The Lucky One (Carolina Connections Book 3) Read online

  The Lucky One

  A Carolina Connections Novel - Book 3

  Sylvie Stewart

  Rolling Hearts Press

  Copyright

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by the author who can be contacted at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition: 2017

  Copyright © 2018 by Sylvie Stewart

  Edited by Heather Mann

  ISBN: 978-0-9989260-0-1

  Contents

  Also by Sylvie Stewart

  1. Hello, My Name Is Satan

  2. Delicious

  3. Clichés and Chupacabras

  4. Pickles

  5. White Lies and Snowflakes

  6. Curious

  7. Irish

  8. Giving It Up

  9. The Sex Elephant and the Asshole

  10. The Great Wall

  11. It’s All French to Me

  12. Sometimes the Fall Goeth Without the Pride

  13. Sex and Conspiracies

  14. Girl Shit

  15. Only Slightly Better Than a Beheading

  16. Rule: Male Best Friends Should Not Wear Panties

  17. Signs You Might Be a Girl

  18. Insurance

  19. Signs You’re DEFINITELY a Girl

  20. Discovery

  21. The Dead Rabbit Pitch

  22. Alert: Imminent Alien Invasion

  23. These Irish Eyes Ain’t Smiling

  24. Allow Me to Hand You Your Ass

  25. Wild Horses

  26. Domestic Looks Pretty Good on Me

  27. Adam and Eve Have a Lot of Explaining to Do

  28. The Irish Godfather

  29. Grabbing Johnny’s Ass

  30. Ain’t That a Kick in the Balls

  31. Put the Sledgehammer Down and Let’s Settle This Like Adults

  32. Confessions of a Tomboy

  33. Redemption

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  The Lucky One Playlist

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from The Game

  Excerpt from The Spark

  Excerpt from The Fix

  Also by Sylvie Stewart

  Sylvie Says

  Bonus Scene

  Also by Sylvie Stewart

  The Fix - Carolina Connections Book 1

  The Spark - Carolina Connections Book 2

  The Game - Carolina Connections Book 4

  Taunted (Appearing in Tales After Midnight, a Halloween Anthology)

  Then Again (The Juniper Court Series)

  Each book can be read as a standalone novel.

  Murphy’s Law:

  Nothing is as easy as it looks.

  Everything takes longer than you expect.

  And if anything can go wrong,

  It will at the worst possible moment.

  Chapter One

  Hello, My Name Is Satan

  BAILEY

  “I swear his eyes are following me.”

  “It is a little creepy, I’m not gonna lie,” said Mark, glancing over my shoulder.

  A shiver ran down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.

  Mark took in my expression—which I’m sure was one of intense revulsion—and laughed right in my face, his straight white teeth not even attempting to bite his tongue. This was entirely unsurprising.

  Mark’s day is not complete unless he has tortured me in some way. He’s the twin brother I never had and certainly never wanted. I already have an older brother, but Mark somehow worked his way into my life and I can’t seem to get rid of him and his ridiculously bulky bod no matter how hard I try.

  Still smiling at my pain, Mark shook his head and asked, “If he freaks you out so much, why the hell did you say yes?”

  I glared at him, hands on my hips. “What in the hell was I supposed to do?! There were tears! Wet, sloppy tears!”

  This did nothing to tame his smile. “You are such a fucking pushover,” he whispered in my ear before skirting around me and approaching the creepy son of a bitch.

  “Ha!” I declared as I turned around, completely forgetting to keep my gaze averted. “Shows how much you know. I talked the kid down from a puppy!” I was actually quite proud of myself, despite my lack of forethought.

  Turns out I can’t stand lizards. Who knew? But the joyous expression on my nephew’s face and the complete cessation of all waterworks was my prize to revel in.

  Totally worth it.

  I’m sure I broke every babysitting rule in the book, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It looked like my brother and his new wife just got themselves a pet gecko.

  Whoops.

  “Okay, little man. Everything is all set up,” Mark said to a nearly-vibrating Rocco. “The light will keep him nice and warm, he’s got a good place to hide in that log, and your Aunt Bailey will show you how to feed him the crickets.” Mark’s smile turned evil as his eyes found me again.

  What in God’s name had I been thinking? To be fair, I had assumed these crickets would be dead when the twelve-year-old sales associate had pushed his glasses up on his nose and mentioned we’d need to stock up. By the time I realized we would instead be bringing home a plastic container teeming with live insects, it was too late. Rocco, my adorable nephew, had fallen in love.

  “Fist bump,” Mark requested of Rocco, whose attention was completely captured by his new pet. Rocco extended his little fist without letting his eyes stray from the tank. “Thanks, Mark.”

  “Sure thing,” Mark replied, ruffling the kid’s dark hair. Then to me, “I gotta get back to Fiona.”

  “Is she feeling any better?” I asked, leaning against Rocco’s dresser.

  “Eh, hard to say.”

  Mark looked slightly distressed at the thought, and I marveled for the umpteenth time at the transformation my once-slutty friend had undergone since meeting his girlfriend, Fiona. Gone was the arrogant manwhore and in his place was an arrogant, pussy-whipped little douchebag. Ah, it warms the heart.

  “I picked up an antibiotic for her, so hopefully that will start working soon,” he said as he gathered his things.

  I felt a sympathy pain in my throat just thinking about Fiona and her bout of strep throat. I cursed the damn virus for forcing me to step in and babysit Rocco while my brother, Nate, and his new wife, Laney, were off on their honeymoon. The same virus that, today, revealed just how ill-equipped I was to care for a child without becoming the biggest sucker known to man. “Well, tell her I hope she feels better and not to worry about Rocco—I got this.”

  Mark stopped in his tracks on his way to the door. He cocked his head, his eyebrows arching and his mouth sporting that damn smirk I wanted to knock off his stupid face. “Oh, I can see that.”

  I flipped him off, confident that Rocco’s attention was elsewhere.

  Mark’s smug cackle echoed in the hallway outside Rocco’s bedroom. “I’ll let myself out!”

  “You do that, Buffy!” Asshole.

  Damn. It was just me and the kid again.

  It’s not that I don’t like kids—I love my new
nephew. I’m just not all that comfortable around tiny humans. I think I’m always waiting for them to judge me and find me inadequate somehow.

  I’m the youngest of two kids, and I was never the babysitting type. My teen years had been spent sketching, reading, and plotting to get Nate in trouble whenever possible. And I’m a total daddy’s girl, so I never pursued anything Riordan Murphy would consider “girly,” much to my mom’s disappointment. Babysitting, makeup lessons, and trips to the mall were eschewed in favor of hanging out at building sites with my dad and rocking out to heavy metal while painting and drawing. And, although my taste in music evolved as I reached adulthood, the rest pretty much stayed the same.

  Everything I knew about taking care of a child consisted of lessons learned through trial and error over the last twenty-four hours.

  I had been minding my own damn business last night, scarfing down cold pizza and channel surfing, when my phone had rung. I’d been ready to let it go to voicemail when I saw it was my brother. I hit the accept button; I should have let it go to voicemail.

  “What in the hell are you doing calling me on your honeymoon? Did Laney come to her senses and leave your sorry ass?”

  “Oh, thank God!” Nate sounded winded.

  “What is the matter with you?” I set my pizza slice back on the paper plate and sat up on the couch.

  “Mark just called. Fiona’s got strep throat, I guess, and she’s afraid she’s going to pass it to Rocco. We need somebody else to go stay with him.”

  “So, call Mom,” I told him, shaking my head at his stupidity.

  “I already did, dumbass. She and Dad are in the Keys this week.”

  Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that.

  “So, call Gavin.” I leaned back once again, confident that I’d solved the world’s problems. Gavin is Laney’s brother, and he loves his nephew to death. He’d drop anything if Rocco needed him.

  I heard an audible sigh. “Bay, do you really think I’d be calling if I hadn’t already exhausted all other options?”

  Good point.

  “I take it Gavin’s unavailable.”

  “Everybody is unavailable! Gavin’s working, Laney’s folks are in Virginia, Mom and Dad are in Florida, Mark is taking care of Fiona and covering for me at work. And if Laney finds out, she’ll insist on flying back home and skipping our honeymoon! That is not happening.”

  “Well, not to be insensitive or anything, but what about Rocco’s actual father?”

  “Are you kidding me right now?!”

  Admittedly, it wasn’t my best idea. Rocco’s biological father lives in California. That’s one long-ass plane ride from North Carolina. As far as I know, he only sees Rocco a couple times a year. Not the best option.

  “Fine.” I sighed loudly and waited for him to rant some more as I took another bite of my pizza.

  “Think of it this way—I will owe you huge.”

  Oooh, I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I’m listening,” I mumbled over a mouthful of pepperoni.

  “You can’t get much better than that and you know it.” His voice dripped with desperation.

  “True. Okay, what do I need to do?”

  He sighed with relief. “You know Rocco—he’s easy. Mark and Fiona have all the notes Laney wrote. Just follow those and you’ll be fine. I’ll Facetime Rocco and make sure he’s feeling okay about the change. If he gets upset or worried, just call and I’ll talk to him. Fiona should be better in a few days and can take over again.” He proceeded to give me basic instructions and told me Mark would be at their house with Rocco until I could get there.

  “Enjoy the honeymoon, Romeo, because your ass is mine when you set foot on U.S. soil again.”

  “That sounds creepy, even for you, Bailey.”

  “Go call your kid.” I hung up on him and began making my mental checklist of things Nate owed me. This was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  When I pulled into Nate and Laney’s driveway a half-hour later, I spotted Fiona sitting in the passenger seat of Mark’s black pick-up truck. I parked and approached her window.

  “Knock knock!” I banged on the glass with my knuckles, startling the snot out of her. Fiona’s head snapped back into the headrest and her blond hair flew around in every direction.

  “Goddamn you!” she yelled and then grabbed her throat with both hands.

  I covered my mouth to hide my grin while she rolled the window down.

  “Just for that, I’m going to cough on you!” she said in a rasp. I backed up a step.

  “You sound like shit,” I told her.

  “Yeah, no kidding. I feel like shit too.” She smoothed her uncharacteristically messy hair and then reached for a tissue from a box on the bench seat.

  “So,” I began, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “How is Rocco feeling about having his clueless new aunt stay with him?”

  She blew her nose delicately, as only Fiona could do, and then gave me a scolding look. “Bailey, he’ll be fine. You’ll be fine too. Don’t worry so much. He’s six—it’s not rocket science.”

  Ha! Fiona is a natural with kids, and she’s known Rocco since he was a baby. I just met the kid last year when Nate started dating Laney. Granted, Rocco has become a semi-permanent fixture at my parents’ house since then, but they’re both naturals too. How did I end up missing this gene?

  “Yeah,” was the only reply I could come up with as I nervously eyed the front door of the house. “Welp, wish me luck. Hope you feel better.” I turned toward the house.

  “Just remember—you’re in charge, and ‘no’ means ‘no’! Ow,” she rasped, clearly having forgotten to take it easy again.

  “I don’t think you really understand that phrase, Fiona, but thanks!” I called back to her as I climbed the porch steps.

  And over the next twenty-four hours, I learned that “no” means many things, but not one of them is actually “no.” For example, “No, raw brownie batter can make you sick” actually means, “Let’s try it and see!” And, “No, you can’t go outside in your underwear” gets loosely translated into, “Just stay in the back yard.”

  Turns out I am awesome at saying “no,” but terrible at meaning it. If they gave out awards for being a big fat fucking sucker, I would sweep the floor with all y’all’s asses!

  So, Rocco and I came to an understanding. He would do whatever he damn well pleased and I would repeat the phrase “just don’t tell anyone” every six minutes. Which worked out pretty well until I’d come up with the brilliant plan to stop by the pet store to “just have a look.”

  What?! Nobody warned me that small humans are incapable of walking out of a pet store without some manner of little vermin to slobber all over. Thus, our current situation, which had required Mark to make a return trip to Laney and Nate’s to set up a freaking terrarium for a creepy-ass reptile. Oh, and to taunt me.

  I pushed off the dresser and sidled along the wall to keep my distance. Rocco was still transfixed by the gecko.

  “So, uh, what are you gonna name him?” I asked.

  He spared me a glance. “I dunno. What do you think we should call him?”

  “Um, Satan?” I offered.

  Rocco laughed, even though I hadn’t been joking. “Very funny, Aunt Bailey.”

  “Okay, then you come up with a better name,” I challenged, finally beginning to relax somewhat in Satan’s presence.

  Rocco quirked his lips to one side in thought and then said, “Gecko.”

  “Seriously?” I couldn’t help myself.

  “What’s the matter with that?” He was genuinely perplexed.

  “That would be like your mom naming you ‘Human,’” I explained.

  He scrunched his dark eyebrows. “Oh. Well, then you come up with something.” He shrugged.

  “Quasimodo,” I said with a smile. That right there was gold.

  “Quasi-what?” he asked, the “s” coming out as a “th” sound due to his lisp.

  So, I guess that was a no. “Well, it could be
a girl…”

  “No,” Rocco said, matter-of-factly, with a single shake of his head.

  I snickered. “Fine. Just think about it and we’ll decide later.”

  That seemed to be acceptable because Satan once again captured his attention.

  My phone vibrated in my back pocket, signaling a text. I checked to see who it was from and immediately wished I hadn’t. I blew out a breath and returned the phone to my jeans. I was operating under the theory that if I ignored the caller, he would go away.

  Before I could spare the troublesome caller more thought, I was attacked at the kneecaps by Rocco, who wrapped his arms around my legs in a giant hug.

  “What’s that for?” I asked, wondering if I was being set up for another giant babysitting fail.

  He peered up at me with huge brown eyes and an earnest look. “I forgot to say thank you for my gecko.”

  Well, shit, now I was going to have to make another batch of brownies.

  Later. Right now, my nephew needed a hug.

  Two hours later, Rocco was tucked safely into bed with the still-unnamed reptile by his side as I collapsed on the couch. This babysitting thing was no joke. I was exhausted.

  Thankfully, I only had to make it through one more day before the school week started. I was modifying my work schedule so I could get Rocco off the bus in the afternoons, but it still meant I’d have several kid-free hours to myself.