Homecoming
(Love Michaelson, Book 1)
by Jackie Sexton
Genre: New Adult Romance
What he wouldn’t give to know her. To tell her that her art saves him everyday.
Ariane Michaelson is always the quiet girl in the room, the one that her kooky mother and three sisters lovingly call the wallflower. After graduating from college she finds it more than a little difficult to find the graphic design job of her dream...or any job, really. She’s more than given up on painting, and a terrible run-in with her twin sister’s fiancé makes each day harder to keep a life altering secret.
Liam Ashdown was just the moody small town nobody, with one friend and a busted pickup—until he moved to LA. Spotted by famous actor and producer Michael Jennings during a late night shift at the bar, Liam is transformed seemingly overnight into Tinsel Town’s hottest bad boy. The life Liam once knew is turned upside down with models and mayhem...and there isn’t much down time in-between.
The only thing that keeps him sane is the paintings. Beautiful ocean portraits that remind him of home, painted years ago by some friend of a friend.
What he wouldn’t give to know her. To tell her that her art saves him everyday.
The engagement of his childhood friend, Todd, brings him back home to Craryville, to deal with a drug-addicted mother and an ailing grandmother. But it also brings him hope—somewhere in the bridal party is the woman who has been his calm and respite in the storm of fame.
The only question is, can she save him?
Ariane read the email one more time just to be sure she was seeing things right. It was just so curt and nonchalant that she could hardly believe it was real.
Barcelona’s great! BTW, I know it’s been hard to set a time to chat—sorry. I’ve been thinking for a while that we should see other people. Let me know what you think!
Drew
Ariane could feel the tears well up in her eyes as she moved between the email and Drew’s profile picture on Facebook, his arms around two svelte girls in bikinis, grinning broadly at the camera as the waves lapped at their bare heels.
She looked down at her own wide chest and her hips, which were spread out against her chair, making them appear to be twice as large as they were. She had come to accept her curves and even like them, but she wondered suddenly if Drew had always wanted her to be different, smaller.
Or maybe that wasn’t even it. Maybe she never even had a chance because he wanted a girl that spoke to him like her voice was made of music, foreign and entrancing and filled with all the mysticism she assumed American girls just couldn’t have.
She whimpered and dropped her head on the keyboard as she fought back the tears.
You were only dating him for five months anyway, get yourself together! she scolded herself. But even still, as she peeked up at the picture at his adorable grin and tanned skin, she couldn’t help but feel like she had lost the guy that could have been the one.
And the only thing that she had written back so far was a bunch of random letters and symbols, courtesy of her forehead.
Which, she realized as her heart sank in her chest, she had accidentally sent to him.
“No!” she cried, wishing more than anything that she could take it back. “Delete! Delete!”
“Is everything okay?” her twin sister Isabella asked, pushing the door open slightly so that it creaked a little.
“Oh, um, yeah,” Ariane chirped a little too quickly, turning around to give Isabella a big, phony smile.
“Okay, bullshit,” Isabella replied, pointing at the picture of Drew and the two model-thin girls in paradise.
“What did that idiot do this time?”
“He’s not...” Ariane stopped herself. She had spent so much of her energy and time defending this guy that she wondered if it was even worth it anymore. None of her friends liked him, and there was no way that she should be on his side if he just effectively dumped her.
Yet the urge was there.
Drew was intelligent, handsome, and on his way to a great job once he finished up his degree in information technology. Sure, he could be pretentious at times, and he wasn’t very interested in her friends, but he was the kind of guy that made you feel safe. He was the kind of guy you could imagine a future with.
She knew that as a Michaelson girl she had to be careful.
“Ariane, I’m going to find out sooner or later so you might as well just spit it out.”
Isabella stepped inside of the dark cave of a room and turned on the light.
“Okay, fine. Drew wants to see other people. Are you happy?”
Isabella’s face faltered. She could tell for a moment that her sister’s thin lips aspired to curl upwards, but her green eyes filled with sympathy, and she crossed the room with her arms outstretched.
“Forget him,” she said, pressing Ariane’s face to her chest and kissing her shorter sister’s head. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
Ariane let the tears stream down her face onto Isabella’s shirt and let go. She always felt so lucky to have a twin, even if they were different as night and day. Ariane was the more timid of the two and always felt like wallpaper when she went out with her sister, who was the louder, more sociable twin. They even looked completely different; Ariane was short and curvy, with dark hair and an olive complexion, and Isabella was almost half a foot taller, with strawberry blond curls and lean limbs dotted with freckles. The only thing they had in common were their piercing green eyes.
“Sorry I’m being a baby,” Ariane mumbled, “he was just my first real boyfriend, you know?”
“I know,” Isabella replied, petting her hair slowly. Then she pulled away and sank to her knees and held Ariane’s hands tightly in her lap. “We have to clean up the apartment for Amber’s birthday party. I bet getting ready for it will put you in a good mood.”
Ariane nodded, forcing herself to smile and wiping the pathetic tears off her face. “I know, Izzy. But I was going to go to the library to look over my resume tonight—”
“Your resume is perfect. How many times can you look it over anyway?”
“Well, I still haven’t found a job...” Ariane winced. “So probably not enough.”
“No one is running you from your job at Atomic Bean,” Isabella pointed out, referring to Ariane’s job as a barista at the local coffee shop. Though it wasn’t a graphic design job, she had held a position there since the semester before she graduated, and it paid the bills.
“Come on. If you stay here you’ll just stare at that dumb picture until your eyes shrivel up and fall out of your head. You need to get out and drink. Doctor’s orders.”
Ariane couldn’t help but laugh at the playful prescription. “Fine, okay. I’ll get dressed.”
“You’re going to wear the purple dress with the blue flowers on it.” Isabella stood up and placed her hands on her hips, giving her a knowing look. “I don’t want to see you in sweats.”
“I wouldn’t wear sweats to a party,” Ariane scowled, even though she knew she had done it at least once when she was frazzled after midterms.
“Right,” Isabella rolled her eyes and walked towards the door. “Remember, the purple dress. We’re leaving in twenty.”
Ariane shook her head as the door closed behind Isabella. It was so like her sister to start bossing her around moments after trying to comfort her. That was her way of showing love to her “little” sister. No matter how many times Ariane pointed out that four minutes was not much of an age gap, Isabella insisted it was just enough.
Still, she is right. I do need to get out of this apartment, Ariane realized as she looked at the picture of Drew one last time. She remembered what her mother had told her since she was a young girl. She said that you never really knew a man until he didn’t love you anymore.
Michaelson girls have to be careful, she would follow that with. We’re not good with love.
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She is an avid reader and writer of steamy, paranormal romance. She loves dreaming up new worlds about brave (and slightly neurotic) heroines, and hunky, lovable heroes. She also loves dark chocolate and Chihuahua pups like nobody’s business!
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