Have you met Alex: friends to lovers romance Read online

  Have you met … Alex

  Short but not sweet

  Book 1

  KENNA SHAW REED

  ALSO BY KENNA SHAW REED

  Aussie Military Romance:

  Avenge Her

  Protect Her

  Save Her

  Defend Her

  Passion without Rules:

  Who is Erebus

  Random Fantasies

  Dark Indulgences

  Romance with Passion:

  Trusting his Heart

  A Billion Reasons Why

  Never Second Best

  Shattered Hearts

  Christmas Kisses:

  Her Christmas Romance Surprise (Pia)

  Her Christmas Noel (JoJo)

  Unwrapping Her Christmas Gift (Abbie)

  Her Surprise Christmas Kiss (Zara)

  Choose Your Own Romance:

  The Uni Student

  The Intern

  The Bad Kitty

  Choose Your Own Romance: Imperfect Marriage

  The Politician’s Wife

  The Unfaithful Wife

  The Unforgiving Wife

  The Perfect Wife

  Pre-order now:

  Have you met … Kram (from Defend Her)

  Have you met … Robert (from The Intern)

  Have you met … Chris (from The Politician’s Wife)

  Have you met … Scout (from Avenge Her)

  Have you met … Tony (from The Question Is)

  All books can be read standalone or in any order. Only the Choose Your Own Romance series has cheating (although you can pick a path that doesn’t).

  If you love Have you met … Alex, then please tell a friend (or several). Follow me on Facebook or Goodreads to get sneak peeks for my next release.

  For all the men I’ve loved before …

  No!

  For the one true love of my life. Mr Shaw Reed.

  Because.

  Copyright © 2020 by Kenna Shaw-Reed

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover: Kenna Shaw-Reed

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously.

  This book is intended for mature, adult audiences only. It contains sexually explicit and graphic scenes and language which may be considered offensive by some readers. This book is strictly intended for those over the age of 18. All acts of a sexual nature are completely consensual.

  Have you met … Alex

  Simone Drucker

  Mum: We’re worried about you.

  Mum: Simone, please tell us you’re okay.

  Mum: Simone Alyce Drucker. We know you’re hurting and this weekend is going to be tough but please let us know you’re okay.

  Mum: Darling, we love you.

  Mum: I know you’re grown up, but you don’t need to do this alone. Even grown up 22 year old’s need mummy cuddles.

  Mum: Please come home. You deserve – yes deserve – to be with your family this weekend.

  Mum: And I need to hug my baby girl and tell her that one day, she’ll find love again and this time it will be everything she wants and deserves.

  Simone: Thx. CU Friday.

  Alex MacFarlane

  I stretched my neck, trying to touch ear to shoulder, only stopping when I heard the familiar clicks. Biding my time behind the wheel of my utility 4WD, waiting for a stream of holiday makers to leave me enough space to pull into the dusty carpark of the country pub.

  There’d been no reason to choose this Wollongong pub rather than the other dozen in town, other than I could count more cars with surfboards on roofs than other utes laden with work equipment on back trays.

  Eventually, the stream of cars cleared and I created my own car parking space, half on the gravel, half on the sandy grass. The sea breeze and salt air hit the moment I opened the car door—almost as quickly as the thud thud thud of music started my blood pumping.

  Finally, something to look forward to. Booze. Music. Babes. Surfing the breaks I’d been chasing for the past three hours while driving up the coast. The sound of the waves crashing on the nearby beach.

  Perfect.

  Even though there was little chance of running into anyone from back home, I did one last check for familiar cars before breathing a sigh of relief. Time to shake off the last months and offer my mind, body and soul to the chilled vibe of the bar renowned for surfing and partying—not necessarily in that order.

  Finally, I had something to look forward to.

  Beers tonight and surfing tomorrow, hangover permitting. Not that I was gonna brag, but I figured my tanned body and sandy blonde hair wouldn’t tag me tourist and get me the wrong sort of attention. Tonight, I was happy to be just another twenty-something year old guy, blending in with the crowd and reclaiming his mojo.

  Confident of being anonymous, I still couldn’t bring myself to leave the truck. Deciding, yet again, to rehash the fuck up my life had become. All the paths that lead me to need this week away from my world.

  Starting with the last two months of being the town schmuck. If you were talking about mental health, mine needed time out from the small town gauntlet of sympathetic, “I told you so,” to the less subtle, “She was leaving you anyway for university, what did you expect?” They could take their pity and platitudes and shove them where the sun didn’t shine.

  Luckily my boss had understood my belated but desperate need to get the hell out of town for a while. After all, it was his fucking daughter who’d suddenly decided that four years together meant nothing. She’d decided we were over, but kept dragging out our breakup until she couldn’t avoid our final confrontation which would likely feed the gossip mongers for years.

  Public fucking humiliation. Check.

  Cliché moving on with another man. Check.

  Blah, blah, fucking blah. It didn’t matter why, only that it did.

  Well, I wished it didn’t matter. But it did.

  My girlfriend, the girl I’d been destined to marry, dumped me like a three-day old dead fish because she’d fallen in love with someone else. What a bloody joke, I would have raged if anyone had been there to listen. I knew all about love, or at least thought I did. Under any definition of love, you don’t wake up one day and accidentally fall in love! Not unless you are already out there on the singles market looking for an alternative to the love you professed would last forever.

  Like she did.

  Bitch. Heartless, love of my life, bitch.

  Who, despite the shit she’d pulled, I’d take back in a nano-second if she changed her mind. Four years counted for something. Loyalty, respect, friendship, love. All the things she’d thrown away because she fell in love. With someone else.

  No matter how many times I replayed our conversations, looking for an early sign, I couldn’t figure out how I’d been so clueless. We’d been best friends since primary school, first loves and then lovers. Even when she started applying interstate for university, I’d been the gullible schmuck to trust her promises that our love could survive long-distance. Sceptical, yeah, I wasn’t a complete idiot. I’d trusted love while she followed her dreams of university and study. But despite warnings from our—well, mostly my--friends, nothing prepared me for the shock of our breakup.

  Months of denial before one conversation ended our future, my future.

  She fucking left. Left me abandoned, humiliated and embarrassed without answers but alone to face the judgemen
t and questions of our small country town, where it seemed everyone had an opinion and wanted to share it. From our old schoolteachers to the local supermarket cashier to my co-workers who also worked for her father.

  Suffering taunts dressed up as friendly banter while my loyal-not football teammates and mates made endless jokes about how I lacked the sexual mastery to keep my woman satisfied long distance. Assholes pretended to feel sorry for me by going up to random girls at the local pub and asking if they would take pity on the guy who got dumped for a city dude with money to burn. Mocking my single man status and expecting me to get over my lost love with a single weekend of drinking.

  I knew it was the Australian male way—banter a guy through the fucked up moments. Unlike the Brits with their stiff upper lip, we were more likely to use a stiff upper cut.

  The verbal jabs cut too close to the bone and when I started thinking about dropping out of footy, imagining an injury as an excuse, I knew I needed to make changes.

  Making a decision to at least make some decisions, felt good. Almost like I was preparing to take control over my life, and my balls, again.

  Only hours ago, I’d walked into her father’s office. Elliot looked up with the dark brown eyes he shared with his daughter when I shut his office door and stood at his desk cluttered with car parts, quotes and invoices. Steeling myself for refusal, I came straight to the point. “I need to get away before I do or say something that can’t be taken back.”

  Feeling like a loser for even wanting to ask, I’d been avoiding this particular conversation, finding a reason to put it off another hour or day. The car yard was busy; the new apprentice needed more support; Elliot needed me here—two men who missed the same woman beyond words. But truthfully, I hadn’t wanted to admit to any man, woman or beast how much it fuckin’ well hurt to be dumped.

  My words couldn’t hide the intensity of the built up of all my hurt and humiliation; but no matter what she’d done, I still couldn’t bring myself to trash her at work. Not with the other guys, not with the bitchy receptionist who’d be willing to trash anyone. Especially not with her dad in his office fielding his own guilt and regrets.

  Before Elliott could say anything, I continued, “I need to clear my head and get my shit together because right now, it’s not pretty.”

  “How long do you want off?” Elliot Martin closed his laptop, giving me the gift of his full attention. He hadn’t said no, I kept my hopes on simmer. He offered me a seat before leaning back with his arms crossed, “I didn’t want to say anything, but we’ve been worried about you.”

  “You didn’t have to.” But it was nice they still cared. My parents shrugged it off as a childhood romance that had come to an end. I guessed being divorced gave them a different perspective on heartbreak.

  “Not because we had to, but because it’s such a fine line between treating you like the son you’ve always been, and then respecting your privacy and wishing like hell things didn’t turn out this way.”

  With so much to say and knowing nothing could make it easier on Elliott, I grabbed two beers from the small bar fridge Elliot always kept stocked. I needed to get the words right. Not only to get the time off, but ease this man’s guilt. Telling to our mutual respect and understanding, was neither of us offered a toast, merely dipping our opened bottle necks in the general direction of the other. It wasn’t a day for celebrating, and in my mind it hadn’t been for a while.

  “It hasn’t been easy, and I’m sick of pretending that things are okay.” Watching Elliot for any sign of judgement, I continued. “They aren’t and I need to go out, smash some waves and down some beers without feeling like everyone’s walking on eggshells around me. I need to yell, scream and do some crazy shit that you don’t need to know about.”

  Getting laid would be a start, not that I had been about to admit the level of that frustration with her father. Hell, I’d spent the last four years proving to Elliott that I, Alex MacFarlane, was dependable and loyal. Now, all bets were off the table, but as much as my cock wanted to be unleashed, I didn’t want to stuff things up by screwing every single woman in the small town out of anger and spite. I needed to get away, get her out of my system, then come back with a clear head.

  “I’m more worried that once you leave, you won’t come back.”

  “Unlikely,” I scoffed. “Don’t you think if I was going to leave town it would have been with your daughter? Nah, we broke up because as much as we all bitched about living in a small country town growing up, I love it here. I’m the one who wanted to raise a family here but your daughter had itchy feet.”

  “Well,” Elliott mused, flicking through the order book. “You’ve got a stack of leave.”

  “I know.” I couldn’t resist the explanation. The reason I hadn’t taken any leave for the past three years, knowing I’d need it when she went away. “It’s no good saving it for her semester breaks now.”

  Elliot kept flicking and my fragile hopes faded, knowing my boss’ concern. “We’re fully booked and you’re my best panel beater.”

  Both things were true, but they didn’t diminish my need to get away. Either with or without his permission. I knew most of the business owners in town. Someone would offer me a job when I came back, surely. Or I could wrangle a bank loan and start my own place.

  “Look, I didn’t hire you because of my daughter and I don’t want to lose you because of her either.” Surprisingly, Elliott seemed resigned to being short staffed and working longer hours.

  Fucking yes! The tightness in my chest started to release its hold and I couldn’t have been more surprised, or grateful. This man was gold, and hopefully we could redefine our relationship – not as father-son but closer than colleagues. “Give me a couple of weeks, maybe I can come back via the Auburn shop. Seriously, I just need to get away, clear my head and come back with a new attitude.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you whether we should keep it or not.”

  “Let me see how things are going, maybe I can start going up there every couple of weeks.”

  “More time away to do the shit you don’t want me to know about?” At least Elliott could smile. As prospective father- and son-in-law, we’d expanded the panel beating business and mechanic workshop so I could move closer to the Sydney university that claimed said ex-girlfriend. It made good business sense at the time, and now it could become my safe place away from prying eyes.

  “Maybe, but for now how about we have a don’t ask and don’t tell policy.”

  “Whatever you need, just don’t do anything stupid, and don’t hate her too much,” Elliot said, surprising me when a handshake turned into a manly hug full of back patting and two months of unsaid words. “It wastes too much energy better spent by being happy and getting on with your life.”

  “Hard to hate her when I still love her.” Fuck, my emotions were as tangled as a bowl full of spaghetti; anger, hate and love. I couldn’t admit the last one to my friends, but her father would understand. “I wish I didn’t, but it’s bloody hard for me to stop just because she could.”

  Elliot’s long and direct gaze told me everything I needed to know. He wanted to give me hope for the future, sprout well intentioned platitudes that she’d eventually come to her senses. Instead, he shrugged before saying with a gruffness that hid his own feelings, “Go, have fun and we’ll hold down the fort. When do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t even want to go home to pack. End of my shift okay with you?”

  With a nod, my almost father-in-law said, “Mate, I wish things could have been different. Enjoy your break.”

  The rest of the day had passed quickly as I found renewed enthusiasm to sort out the next fortnight’s work schedule, fixed up the paint orders and showed the apprentice how to deal with surface rust. Ignoring my rumbling stomach, I replaced my lunch break with self-promises of an early knock off. By three pm, my work had been delegated or finished, not that I’d given the guys much in the way of information. A few mumbled comme
nts about the Auburn shop was all they or anyone else in town needed to know.

  “I’m off, okay?” I dropped in one last time to Elliot’s office. As a courtesy, or for a final goodbye? Didn’t know and right now, the anticipation of a sweet beach and cold beer felt like the only home I needed, or wanted.

  “Any idea where you’re going?”

  “Where the beer is cold and the babes are hot and are as easy as the waves.” For a moment, we were two mates talking and the woman between us, well, wasn’t.

  “Then, son, may you get what you deserve!” I appreciated Elliot’s grace under fire, and his sense of humor. Maybe coming back wouldn’t be so bad.

  Going home only to grab my surfboard, I still hadn’t decided on where to go until my utility truck reached the t-intersection at the end of town. I’d fully expected to head south and find an old, familiar camping ground. But there wasn’t a beach or campsite for two hundred kilometres in that direction without memories of her. Bike rides, hiking, songs by the campfire. We’d fucking done it all and she’d thrown it away for a city slicker who probably didn’t even know how to change his own bloody tyre. Car or bike. Never probably serviced his own car—at that I laughed, she’d have to learn how to top up her own oil and watch the air pressure in her tyres. No daddy or boyfriend to look after her now.

  I turned north.

  Away from the memories and determined to make new ones. I drove through a dozen small towns, only stopping after three hours at the Wollongong pub because my hunger for food and beer became greater than my need to keep driving.

  A beach to the right, bar to the left and if I took the time to open my blinkered eyes, I even hoped to find a babe or two willing to scream out my name. Elliot didn’t need to know I’d been carrying around camping gear for the past week while getting the nerve to ask for time off.

  Shit. I was actually doing this.

  The camping ground across the road seemed a perfect coincidence. Rather than leave my truck in the pub carpark, I restarted the engine and headed towards the reception area. Within half an hour, my campsite selected, paid for and set up. Surfboard still attached to my truck, but I’d deal with that at stupid-o’clock tomorrow morning. Hangover permitting.