The Road Trip Romance

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Sophia

His hand caresses her cheek as he leans in, his lips brushing against hers.

“You’re the one. You’ve always been the one,” he says, pressing his lips firmly to hers as his hand slowly lifts the hem of her skirt.

She sighs as he deepens the kiss…

Wait, can you sigh if you’re being kissed?

She whimpers as he deepens the kiss…

Does whimper make her seem too needy?

Ugh! I push the laptop alongside the pile of laundry I should have finished folding by now. I’ve been working on this scene for days, but I can’t seem to get it right. Maybe it’s because you haven’t had sex in years! Nope, not going to fixate on that factoid.

I sigh as I stare back at the screen, rethinking the words I’ve written. Yep, she definitely isn’t sighing while her soulmate shoves his tongue down her throat.

I pick up the last shirt on the dryer top and finish folding it. Placing it on top of the mound of clothing in the basket, I knock a sock off the pile, and it falls to the floor. I pick it up with a groan.

“Seriously?” I mutter to myself. I look around my laundry room as if the matching sock will appear out of thin air before me, returned by the sock goblins. I laugh at that ridiculous thought and open the dryer. No sock. I frown. I swear to God, this is a conspiracy by sock makers everywhere, so we have to buy more socks. I open the washer and stare at the sock lying wet at the bottom.

How in the heck did I miss that? I hear movement above me, giving me my answer. As if on cue, my daughter screams, “Mom! Where are my socks? My feet are cold!” I have no idea how she could have cold feet in June. I really need to start teaching them how to do their own laundry.

Taking a steadying breath, I toss the sock into the dryer. Wait, maybe microwave it? Oven? Am I seriously about to run a dryer load for one sock?

“Mom!” Lizzie screams at the top of her lungs from the kitchen.

“I hear you!” I yell before taking a long steadying breath.

“Socks!” she reiterates. I throw the sock in the dryer. I haven’t the will to do anything else. The kids leave for my ex’s house in a couple of days. After four years of divorce, Mark and I have worked our shit out and now I can honestly say we are good friends. Even his girlfriend, Taryn, is a friend of mine. Thank God he found himself a cool woman. Maybe I will actually be able to get something clean around here while my kids are away. I take a second to remind myself that I will miss them, just not their mess caused by the copious amount of accessories that children seem to acquire…hourly.

I take another cleansing breath and head upstairs. It’s Sunday and all I want to do is hide away in my writing alcove in my cluttered kitchen and write. My day job has been so busy lately, I haven’t written as many words in my next novel as I had hoped to do. Plus, I’ve been stuck on this scene for days. But instead, I have to get dinner ready, and the kids packed.

“Cal? Did you start setting out your things for Dad’s house yet?” I ask my son as I set the basket of neatly folded laundry that will no doubt be wadded into a mess inside my kids’ suitcases in about twenty-four hours.

“Yeah…uh, in a minute,” he mumbles as I watch him playing a video game.

“Cal!” I scold.

“Mom, I swear I’ll do it in a minute. I’ve almost got to the next level,” he whines, not even looking in my direction.

“Fine, fifteen minutes,” I state, deciding this fight isn’t worth my time. I turn to my daughter who is coloring in a…wait a minute…adult coloring book that I got at a signing from an author friend of mine. I grimace. Oh, crap. That’s not a child-appropriate coloring book.

“Lizzie, can you help me start dinner?” I say as I try to distract her. She looks up at me from the far side of the table.

“Mom, what’s omega?—”

“Let’s finish this later. We really need to start dinner. I’ll help you clean this up,” I interrupt, grabbing the coloring book that she clearly nabbed from my desk while trying to toss crayons into a plastic container.

She glares at me and crosses her arms. “Mom, I wasn’t done.” When did my cute little girl turn into a sassy seven-year-old? I glance at Cal. Hell, he looks more like a pre-teen every day. I miss when they were little.

“I know. You can finish later. Let’s get going. You can microwave some corn,” I offer as though that’s going to appease her.

She rolls her big blue eyes. “Can’t I chop something?” Her eyes flicker to my knives and then to the scar on her finger.

I give her a knowing look.

“Mommmm! It’s been like two years. I can do it,” she protests.

“Fine, but not until I get these clothes upstairs. Just give me five minutes. Finish putting the crayons away,” I say with yet another sigh as I lift the basket back up and start toward our bedrooms.

I ponder what the heck I’m doing with my life as I place all the clothes in their drawers. I had so many lofty goals once upon a time. I was going to travel. I was going to write a bestselling novel and have it made into a movie.

I love my kids with all my heart, but somewhere along the way of getting married, working crazy hours at my job, and becoming their mom, I lost myself. And I know I’m still in here somewhere, but sometimes, it just seems impossible to spend any time doing the things I really want to do.

I put the empty clothes basket in my closet and stare at a framed photo on my wall. It was the last time I remember feeling truly carefree. I was twenty-one and went to visit my best friend in France for a week. She was studying abroad. I couldn’t afford to do that, but I could afford a plane ticket.

My eyes dart from the photo to the mirror on my left and I stare at my reflection. I don’t look anything like that young woman. My body looks like a body that’s carried two babies. Wrinkles are starting to form on my face. There are bags under my eyes.

My phone buzzes, distracting me from critiquing my appearance, and I pull it from my pocket. Anissa. How do best friends know? It’s like some weird sixth sense.

I pick up and put the call on speaker as I walk into the kids’ bathroom and start putting some of their stuff that I know Mark won’t have into a bag.

“Beotch! You totally need to come visit me. These island men…holy fuck, girl! I am telling you, the sex is just…wow,” she starts.

I quickly take the call off speaker and hold the phone to my ear. “Anissa! The kids,” I hiss.

She laughs and immediately I know she’s had at least two margaritas. I spent nearly four years living with her, I know all her laughs.

“Whatever, when do they go to Mark’s? Can you get plane tickets?” she asks.

Part of me wants to say yes. But I have so much to do. I need this alone time to try and work on my book, clean, and definitely work out or have a spa day or something.

“I don’t know, Nis. There’s so much going on,” I explain as I lean against the bathroom sink and really look at my face. I look tired. And I hate that I look tired. Maybe I do need a trip.

“Oh, come on. At least think about it,” she prods, and I hear her laugh at something someone is saying, a male voice.

“Nis, you sound busy. Call me back later. We’ll catch up,” I suggest.

“Boo! You better seriously think about it, or I’ll come up there and kick your ass,” she says with a giggle.

I shake my head as I try to fight a smile. Even when she’s annoyingly drunk, she can make me laugh.

“Fine. I’ll think about it,” I agree as I grab the bag of medicine and Cal’s new favorite soap.

“Great! Love you, gotta go,” she says, and I hear the male voice again before she hangs up and I’m left staring at the phone.

I notice a missed text from Mark confirming when he’ll pick the kids up and then I see a missed call from my agent, Marta Garcia, or Marti as she prefers to be called.

I sit down on Cal’s bed, tossing the bag of things from the bathroom in his empty suitcase, and call her back.

“Are you sitting down?” she answers. I roll my eyes. Marti always asks me this, no matter what she’s calling about. I love the woman, and the little bit of income I get from writing is mostly thanks to her persistence, but her personality is so big that sometimes I feel like an ant in her presence.

“Yep,” I state, letting the “p” pop.

“I have no idea why, but guess whose agent just asked for your address?” she asks and then dramatically pauses.

I frown. What the hell is she talking about?

“You want to guess? You’ll never guess. Like seriously, you could guess for ten years, and I bet you wouldn’t guess, fine, maybe like for a year, but you are not going to guess,” she says, the words running together as she speaks.

“I get it. I’m not going to guess. Who?” I ask as I imagine maybe another more famous author wanting to see if I’ll ghostwrite or something like that.

She squeals and I hold the phone away from my face.

“Marti? Who the hell wants my address?” I ask again.

“Tate Anders!” she screams.

Now, the words make sense. I know who Tate Anders is. Hell, everyone on the planet knows who he is. My mind immediately envisions his washboard abs and those biceps that say, “Yes, I can pick you up and throw you over my shoulder with one arm.” And his icy blue eyes and chiseled jawline. I feel myself starting to grow hot just thinking about him. What did the last interviewer say to him? Oh yes, “Every woman wants you, and every man wants to be you.” I feel my eyes begin to roll at the cliché statement. But why would a man like that want my address?

“Sophia? Are you listening?” she asks, breaking me from my trance.

“I’m confused. Tate Anders? As in the movie star?” I confirm with a frown because my brain cannot compute what she’s saying.

“Yes! The one and only. Apparently, he read your last book and loved it. Maybe he wants to send you something? He’s dating Lacey Collins, right? Doesn’t her friend Camille have a book-club thing? OMG! Maybe they want to put your book in the book club?” she muses, and I can practically hear her salivating over the idea of famous actresses wanting to promote my book.

“Maybe,” I mimic as I again try to fathom why this man would want my address.

“So, I might have given her your home address,” Marti says sheepishly. I keep a post office box for my author work. Occasionally, I’ve used my home address for contracts and such, but it surprises me she’d give it out without asking.

“Marti!” I admonish.

“Sorry, but it was Tate effing Anders!” she protests. “I mean, this is a man who has won two Oscars! Two!”

“And you don’t know why he wants it?” I ask.

“Oh, I asked. But Carol, his agent, had no idea. He just asked her to get it for him,” she says as if Tate’s agent and she are on a first-name basis.

“Well, maybe he’ll send me something,” I guess.

“I mean, who knows, right? Considering everything that happened with him this week…” She trails off.

I frown. “What happened?”

“Do you live under a rock?” She pauses, but I don’t reply. “He had a meltdown at this charity thing. He got in a big fight with the director of his last film,” she explains.

I pull up my phone and search his name. Story after story appears. Photos of a very angry Tate Anders fill my screen. Well, that’s not good for him.

“Darn. He really lost his shit,” I state as I watch a video play. I click off it, deciding to listen later.

“Yeah, totally,” she agrees.

“Guess we’ll see what he sends,” I say as I run my finger over a dresser top and see the dust on it. Ugh! One more thing to clean.

“Let me know what it is,” she demands, and I know she is going to lose sleep over guessing what it could be.

“Yep. Will do,” I reply as I walk into my hallway.

“How’s the manuscript coming?” she asks about my latest work in progress.

“It’s…coming,” I lie, well, it’s a white lie because I did write a chapter three weeks ago and I was just contemplating three entire sentences today.

“I bet,” she says, and I can practically hear her smirk at her sophomoric humor.

I shake my head. Deciding not to respond to that, I look at my phone. Damn. I need to get back downstairs before Lizzie chops off her finger. “I need to go make dinner. I’ll give you a call next week,” I add as I head back to the kitchen.

“Sounds good,” she says, and I hang up and shove my phone back in my pocket.

What in the world could Hollywood’s it man possibly want with me? I look in the mirror by my front door and chuckle at myself. Nothing. He probably doesn’t want anything other than to say his latest girlfriend liked my book and wants a signed copy. Yep, that’s got to be it.