Life in a Rut, Love not Included (Love Not Included series Book 1) Read online

  Life in a Rut, Love Not Included

  Copyright © 2014 by J.D. Hollyfield

  Life in a Rut, Love not Included is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Life in a Rut, Love not Included is a registered trademark of J.D. Hollyfield.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

  Cover Design: Yocla Designs

  Edited by: Michelle Josette

  Formatting by Champagne Formats

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by J.D. Hollyfield

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  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

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books by J.D. Hollyfield

  Love Not Included Series

  Life Next Door, Book 2

  WAKING UP IS HARD to do . . . Or wait, is it waking up or breaking up? Either way, I get to do both.

  I am at the best part of the most amazing dream of my life. This hot brute of a dream man is working his way up my body, tasting every part of me. I can practically feel myself squirming in my sleep. His hot tongue brushing against my navel is going to make me wake up screaming. My dream man takes his strong hands and works his way up my stomach to grab at my breasts and squeeze. His head dips to my breast and I can feel his breath over my nipple. Oh god! This is about to get good. He works his magic on B #1 then transports his sexy mouth to B #2. I arch my back to give him better access. I’m pretty sure if someone is watching me sleep right now, they’ll think I’m having an exorcism.

  After his dirty assault on my breasts, he lifts his head and slithers his way up my body. I can feel his gigantic hard self on my belly. Holy rock of a man, he is hard everywhere! The thought that I am about to have some mind-tingling hot and sweaty dream sex is going to send me into oblivion. My brute lover lowers his head and presses his mouth to my neck. I hear him speak my name as he works his way to my earlobe with his lips. Oh god! He is sucking on my earlobe. I love that mouth of his . . .”Sarah,” he whispers, and bites sensually on my shoulder. This may be better than any foreplay I have experienced in real life, and I am soon about to explode.

  “Sarah . . .” There it is again. My name.

  I hear him repeat my name but unfortunately this fantasy is soon becoming a nightmare as I swear his voice is sounding more like my mother’s.

  Focus, Sarah. I attempt to cling onto whatever his name is—no need to exchange real names, as this is in fact only my dream.

  “Sarah . . .” There it is again!

  Ignore! Ignore! Ignore!

  “Stay focused,” my inner voice whispers to me. It’s about time I get this moving along, because I have a feeling things are about to get real, real fast. I wrap my legs around my hunky dream man and attempt to guide him toward my warm spot. I feel his strong arms wrap around me. His soft breath hits my ear, and just as he is about to push home, he whispers, “It’s not you—”

  “SARAH! Get up, you’re going to be late to pick up Aunt Raines!”

  And Bam!

  Reality.

  My life.

  Once again, I awake to a pitiful reality. My name is Sarah Sullivan and I am stuck in a rut, and it’s called my life. I am thirty-one years old and I have a feeling at some point in my life I may have taken a wrong turn. I can’t even seem to have a dream without it interacting with reality and ruining what “could have been.”

  I haven’t always been this pathetic. Up until three months ago, I had a boyfriend, a best friend, a killer job and a beautiful life. I had purpose. I had things figured out. Or at least I thought I did. I guess I was a victim of being blind to the world outside my perfect little bubble. It’s scary how easy it is to get so wrapped up in your own bubble of life that you fail to see what’s really going wrong on the outside. Sad to say, apparently everything was going wrong outside of mine.

  I mean, geez, where should I start?

  Well, I guess we’ll get the most hated out of the way first: the ex-boyfriend. The one and only Mr. Steve Hamilton. Precious Steve Hamilton, Vice President of Marketing—also known as the son of the President/Owner—at Hamilton Corp, the most prestigious advertising agency in Chicago. I would like to refer to him henceforth as the Golden Jerk.

  Okay, now that we have his title defined, let’s take a walk down memory lane and see how the Golden Jerk took part in popping my little bubble.

  The beginning of the end started seven years ago when my life actually caught that “lucky break” people talk about. Everyone wishes for the day when they finally have everything they’ve ever wished for, and gladly pat themselves on the back for making it happen. That was me. At twenty-four, and semi-fresh out of college, I not only landed a killer advertising job in Chicago, I also landed the gorgeous son of the president of said advertising firm.

  Insert Steve Hamilton.

  Steve was everything a girl dreamed of. He was tall—an impressive six-foot-two—with broad shoulders, silky blond hair and to-die-for eyes. I can still picture myself staring into those golden-brown eyes, thinking I was the luckiest girl alive. Gag . . .

  Okay, moving on.

  Working closely together on projects, Steve and I hit it off in no time. It didn’t take long for him to pursue me and for me to give in, more than willingly. We were dating in a matter of weeks from our first meeting. There was no better feeling than when Steve would put his arms around me and nibble at the baseline of my neck, whisper how much he adored the touch of my skin and how much he loved me. Our personal lives were the same. I had a great apartment with my roommate and best friend, Stacey, and he had an insanely expensive condo in the ritziest neighborhood in downtown Chicago. As it goes, each place had held each other’s toothbrushes, our clothes filled each other’s drawers, and frames scattered around filled with the happiest times of our life together. We were in love. We even got to work together and spend crazy amounts of time with one another and luckily enough, even combine our friend groups. I had a great best friend, which meant now, so did he. Life
was perfect.

  Yeah, of course, after a while things did slow down a little. But whose relationship doesn’t? Years passed and things grew calm. Steve got a bit more controlling, sure, but who wouldn’t in his position? Being at the top of a company, it was important that he kept appearances. His assertiveness and demands on my looks were always a must. Letting Steve down in a public setting was never an option. If one did not perform, Steve made sure there were consequences. It was hard at times being the girlfriend of the man on top. But no one is perfect. I was still crazy in love with Steve and was always hoping in the back of my mind that one day he would ask me those four special words every girl waits to hear . . . But he never did and I was patient so I continued on with life as usual, maintaining the status quo.

  Our routine.

  Before I get too far ahead of myself though, let’s introduce the second most hated person on my list.

  Insert former roommate, former best friend, Stacey Gibbs.

  After college, I was in deep search of a roommate. Luck had it that after an extensive search on Craigslist, I found Stacey. Turns out we were a friendship match made in heaven. In no time, we were bunking in a gorgeous apartment together, embarking on a new Best Friend’s Forever life. Now, if you thought Steve and I sounded inseparable, then double that with Stacey and me. We had to have been separated at birth. Not that we looked anything alike. Stacey wore the perfect shade of shoulder-length blonde hair, with model thin legs and a killer body, and perfect peaches-and-cream skin that illumined her natural tones. She didn’t have to wear makeup to have men drop dead over her, but she loved makeup so anything she did made her look even more flawless.

  Stacey also came from money and had that rich blood in her. No worries for me, because she was a sharer and she wanted her best friend to also indulge in the finer things. Money was never an issue as long as we were together. Enter stage left: my new wardrobes and new appreciation for silk and the word Prada. We were two girls having the time of our lives, with youth and beauty and money to boot.

  Things couldn’t have been better. I had to admit that if someone asked me about those years of my life, I would have been able to say that I had everything I had ever wanted. Steve loved me, and I loved him. I had Stacey, the sister I’d always wanted, and I was quickly working my way up the ladder at Hamilton Corp. I was living out my dream of being successful, in love and happy. I looked good, I felt good, and I even had that blissful little skip to my step.

  That skip turned into a fumble and then a smack and a pop to my perfect bubble, when my happy little life came to a screeching halt. They don’t lie when they say that your life can change in the blink of an eye. Because literally I blinked, and my life was gone. All’s it took was me coming home early one day to my perfect swanky apartment to find my perfect boyfriend and my perfect best friend in my perfect bed together. I don’t think I have to go too much into what happens next. Pretty much delete the perfect boyfriend, perfect friend, perfect apartment and later, perfect job out of my equation and add three months of solitude, and here I am.

  It has been three months since my bubble exploded, and I mean with a Boom! Bam! POW!

  As in a SPLAT! In my face. If you look closely enough, I think I might still have pieces of bubble stuck to my skin . . . Or my pride, either way. I had to crawl home to my parents, who definitely did not see this coming since they turned my room into one of those storage rooms where Home Shopping Network junk goes to die.

  So, to sum up, I am boyfriend-less, jobless, friendless and lifeless. And since we’re being honest here, you can add depression to that long list as well.

  “SARAH! This is the last time I am going to call your name, then I am sending your father in there to revive you!”

  Oh great, not Dad. Have you ever been fully woken up by a retired Navy commander? I brace my ears with a pillow wrapped around the back of my head.

  “I’m up, geez, call off the guards!” I moan. It’s not like I can sit here and stare at my ceiling much longer anyway. My dream man has faded into the abyss of my subconscious, and he was probably about to break up with me anyway. Go figure. I throw my legs off my bed and begin my descent to stand. “Today is going to be a better day,” I tell myself. “Today I will shower. I will brush my hair. I will do something positive . . .”

  Humph!

  Apparently I am too busy with my “Go get ’em” speech to realize I have my sheet wrapped around my leg and so I end my lecture with a face full of carpet.

  Yep, this is my life.

  I officially take my speech back.

  I start to crawl back into bed, since that’s obviously where I should have stayed to begin with. Of course, I miss my calling, as my door flies open. And here pops in dear old Dad.

  “Soldier! You heard your mother! Now, your Aunt Raines is waiting promptly at the airport at eleven hundred hours. You will obey your mother and complete this task. Living here is not your free ride . . .”

  “Ugh. I’m up, Dad. Thanks for reminding me of my life success,” I groan.

  Apparently he is not done. “I raised you to be a strong individual, Sarah. I worked for this country so you can have a fair life and a strong education. I did not raise you to be thrown around by a man of no dignity and have you run back home to hide,” he continues, standing firmly in my doorway. “And again, I am still waiting on the explanation of why you decided to quit a very lucrative position at that firm. I didn’t raise you to back down, especially because of a man. Use your brain, not your heart. How many times—”

  “THANK YOU, Dad! I’m up and this is only going to delay me picking up Aunt Raines!” I not so sweetly belt out while pushing him out of my door gently but in a thirteen-year-old get-out-of-my-room sort of way. I’m thirty-one and living at home being lectured by my parents, so I might as well act like a thirteen-year-old.

  Having to explain to my parents that I was dumped by my high-profile boyfriend was one thing. Having to tell them I quit my job abruptly was another. I think it was the “I need to move back home just until I get myself back on my feet” speech that really threw them. I was like any striving teenager right out of high school. I wanted out. I went to college practically running, because it meant getting out of my parents’ house and reach. I was a suffocating “young adult” who needed to live on her own and experience life and create a resume for herself so she could use those credentials to define her ambitions and be huge!

  I graduated from the University of Illinois with a 3.9 GPA in Marketing and a hefty hangover. Then again, what was college for, if not to experience boys and binges? I worked nights at a popular bar and saved my money, knowing the second I stepped foot off that campus I was going to start my life. On my own. And I was definitely, most certainly, not going back home.

  I set up roommate wanted ads on the Internet before I left school since let’s be honest, I was a bartender, not a pole dancer, so living the life I wanted on my own was a little higher up from where I was on my accomplishment list. But it only took four scary interviews—one who didn’t even speak English, which I actually debated wouldn’t be such a bad thing—before I found Stacey, a.k.a. Boyfriend Stealer. The Stacey who turned out to be a huge game-changer in my life.

  As I mentioned earlier, Stacey had come from a wealthy family of high-bred heritage. She was an only child and, like me, she shared the urge to run fast out of her parents’ home and live on her own. As her family wanted her to commute from home, she chose to take her chances and find a place on her own. Stacey was originally from New York; her family moved to Chicago since her father was opening up a new branch of family banks. The life of the rich I guess. When Stacey saw my ad on Craigslist she also admitted to friendship love at first sight. We had clicked immediately and talked for hours before moving in together so it felt like we had known each other for years by the time we actually took the plunge. We found a swanky apartment on the Upper North Side of Chicago, just big enough to fit all of our stuff (well, her stuff, since her fam
ily insisted she own the best appliances, furniture and electronics possible). I would have had to sell all my organs to afford a week’s worth of rent at our place, but what Stacey wanted, Stacey got. Really.

  The apartment was something out of a magazine. Our furniture was all top of the line. Stacey was obsessed with purple so of course she convinced me that the purple velvet set would look fantastic. It was also her money and if she wanted to spend $7,000 on sofas then I wasn’t going to stop her. We had a spacious kitchen that was, again, top of the line. Not sure why we needed two ovens, since I’m pretty sure Stacey had never cooked a meal in her life, but I loved it since I came from a homely background and cooking was a hobby I’d always enjoyed. Skimming over the obviously gigantic flat screen TVs and the expensive framed artwork that hung on the walls, we also both had our own master bed and bath. As a perk of being Stacey Gibbs’ roommate and new best friend, I received a four-poster king sized bed, which she insisted I complement with a purple and gray down comforter duvet. She herself had a similar setup; Stacey insisted that everything match.

  Both suites came with a wall of ceiling-to-floor windows looking out on a stunning view of downtown Chicago. At night, the lights from the skyscrapers would illuminate my bedroom. Everything in the apartment was covered in Persian tile or marble. My bathroom itself was draped from counter to shower with pure luxury. I remember thinking if times ever got tough I would just start chipping away at my bathroom sink for cash.

  It was surreal. I was twenty-four years old and on my own. It felt like a breath of fresh air—even fresher since it wasn’t a college campus and the smell of puke didn’t permanently linger no matter how hard you scrubbed. Who would have thought that I would be living on my own, in one of the greatest cities in the world?!

  I won’t lie, at first I was a bit worried about the financial differences between us. Now, I was not raised from money. Having a naval commander as a father, I was taught strict rules about how far a dollar could be stretched. Living with Stacey, it was a bit unnerving to see her blow money like it was water. Well maybe not water. That’s not so free nowadays either. Let’s just say she liked to spend, and she liked to share.