Online Bits and Pieces

Things were less tense after dinner. Hannah was right about how she couldn’t help herself sometimes. Her gifts weren’t exactly always pleasant. Mama had warned us they wouldn’t be. We sat on the floor of our room, our backs against my bed this time, looking at the news article on Hannah’s phone again.

“So, what do we do?” I asked. 

“Well, I figure we’ve got two options. We can take this article to Mrs. Emerson and try to convince her that they are our family. Or we can see if we can find a phone number or something for one of Dad’s sisters and call them ourselves.”

I knew which one Hannah wanted to do. She wasn’t a huge fan of our social worker, Mrs. Emerson. She blamed Mrs. Emerson for our being put in a different foster home than the boys. I couldn’t blame Mrs. Emerson, personally.

There are four of us. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I’m pretty sure that there aren’t many foster parents who are willing to take four kids all at once. Plus, there’s Jake. Jake is worth at least three kids all by himself. On the other hand, Hannah promised Mom that she’d do everything she could to keep us together as a family and Hannah takes promises very seriously.

“I guess we could start by calling them ourselves.” I ventured, hoping that Hannah could read my misgivings.

Hannah hadn’t even opened the book. She was staring at the photo of the Fortenbrasses again, her face set in what I like to call her “Plotting Mode." 

You have to understand, Hannah is beautiful. She’s runway model gorgeous. Seriously! She’s had offers before and everything. Hannah’s plotting face, however, makes her look a little more human. Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows draw together, and this tiny wrinkle appears between them. Her mouth thins out and she chews on her index finger. 

It’s weird and a little gross and totally makes my day because I don’t feel like I’m the drab, human sister to an angel. On the other hand, "Plotting Mode” also means that we’re probably gonna get in trouble sooner or later.

Finger between her teeth, Hannah stared at the phone. After a long minute, she said, “You know, it’s pretty hard to turn a bunch of kids away when they show up at your door. Especially if they tell you they’re your long-lost family.”

This was so much worse than calling a stranger.

“I’m not exactly sure about the protocol and stuff but I know I’m pretty sure Mrs. Emerson’s not gonna be okay with us just taking off with the boys and traveling out to some God forsaken island in the middle of nowhere without contacting these people first." 

Hannah switched to her middle finger and tapped her nail against her front teeth. I swatted at her hand. "Stop it! You know how much that annoys me!”

Hannah lashed out and slapped me back, her palm cracking on my upper arm. “Don’t hit me, Hailey!”

“Stop tapping your teeth, then.” I shoved her.

Things degenerated into a furious, but relatively silent war of slaps and pushing until Cady’s voice floated up from the floor below.

“Girls! Stop wrestling around up there.”

We froze, mid-slap and turned to stare at the door. Cady did not allow fighting in her house and had warned us in no uncertain terms  if she caught us physically attacking each other, she would report us to Mrs. Emerson with a recommendation that we be separated.

With a glare, I sat back against the edge of my bed, watching Hannah turn back to the phone which had been forgotten momentarily on the floor during the pitched battle. 

“What are the chances that we can just buy Amtrak tickets, go get the boys, and leave without anyone realizing it until we’re too far away for them to do anything about it?” I asked, pitching my voice low in case Cady didn’t believe the silence. Hannah considered this. 

“I don’t know. Let’s see how much tickets cost.” She opened a new browser window and did some quick research. After about five minutes, she sat back. “It looks like you and me are adults; two adult tickets and two child tickets is gonna cost about 500 bucks.”

“No way we’ll get that together without questions being asked.” I muttered. 

“We could sell our bikes and the stereo, that might get us a couple hundred. We could borrow the other half from Roger and Cady’s credit card and pay them back when we’re settled.” Hannah suggested.

“That’s technically stealing.” I pointed out.

“Not if we pay them back.”

“Credit card fraud, then, and you’re seventeen. You won’t just go to juvie for that. They’ll lock you up until you’re middle aged.” I was not about to be left to take care of the boys on my own.

Hannah shot me an exasperated look. “How do you propose we do this, then?” I rolled my lower lip between my teeth. I’m not a planner. That’s Hannah’s gift. 

“How long do you think it would take for us to get out of here if we go through the system?” I asked

Hannah shrugged. “No idea. It could be months, maybe years, if they don’t want to take us right away.”

That meant we would both be adults before anything got settled and we could try for custody of Joe and Jake ourselves. I wondered how serious Hannah was about the credit card fraud thing. Hannah desperately wanted to leave foster care. Two years in the system had been uncomfortable, unpredictable, and frustrating most of the time.

“You know you could always apply for emancipation and go out there on your own and talk to them and…” I began. I knew it was pointless, but I tried anyway.

Hannah interrupted me. “No way. We stay together. That was the one thing Mom always said, ‘Stay together, no matter what.’ We stay here until we can find other family.”

I sighed. “Or until we age out of the system.”

Hannah frowned. “We’ll get out of here before then, I promise.”

“I’m sure Roger and Cady would let you continue to live here even after you turn 18.”

Hannah snorted. “I doubt it would be for long. Roger and Cady like you a lot more than they like me.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not true; you know that’s not true.”

“Well, they think you’re less trouble than I am.”

I decided not to argue with her. Hannah was the one who kept the distance between herself and our foster parents. I wasn’t going to point it out just then, but Hannah preserved a sense of formality with them that did not invite a deeper relationship. I went shopping with Cady and played card games with Roger. Hannah only joined in when I invited her. She never spent time alone with either of them on purpose.

I gave up. “Well, neither choice is great, but I’d rather see if they want us sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah.” Hannah agreed. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”

I got up off the bed and crossed the room to my shelf of potted plants. I reached down to the bottom shelf and grabbed the mister. I sprayed each plant, lifting a leaf here and there to make sure that the soil in each pot got wet before moving on. Taking care of my tiny garden inspired more questions in my head. I turned around to face Hannah, who was still sitting on the floor, the phone in her hand, her head bent over it.

Hannah wanted so desperately for this family to be ours that she wasn’t thinking about anything but getting the four of us out of Chicago and across the country.

“I think we need to talk to the boys about it.” I blurted out. “Joe, at least, needs to have a say in what we do and how we do it.”

It was the only other thing I could think of to put off Hannah’s plan of running away and getting us sent to juvie for our troubles. We wouldn’t be able to go see the boys until the weekend, so that gave us more time to think of another plan. Hannah didn’t look up from the screen when she nodded her agreement.

This is not a story about fairies.

Okay, this is not only a story about fairies. There are other magical creatures in the world, you know. Or maybe you don’t. Apparently, there are people in the world who don’t know that magic is real, that fairies exist, and there’s this whole other life going on behind the “reality” they think they know.

This is a story about that life.

My name is Hailey Cafelle Deal…well, actually, it’s Hailey Cafelle Fortenbrass, but I didn’t know that until I was sixteen years old. You might think that one small change to your name isn’t that big of a deal (no pun intended), but it turns out that when your parents change their last name to try to protect you from your destiny, it’s a BIG deal.

I’m sure Mom and Dad thought they were doing the right thing. There are other people who disagree (I’m looking at you, Hannah.) but since I’m telling this story, you’re going to hear it from my point of view. Aunt Chrys says writing this all down is gonna help me process everything that’s happened, so I’m gonna give it a shot.

Let’s start over, okay?

My first name is Hailey. My middle name is Cafelle. My last name is negotiable, I guess. I’m gonna start with the day that Hannah and I found out our last name wasn’t Deal.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. We’d gotten back from school maybe an hour before and were supposed to be doing our homework upstairs in our bedroom, when my older sister, Hannah, hissed at me between her teeth and waved a hand frantically for me to come join her on her bed.

At first, I shook my head at her. “What?”

Hannah didn’t say anything, but she did look up from her phone and waved at me again, this time with a frown.

I sighed, put down the Algebra homework I’d been slogging through and tip-toed across the room to where she was staring down at the screen of the phone in her hand.

You have to tip-toe in our bedroom because the house is old; like, a hundred years old. So, the floorboards creak, even with a rug thrown over them and since we were supposed to be doing homework, Cady would come and check on us if she heard movement of any kind. It’s not that we couldn’t talk or anything, and Cady isn’t rude about it, but she is super strict about homework time. We’re not supposed to be on our phones, we’re not supposed to talk to each other about anything except homework, and we’re not supposed to get up except to go to the bathroom or something like that.

I managed to avoid the creaky floorboards and got to Hannah’s bed to see what she wanted. Some days, it’s just easier to give in to her rude demands than to fight it. Especially during homework time.

Hannah held up the phone to show me an old picture of a family I’d never seen before. I was confused for a sec.

“Is it a meme?” I asked. There wasn’t any writing on it, and there wasn’t a caption or anything, so I didn’t think it was.

“No.” Hannah hissed. “It’s the Fortenbrasses. Well, it’s the Fortenbrasses from, like, thirty years ago.”

I looked harder at the photo. The Fortenbrasses looked like a nice, sort of old-fashioned, family. The mom and dad sat in front with their three kids standing around them. Everyone had those weird, stiff smiles that you see in formal pictures. The photographer says, “Smile.” And everyone shows their teeth to the camera.

I’ve always been kind of glad that we never had to do that kind of thing. I mean, we’ve got family pictures and stuff, but they’re just from our phones. We weren’t the kind of family that took formal pictures.

The Fortenbrass family was the kind of family that took formal pictures. Hannah spread her fingers over the screen of the phone to zoom in on their frozen faces. The mom and dad looked nice, but normal. The dad wore those weird half-shaded glasses you see guys wearing in old 70’s movies. His tie was pink with blue stripes and he was wearing a pink, plaid, button-down shirt under a dark blazer. He had dark hair, with a few streaks of gray at his temples. The mom had on a sleeveless dress and her hair was short and permed.

The two girls in the back were so different from one another, it was hard to believe they were related. The taller girl looked almost a foot taller than the boy who stood next to her. The other girl was about the same height as the boy. The tall one had dark brown hair that was super straight. She wore so much make-up it was impossible to figure out what she really looked like. Her face was super pale, and her eyes were outlined with thick, black eyeliner. Her lips were black too and I counted about twelve different piercings. She wore a dog collar and a long-sleeved, slinky, black dress covered in lace.

The other sister’s hair was a lighter shade of brown, although next to the goth girl she looked almost blonde. She was wearing a dark blue dress that looked more like a nightgown to me. She also wore a small cross around her neck and although her make-up was darker than anything I’d wear, it wasn’t nearly as thick and dark as the other girl’s.

I turned my attention to the boy in the center. Hannah was interested in him too because she shifted the picture around so he was in the center of the screen. I took in the light brown hair, the brown eyes, the slightly chubby cheeks, and the too large ears that stuck out on either side of his head.

“He looks exactly like Joe, doesn’t he?” Hannah whispered, confirming my own thoughts.

“Not exactly.” I hedged. There was a twinkle in this boy’s eyes, despite the rigor mortis smile, that was missing from our brother’s expression.

“Close enough, though.” Hannah insisted. “I’m, like, 90% sure that’s Dad.”

90%. I thought. That’s pretty good. On the other hand, there was still that 10% that said she could be wrong. I really, really wanted to believe she was right, though.

“So, does this mean we’ve found Dad’s family?” I asked, still keeping my voice just above a whisper.

“Yeah. I found a bunch of stuff on them too.” She pinched the picture back to its original size and scrolled up the page. “Look.” The picture was part of a news story from a place I’d never heard of.

At the top of the webpage the banner read:

“The South Deer Island Herald.”

Below that was the headline.

“Local Civic Leaders Killed In Car Accident”

I couldn’t read the article below because the font was too small, and I was too far away from the phone.

“Who died?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t the kids.

"The mom and dad.” Hannah scrolled down the page. “Cafelle and Ned Fortenbrass were killed Sunday, August 19, in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on the mainland. The Fortenbrasses were on their way back to the island after a day of sight-seeing in Portland.” She scrolled a bit more and then stopped to read the last line in the article. “The Fortenbrasses leave behind their three children, Chrysantha (21), Alberta Jean (20), and Jacob (17).”

Neither of us spoke for several minutes while this information sank in. I sank onto Hannah’s bed, propping my chin on her shoulder. The mom’s name was the same as my middle name. I mulled that over for a bit. It’s not like Cafelle is a common name.

“Dad was my age when his folks died.” Hannah murmured after a minute. Her voice was low and I wondered what she was thinking. Not for the first time, I wished I could read her mind the way she could read other people’s.

She isn’t psychic or anything like that. She says it’s not like she can hear other people’s thoughts, she just gets these pictures and colors in her head, so it’s not like she would know what you were thinking if she just walked by you on the street.

“I’m just thinking about how weird it is that his folks died when he was young. Like, history repeating itself.”

Did I mention that it’s kind of annoying when she can tell what you’re thinking? I’ve learned to suppress my irritation, but sometimes she can sense it anyway.

She turned around to face me and I shifted away from her.

“Look, it’s not my fault I can tell what you’re thinking.” She snapped.

“I didn’t say it was.” I shot back.

“Girls?” Cady’s voice drifted up from the first floor of the house. “Are you doing your homework like I asked?”

I rose from Hannah’s bed and eased my way back to my own.

“Yes, Cady.” Hannah called in a sing-song voice. She shifted again, drawing herself up onto the bed fully and leaning back against the wall. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Title: Kiss & Ride

Author: Teodora Kostova

Genre: Gay Romance, Contemporary, Christmas/Holiday Romance

Synopsis

What happens when you meet the right guy at the wrong time?

When Vincent Alesi’s estranged father dies, he gets on the first plane from New York city to Rome to be at the memorial service. Even if he has to max out his credit card. Even if he hates the man for leaving him. Even if it’s a day before Christmas.

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and Vin ends up trusting a complete stranger with all his secrets, even the ones he didn’t know he had.

Luca Romano’s job as a flight attendant takes him all over the world. But a jet-setting lifestyle is not what he wants. His dream of opening his own restaurant is being placed on hold over circumstances beyond his control.

Timing is everything…

When Vin bursts into Luca’s life, both men fall fast and hard. But their lives, their dreams, even the cities they live in couldn’t be more different.

Their few days together in Rome are romantic, emotionally intense, and leave them both wanting more.

Can a fleeting love affair change their lives forever?

Buy Links

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N054R33/ Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N054R33/ Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01N054R33/

Book Trailer

Giveaway!

Prizes

Kindle Fire 7″ WiFi 8GB tablet

2 x 10$ Amazon gift cards

2 x Signed paperbacks of Snowed In

3 x Swag packs, including pens, bookmarks, bracelets, and van Gogh themed items from the National Gallery in London

2 x audio books, winners choice. (requires an account with Audible to claim prize)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About the author

Hi, my name is Teodora and I live in London with my husband and my son. I’ve been writing ever since I can remember, but it became my full time job a few years ago when I decided that everything else I’ve tried bores me to death and I have to do what I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the guts to fully embrace. I’ve been a journalist, an editor, a personal assistant and an interior designer among other things, but as soon as the novelty of the new, exciting job wears off, I always go back to writing. Being twitchy, impatient, loud and hasty are not qualities that help a writer, because I have to sit alone, preferably still, and write for most of the day, but I absolutely love it. It’s the only time that I’m truly at peace and the only thing I can do for more than ten minutes at a time – my son has a bigger attention span than me.

When I’m procrastinating, I like to go to the gym, cook Italian meals (and eat them), read, listen to rock music, watch indie movies and True Blood re-runs. Or, in the worst case scenario, get beaten at every Nintendo Wii game by a very inventive kid.

Don’t be shy and get in touch – I love connecting with my readers.

Smoke & Mirrors is 25% off at All Romance eBooks!

#TeaserTuesday - 8/2/16 THIRDS Book 8 #DreamspinnerPress, #THIRDS

Hello, all! Welcome to the first #TeaserTuesday of the month. Today we have a snippet from Chapter 1 of my current work in progress, Seb and Hudson’s book, THIRDS Book 8. Enjoy! Seb narrowed his eyes. Why was Dom grinning? Something was up. His friend leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “What did you do?” Dom wriggled his eyebrows, and Seb’s frown deepened. Shit. This wasn’t…