Until You

UNTIL YOU UNTIL BOOK 1 BRIAR PRESCOTT Copyright © 2023 by Briar Prescott All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locations, is coincidental. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Cover artist: Cormar Covers Editing: Kate Wood Proofreading: Heather Caryn Created with Vellum CONTENTS Before Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 After Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Blake Also by Briar Prescott Acknowledgments About the Author To Alexandra, Michelle, Kristy, Kuba, and Valentina. Without you, this book would not exist. ABOUT THIS BOOK I’m the first one to tell you I have issues. Trust issues. Family issues. Probably a few others I haven’t discovered yet. Which is why I prefer to keep my life as simple and uncomplicated as possible. Until him. Blake McAdams barrels into my life and refuses to leave. He’s relentlessly optimistic, incredibly smart, annoyingly persistent, and… wants to be friends? Because… he thinks I’m interesting? Yeah, I’ll pass. Thanks. Only, somehow, we end up doing just that. And then that friendship evolves into something more, and suddenly, I find myself navigating completely foreign territory: a relationship. But Blake has his own issues, and once the truth comes out, my simple and uncomplicated life? Turns into anything but. Before ONE Every life has a before and an after. An invisible line that divides a life into two halves: the before and the after. Catalysts vary. Small, big, seemingly insignificant at first, invisible, cataclysmic—all of them life-changing in the end. It can be anything. Getting a new job. Moving to another state. Another country. Having a baby. The guy that smiles at you in line at the bank turns out to be your soulmate. Or you might simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mole hidden in your hair turns out to be cancerous. You step onto the street at the wrong time, get hit by a car, and walking will suddenly turn into something other people do, but you can’t anymore. Maybe there’s a path mapped out for all of us, and we follow it, crossing off life events one after another until our road ends. A dead-end street on the map of life. Maybe it’s random. One of those mysteries of life. Unexpected. Unpredictable. Unexplainable. Whatever it is, however it plays out, some moments leave a permanent mark and change you forever. For better or worse? Time will tell. One day. When you look back. * * * My line was drawn when I was seventeen. I didn’t see it back then. The line is invisible while it’s being drafted. It’s only in hindsight that you can detect it, locate it, dissect it. Later, you can break it apart. Disassemble it into smaller pieces. Analyze and scrutinize. Take it apart like a puzzle and put it back together. Try to make sense of it if you’re brave enough. Ignore it if you’re not. The first dot in my line was my name. Spoken in a hushed voice in the dead of night, stopping me in the hallway, one foot in the air, frozen to the spot. “What about Jude?” Mom whispered. Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves. Sound advice. I ignored it. I’d always been too curious for my own good. I slowly put my foot down, avoiding the creaky floorboard on my left that’d gotten me in trouble before, and took two steps back until I was right next to my parents’ bedroom door. Mom sighed—a long, tremulous exhale that seemed to sweep out from the crack in the door. Goosebumps dotted my forearms, and the back of my neck tingled uncomfortably. Call it a hunch, but I had a bad feeling about this. “We promised Jude we wouldn’t move again.” There it is. My shoulders slumped, and I closed my eyes. Silent curses gathered on the tip of my tongue. My nails dug into my palms. Fucking, fucking, fuck! They were really going to do this to me again? “I know,” Dad said. “We. Promised.” “I know,” Dad repeated, patient as ever. He was the rock of the family. Always calm and steady, like one of those lighthouses that stood on a stone platform just off the coast. Battered by murderous waves for a hundred years or so, it showed no signs of crumbling. That was how I’d always thought of my dad. Infinite calm in every storm. A guiding light. Whatever problem I had, whatever trouble I got into, he was always there, ready to point me in the right direction to untangle the mess. The bed creaked, sheets rustled, and I took a step back, calculating the distance between me and the stairs. If either of them came out, could I make it into my room in time? And then what? Pretend I know nothing and act surprised when they break the news? No. Not happening. Let them find me. Let them catch me. They’d promised me. They’d promised! Promised we’d stay. Just this once. I liked Portland. Maine was cool, unlike some other places we’d lived in over the years. I wanted to finish high school here. I’d spent my whole life being the new kid, and I was so sick of it. I finally had friends. I was doing well at school. I didn’t want