* * *
THE END
M.A Foster is a wife and mother of two grown boys. She was born and raised in Tampa, Florida and currently resides in Lutz, Florida with her husband and her fur child, Rocky. She loves chocolate, lattes and all things sparkly.
When she’s not reading or writing, she’s either catching up with friends and family or chatting with her readers and fellow author friends on Facebook.
You can read Zach and Jayla’s story in Jaybird (Book 1 in the Heritage Bay Series)
For more information on M.A. Foster’s books check out her
website: http://mafosterbooks.com
THE DATING GAMES
C.L. MATTHEWS
Copyright © 2020 by C.L. Matthews
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
THE DATING GAMES
How many frog kisses does it take to get to the center of a hunky-man lollipop? The world may never know...
But I, Rebel Payne, am determined to find out.
For my next bestseller, I'm willing to go to any length to motivate my stubborn characters.
What better way to inspire them than a real-life Dating Games?
* * *
I'm Coen Kidd, and I like my woman like I like my bikes: thrilling, dangerous, and ready for a ride.
When Rebel trapezes into my life, my small world implodes right in front of me.
She’s desperate for a happily ever after for her characters. I just might be willing to be hers.
Too bad others don’t share our happiness. Even worse, they’re dead set on destroying us.
But they don’t know me. They don’t know the lengths I’ll go. Our love will survive…I hope.
Prologue - School is for Losers
Author Dating Rule #1: Don’t.
HIGH SCHOOL
Rebel
High school sucked balls. From the first day of freshman year, twinkle-dick-face kids bullied me. I wasn’t singled out entirely, there were others, but no one looked like me. “Fat.” “Obese.” Overweight.” “Ugly.” So many names. I mentally slow-clapped for their benefit, bravo!
So. Fucking. Original.
I get it. I’m not beautiful. No need to rub it in my face.
I understood it. Really, I did. Insecure twats needed to take out their own shit on the outcasts and all. I’d always been an easy target, but seriously, we’d gone to the same schools for the last ten years. Nothing changed. You’d think they’d get bored or at least give up. No such luck.
Everyone knew each other in our small town. Secrets didn’t exist, and everyone’s dirty laundry aired out in the open on the regular. Don’t get me started on pregnancy scares. Everyone knew the same day the chick freaked out. And years later, when all was said and done, they never lived it down.
I made my way to science, my least favorite subject. You see, science and I didn’t click. Send me to AP English with a twenty page annotated bibliography and I understood. But, asking me to solve formulas and pull information out of my ass? Not happening. It was also the only class Stace didn’t have with me. Stacy Babineaux, she was my best friend and defender from all the mouth-breathers who thought calling me a cow and a whale was remotely okay.
“Do you think she’ll break the desk with an ass that big?” Corrine and her snobby bitch friends sneered haughtily from over their shoulder. Corrine Dale. She’d always been my biggest bully, and a major cunt-taco. She was surely the source of their hostility. I’d never broken a desk, chair, or any furniture. They were assholes trying to make themselves feel better.
If they were trying to whisper, they were doing a bang up job of it. Not.
“Why don’t you get a fucking life and leave the beautiful girl alone?” Coen, my knight in shining armor, growled at the girls. He always stood up for me, and the bitches hated me more for it.
I’d willingly let my skull crack and bleed out from falling in love with him. Or maybe I’d already done that? From the moment I met him, with his extremely handsome face, and killer personality… I tumbled into a Coen daze. A dimple would take over his right cheek but leave the other one bare, but that one singular dimple changed the entire way he looked. It’s perfect.
A dumb smile plastered on my face. I blushed. I couldn’t help my intense reaction to everything he did or my stupid heart for pattering. They were team Coen. I had a heart on for my savior, but he’d never date me. I’d been a fatso ever since grade seven. A whopping hundred and fifty pounds, which wouldn’t matter so much if I weren’t as short as one could be.
Coen became my closest and only guy friend immediately when we were sixteen. He agreed that Hermione and Harry should’ve been together, and the rest was history.
We wrote friendship notes, and passed them back and forth for years. Taking notebook paper, or any available to us and drew on them. Like those little stick figures, because we didn’t know how to draw correctly. One time, I drew a stick horse. Apparently, it looked like a potato with legs, and he never let me live it down.
We’d fold our secret notes into little footballs, taking it, and flicking it at each other from our desks. Something as simple as, “Dinosaurs are cooler when they breed with Unicorns.” Or, “Just because Skittles are rainbow, doesn’t mean you’re tasting the rainbow. Try rainbow colored frosting.”
Then, we’d get emotionally attached, and he’d send cutesy ones that made me feel loved. You know the ones, like the sappy shows you giggled at?
He completed me in ways Stace couldn’t. Stace didn’t play football, while Coen did. And regardless of being a girl, I had a wicked throw and tackle record that any guy would sell his left nut for.
Moments passed before realizing I never thanked him for shutting those bitches down.
“Thank you,” I whispered to him as he took his seat behind me.
“Any time, princess. You know I’ve only got love for those curves of yours.” The sound of him rummaging through his bag reminded me to grab a pen myself. We had stupid daily quizzes first thing when class started. A flush more than likely covered my entire face as I turned toward him. The stifling temperature almost made me sweat. We’d been flirting for as long as I could remember, but it was harmless. There was no way it affected him like it did me. No way, Jose.
I’m no one special.
I swallowed the thick lump in my throat. “Uh, Coen, I-I—thank you,” I stammered like a fool.
“I’ve always got your back, and other parts if you ever want it.”
His wink dragged a strangled noise from my throat. How embarrassing!
How could the hottest guy I’ve ever laid eyes on look at me like that? That shit should be illegal! His dimple, nearly perfect teeth, to-die-for body, and personality all killed me. It’d be the sweetest death too. I’d already accepted my fate as the fat-girl-who-loves-Coen-fucking-Kidd-to-death.