too little, too late. You are a liar. You will always be a liar. Everything you do and say from here on out will be suspect. We'll always be looking for the angle- what do you expect to gain? Even legitimate truths will be dissected. I hope you are prepared for that weight and effort for the rest of your life.

[pollylynn]

Clepsydra—A Season 3/4 Caskett One-Shot

Title: Clepsydra WC: 2400

A/N: Post-Knockout (or technically, post–Rise conversation). There are very glancing references to Naked Heat and Heat Rises here. 

How much time? 

He knows better than to ask questions he does not want to know the answer to. Or once he knew better. He once was a man who knew better than to ask, to act, to want. He once was a man. 

He doesn’t know what he is now. A being—a not quite person—caught between was and aching to be. Caught between now and I’ll call. 

When? 

He knew better than to ask that, at least. The man he once was knew better. 

When? 

There’s no profit in wondering. He wonders anyway, just beneath the surface, but on the surface, he works the case alongside the boys. He is at the precinct with the sun each morning��all three of them are. He takes the case home with him each night when even the long summer sun is a distant memory to the sky. He takes it all home. 

He stares at the digital storyboard. He burns through legal pads without number, trying to piece together theories that can give them any kind of lead, any course of action at all. 

He feels hamstrung in all of it. Ryan and Esposito are diligent. They are every bit as determined and fired up as he is. But the ideas that should flow fast and furious from his mind will barely come at all. He feels as if he’s standing on one leg with his right hand tied behind his back, half blindfolded. Without her, he feels like he’s missing half himself. 

How much time?

They are turning in circles before long. They are doubling back, checking and rechecking. They are coming up on nowhere quickly—the point at which it’s all ritual. They are abruptly rear-ended straight into it by the arrival of Captain Gates, whose second official act is to kick him to the curb. Her first is to shut down the investigation entirely. A stalled investigation, a waste of resources, inappropriate to begin with. 

It doesn’t stop them, of course—not the three of them. He works the digital board—the only board, now—all day at home. He rends lined yellow pages in frustration, then dives for the shredded remains in the wire basket under his desk when he’s suddenly convinced he was on to something this time. 

The boys come straight to the loft after work. They come with sleeves rolled up, bearing pizza and beer. They stay until the wee hours, then creep home for barely detectable amounts of sleep. They work—the three of them—but there’s nothing new. There’s been nothing new for . . .

How much time? 

He won’t let himself count the days, the weeks. He wills his mind away from the reality that they have moved into months—plural—long since. He wills his mind away from the merciless, ultimate truth. But it’s there, just beneath the surface.  

On the surface, he tears the book apart. He reduces it to its component phonemes, and Gina is irate. He assumes Gina is irate from the triple-digit number of voicemails that have piled up. He doesn’t speak to her, of course. He doesn’t speak to anyone, really. His mother and Alexis are away. 

He’d sent them away at the very outset—We don’t know, we don’t know. I need to know you are safe. Please. He’d sent them away, and at this point, they are staying away. He knows, distantly, that they are staying, because the silence stretches out when he calls, when they call and he notices that it’s safe to pick up. He doesn’t speak to anyone, really. 

The book is easy. It’s surprisingly easy once he starts knitting it together again. There’s Montrose to create. He’s come up before, in passing, but Nikki’s Captain needs to come to life in this one, and he does—his features, his mannerisms, his voice. They find their way on to the page like the lemon juice secret messages he used to leave for himself as a kid. 

He’d write them out and tuck them in winter coat pockets in summer, hoping to find them at some much later date, hoping he’d forget and rediscover with the heat of a lightbulb or a match from the kitchen drawer. He’d tuck them away, hoping for some pleasant summer surprise in the grey of December. 

It never happened. He was too impatient, his memory too perfect or his technique too sloppy. But that’s what happens now. Writing Charles Montrose—remembering his friend and mentor—is a like discovering a treasure trove of lemon juice secret messages. 

There’s his care for Nikki. There is his mentorship and his love for her. And there are his failings. There are the terrible ghosts that haunt the man, but even writing that is easy, because there is conflict. There is a struggle, and there are warning signs. There is a a story—a tragedy, yes, and his jaw, his spine, his whole body aches when he writes the man’s death—but there on the page is a fucking story that makes sense. It’s easy, compared to the real world, and one night—one moment on a well-honed knife blade between night and morning—he looks up, and he is finished. 

The book, unwritten and written again, is finished. 

He closes the last chapter file just as Nikki opens a book and settles in at Rook’s bedside. He checks the manuscript folder and sees the chapters neatly, chronologically, arranged. 

He’s written from beginning to end—something he never does. He’s done a handful of factual sanity checks, but he has not looked back in any meaningful way. Each chapter’s Last Opened date matches its Date Modified exactly, and each of those maps on to the date he has sent each one off for editing—for proof of life—Chapter X, Draft. And now he is simply done. He .zips the folder and sends it to Black Pawn as an attachment, all at once—no revisions, no worrying each sentence in each chapter to death. No revisions, and no looking back.  

He dials Gina’s number, heedless of the time. 

“It’s done,” he says flatly. He hangs up before she’s finished with her sleep-heavy Hello. 

He sleeps, then. It’s not the first time since Roy Montgomery’s funeral—not the first time since the shooting. The demands of his body aren’t kind enough to have propped him up all that time. He has slept in ten thousand brief snatches and awoken with a start every time. He has awoken with the sharp, aching certainty that they days, the weeks, the months have all been an awful nightmare. 

How much time?

But now, he sleeps straight through most of the day. His phone wakes him. His mother, Alexis, he registers as he fumbles the thing on. His daughter is clipped, cool, distant. His mother oscillates between high sarcasm and cautious hope that sleep—the real sleep she hears in his unguarded voice—will have done him some good at last. 

The doorbell buzzes. He stumbles through the office. Alexis comes back to the phone, softened by two degrees, no more. She says she loves him. She just worries about him. He says the same and promises he won’t forget to call tomorrow. 

He tugs open the door on the third or fourth try. He’s expecting Ryan and Esposito. Except he’s not expecting Ryan and Esposito. He remembers this as he blearily takes in the bike messenger holding a box of manuscript paper like a pizza. He remembers that Ryan and Esposito aren’t coming quite every day any more, because there’s no real need. Because they’re nowhere. Some of the good the sleep has done him ebbs away at the thought. 

He signs for the box and tips the messenger. He slices through the tape holding the cardboard cover on and sees the angry post-it first. Gina’s handwriting, her rage rising up from every stroke of the pen. Edits. Acknowledgments. Not done. 

He tosses the post-it aside, and wants to weep. He sits down hard on the stairs with the manuscript in its box between his feet, and he realizes that he hasn’t.

He recalls, for reasons a dime store shrink could fathom, her dry eyes and the absolute clarity of her words after the hangar—No one outside this immediate family. He recalls the tears on Ryan’s cheeks, glinting in even the dim light. But he has no memory of his own state of being. He can see himself there among them. He can describe his position in the room, where his hands came to rest, the angle of his head. He can say for certain that he did not weep for Roy Montgomery. He has not wept for him. 

He has not wept for her. Not really, though the last tears he can remember shedding were those that fell on to her body as her shockingly warm blood pumped out of her chest and spilled over the ornate brass buttons of her dress uniform. 

He has not wept for the terrible, inevitable conclusion he has put off for days, weeks, months, —plural. He has staved it off with the case, with the book, with this facsimile of a life he has been living, but now it seems he has reached the end, and he wants to weep.

He reaches between his feet instead. He grabs the stack of pages that make up the first chapter by expert feel. He wanders, back to the office and retrieves his dark blue editing pencil. 

He works quickly, slapping one chapter face down and retrieving the next. Once again, it’s easy. He’s critical of the fact that Montrose feels somewhat abruptly introduced—his life requires more exposition than a third book should have—but there’s no remedy for that, other than what he’s managed to do in rendering things as impressionistically as possible.

He paces, pages and pencil in hand. He hunches over the desk. He slouches in the leather chair. He moves through the manuscript with focus that cannot be healthy, but what about this is? What about the man he once was is anything like healthy. 

It’s an odd hour again when he finishes—when he decides he’s finished. He sets his worn-down blue pencil aside five or six pages before the end of the last chapter. That’s as it should be, as it needs to be, as it will stay. Nikki opens the book at Rook’s hospital bedside. 

It’s morning, he thinks, though the hour on his watch dial is ambiguous and there’s a thick cloud cover over the city. The street below his glass office wall probably says morning. He feels heavy in the world. Tired, yes, but also heavy, as though he might go to the floor in an all at once heap any second. 

He should go to bed. He should try for sleep, or rest, or . . . physical stillness, at least but the final pages draw him back. He sinks into his desk chair. He frames the pages with his hands and he reads. The whole of it is clear to him as the words reach inside him. He turns the final page and he sees the book for what it is—a love letter to her. 

That’s what Paula called Heat Wave. It wasn’t. Heat Wave was . . . attempted seduction mashed together with a note passed all the way around a sixth grade classroom. It was the work of a boy pulling the pigtails of the girl he liked, as Beckett herself had so aptly put it. As Kate had so aptly put it. 

This—these pages stacked high beside him, ending on a wounded, aching note—is a love letter. It is an elegy for a man they both loved, and it is the hell that they have rained down on one another, all this last year. It is the secrets she has shared with him and him alone, and it is his heart laid bare to her. 

It is the offering she does not want. 

How much time? The rest of forever. That is in the inescapable truth he has staved off all these days, weeks, months, and he has come to the end of it. Almost. 

There is a page after the last—happy to read to him endlessly and then another page. It’s blank save for a single word, once again, in Gina’s furious handwriting. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS in all caps this time. His head drops to his hands. He presses his palms against his eyes and feels the weight of what he dashed off last year. The few grudging words of thanks to Beckett herself, and the sly jab of the knife—his thanks to Gina for staying on top of me. He is, amidst the wash of everything else, ashamed of that. He is sorry for it and baffled by the instinct that led him into such a cheap, pointless shot.

He sits with everything that has transpired over the last year. He knows there is anger awaiting him in the middle distance. He knows he will live in the days, the weeks, the months to come with the kind of fury born of absolute despair. And still, in this moment, with his head bowed over the thing he has unmade and made new, he is baffled by the instinct to cause her pain. 

So, he decides, he won’t. He takes up his worn-down blue pencil. He scrawls in the space below Gina’s single, angry word, just her name at first, Detective Kate Beckett. Grief travels strangely down his arms at the sight of the letters there. It settles between the bones of his wrists, sending out aching pulses of longing. 

He knows, in the part of himself that his not yet utterly destroyed, that he has to go on. He knows that it’s important he sketches the broad outline of what he means to say, right here and right now, but it seems impossible with tendrils of sorrow winding through his hands. 

The answer, when it comes a long moment later, is one she has given him—an unhesitating, apt assertion of something true. He’s meant to steal it from her all along. He steals it now and gives it back. Detective Kate Beckett, he writes again, and just below it, how to make sense of songs.  A/N: Not really sure where this came from. Someone on AO3 left a really nice comment on “Kindness Yet,”  and for some reason that just put me in a Season 3/4 state of mind. And I’ve always been fascinated by the meta of the books. Also, I’m just not going to bed at all these days, because my head just won't fucking shut up. 

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Bad Things Happen Bingo: Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

Heeeey, @badthingshappenbingo​ is finally underway! @burtlederp​ asked for Worked Themselves to Exhaustion with Ryan as our POV/Main, so here it is! 

Bloodstains = requested, puppy sticker = completed

This is set post-rescue and post-trial. Tagging the crew: @spiffythespook​, @bleeding-demon-teeth​, and @special-spicy-chicken​!

CW: Very little, actually! Some references to parental abuse and implied/references past assault/violence, but mostly this is just Ryan being Ryan

Ryan woke up with a start to discover he’d fallen asleep sitting at the kitchen table, forehead resting on one arm and the other simply hanging loose down at his side.

He still had the mug of coffee he’d been drinking sitting next to him, his fingers loosely curved around the handle. He dragged his free hand up and over to find the ceramic had totally cooled, the coffee no doubt cold and stale inside.

He blinked, lifting his head slowly, wincing at the crick of pain in his neck. What time was it? How long had he been asleep? His phone was buzzing on the table next to him and he blinked, blearily looking over at it. Must've been what woke him. Fuck, was it really 9:45 already?

When he saw ‘MOM’ and the photo he’d set of he and Corrine at the beach a couple of years ago lighting up the screen, he groaned, hit the button to silence it, and let his head drop back to the table.

He was so fucking tired and he did not have the energy to deal with his mother right now. Maybe not ever again, not where Danny was concerned.

She would tell him to get an aide, she was always telling him to get an aide. Move out (you can move right back in the house with Dad and I until you find a place, no reason to linger there wasting your twenties), leave him and Vandrum with a full-time home health care aide.

You shouldn’t feel obligated to take care of him, Ryan.

But he did, and maybe if Mom had ever felt obligated to really care about Danny, he wouldn’t have ended up wearing a goddamn dog collar in western Canada.

Not that it was Canada’s fault, or anything. Ryan hadn’t ever realized how fucking huge Canada was, before he’d flown into Edmonton on the fastest flight he could find, rented a car, and then drove and drove and drove and fucking drove to the police station his brother was waiting in - only to realize it had been more hours upon hours of driving for Nate to get Danny there in the first place.

That cabin in the woods had been literally in the middle of fucking nowhere, and Ryan couldn’t possibly have known, right?

He should have, though. He should have, and maybe none of it would ever have happened if his mother and father hadn’t said all that shit to Danny five years ago about regretting adopting someone who didn’t want to be part of the family business, and therefore part of the family.

They might not see their obligations, but Ryan did. He was obligated, because while Danny had been up in those woods suffering, learning to believe that Denner fucker's lies that he isn't a person, that his body belongs to Denner to use however he wants, learning to call himself a puppy and give up his name and his body and his humanity to stay alive, Ryan had been looking in all the wrong places trying to find him.

He had looked for four straight years. He'd started looking the day Danny didn’t come home from his weird meetup with the older guy he was either just crushing hard on or actually dating, no one seemed to know, and he'd kept looking until the day the cops called and said We’ll know for sure once we’ve done the DNA test, Mr. Michaelson, but we’re pretty sure this man is your brother. He had never, ever stopped looking.

He had leveraged his parents’ wealth and influence to pull together private searches long after law enforcement had given up. He had kept looking even when the cops and the FBI stopped helping them find a living man and started focusing on recovering a corpse one day, maybe decades from now, when some dumbass hiker might trip over his brother’s bones in the woods-

Stop it. He survived. You brought him home. You couldn't have known where Denner would take him. You couldn't have done more.

Yes, he could have.

He had been looking, but he hadn’t looked hard enough. He'd looked in the wrong spots, he had missed clues, somewhere, somehow.  What if there had been a white hair in the bloodied car they missed? What if Denner had left a fingerprint on Vandrum's apartment building? What if what if what if.

What if none of it would ever have changed a thing?

No, his mother didn't understand, but he couldn’t ever give enough of himself to Danny's recovery to make up for what he had lost, for what he was still losing. For time suffered and time spent trying to heal.

His mother’s photo blinked away and the phone went back to empty black. Ryan sighed in relief… only to watch it light right back up as she tried a second time.

“No, fucking no,” He groaned, fighting the child’s urge to answer just because it was her, because he loved her, because she loved him. Him, but not his brother. The eternal hidden truth of the Michaelson family - one child loved, the other left out, chased off, and lost. "Leave a goddamn voicemail, Mom, come on."

He'd been up all night, for the third night in a row, and Ryan was tapped the fuck out.

One super fun discovery Ryan had made about bringing home two people who had lived in nonstop fight-or-flight-or-freeze mode for four years was that they never stop getting sick.

Danny's immune system had apparently just checked out at some point and left, and Ryan could usually handle it, but this virus or whatever it was... was bad.

Vandrum usually did his best to help, but he had caught the bug, too, this time. Which meant two grown men reduced to middle-of-the-night coughing fits and all-day fevers, two grown men essentially helpless, two grown men Ryan had found himself in charge of.

Ryan wasn't only taking care of his traumatized older brother who refused to let him touch him, even just to check to see if his fever had broken, but also his brother’s equally traumatized maybe-boyfriend who never flinched or pulled away but who instead stared at Ryan with glassy, frightened green eyes and gritted teeth as he simply put up with Ryan’s clumsy attempts at caretaking in silence, only breaking it with the occasional pl-please let Red sl-sleep, he can’t d-d-do chores today, I’ll d-do his chores f-for him, please...

One more day of this and Ryan might crack.

He's stocked the fridge with all the stuff he remembered Mom buying when they were sick as kids - ginger ale and Pedialyte (did adults drink that shit? Vandrum and Danny hadn't put up a fight when he brought it to them and God knew they weren't keeping any food down yet), chicken soup from the deli in little microwave-safe containers, some Gatorade. There were saltines open on the counter, from the only experiment with solid food either man had attempted since they first got sick.

Ryan had never seen someone throw up saltines before, but at least Vandrum had seemed decently ashamed of himself for it. Danny hadn't even tried them.

It's 9:45 in the morning and all Ryan wants to do is crawl back into his own bed and drift, but if he does he knows one of them will need him, and the only thing worse than not sleeping is finally, finally getting to sleep only to be almost immediately woken up by grown men so knocked out by some kind of virus that they could hardly stand on their own.

Ryan slowly sits up straight, feeling pops along his spine from having been slumped over the table for so long, wondering if twenty-four was too young to have his fucking bones crack when he moves, like an old man.

“One hour,” He says out loud, to no one in particular. “If they don’t need anything in the next hour, I’m giving up and going to fucking bed.”

He pours himself a fresh cup of coffee, which does absolutely nothing to alleviate his exhaustion. He listens to the voicemail his mother eventually leaves, after her third and fourth attempts go unanswered.

Here’s to hoping you’re sleeping, Ryan, and don’t worry, I was just wondering how you were doing and if you had any updates on how Danny and his, um, friend are doing. I can have Mrs. Verona over there to give you a break, poor dear, just say the word.

I was sleeping, Mom, Ryan thinks bitterly, rubbing at his forehead with the heel of one hand as he listens, ignoring for the moment that technically he had fallen asleep sitting at the table like a parent with a newborn and not an adult with a sick brother. Your fucking phone calls woke me up, congratulations, Corrine Michaelson, you’re a gold-star mom today.

No, that wasn’t fair. She was just worried, Mom knew he wasn’t sleeping enough since Danny came home. She was just trying to help, with the offers of an aide or of sending Mrs. Verona over for a day. 

She wasn’t trying to chase Danny off again, she wasn’t trying to make him feel like less-than even when he’d only just really started to get his feet under himself again. She just wanted to help Ryan, like always, and was so blinded by it that she missed that what helped Ryan sometimes hurt Danny.

She’d never meant to be awful to Danny, really, it had always just… happened.

Why do you always make excuses for her? Why don’t you just admit it, give it a name, and try to protect him from them while he’s still so fragile and so easily torn apart all over again? He needs someone who can stand up for him this time, and you never have, you always, always let them blame him. You let him run to Eureka to get away from them, so he was in this stupid town when that fucking psychopath came calling to pick his ex up again.

You let them chase Danny away, and it’s your fault he was here when Abraham Denner wanted a new victim. It’s your fault, Ryan, and you have to fix it, so stop whining to yourself about being tired and take care of the brother you couldn’t save when it counted.

You can start by calling what Mom and Dad do to Danny what it is, by calling it-

“Ryan?”

He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard anyone coming, but he looks up now to see Danny leaning against the open-framed doorway to the kitchen, staring in at him with stark surprise written across his face.

The wavy red hair is sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck and his blue eyes are fever-bright, two bright red splotches mark his cheeks. His face is otherwise chalk-white, freckles and the ring of half-healed scarring standing out in garish, nearly neon red in a perfect outline of that fucking thing Ryan can barely stand to think about.

“What’re you doing up? You look dead on your feet, man.” Ryan stands up, slowly so he doesn’t surprise him - Danny still doesn’t like it when people move too fast around him, and the fever definitely doesn’t help with that problem - and sets his coffee mug on the table. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“I’m not s’posed to, to be in th’ bed.” Danny glances over his shoulder, then back, putting a finger to his lips. “Ssshhh. He must’ve… told Nate it was okay...” Danny’s eyes drift, aimlessly, to the side, looking with confusion at the window above the kitchen sink, with the faded, ancient little pleated floral curtain that had been in the apartment when Danny moved in.  “That’s not right. What d’you think he did to earn me getting to sleep in the bed?”

Something in Ryan cracks a little more, the way it always does every single time Danny says something else like this, some new piece of heart-deep horror that Danny doesn’t even seem to recognize for what it is.

“I don’t suppose it would help to tell you you’re home,” Ryan says, wearily, thinking longingly about the last few swallows of hot coffee left and whether it’s worth drinking it if it’s not going to even touch the fatigue. “Would it?”

“I wish I could go home.” Danny speaks the words so softly Ryan nearly misses them. “I wish, but there isn’t one anymore. I know all the rules. I’m so fucking tired, Ryan. Are you still looking for me?”

“Danny?” He’s so exhausted that it takes too long, far too long, for it to really sink in that Danny isn’t talking to him at all, but to some memory he’s having, that Danny’s lost in the woods again.

“I wish I got to keep my name.” Danny whimpers the words more than speaks and then slides straight to the floor in one swift motion. Ryan can’t cross the distance in time to stop him and Danny thumps to the ground nearly bonelessly, still braced against the door frame, closing his eyes slowly and resting the side of his head against it. “You have to look in the woods, Ryan. We’re in the woods.”

When Ryan crouches in front of him, reaching out one hand, he doesn’t flinch or pull away, not when Ryan’s palm presses against his sweaty, boiling-hot forehead, not when he feels the rabbit-fast flutter of his pulse in the side of his neck. 

“Whatever you want,” Danny mumbles, eyes half-opening, then closing again. “Do whatever you want. I’ll be good.”

He’s going to have to stand Danny up, and he can barely find the energy to straighten his legs for himself. Three days - three days of the fevers that come and go, the coughing that wakes him up when he does sleep, his mother’s worried phone calls, Vandrum being fucking useless because he’s sick, too.

He just.

It’s just too fucking much and Ryan never realized how hard it would be to do all of this totally alone.

“Danny, I’m so goddamn tired,” Ryan says out loud, near tears himself. “I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep taking care of you-”

“S’okay,” Danny slurs back to him. “Go back t’bed. I can make breakfast. I need to do chores… s’time, he can’t see I’m late, he can’t, can’t see-” Danny starts trying to push himself back to his feet, and Ryan is half-impressed, half-horrified when his desperately ill brother manages to make himself stand back up, knees locked, glittering, distant eyes fixed on the sink. Ryan stands with him, slowly, his hands out but uncertain what to do next. “Do dishes. Start with dishes. He has to see I’m still working…”

Danny takes a step and simply collapses forward, but this time Ryan is there to catch him under the arms in an awkward half-hug, and Danny shudders at the touch but he’s too weak to pull away or fight back, too weak to even try.

“Look in the woods,” Danny mutters, and his forehead falls against Ryan’s shoulder, thumping into it hard enough to make Ryan wince. “Look in th’ woods for us. Sssshhhhh… everything’s so fuckin’ loud…”

“You’re the only one talking here, buddy,” Ryan murmurs, closing his own eyes just for a second, feeling himself sway a little, a sort of dip in his brain where the white fog of tired takes over before his eyes jolt back open. “Shit. I, I have to sleep, Dan, or I’m gonna die.”

“Don’ die,” Danny mutters, without moving even an inch. “Don’ die. Mom’ll be mad at me.”

Ryan laughs, and after a second Danny huffs a sound that might be laughter, too, and finally Ryan braces himself, pushing Danny back up to where he’s taking at least a little of his own weight. “Okay, okay. I got an idea. Go back to my room, okay? We’ll lie down in there.”

“I have to start chores,” Danny protests faintly, his eyes dancing around aimlessly again, then landing back on Ryan’s face. “Can you tell Mom to call me in sick today? There’s no way I’m going to school. Abraham’s gonna be so mad at me... I can’t go t’school today...”

“You’re twenty-six years old, big brother,” Ryan grunts as he manages to get Danny’s arm around his shoulder to hold him up, taking his weight, his head pounding. He just had to get to bed. Just that far, not too far at all. “You haven’t been in school for a long time.”

“Oh.” Danny frowns, confused, and when Ryan starts trying to walk, he drags his feet along beside him, nearly shuffling. Their progress down the hallway is slow, but damn it, it still counts as progress, and Ryan can see his bedroom door getting closer with every step. “Did I graduate? I don’t remember that.”

Ryan sighs, taking a pause to redistribute Danny’s weight. He’s going to fall over right here in the hallway, pass out and sleep for a week. Right there on the floor. Maybe someone will drop an omelet or something for him to eat while he’s down there.

Who would make it, though, if Danny and Vandrum are both totally useless? Maybe if he called his mother, she’d send Mrs. Verona over with, like, a fucking honeyed ham or something.

“No, Dan, you didn’t. You were still one semester out. They sent you an honorary degree, though, I have it stashed somewhere.”

You know, when they thought you were dead, when everyone but me gave up.

“Honor degree.” Danny giggles, the sound eerie and unfamiliar, a high-pitched noise he’s almost never made in Ryan’s entire memory. “Degree for honor. What’s honor when you fuck like I do now?”

“If there is a God, may you never say anything like that ever again.” Ryan manages to get his door open, although only barely, and he stumbles a few feet into the room before simply letting Danny fall right into the bed, breathing hard.

“May I have permission to sleep?” Danny mumbles, eyes already closing as he mostly crawls his way further into the bed. Ryan’s heard him ask Nate Vandrum that question every fucking night since they brought him home, with the occasional lapse when he remembers he’s a human being and grown-ass humans don’t have to ask permission to fall asleep.

Just like they shouldn’t have to ask permission to shower or bathe or sit in a chair and not on the floor or eat with a fork or…

No. Too tired to be angry right now.

“Yes,” Ryan says heavily. “Yes, you can sleep.”

“Thank you for letting me sleep, Ryan.” The voice is soft and fuzzy, gentle and grateful, and Ryan fucking hates Danny’s stupid fucking rules and his stupid fucking puppy voice. And he hates that he’s so tired that he can’t stop himself from being angry that Danny still uses it rather than focusing on the fact that sometimes, for whole days, he doesn’t.

“No problem, buddy. Get some rest.”

He watches Danny curl up, turning his six-foot-two body into something shockingly small. His knees go to his chest and his arms curve over his head with his hands loosely splayed over his hair, a defensive position to ward off the blows that might be coming at any time.

He never slept like that before, he’d said to Vandrum one night early on, when they’d both woken up and caught Danny curled up like that on the floor next to the couch.

Yeah, w-w-well, your p-parents didn’t w-w-wake him up with head t-trauma, did they? Nate had said, and Ryan had hated him a little less, in the moment, when he’d seen the guilt written across his face. Nate was always guilty, and he damn well should be, but Ryan had plenty to be guilty about, too.

Plenty to make up for.

And he’ll be right back to that as soon as he gets some goddamn sleep.

Ryan sighs, swaying a little, and finally climbs in, sliding under the covers, unruly black curls falling over his face. He watches Danny, already out, curled up and ready to be kicked awake at any moment.

He falls asleep with one hand out, resting on top of the comforter within inches of Danny, not quite touching him.

[alitheamateur]

The Grind-Chapter 11

Seats were limited by the time I got to the small dressing area turned conference room, so I opted to stand against the back wall instead of stepping into a crowded aisle. Plus, a standing Liv would catch his attention sooner than a sitting one. Within 5 minutes of waiting, Mendez sashayed through a side entrance, championship belt undoubtably in tow, clashing with his red, yes, RED suit of choice. Jolly ol’ Saint Nick himself would’ve turned up a nose in disgust. He took a seat, propping his prized possession in display on the white table. Prayers of pleading rolling through my head that this blatant narcissist wouldn’t drain all the life out of the room with endless ramblings for the upcoming hour. Right now, it wasn’t this particular fighter that I needed answers from. Thankful for a recording device, I muted most of the repetitive questioning until I was ready to join in. 

“Yeah, Miss Elliott in the back there,” he selected.

“Congratulations on the victory, Danny. I was wondering, if Colton were to call you out for the title again, would you accept?”

He chuckled, “ I mean, yeah. I beat the guy once, so I wouldn’t have a problem doing it again. All jokes aside though, honestly, the guy is scrappy in the cage. I’ll give him that.” In Danny Mendez translation, that was a compliment.

His session ended with mumbling something about having a bottle on ice and blah, blah, blah, leaving us now to wait for the losing man of the hour. Upon 15 very exasperated minutes, two reporters withdrew due to justified impatience of Colton’s delay. Amongst the growing chatters, the black hands of a clock at the rear of the room ticked noisily, it’s repetitive soundtrack creating a deafening echo amid the whispering gallery. After what I assumed was at least 25 minutes passing, an unidentified blonde wearing some sort of badge on her hip, resolutely marched her way front and center.

“Alright guys, that’s gonna be it for tonight. Sorry to disappoint.”

I teetered between irritation, and concern. Was this one of his rebellious PR stunts? Or was he currently being rushed to the nearest emergency room for some kind of growing side effects resulting from an unanticipated injury? I would’ve liked to think Mac, Beth, or perhaps some member of his team would’ve had the courtesy to think of me if that was the case. However, after the cold shoulder from Colton earlier, maybe I was no longer in the inner circle. No longer one of the “popular kids.” Surely, I hadn’t already been tossed aside to join the other outcasted groupies already?

We filed out of the room scattering down different hallways, and I withdrew my phone from my purse. Seeing no missed calls, I decided to lean on relief rather than panic. When I pushed the panel opening the parking garage door, I slid a single key between my middle and index finger. A defense tactic that Colton stressed as dire necessity when I was alone out in the city, at night especially. In his words, I was evidently “green” to the harsh reality that there were indeed violent people here, who’d stab you for the 14 bucks you had in your wallet, and the busted Coach knockoff hanging over your shoulder. Back in Indiana, we didn’t even lock our cars most nights, so Colt’s enthusiastic warnings about his own close call with a mugger, did not fall on deaf ears. If any brave, or entirely ignorant individual had the gall to attempt a robbery on a barrel chested man such as my guy, they’d see me as a sure score.

I double tapped the unlock button opening the driver door, and intently scanned the surroundings when my headlights ignited. I sat aimlessly staring at the blank screen of my phone, the thunderous internal battle now underway.

Call the clueless fool, Liv. Give him the scolding he deserves.

The devil on the right: NO chance. Leave the bastard wondering where you’ve gone. If you’ve made it home safely.

Back to the left. CALL HIM. What if something bad really is going on. You’ll never forgive yourself if he’s hurt.

That was all the convincing I needed. I truly couldn’t live myself had he been unconscious in a hospital bed, suffering from some life-threatening contusion with me not at his side due to my hurt feelings. Vindicated, even still.

“It’s Colton. You know the drill. Leave a message or don’t.”

“Um, hey Colt. It’s Liv. Which you obviously know. Anyways, just checking in with you before I head home for the night. Call me back. Wanted to make sure you’re okay. Uh…yeah, that’s all. So, call me back. I love you.”

I gave myself 5 minutes in the warming car for a call back before my mind spoke up. If he is indeed hurt somewhere, a call to his phone would not be sufficient to reaching the root of the problem. So, one measly text to Beth, then I really would engage the silent treatment.  

L: Sorry to bother you so late, Beth. Just checking in on Colt. I can’t seem to get in touch with him. Wanted to make sure he was alright.

The indicating bubbles of reply danced quite timely after I had hit the send button. I was impressed by the youngest generation of the baby boomer era and her swift technological skill.

B: No bother, sweetheart. He left the arena not long after you hurried off to the conference. Said he just wanted to call it a night.

So, the bastard wasn’t on his death bed in the back of some ambulance after all. Or dying in the hands of a brain surgeon attempting to locate the source of some imagined internal bleeding. Leaving him completely and utterly unexcused for the selfish, and frankly juvenile behavior. Sure, I get the loss was hanging heavy and a night alone in his own bed was therapeutic to nurse his defeat, and freshly wounded body back to health. I couldn’t be mad at him for seeking out a little isolation, I guess. That was one of the personality flaws of Colton, it seemed. Something doesn’t play out in your favor? Run. Someone questions your judgement? Shout, then run. The fact that zero communication had been made with me, the innocent spectator, was the true “no-no” in my book. Especially after the hypocrite scolded me one afternoon for leaving my phone at home on the coffee table one day on my brisk exit to work. He had driven down to the Pilot office, had the secretary summon me to the front entrance so he could reprimand me in the corner about he had worried all morning when he didn’t hear from me, and wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead. Yet, here we were. Tables indeed turned, and not even so much as a single text message just assuring me he was home safe, sound, and not experiencing signs of a brutal concussion or what not. I made up my stubborn mind that when, or if for that matter, that he wanted to talk he could find me. I wasn’t about to drag myself any further into oncoming traffic for a man who pulled stunts like this one. Not without an apology at least.

 Tuesday morning. Two days since the fight. Two FULL days. Crickets. 48 hours. For all I knew, Colton Ritter had hopped a plane to Mexico and was sunning on the beach with a beautiful, topless native as we speak. Keeping the promise to myself, and my self-respect, I held my ground & hadn’t reached out to him since leaving a voicemail late after the fight. The plus side? I had an over abundance of time to finalize my article for Ryan, who had texted me with instruction to head straight for his office as soon as I made it to work. It was edited, proofread, and emailed to him by midmorning on Monday, so I was sure he’d had his chance to look over my work. I mindfully sported my best suit on this particular day, leaning if he thought the article was shit and I was in for a lecture, at least I’d look fabulous while taking my reprimanding.

I marched directly to my boss’ office at 8:00 a.m. sharp, shoulders held high ready to take whatever bad, or good that was coming my way. Two knuckle knocks to his wooden, “editor-in-chief” plated door before he granted my entrance.

“Liv, hey! Goodmorning. Come in, have a seat, have a seat.”

I flashed a reserved smile, lowering to be seated directly across the L-shaped desk from him. “You wanted to see me?”

Thankfully, he grinned brightly, “I did, yeah. Feeling a bit of relief with this one off your shoulders?”

“Actually, I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, aside from Mendez being quite the… snide character, it was honestly kind of fun for me. MMA isn’t really a sport I’ve had much exposure to, but I’ve grown pretty fond of it now.” I figured that response was better than saying “I fell in love with Colton Ritter during this process and we’ve been dating under the table for the last several months.”

Ryan leaned forward on his desk, intertwining his hands together outstretched. “That’s actually one of the things I wanted to discuss with you. This piece was by far the best work I’ve seen from you. Not to discredit any of your past articles, of course! But, it was clearly displayed that you were genuinely enjoying yourself with this topic,” he explained. “Which is why I’ve decided to move forward with publishing you front page.”

A toothy smile immediately turned my lips upward, sweating palms replaced with a leaping heart.

“I know we spoke about only going that route if Ritter took the win since the piece was centered around him. But, your writing was too unbelievably excellent to not reward the dutiful job you did.”

I tried to save face, remain composed but I cupped my hands over my cheery face and released a tiny squeal, however not forgetting to thank my boss for the career altering opportunity.

“Thank you so, so SO much, boss. Truly, I’m so grateful!”

“You earned it, Liv. But don’t thank me just yet. There’s something else I’d like to suggest.” Was he pulling the “good news first to stifle to bad news” bit with me?

“I’ve discussed it with a few of the higher ups, and I’d like to designate you as our resident journalist for all things in the world of fighting. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I think you may have found your niche with this one. Of course, there’d be a slight increase in pay with the position.”

The heaviness of the weekends dramatic unfolding’s took a momentary backseat to the unexpected pleasantries of this spring-esque Tuesday morning. Still, this very second, the only thing I wanted to do was run to Colt with the good news…

“If you think that’s where I belong, then I’d love to give it a shot. It’s definitely a sport I’d like to continue getting familiar with.”

He nodded with a single clap of his hands, “That’s what I like to hear! We’re lucky to have you here, Elliott. I think this a good move. So, we’ll talk later on in the week to settle everything 100%. And I’ll see you on the front-page Thursday morning, my friend.”

We shook hands, and I nearly skipped the distance spanning from his office to my quaint cubicle. I wondered if the birds I heard singing a song of rejoice around my head were visible to the rest of the office. I lifted the screen of my silver laptop, primed and ready to dive into the world of my latest endeavors. I searched the internet scanning for upcoming matches in the city, some of Pittsburgh’s own who competed in the arena of cage fighting, then I heard a ding signaling a message on my unsilenced phone.

C: Meet at Mac’s soon?

The utter nerve of this guy. Sure, I haven’t heard as much as a ‘hey’ from you in two days, but I’ll be sure to leave an hour into a work day per your request. God help the male population if they’re all this clueless.

L: He speaks.

He knew me well enough to know I’d throw a tad bit of shade at him.

C: Meet me, please?

L: Its not even 10 a.m., Colton. I’m working.

C: After? We need to talk.

Oh, ya’ don’t say, genius. I’d say we were about two days overdue for a talk, sweet, silly boy.

L: 4:30. I have some news of my own too!

C: Great.

TAGS: @torialeysha @eap1935

[hollyoaksloversx]

Wasting Police Time...

Rounding up a week in Hollyoaks (19th-23rd March 2018)

It’s getting to the stage now in Milo’s story where he could parade around in front of Cindy and Tom wearing a t-shirt that says “I caused the crash that killed your parents” and they’d still think there was nothing remotely odd about him. One person who is suspicious, though, is Tony. Ever since he discovered that Milo had burned the newspaper article that Finn gifted him, Tony has been desperate to find out just what the computer geek is hiding. This week, Tony was delighted when The Chester Herald informed him that they could send him a copy of the article but he made the fatal error of telling all and sundry about it. Of course, this was terrible news for Milo and so he phoned Tony pretending to be someone at the newspaper and informed him that the article was no longer available. Not to be deterred, Tony headed along to the local library to look through the newspaper archives kept there. However, just as he settled himself at the computer, the power went off, courtesy of Milo, and when the place was evacuated, Milo went back in and tampered with the computer Tony had been using. Tony was left frustrated when, just as Milo’s mug shot appeared on the screen, the computer went off. Strangely, Tony decided to leave it at that and seemed happy to believe Tom’s claims that Milo was perfectly normal, even though he’d just seen his mug shot on the cover of the paper. Tony Hutchinson: Another Hollyoaks resident who needs his head examined...

Meanwhile, it was a big week for Cindy as she prepared to open her catering van and, given the state of the clapped out van that arrived on Monday, not to mention her worrying lack of resources just a day before opening, it was a miracle that the entire venture got off the ground in the first place! Luckily for Cindy, she beat the odds and got the van ready for the launch and she was touched when Tom told her how proud he was of her. Unfortunately for Cindy, she accidentally blabbed to Dirk that she’d stolen £10,000 from Tom and Dirk felt it his duty to tell Tom what had happened. Tom was left devastated by Cindy’s betrayal and informed everyone of what his thieving cow of a sister had done during his speech at the launch. Both Holly and Tom were furious with Cindy and Tom soon announced that he and Steph were moving out, whilst Holly told her Mum that she hated her. All alone, Cindy sought comfort from Damon, who was having his own problems after walking in on Holly kissing Zack. Cindy and Damon ended up sleeping together and Damon felt so guilty about what he’d done, that he told Holly he didn’t think they should see each other any more. Meanwhile, so as not to upset Holly, Dirk found himself lying that he had been the one to sleep with Cindy. 

Elsewhere, Mandy, Luke and the kids headed to Florida for their wedding, leaving Darren in a foul mood, which didn’t go unnoticed by Nancy. Despite his attempts at sabotage, Darren was forced to watch the live stream of the wedding down at The Dog, but the whole thing became too much for him and he ran off. He and Nancy argued about their relationship and an emotional Darren later told Jack that he and Nancy were struggling. Jack convinced Darren that his marriage was worth fighting for but it was clear Darren wasn’t quite convinced. That wasn’t the only Osborne drama this week and Jack and Darcy’s relationship continued to cause tension within the family. Jack was devastated when he discovered that his voicemail from Frankie had been secretly deleted by Darcy and little Toby ended up taking the blame when he accidentally told Esther what his Mother had done. Jack wasn’t sad for too long, though, and he and Darcy ended the week by getting engaged! What kind of lunacy is this?! 

There’s no shortage of criminals waiting to be arrested in Hollyoaks, so it was interesting last week to see DS Thorpe prioritising finding his missing stapler over finding a missing baby. This week, it would appear that he still hasn’t learnt his lesson as he took time out of the day job to to take young Leah in for questioning. Her crime? Skipping school for one day. Ste was clearly struggling with Leah’s bad behaviour this week as she refused to go to school and he soon called in reinforcements in the shape of ‘Uncle Geoff’. The plan was that a trip to the police station would scare Leah into getting back on the straight and narrow but she quickly realised that the whole thing was a set up and she made DS Thorpe look like a right plonker when she pointed out that his tape recorder wasn’t switched on. Leah later confessed to DS Thorpe that she was missing Ry Ry, although God knows why, and she soon came up with a plan to get him back as she sent him a message from Ste’s phone. The following day, with still no word from Ry Ry, Leah pretended to be ill and once again sent Ry Ry a message pretending to be Ste. Leah was delighted when Ry Ry showed up but he was soon on his way again when he realised that he’d been conned by an eleven year old girl. 

With a little help from Leah and Lucas, Ste was able to convince Ry Ry to stay but he wasn’t quite ready to be open with everyone about his and Ste’s relationship, and so they asked Leah to keep quiet about it. Although Leah agreed to keep shtum, she was later seen putting a copy of Ry Ry and Ste’s texts into Amy’s memory box, the contents of which would be read out at her memorial service the following week. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m really struggling with this story. I just don’t buy Ste and Ryan as a couple and I don’t believe that either would ever go there given their history. It feels like it’s been done purely for shock value rather than because it’s right for the characters. In saying that though, it looks like Ry Ry’s days in the village are numbered so at least we won’t have to suffer this terrible couple for too long! 

In other news this week, Leela was devastated when DS Thorpe informed her that they’d found a body that matched Peri’s description. The body turned out not to be Peri, leaving Leela more desperate than ever to find out where her daughter was. It was the week of Maggie’s funeral and Brody, Damon and Scott found out that she’d left them £20,000 each. Brody suggested that he and Damon use their share to set up a bar in New York, leaving Holly and Scott devastated. Finally, there was a close shave for Grace and Adam when they accidentally hid some drugs right under DS Thorpe’s nose and, over the the school, kidnapped Kim was starting to run out of food..

5 Things We Learnt This Week:

1. Lying’s wrong. Unless Darcy does it, in which case it’s totally fine. 

2.   Hollyoaks exists in some sort of weird time travelling universe. Frankie left a voice message for Jack on the day she died, which was in October 2017. Yet, the message, as we saw on Jack’s phone, was dated ‘11/01/17′. 

3. Leah’s a big fan of The Real Housewives of New York. Shouldn’t she be watching The Real Housewives of Cheshire instead, what with it being a bit more local?

4. Hollyoaks Police Station have a secret stash of marshmallows just in case a stroppy eleven year old demands some with her hot chocolate. 

5. If his reaction to the broken computer was anything to go by, Tony is oblivious to the fact that you need to be quiet when you visit a library. 

Doreen Watch:

Poor Doreen has been missing Ry Ry like mad since he did a runner, so she’d have been delighted to see him return this week! Also this week, we discovered that she and DS Thorpe are into their historical battle reenactments. I wonder if they ever encountered Jim McGinn?

Fashion Disaster of the Week:

I know it was his Mum’s funeral, but when I first saw Scott’s suit, I thought a bird had done it’s business on it. 

Characters Featured:

Adam, Brody, Buster, Cindy, Damon, Darcy, Darren, Dirk, DS Geoff Thorpe, Ella, Esther, Grace, Holly, Jack, Kim, Leah, Leela, Louis, Lucas, Luke, Mandy, Maxine, Milo, Nancy, Oliver, Ryan, Scott, Ste, Toby, Tom, Tony and Zak. 

Past Characters Mentioned:

Amy Barnes, Rory ‘Finn’ Finnegan, Mark Gibbs, Maggie Kinsella, Lisa Loveday, Frankie Osborne, Nick Savage.

[anitabyars]

Ready to Run I Do, I Don't #1 By: Lauren Layne Releasing August 22, 2017 Loveswept Blurb The Bachelor meets The Runaway Bride in this addictive romance novel about a reality TV producer falling for her would-be star: a Montana heartthrob who wants nothing to do with the show. Jordan Carpenter thinks she’s finally found the perfect candidate for Jilted, a new dating show about runaway grooms: Luke Elliott, a playboy firefighter who’s left not one but three brides at the altar. The only problem? Luke refuses to answer Jordan’s emails or return her calls. Which is how she ends up on a flight to Montana to recruit him in person. It’s not Manhattan but at least the locals in Lucky Hollow seem friendly . . . except for Luke, who’s more intense—and way hotter—than the slick womanizer Jordan expected. Eager to put the past behind him, Luke has zero intention of following this gorgeous, fast-talking city girl back to New York. But before he can send her packing, Jordan’s everywhere: at his favorite bar, the county fair, even his exes’ book club. Annoyingly, everyone in Lucky Hollow seems to like her—and deep down, she’s starting to grow on him too. But the more he fights her constant pestering, the more Luke finds himself wishing that Jordan would kick off her high heels and make herself comfortable in his arms. Link: Excerpt Reveal: http://tastybooktours.com/tours-master/ready-run-exc-lauren-layne Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33813136-ready-to-run Goodreads Series Link https://www.goodreads.com/series/196758-i-do-i-don-t Buy Links: AMAZON | B & N | GOOGLE | ITUNES | KOBO Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Run-Dont-Lauren-Layne-ebook/dp/B01N22X8N2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496672580&sr=8-1&keywords=ready+to+run+by+lauren+layne B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ready-to-run-lauren-layne/1125491104?ean=9781101885116 Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Lauren_Layne _Ready_to_Run?id=ULfnDQAAQBAJ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1195451540 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/ready-to-run-8 Author Info Lauren Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies. She lives in New York City with her husband. A former e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career. She signed with her agent in 2012, and her first book was published in summer of 2013. Since then, she's written over two dozen books, hitting the USA TODAY, New York Times, iBooks, and Amazon bestseller lists. Author Links: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS Website: http://www.laurenlayne.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laurenlayneauthor Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/_laurenlayne GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6969772.Lauren_Layne Rafflecopter Giveaway (Two Gifted Ebook Copies of FROM THIS DAY FORWARD (Wedding Belles #0.5)) <a class="rcptr" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/521ac4c81352/" rel="nofollow" data-raflid="521ac4c81352" data-theme="classic" data-template="" id="rcwidget_psmcr2tr">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a> <script src="https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js"></script> OR, Link to Rafflecopter Page, http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/521ac4c81352/? Series Pre-Order Links RUNAWAY GROOM (Book 2) https://laurenlayne.com/runaway-groom JUST RUN WITH IT (Book 3) https://laurenlayne.com/just-run-with-it Exclusive Excerpt Damn. Charlie hadn’t been lying about the hot blonde. The woman walking straight toward him was all tight jeans, high heels, and confi-dence. And hot. Very, very hot. Charlie muttered something admiring under his breath, and Luke’s gaze flicked to the man beside the woman. Tried to place him. Couldn’t. Not too many guys around here who wore light-purple shirts and white pants with the same easy comfort that Lucky Hollow residents wore jeans and flannel. No doubt about it—neither was from around here. Not by a long shot. The man was a half step behind the woman, and Luke assessed that the woman was calling the shots. His eyes narrowed as he realized that she hadn’t once wavered in her approach. She knew what she was after: Him. She got closer and Luke saw that the face matched the body. Wide blue eyes, full lips, sassy shoulder-length blond hair that was just tousled enough to make a man wonder how it had gotten that way—to want to be the one to muss it. Her gaze flicked over him, and Charlie whistled and muttered under his breath. “She just checked you out, man.” She had indeed, but Luke was far from flattered. It hadn’t been the assessment of a woman checking out a man so much as a predator evaluating its prey. As though she was evaluating him for . . . something. Blondie stopped in front of him, and the second her blue eyes locked on his, Luke felt a little jolt of awareness and was irrationally annoyed. It had been a long time since he’d been quite so aware of a woman. Once, he’d enjoyed the feeling—sexual chemistry was almost the perfect combination of pain and pleasure. A subtle punch in the gut that you wanted to experience again and again. These days, though, he was having a hard time getting past the pain part. The shitty parts had outweighed the good parts just one time too many. Now he mostly settled for casual hookups with a divorcée a few towns over who was even less interested in com-mitment than Luke was. He had zero use for attraction to a pretty, bold woman in high heels. Luke noticed that for a sheer moment she had a slightly off-balance look, as though she too had felt the annoying zip of arousal when their eyes met, but she recovered quick-ly. Pasting a sunny, generic smile on her face, she stuck out her right hand. “Luke Elliott. I’m Jordan Carpenter. This is my colleague, Simon Nash.” Good manners had him setting down his equipment and extending his own right hand toward hers even as his brain caught on her name. Familiar, and . . . Shit. Shit! He managed to stop from jerking his hand back, but just barely. Instead, he gritted his teeth, gave her hand a perfunctory shake, and then fixed her with a glare. “You’re wasting your time, Ms. Carpenter. And mine.” Blue eyes narrowed. “Aha. So you did get my emails.” Those. The voicemails. The letters. “Sure,” he said with a nod, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just like I suspect you got the message that I didn’t want to be a part of your show.” Charlie looked from the woman to Luke and back again. “Show?” Ryan ambled over, his shit-eating grin telling Luke that this damn woman had already spilled the beans on why she was here. “Luke’s gonna be a national heartthrob.” “International,” said the blond guy in the purple shirt. Jordan Carpenter didn’t look at her companion, but all three firefighters did. The other man gave the sort of easy smile that probably had him making friends easily. Luke didn’t want a new friend. Especially not one who wanted to use his shitty romantic past for the sake of TV ratings.

[anitabyars]

Ready to Run I Do, I Don't #1 By: Lauren Layne Releasing August 22, 2017 Loveswept Blurb The Bachelor meets The Runaway Bride in this addictive romance novel about a reality TV producer falling for her would-be star: a Montana heartthrob who wants nothing to do with the show. Jordan Carpenter thinks she’s finally found the perfect candidate for Jilted, a new dating show about runaway grooms: Luke Elliott, a playboy firefighter who’s left not one but three brides at the altar. The only problem? Luke refuses to answer Jordan’s emails or return her calls. Which is how she ends up on a flight to Montana to recruit him in person. It’s not Manhattan but at least the locals in Lucky Hollow seem friendly . . . except for Luke, who’s more intense—and way hotter—than the slick womanizer Jordan expected. Eager to put the past behind him, Luke has zero intention of following this gorgeous, fast-talking city girl back to New York. But before he can send her packing, Jordan’s everywhere: at his favorite bar, the county fair, even his exes’ book club. Annoyingly, everyone in Lucky Hollow seems to like her—and deep down, she’s starting to grow on him too. But the more he fights her constant pestering, the more Luke finds himself wishing that Jordan would kick off her high heels and make herself comfortable in his arms. Link to Blast Page: http://tastybooktours.com/tours-master/ready-run-rb-lauren-layne Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33813136-ready-to-run Goodreads Series Link https://www.goodreads.com/series/196758-i-do-i-don-t Buy Links: AMAZON | B & N | GOOGLE | ITUNES | KOBO Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Run-Dont-Lauren-Layne-ebook/dp/B01N22X8N2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496672580&sr=8-1&keywords=ready+to+run+by+lauren+layne B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ready-to-run-lauren-layne/1125491104?ean=9781101885116 Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Lauren_Layne _Ready_to_Run?id=ULfnDQAAQBAJ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1195451540 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/ready-to-run-8 Author Info Lauren Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies. She lives in New York City with her husband. A former e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career. She signed with her agent in 2012, and her first book was published in summer of 2013. Since then, she's written over two dozen books, hitting the USA TODAY, New York Times, iBooks, and Amazon bestseller lists. Author Links: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS Website: http://www.laurenlayne.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laurenlayneauthor Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/_laurenlayne GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6969772.Lauren_Layne Rafflecopter Giveaway ($25.00 Starbucks Gift Card) <a class="rcptr" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/521ac4c81357/" rel="nofollow" data-raflid="521ac4c81357" data-theme="classic" data-template="" id="rcwidget_vpjrq3wn">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a> <script src="https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js"></script> OR, Link to Rafflecopter Page, http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/521ac4c81357/? Series Pre-Order Links RUNAWAY GROOM (Book 2) https://laurenlayne.com/runaway-groom JUST RUN WITH IT (Book 3) https://laurenlayne.com/just-run-with-it Excerpt #1 Damn. Charlie hadn’t been lying about the hot blonde. The woman walking straight toward him was all tight jeans, high heels, and confi-dence. And hot. Very, very hot. Charlie muttered something admiring under his breath, and Luke’s gaze flicked to the man beside the woman. Tried to place him. Couldn’t. Not too many guys around here who wore light-purple shirts and white pants with the same easy comfort that Lucky Hollow residents wore jeans and flannel. No doubt about it—neither was from around here. Not by a long shot. The man was a half step behind the woman, and Luke assessed that the woman was calling the shots. His eyes narrowed as he realized that she hadn’t once wavered in her approach. She knew what she was after: Him. She got closer and Luke saw that the face matched the body. Wide blue eyes, full lips, sassy shoulder-length blond hair that was just tousled enough to make a man wonder how it had gotten that way—to want to be the one to muss it. Her gaze flicked over him, and Charlie whistled and muttered under his breath. “She just checked you out, man.” She had indeed, but Luke was far from flattered. It hadn’t been the assessment of a woman checking out a man so much as a predator evaluating its prey. As though she was evaluating him for . . . something. Blondie stopped in front of him, and the second her blue eyes locked on his, Luke felt a little jolt of awareness and was irrationally annoyed. It had been a long time since he’d been quite so aware of a woman. Once, he’d enjoyed the feeling—sexual chemistry was almost the perfect combination of pain and pleasure. A subtle punch in the gut that you wanted to experience again and again. These days, though, he was having a hard time getting past the pain part. The shitty parts had outweighed the good parts just one time too many. Now he mostly settled for casual hookups with a divorcée a few towns over who was even less interested in com-mitment than Luke was. He had zero use for attraction to a pretty, bold woman in high heels. Luke noticed that for a sheer moment she had a slightly off-balance look, as though she too had felt the annoying zip of arousal when their eyes met, but she recovered quick-ly. Pasting a sunny, generic smile on her face, she stuck out her right hand. “Luke Elliott. I’m Jordan Carpenter. This is my colleague, Simon Nash.” Good manners had him setting down his equipment and extending his own right hand toward hers even as his brain caught on her name. Familiar, and . . . Shit. Shit! He managed to stop from jerking his hand back, but just barely. Instead, he gritted his teeth, gave her hand a perfunctory shake, and then fixed her with a glare. “You’re wasting your time, Ms. Carpenter. And mine.” Blue eyes narrowed. “Aha. So you did get my emails.” Those. The voicemails. The letters. “Sure,” he said with a nod, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just like I suspect you got the message that I didn’t want to be a part of your show.” Charlie looked from the woman to Luke and back again. “Show?” Ryan ambled over, his shit-eating grin telling Luke that this damn woman had already spilled the beans on why she was here. “Luke’s gonna be a national heartthrob.” “International,” said the blond guy in the purple shirt. Jordan Carpenter didn’t look at her companion, but all three firefighters did. The other man gave the sort of easy smile that probably had him making friends easily. Luke didn’t want a new friend. Especially not one who wanted to use his shitty romantic past for the sake of TV ratings.

[anitabyars]

5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sizzling!

Fantastic! Another winner by Lauren Layne! Loved this sizzling romance between Luke Elliott and Jordan Carpenter. This was so full of lol moments and sizzling chemistry I could not put this down. The animosity between these two brings the sizzling heat and soon it will have your reader melting. As Jordan lands in Lucky Hollow from New York City, to talk Luke into being the next nationwide star, by being the newest bachelor on a new reality show, Jilted, she starts to get home sick for the small town she left behind twelve years ago. That just means she just needs to get her bachelor to sign on the dotted line and head back to the city. As fast as she can. But when no one can get Luke to talk with her or even give her any of the details that led up to Luke walking away, Jordan ends up renting a house. But with the extraordinary, sizzling attraction that they felt when they first met these two soon have everyone trying to hook them up. But will these two give their attraction a chance or will Jordan leave and return to the city before her heart is captured by the handsome Luke? You will have to read to find out. Highly Recommended! Loved every minute! Received an arc through Tasty Book Tours via NetGalley and voluntarily wrote an honest review.

Ready to Run I Do, I Don't #1 By: Lauren Layne Releasing August 22, 2017 Loveswept Blurb The Bachelor meets The Runaway Bride in this addictive romance novel about a reality TV producer falling for her would-be star: a Montana heartthrob who wants nothing to do with the show. Jordan Carpenter thinks she’s finally found the perfect candidate for Jilted, a new dating show about runaway grooms: Luke Elliott, a playboy firefighter who’s left not one but three brides at the altar. The only problem? Luke refuses to answer Jordan’s emails or return her calls. Which is how she ends up on a flight to Montana to recruit him in person. It’s not Manhattan but at least the locals in Lucky Hollow seem friendly . . . except for Luke, who’s more intense—and way hotter—than the slick womanizer Jordan expected. Eager to put the past behind him, Luke has zero intention of following this gorgeous, fast-talking city girl back to New York. But before he can send her packing, Jordan’s everywhere: at his favorite bar, the county fair, even his exes’ book club. Annoyingly, everyone in Lucky Hollow seems to like her—and deep down, she’s starting to grow on him too. But the more he fights her constant pestering, the more Luke finds himself wishing that Jordan would kick off her high heels and make herself comfortable in his arms. Link to Tour Page: http://tastybooktours.com/tours-master/ready-run-lauren-layne Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33813136-ready-to-run Goodreads Series Link https://www.goodreads.com/series/196758-i-do-i-don-t Buy Links: AMAZON | B & N | GOOGLE | ITUNES | KOBO Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Run-Dont-Lauren-Layne-ebook/dp/B01N22X8N2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496672580&sr=8-1&keywords=ready+to+run+by+lauren+layne B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ready-to-run-lauren-layne/1125491104?ean=9781101885116 Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Lauren_Layne _Ready_to_Run?id=ULfnDQAAQBAJ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1195451540 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/ready-to-run-8 Author Info Lauren Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies. She lives in New York City with her husband. A former e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career. She signed with her agent in 2012, and her first book was published in summer of 2013. Since then, she's written over two dozen books, hitting the USA TODAY, New York Times, iBooks, and Amazon bestseller lists. Author Links: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS Website: http://www.laurenlayne.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laurenlayneauthor Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/_laurenlayne GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6969772.Lauren_Layne Rafflecopter Giveaway ($25.00 Starbucks Gift Card) a Rafflecopter giveaway OR, Link to Rafflecopter Page, http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/521ac4c81357/? Series Pre-Order Links RUNAWAY GROOM (Book 2) https://laurenlayne.com/runaway-groom JUST RUN WITH IT (Book 3) https://laurenlayne.com/just-run-with-it Excerpt #1 Damn. Charlie hadn’t been lying about the hot blonde. The woman walking straight toward him was all tight jeans, high heels, and confi-dence. And hot. Very, very hot. Charlie muttered something admiring under his breath, and Luke’s gaze flicked to the man beside the woman. Tried to place him. Couldn’t. Not too many guys around here who wore light-purple shirts and white pants with the same easy comfort that Lucky Hollow residents wore jeans and flannel. No doubt about it—neither was from around here. Not by a long shot. The man was a half step behind the woman, and Luke assessed that the woman was calling the shots. His eyes narrowed as he realized that she hadn’t once wavered in her approach. She knew what she was after: Him. She got closer and Luke saw that the face matched the body. Wide blue eyes, full lips, sassy shoulder-length blond hair that was just tousled enough to make a man wonder how it had gotten that way—to want to be the one to muss it. Her gaze flicked over him, and Charlie whistled and muttered under his breath. “She just checked you out, man.” She had indeed, but Luke was far from flattered. It hadn’t been the assessment of a woman checking out a man so much as a predator evaluating its prey. As though she was evaluating him for . . . something. Blondie stopped in front of him, and the second her blue eyes locked on his, Luke felt a little jolt of awareness and was irrationally annoyed. It had been a long time since he’d been quite so aware of a woman. Once, he’d enjoyed the feeling—sexual chemistry was almost the perfect combination of pain and pleasure. A subtle punch in the gut that you wanted to experience again and again. These days, though, he was having a hard time getting past the pain part. The shitty parts had outweighed the good parts just one time too many. Now he mostly settled for casual hookups with a divorcée a few towns over who was even less interested in com-mitment than Luke was. He had zero use for attraction to a pretty, bold woman in high heels. Luke noticed that for a sheer moment she had a slightly off-balance look, as though she too had felt the annoying zip of arousal when their eyes met, but she recovered quick-ly. Pasting a sunny, generic smile on her face, she stuck out her right hand. “Luke Elliott. I’m Jordan Carpenter. This is my colleague, Simon Nash.” Good manners had him setting down his equipment and extending his own right hand toward hers even as his brain caught on her name. Familiar, and . . . Shit. Shit! He managed to stop from jerking his hand back, but just barely. Instead, he gritted his teeth, gave her hand a perfunctory shake, and then fixed her with a glare. “You’re wasting your time, Ms. Carpenter. And mine.” Blue eyes narrowed. “Aha. So you did get my emails.” Those. The voicemails. The letters. “Sure,” he said with a nod, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just like I suspect you got the message that I didn’t want to be a part of your show.” Charlie looked from the woman to Luke and back again. “Show?” Ryan ambled over, his shit-eating grin telling Luke that this damn woman had already spilled the beans on why she was here. “Luke’s gonna be a national heartthrob.” “International,” said the blond guy in the purple shirt. Jordan Carpenter didn’t look at her companion, but all three firefighters did. The other man gave the sort of easy smile that probably had him making friends easily. Luke didn’t want a new friend. Especially not one who wanted to use his shitty romantic past for the sake of TV ratings.