Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,100

A home.”

I have to frown to stop the tears. How many times have I asked him if we could settle over the past eleven years? Hundreds, at least. And his response was always the same. We can’t, Harp. We can’t stop running yet. Not yet. It’s not safe.

He kisses me softly and whispers into my mouth. “We’re safe now. We’re safe now.”

Two years later

Lauren is riding horses with Princess Rory, Princess Ariel, and Kate as Five calls out equestrian tips from the rail of the riding arena in Spencer and Veronica’s back-yard stable. He just got back home from his summer college program at Stanford a few days ago and can’t take his eyes off his queen for a second. In a couple years he’ll be heartbroken, because Rory will graduate from St. Joseph’s and he’ll have his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. There’s no way he can attend high school with a bachelor’s degree. I mean, he’s pretending now, and Ford and Ash let him get away with staying at St. Joseph’s because, well, he’s Five. He’s persistent. He wears them down.

He wants what his heart wants.

I understand his longing.

I long for something too.

“She is a natural,” Jax says, pointing to Lauren as she rides her pony.

“Yeah,” I agree. But I’m distracted. The party is fun. Everyone is here at Spencer’s house for Labor Day. Rook and Ronin’s daughters, Sparrow and Starling, are eating watermelon and playing patty cake. Veronica’s two other girls, Princess Belle and Princess Jasmine—Five’s nomenclature caught on. Like I said, he’s persistent—are swimming with Sydney and Merc’s three girls. Angelica is getting her hair braided by Rook, and Harper and James are teaching little Hannah, and Spencer’s son Oliver, to kick their feet in the water. All the other guys, but Jax, are sitting at the swim-up bar in the pool, watching sports. And all the other girls, but me, are tanning on lounge chairs at the water’s edge.

“What’s wrong?” Jax asks, sliding into the hammock under the giant buckeye tree. “You feel OK?”

I nod hesitantly.

“You’re lying.”

I’m not. I’m really not. And I can’t hide the smile that forms on my face as he tries to figure me out. But I don’t have any words for this. So I just take his hand and place it on my belly.

He cocks his head at me, questioning. And then we both burst out laughing.

“We win,” I say, gazing up into his eyes. And then I place a hand on his scratchy jaw and kiss him the way he kissed me that very first time. Back when I was having a very bad day and he was there to make it better. When he refused to take no for an answer and challenged me to resist him, and I realized I couldn’t. When he promised me safety and he delivered.

I wasted ten years lusting after a dream life I was never meant to live.

I won’t give up a single moment doing that again.

Because love should never be wasted.

We win.

Read other books by JA HUSS

Welcome to the End of Book Shit, fondly called the EOBS around these parts. I write these at the end of every book in place of an Author’s Note and it’s just a way for me to talk about the story and have my say without getting reamed for having an opinion on Facebook.

So if you’re new to me, hi. ;) I write these just before I have to publish. They are 100% last minute and never edited, so you might see some typos.

I think Wasted Lust was the most emotional book I’ve written to date. For sure, 321 tore me up, that ending was everything I had pictured in my head and more. But this book had characters I knew. Characters I loved. I had just met Ark, JD, and Blue in 321, so I wasn’t as invested in them and the story.

But even though I feel you can read Wasted Lust as a standalone, there’s a lot of baggage with these characters in this book. A lot of past wounds and heartbreak. A lot of loss that fills them up and changes how they see the world. And every bit of that loss and heartbreak along the way was mine too. Because these characters are real to me. I live in their heads as I write each scene. I not only know them, I AM them.

Sasha is in a lot of books. Slack, Come Back, Coming For You, one sentence about her in