Next to Never
Penelope Douglas
Also by Penelope Douglas
The Fall Away Series
Bully
Until You
Rival
Falling Away
Aflame (digital novella)
Misconduct
Next to Never
A Fall Away Novella
Penelope Douglas
INTERMIX
New York
INTERMIX
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2017 by Penelope Douglas
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INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
ISBN: 9780399584923
First Edition: January
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Also by Penelope Douglas
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Playlist
Note from the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
About the Author
To Johanna and Debbie
who said I couldn’t sit with them at lunch . . .
*waves*
Playlist
“Breaking the Habit” by Linkin Park
“Comedown” by Bush
“If You Could Only See” by Tonic
“It’s Been Awhile” by Staind
“Like a Prayer” by Madonna
“Lips of an Angel” by Hinder
“Remedy” by Seether
“Sober” by P!nk
“Cradle of Love” by Billy Idol
“Stronger” by Through Fire
Note from the Author
This novella is a continuation of the Fall Away series. It is strongly recommended that you have read the series prior to reading this book—or, at the very least, Bully and Aflame.
Series Order:
Bully
Until You
Rival
Falling Away
Aflame
Next to Never
Please note, this novella is told from Quinn’s (introduced in Aflame) point of view, but it is not her story. She will have a full-length novel eventually. If, for any reason, you need a family tree during the reading process, you may find it here: pinterest.com/pin/515310382345153154/ (special thanks to Amelie Leroy).
Chapter 1
“Move it, Quinn!” I hear Jax bellow, clapping his hands. “Come on!”
I race between two other players, shuffling the soccer ball between my feet and feeling my black and orange jersey sticking to my back.
I love soccer. I love soccer. I love soccer.
No, I don’t. I hate soccer. I’m thrilled it’s the end of my senior year, and this is my last game.
“Over here!” I spot Maya Velasquez out of the corner of my eye, calling to me.
I swing back my right foot and shoot the ball over to her just as I see someone dive into my space.
“Suck dirt, Caruthers.” And then all I see is a green jersey crashing into me and shoving me to the ground.
“Ugh,” I growl, wincing.
Damn it! A silvery ache shoots through my ass and my back as I peer up, squinting against the sunlight. Simone Feldman, from the Weston team, smirks down at me with a gloating expression in her green eyes.
But then, much to my enjoyment, someone knocks into her, making her stumble. She falters, but she doesn’t fall, and I laugh, seeing her knocked off her high pedestal. Thank you, Dylan.
I glance to the left and see exactly who I expected to see. Dylan, my brother Jared’s daughter, who’s only two years younger and on the same team as me, runs backward, toward the goal, grinning at me.
Simone and everyone else move on, leaving me behind, too.
“Get up, Quinn!”
I hood my eyes and groan, recognizing the voice behind me. Standing up, I spin around to see Madoc as he tosses his black suit jacket on a bleacher and loosens his light blue tie. He must’ve rushed here after work to see the game.
“Shake it off!” he orders, clapping his hands like Jax. “Let’s go!”
I roll my eyes and turn back around, powering on. There are a million other things I’d rather be doing—journaling, cooking, swimming . . . homework, laundry, getting a cavity filled—but Madoc, Jax, and my dad, for that matter love having their kids in sports. For my brothers, it’s exercise and good, clean fun. For my father, it’s trophies on a wall and another extracurricular for my college resumes.
Not that I need soccer anymore, anyway. My admission to Notre Dame next fall is secure.
“So.” Madoc comes up after our win, hooks an arm around my neck, and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “I had this great idea where you could maybe intern with my campaign over the summer.”
“You mean you had this great idea where you could get free, easy labor.”
I hear him tsk like that’s sooooo not what he was thinking, but I know Madoc. He’s my most fun-loving brother, he’s easy to talk to, and I always feel most at ease around him, but he’s also used to getting anything and everything he wants.
And while I’m sure he wouldn’t mind paying someone to work with his campaign, he can bend me and boss me around a lot easier than someone he barely knows.
“Come on,” he says, trying to work me already. “You’re polite, well-spoken, and you follow directions. Plus you’re family. I won’t get accused of getting kinky with an intern.”
I snort, despite myself. He can always make me laugh.
But I tell him, “I have other plans. Ones that are far more fun than sitting in a cubicle all summer and cold-calling voters, begging them to make you mayor.”
“Plans? Like what?”
I shrug and pull out my ponytail and elastic headband. “I thought of traveling.”
I don’t look at him, but it takes him a moment to respond.
“Why haven’t I heard about this until now?” he asks.
Because I haven’t made definite plans. Because I haven’t told anyone. Because I have no idea where I want to go or what I want to see.
Because Dad will never let me go.
“Have you talked to Dad about it?” he asks.
I stuff my towel and hair ties back into my backpack, ignoring him.
“Quinn, as much as I’d love to see you spread your wings, there’s no way he’s going to allow it.” He hands me my water bottle. “You know you need months to prepare him for
something like that, and he would never let you go alone.” And then he adds, his tone turning clipped, “And if he did, I wouldn’t. Besides, I thought you both decided you’d take the summer and get ahead with some courses at Clarke before going off to Notre Dame in the fall.”
Jesus.
I keep my expression impassive, trying not to look annoyed. In a few months, I really will be gone, and then I’ll miss Madoc—and everyone else—so I’m trying not to act like a brat.
I swing the backpack strap over my shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Forget I said it. It’s just something I was tossing around.” I roll my eyes at him, turning it into a joke with a smirk. “I guess I’ll try to wait until after college to start living my life.”
“’Atta girl.” He gives me a light punch on the arm, grinning. “Besides, you know Jared has events lined up all summer, and with Pasha busy setting up the production line in Toronto, who’s going to handle his scheduling? And then Jax and Juliet will need your special touch up at the summer camp for the planning of the fireworks show on the Fourth, and—”
“And yada yada yada . . . I know!” I grumble. “I can’t be replaced. No one else can do what I do, right?!”
“Of course not, Quinn-for-the-Win. We need you.”
I shake my head and walk around him, heading for the locker room.
God, I love him. I love all of my family. But each one of them knows how to manipulate me.
None of them would tell me to go. No one will say “Just do it!” or “What do you want to do for your summer, Quinn?”
Jax and Jared assume I’m fine. Madoc wants all of his family around him all of the time. My nieces and nephews are too caught up in their own lives to care what I’m doing, and my parents . . . well, they want me happy. But they don’t want me to make any mistakes, either. Hell, a two-day sex talk preceded my very first date.
But I’m their baby. Their second chance.
Not that there was anything wrong with my brothers. They turned out well. But I gather my parents didn’t have much to do with that, either.
No one knows what I want. No one looks closely enough.
No one except Lucas.
After my shower, I quickly dress in some jean short cut-offs and a gray V-neck and dry my hair. I unclasp the strap of my backpack and slide off Lucas’s baseball cap that he gave me before he left town three years ago. I always carry it with me.
Three whole years, and I haven’t seen or talked to him. After grad school, he moved to New York for a job, but his architectural firm had him assigned to a project in Dubai. He’s been living in the Middle East, for the most part, since he left Shelburne Falls. It doesn’t feel like he is ever coming back.
I know he isn’t technically part of our family, but Madoc had mentored him since he was eight, and he’s been a part of my life since I was born.
After he left, I sat down a few times to write him—letters, e-mails, Facebook messages—but something always held me back from sending them. Like maybe I was afraid he wouldn’t write back.
Maybe, just maybe, he tolerated annoying little Quinn Caruthers and all of her stupid questions while he was stuck here, but now he doesn’t have to anymore. Why should he even bother, right? I don’t fit into his life anymore. He’s twenty-nine now. Important, busy, sophisticated . . .
And he hasn’t written me, either, so . . .
Pulling the light blue Cubs cap down over my eyes to shield the sun, I start the walk to the bike rack in front of the school.
“You know, I still can’t believe that you don’t have a car!” someone shouts behind me as I unlock my bike. “It’s like a thing in our family, Quinn!”
I laugh to myself, recognizing Dylan’s tone. Yes, car-love definitely runs in our family. So much so that one of my brothers—her father—owns a company that designs and engineers performance automotive parts, while another brother runs the town’s racetrack.
Looking over my shoulder, I see her pull up in her dad’s old Mustang Boss 302—which he gave her when he bought his brand new Shelby.
She grins at me through the open driver’s side window.
“Outdoor air pollution is one of the top ten killers on Earth,” I tell her, unwinding the lock from the bars. “Thousands of people in this country die every year due to air pollution, and the best way to decrease it is by walking or riding a bicycle.” I smile, trying to look smug, and stuff the lock into my backpack. “I’m just doing my part.”
“Can you do mine, too?” Kade, my nephew, strolls up and throws his duffel bag into the bed of his truck, chuckling to himself.
“And mine,” his twin, Hunter, says, doing the same. They both must’ve just gotten done with their workouts in the school’s weight room. Bulking up for the junior year football season in the fall.
I twist my lips to the side, disgusted at the gas-guzzling penis-enhancer Madoc bought his sons that won’t make their manly areas any bigger despite what teenage boys like to think. He purchased the big black truck for them in hopes they’d learn to share—and be forced to go places together since they fought a lot.
The pollutants from it are probably strong enough to kill cockroaches . . . underground . . . in Antarctica.
Actually, I’m not that concerned with pollution. I just enjoy riding a bike, because it’s something where I don’t fall in line with the rest of my family, and it gives me an excuse to take longer to get home. More me-time and all that.
Dylan smiles at me, a gentle look in her blue eyes. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
I nod and slip my backpack on my back. Pulling out my bike, I hear Kade and Hunter’s truck fire up behind me, and they, along with Dylan, charge out of the school parking lot, mostly empty now since school ended two hours ago.
Climbing on my bike, I push off and pedal out of the parking lot, inhaling the fresh scent of lilacs that carries on the light wind around the school.
I love this time of day, right before parents get off work but after school lets out. The streets are quiet, and the sun is falling to the west. It’s warm, but it’s not beating down on my shoulders and neck like it does during midday. Glimmers of yellow peek through the cluster of leaves overhead, and I speed down streets lined with cars, hearing kids in their Rollerblades playing hockey in a driveway.
Since it’s Friday night, I don’t have to worry about rushing home to do my schoolwork or study. It’s nearly the end of the year, after all. Final papers and projects have already been turned in, final exams are scheduled, and graduation practice is in full swing. I’m in the homestretch.
It’s also Dylan’s big night. In addition to just getting her license and her father’s old car a few months ago, she’ll be making her debut at the track tonight. I have to be there.
But first . . . I cruise around a corner and keep pedaling into the center of town. My hair blows behind me, and I love the feel of the wind in my clothes. I smile to myself, thinking about how the boys keep begging to get me a car, but wouldn’t they just flip their lids if they knew I might actually be interested in a motorbike instead?
As I race up to High Street, I turn right and ease on the brake as I pull up next to the curb in front of a shop on the corner of Sutton and park my bike.
Standing and gazing through the old wooden French doors with chipped red paint, I see everything looks the same as it was yesterday when I came here. Cobwebs block my view, but I can make out the broken-down counter of the old café, the stools with cracked vinyl, the empty, dusty shelves, and a chair overturned on the floor with random bits of debris scattered around.
Stepping to the left of the door, I peer through the display window, its shelves also coated with a thick layer of dust.
I would take those shelves out. Potential customers want to see the inside of a store before they enter, so yeah . . . take out the shelves, so they can see what kind of place it is.
I c
hew my bottom lip, the excitement sending off a wave of butterflies in my stomach.
I’d also paint the outside brick a cream color, like a pastry, and then I’d paint the doors turquoise, my favorite color. It would make it bright, like summer. Inviting, happy, quaint . . .
Perfect for a summer business.
I’d also add a few tables with umbrellas out front, a menu with not only pastries and baked goods, but also an assortment of refreshers and maybe some ice cream.
And I’d leave the doors open all day, so the neighborhood can smell the breads and sweets all the way down the street.
“Hey,” I hear someone call to me.
I turn my head and see a guy come around from behind me. He’s wearing jeans, a white T-shirt with writing on it, and he’s young, probably about my age, but I’ve never seen him at my school.
“What’s your name?” he asks, and I spot a group of guys standing down the sidewalk from where he came, talking and laughing.
I turn away, looking back at the old bakery. The For Lease sign in the window has a phone number with it. I’m not trying to be rude to him, but he doesn’t get personal information about me simply because he thinks he’s cute. Especially if I don’t know him.
“You go to Falls High, right?”
I ignore him again, turning for my bike to go home.
But my cap is plucked off my head. I whip around, seeing him hold it high and away from me, grinning.
He waves the hat back and forth. “What do I have to do to get you to talk to me?”
“Asshole,” I say. “There. I talked. Now give me the hat back.”
But he just laughs.
I dart out my hand, trying to snatch it back. “Give it to me!”
That hat hasn’t left my possession in four years. If I’m not wearing it, I’m carrying it on my backpack. Lucas will come home someday, and he’ll want it back. My stomach starts to churn, thinking about how I can’t lose it.
“It’s kind of old and ratty, isn’t it?” the guy, whose name I don’t care to find out, comments. “I can take you to a Cubs game and get you a new one.”
