I'm classier than that. And, guess what? It's here too.
Cheap Lies is the prequel to Cheap Guitars, and my entire Cheap series, really. I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't read CG (and what the hell, man? XD), then I don't want to spoil one of the major events in the story. Gwen, however, is Brandon's sister, and it follows her just the few short moments before she makes a decision that changes everyone else's lives. It also has Gwen, and Mae Davenport, in college in New York.
Those girls are crazy.
I love them.
Without further ado, here it is:
Prologue
Take a chill pill.
Gwen threw the lid from her bottle of Sailor Jerry’s onto the coffee table next to the small bag of Valium. She stared at the bag, shook her head, and poured herself three shots into her brother’s set novelty Star Wars shot glasses.
Brandon had no idea how much she wanted those pills.
She knocked back her first drink.
It would be easy for her. She did it all the time before when she needed to calm her nerves while she still lived in New York. She depended on those tiny white pills once, and it would be no problem for her to start again.
Ignore everything, including the pills, she told herself. She didn’t need either. What she wanted to do was to relax and enjoy her time alone in the house, something not easily done when she lived with her younger brother and her daughter.
Jay: Baby, I’m coming back home.
Gwen: No, ur not.
Jay: Don’t u love me?
“Screw this,” Gwen said. She threw her phone. It landed somewhere on the floor next to the coffee table.
She told Jay to stop texting and calling her. He never quite grasped that she sometimes needed time to herself. She couldn’t get him to understand why they ended their relationship. It made Gwen sick to her stomach.
She needed to finally let Jay know the truth, but she didn’t know how to without his anger getting the best of him. He couldn’t come back to Kentucky. Since he left, it was like she could finally breathe. She had her freedom back. Amy was happier, and so was Gwen. It would be amazing if Elise and Brandon could work out their crap, but what could she really do for them? If Jay finally knew the truth about Amy’s birth certificate then maybe he could move on. That is, if he didn’t turn into a raging bipolar asshole.
Gwen sadly expected nothing less from him.
Loud, frantic knocking made her spill her fucking drink.
“Fuck!” she yelled, standing.
The knocking continued. Gwen didn’t want to answer the door. She told everyone not to bother her. Neal respected her wishes. Brandon tried calling her, but she couldn’t stand him and his drama with Elise any longer. That’s when she kicked him out of his own house. Neal, their younger brother, at least had the decency to know when she needed an adult time-out; one that included a lot of soap opera binging and drinking.
No one knew about the pills.
“Who is it!?” she yelled, not sorry for sounding bitchy for one moment.
“Charlie!”
Shit.
Gwen quickly grabbed the pills and stuffed them in her bra. Why the hell had Charlie decided to show up? They hardly talked much anymore. He barely looked at her whenever she worked at the auto shop and usually barked orders about whatever he needed like some kind of Neanderthal.
“What?”
“Whoa,” Charlie said. “Brandon wasn’t kidding when he said you’re in a bad mood.”
“And you think pointing this out to me right away is a good reason why…?” she asked.
Charlie hardly aged a day in the past six years. If anything, being out of the army softened him up, but he still had thick, muscled arms. Gwen would willingly bet her next paycheck from the shop that he still had a six pack too. He wore his hat from the army now and bits of his brown hair rebelliously escaped. He no longer wore the buzz cut. Gwen almost wished he would because that might make him less appealing, she thought, as she looked up at him. He stood a solid six feet compared to her tiny five-foot-four and ass that didn’t seem to want to relinquish the baby fat.
He took the hat off and shuffled his feet. Gwen couldn’t remember a time she ever saw Charlie get nervous, but his hair had gotten too long, and slid through his fingers like butter. She wondered what he would do if she ran her fingers through it. Was it really soft like she thought?
“I wanted to talk.”
“I’ve lived back in Kentucky way longer than you have,” Gwen said, unwilling to tone down her snark. “You barely say five words to me unless it’s to bark orders about ordering a part for a car.”
“I—I know that.”
Stammering? Gwen thought. Her shoulder dropped; she hadn’t realized how stiffly she stood in the entrance.
“What’s up, Charlie?”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Brandon and Elise keep acting like morons, but I keep wondering if we aren’t doing the exact thing.”
“No,” Gwen said. “Don’t go there.”
“Gwen, I’m in love with you.”
She slammed the door in his face.
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