Lost Years by MK Schiller
Release Date: September 16, 2019
BLURB
Ever had a dream so real it feels like a memory?
I’ve had those kinds of dreams since I was a kid. Each one of a beautiful girl, who is my best friend. We grow up together on a sunny island surrounded by water that’s as blue as her eyes. We share all our hopes and fears until we realize we belong to each other in every way one person claim another. She is my own personal serenity. Sweet story, eh?
Well forget about it.
The cold, harsh reality is that I’m a twenty-year-old, Manhattan-bred, manwhore, who uses his fists to solve his problems. The only comfort I find is inside a bottle... and the dreams. But the dreams are my illness not my cure. Just when things look the darkest, the sun slaps me square in the jaw. I spot a picture of a scenic island surrounded by the bluest water – my island.
If the island exists then so must the girl, right?
So I’m headed to Serenity, Texas to find my girl and make some sense out of the chaos that is my life. Feel free to tag along, but this journey comes with a steep warning — dreams can turn into nightmares in the blink of an eye.
My name is Jason Flynn and this is our story.
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EXCERPTS
#1
“What’s better?” I asked. “A bad mom or no mom?”
Scarlett twisted a piece of her hair. “I don’t know. Even with a bad mom there are good times. I have a handful. Probably more, if I really thought hard about it.”
“Like what?”
“Like the time I was ten, right after my dad left. She called me in sick from school even though I wasn’t. We made some fancy pancakes and painted each other’s nails and watched old movies. It was a good day. A very good day and I wanted it back again.” She put her hands over her face. “So stupid, right?”
I took her hand. “It’s not at all.” I wanted to say more. To tell her she had a heart bigger than this
island. Hell, bigger than Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.
Instead of that I said, “I saw this weed outside on your driveway and it reminded me of you.” Yes, because that was a much better thing to say.
“I remind you of a weed? Not something pretty like a flower?” She kicked my leg.
“Nope. Definitely a weed.”
She crossed her arms. “You really suck at cheering a person up, you know that?” She kicked me again and it hurt this time.
I grabbed a hold of her ankle. “Quit it. Let me explain. This weed grew out of shallow soil and broke through rocks to reach the sunlight. It survived through droughts and thunder storms and long stretches of shade.”
She tilted her head, my rambling explanation making little sense.
“Don’t you see, Scarlett, it had no nourishment, no one to tend to it, no to watch over it yet it grew strong and tall. That’s kind of beautiful in my opinion. That’s like you because you had no one. And you shouldn’t be this person you are. This sweet, courageous, loving girl who had no sun for herself, but she still manages to bring sunshine into everyone else’s life…especially mine.”
A single tear fell from her eye. “That’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
I waved it away as if I hadn’t just bared a piece of my soul to her. “So anyway, that’s why you’re the weed and not the flower.”
I’d never heard it, but it became my new favorite song. Her lips glistened and I licked my own lips. What flavor are you wearing?
People did sing along but her voice rang through, with its sassy tone. Was the song, with clear undertones of abuse, was dedicated to someone? My hands fisted.
Two other girls sang the next song with her, each taking a stanza and blending their voices, swaying their hips, snapping their fingers in rhythm. She announced it as I feel a sin comin’ on by the Pistol Annies.
She was a thing of miraculous composure, drawing energy from the crowd, and flashing them with her seductive smile, while maintaining an innate innocence––and at the same time so damn sexy.
In my peripheral, Russell swallowed hard. There were several other guys with similar reactions. I couldn’t blame them. She was beautiful beyond words…beyond dreams. But she was real.
I was a walking cliché.
Life was good.
Dreams do come true.
Everything hopeless in my world had disappeared.
Everything hopeless in my world had disappeared.
Russell made his way to her as she walked off the stage.
He picked her up and spun her around. I worked on relaxing my face into a casual smile, sure my jealousy was a bright green beacon that could be seen all the way from Houston.
Don’t fuck up.
A deep ache formed in my gut. Her laugh died when she saw me. She gasped widened as she took me in from head to toe. I could almost hear her thoughts. ‘Stop fucking me with your eyes, Flynn,’ she said.
We stared at each other with a raw intensity as if we were the only two people in the world. Russell coughed obnoxiously, breaking the spell. She exhaled, keeping her eyes fixed on me.
“Who’s you’re friend, Russ?”
“Jury’s still out if he’s my friend. But his name’s Jason Flynn. He’s Rose’s nephew.”
I took her hand, holding it tighter and longer than made sense. I could feel her pulse as my thumb slid across her wrist.
“Scarlett Jones.”
I finally had a name. Scarlett––that sounded right as I repeated it. What would I say to her in this crucial moment where flesh met fate?
“Scarlett Jones, I’m glad to finally meet you. I’ve been dreaming about you most of my life.”
A slow blush spreading across her creamy skin, making the freckles dotted across her cheek disappear for a quick beat. She laughed, a nervous high, jittery sound as her fingers slipped out of mine. Taking a step back, she placed her hand against her clavicle.
“Hope you changed the sheets after.”
Russell laugh boomed over the music.
#3
“You have talent.”
“Are you a fan of country music?”
“I’m a fan of yours, Scarlett.”
She smiled. “That’s a little smoother.”
”I’m learning.” “I take it country is your favorite kind of music?” I asked
“I love all kinds of music, but country is in my soul.” She placed a finger against her bottom lip. “Plus, whatever comes out of this mouth just sounds country.”
I smirked. “I bet country tastes delicious.”
She laughed, pointing a finger at me. “You’re dangerous. You flirt like this with all the ladies?”
I wish I could tell her no, but she deserved an honest answer. “Yes.” I wanted to take it back when her smile tightened. All those years of trading warm bodies to still my constant loneliness made me sad. She was what I’d been missing all along. “Would it make me sound more like a douche bag if I said I never meant it like I do now?”
“There isn’t enough honest in the world. Watch your step.”
“What? Too forward?”
“No, I mean stop.” She held up her arm in front of me. She took a few steps and bent down to pick something up. “Stupid tourists,” she said, throwing a plastic bucket. Then she lifted the creature underneath it and held it out to me.
“Did you know he’d be under there?” I asked, staring at the tiny turtle she held in her hands with no fear.
“Sometimes the kids think it’s funny to trap them. The mama’s lay their eggs here. When the little ones hatch, they start their journey from right here until it’s time for them to come back in a few years and lay their own eggs.
“Let me introduce you to a real-life sea turtle.”
I waved at the animal, unsure if she expected me to offer a handshake or pet its shell. She walked over to the waves, holding it up against the moonlight, like the scene from the Lion King. I would have laughed if I wasn’t in awe. “Have a safe journey, little one, and a good lost year.” She set it in the water. She rinsed her hands and stood. We watched it drift away, the waves carrying him at first until he moved with them.
“I hope he survives.” The breeze picked up strands of her hair. They circled her head like a crown…not more like a halo.
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I step closer to her. “Did you say lost year?”
“The first year of the sea turtle migration is called the lost year because no one knows what they actually do, despite all the technology we have to track them, but I have my theories.”
“What is your theory?”
Her eyes grew wistful as she looked out into the turbulent waves. Was she praying? “I think they might be searching for what’s missing. Maybe they are looking the parents, who abandoned them, or the turtle they’re supposed to make babies with. Even if they find what’s lost, they never make up the time they spent searching.”
I put my hand on the small of her back. “Maybe they’re just partying it up, having epic sex, and drinking all the time.”
She cracked a smile. “Yeah, maybe so, Jason.”
“My friends call me Flynn.”
She started walking again. “I’ll let you know when we’re friends, New York.” I winced at her statement, but I understood her need to be guarded––her emotions probably conflicting with basic logic. I’d had the same argument many times myself tonight.
None of this made sense. It was like I’d lived a lifetime with her, but we’d never met.
It was messing with my head but being on the beach with her––it was worth all the crazy.
“I look forward to that moment.”
AUTHOR BIO
Not knowing a word of English, MK Schiller came to America at the age of four from India. Since then, all she's done is collect words. After receiving the best gift ever from her parents--her very own library card--she began reading everything she could get her greedy hands on. At sixteen, a friend asked her to make up a story featuring the popular bad boy at school. This wasn't fan fiction...it was friend fiction. From that day on, she's known she wanted to be a writer. With the goal of making her readers both laugh and cry, MK Schiller has penned more than a dozen books, each one filled with misfit characters overcoming obstacles and finding true love.
AUTHOR LINKS
Website: http://www.mkschillerauthor.com
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GIVEAWAY
There is a giveaway for a $25 Amazon gift card, a signed copy of Lost Years + an ebook of choice from MK Schiller’s backlist (1 winner, open internationally)
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/ecd47fcd9
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