The FBucket List Read online

  The FBucket List

  By

  Lena Fox

  Romance and Ruin

  Part One

  The FBucket List By Lena Fox

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A Thank You to My Readers

  Copyright Information

  Chapter One

  Georgina

  I have very few memories of my mother. Few good ones at least. I mostly remember the days when she was dying.

  Before that, she was a fulltime career woman. Dad was the one who was home the most, who took care of me and did all the playing and cooking and teaching. But he was terrible at keeping the house clean. So, once a week, on my mom’s day off, she would put on her favorite music loud enough to make the neighbors complain, and we’d have a cleaning party. Just the two of us, dancing and giggling as we wiped and scrubbed and swept the house clean. I was probably only four years old, but that was one memory that I still held. The memory of her carrying me on her hip as she twirled around, singing into the broomstick like it was a microphone, came with such painful clarity it brought the sting of tears to my eyes.

  The music pounding through the club now was a newer song, a hit from a couple of years back that everyone knew the words to. The room was filled with competing voices shouting out of tune.

  Let us live forever,

  Or let us die together,

  Without you, what is life for?

  That teen pop-star died young of an overdose not long after her song hit the charts.

  I shuddered and gave myself a mental slap.

  Stop thinking about death.

  I probably should be more focused on the man kissing me.

  He leant into me and my back rubbed against the wall. Grimy posters scraped my skin and from them I could smell decades old cigarette smoke, feel it sinking into my hair and flesh.

  The man’s lips were firm, demanding. My mouth opened under his and he delved in. I wrapped my tongue around his, tasting bourbon and a tangy, smoky flavor from the barbecue crisps he had been eating. My heartbeat tap danced in my throat. Nerves made me question my every action, but my mouth seemed to know what to do, as though it was made for kissing and had just been waiting for this moment.

  The sensations of his lips against mine made my scalp tingle and I wrapped my hands around his neck as I relaxed, embracing the experience, letting it go on and on.

  I wanted to explore those sensations, hold on to the moment for as long as possible, but eventually I had to come up for air.

  When I did, I got a proper look at his face for the first time. He was a nice-looking guy, with a mess of curly black hair, and hooded eyes. He wore a pair of ultra-skinny jeans, a well-tailored shirt, and a smart black tie that contrasted against his roughed up old skate shoes.

  The way he gazed at me, eyes wide and lips curled into a sweet and confused smile, made me wish I hadn’t looked. My imagination started playing out dreams of more romantic encounters with him, dates we could go on, kisses we could share. A future.

  I shut it down fast. None of those things could happen. He was just an item on The List. I could never even know his name.

  I turned and walked away.

  He yelled after me. The music swallowed his voice, but I heard “tease” or one of those other words that are supposed to make women feel bad when we don’t go the whole way. It only made me feel more certain that leaving was what I had to do. He didn’t get to decide what part of my list he ticked off—I did.

  My lips were pulped and bruised from that long kiss, and I wore them like a badge of honor. Tonight was a test, and it proved I could do it. I could muster up the courage I was going to need.

  I squeezed past a group of girls surely using fake IDs and stepped out of the club. The air outside felt fresh and clean in my lungs and I drew it in, standing for a long moment under the golden-orange glow of the flickering streetlight before getting into my car. I stared at the sky, starless above the glare of the city. A dense, unforgiving void. I blinked eyes that felt gritty and heavy. The night had become a long blur. I was exhausted and still had to drive half an hour back to my house.

  My feet, unaccustomed to wearing high heels, ached like someone had run over them with a monster truck. I slipped the shoes off and threw them over my shoulder into the back of the car.

  A pile of textbooks sat on the passenger seat, delivering a message of guilt. I had always studied hard. Ever since I was accepted into university I had worked my butt off to make sure I made good grades but right then, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Anger took over and I shoved the books onto the floor. They landed with a dismal thud that echoed inside the confines of my hatchback.

  I dug through my purse and pulled out the tiny black notebook. I snatched a pen into my hand like clutching a dagger, and in violent thrusts I scratched away the first item.

  My fingers shook, and I dropped the pen and the notebook.

  Mom, what on earth am I doing?

  Tears filled my eyes in a sudden, unexpected rush. I stuck my palms into them to hold them back. Don’t think about death. Just think about The List. I had no time for tears.

  I only hoped I had enough time for The List.

  Chapter Two

  Georgina

  “You missed a whole day of classes.” Julie, my roommate, stood in the kitchen staring at me as I fumbled around on my shelf of the pantry.

  I winced and continued rummaging for something to eat that would take little effort. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Are you sick? You look sick.” She managed to sound both condescending and concerned. I could never get a clear reading on Julie. She was a strange, mousy thing with the kind of big brown eyes that made the rest of her features insignificant. She looked so vulnerable and childlike, but spoke in the same monotone, dry voice whether she was wishing you a good day or telling you her grandmother had died.

  Julie had seemed the obvious choice for a roommate. She was as serious about her classes as I was, as bereft of a social life and boyfriend, and we had common schedules as well as a clear grip on how much we both liked our privacy. We never spent much time in the shared living room or kitchen together. Julie never ate the food on my shelves in the refrigerator, and I never used her bathroom products. It was a good arrangement.

  Just yesterday, I had wished there was more between us. Wondered if we could be friends. We’d always been too busy, our class times always misaligned, her work hours too long, and plenty of other excuses about why we weren’t close. The truth was that I’d never tried. It would have been nice to have a friend to talk to right then, to confide in.

  And now it was too late to try.

  Julie tilted her head. “You should get a doctor’s note or something. If you don’t, you might lose your scholarship.”

  I grumbled under my breath. “That would be a tragedy.”

  Julie may be twenty-going-on-eighty, bu
t there is nothing at all wrong with her hearing. “It would be. Do you know how important it is to start out debt-free? My parents say that it’s the best start to a strong future. Don’t you care about your future?”

  “Not high on my priorities right now.”

  One blink of those big, brown eyes, and Julie shrugged and walked out of the kitchen.

  I rested my forehead on the cabinets, closed my eyes, and took long, slow breaths. Even though I’d only had one drink the night before, I had a nasty, weak feeling in my belly. I knew it had nothing to do with a hangover, and everything to do with the future that I really did care about.

  I heated up some ramen and ate it standing in the kitchen, trying not to think about tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. All I wanted was a full belly and to sleep the rest of these feelings away.

  I stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling above the oven. I’d missed out on getting into student housing, but Dad had managed to find this place for me, right around the corner from the campus. One of his favorite customers at his restaurant, an old lady who still ate like a fourteen-year-old, had been looking for a tenant. It was a small townhouse that hadn't been renovated for thirty years, but I loved it, from its peeling mint-green paint to its potted geraniums. It still stood, defiant in the face of inevitable entropy and decay. I was jealous.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and winced away from the cabinet mirror above the sink, but not fast enough to avoid a glimpse of myself. Matted hair swirled down over my shoulders in stringy clumps. I’d developed a nasty set of raccoon eyes, having forgotten to wash off my makeup before I crashed. Red lipstick had migrated to my chin.

  What a mess.

  I popped a couple of aspirin from the cabinet and shambled back to bed.

  My purse lay on the bedside table, dumped there the night before, half its contents spilling out, including that little black book. I pulled the covers up over my head to hide from it.

  The best thing would be to give up on The List and get back to my life. I should blow it off, just forget the whole deal. It was stupid, and I was crazy for even writing it out. I was a squeaky-clean twenty-year-old virgin. Who am I kidding? I have zero experience with men and even less with women. How am I going to make those things happen?

  The answer was obvious.

  I can’t.

  Across the room, my work desk was a mess of papers, markers, and paints. An artwork lay half-finished taped to some board, a palette and brushes laying around it. The assignment it was for would be due soon. My heart was nowhere near in it.

  I can’t do anything.

  I could only curl myself into a ball and wish for sleep to take everything away.

  I was woken by the front door shutting. Julie had gone to class. Where I should be. I groaned away my guilt and rolled over.

  When I peeked out from under the bedspread, the clock said it was four in the afternoon and I stared at it, wondering how it had gotten so late. If I cleaned up quick, I could maybe make it to my evening class. I could get notes from the classes I’d missed. I could catch up.

  A surge of adrenaline got me to my feet. I could forget all this insanity and be normal and forget …

  I made it all the way into the bathroom.

  Then I remembered the kiss from the night before.

  That kiss.

  I made that happen. And it was so real, so exciting, and so immediate. It wasn’t something that was right, or something that had tomorrows. Debt-free futures, studying hard, and doing the right thing seemed so distant to me now. All I wanted was the daring, sexy thrill of warm bodies in contact with each other, to cling to life and let that energy make me forget everything else.

  I forced myself to look in the mirror and say out loud, “Georgina Stone, you can do this.”

  The body I saw in the mirror was a body I had not yet made peace with. Since age fifteen I had gone from being a medium to an extra-extra-large and back to a large. I had spent so long trying to be invisible, it was hard to shift my perspective to wanting people to see me, wanting them to find me attractive. Last night was my proving ground. I’d dressed up and acted the part, and men had watched me with desire. The first item on my list was successful. I’d made out with a guy I had never seen before, one who I couldn’t pick out of a crowd if my life depended on it.

  I could be the daring, seductive woman who completed The List in that little black book. I could be, and I would be. There was no way I was backing down.

  Chapter Three

  Georgina

  The club was packed again. After spending the week alternating between guilt-ridden study panic, morbid sleep-in-past-midday depression, and excited list-preparation shopping, I ventured back to the same place I’d gone last weekend. I teetered on my high heels as I stared at the crowd, holding a drink in each hand. Why did I order two drinks? I’d caught a handsome guy giving me a long look when I first came in, and had bought the second drink, planning to take it to him. But by the time I had the drinks in hand, he was neck-deep in a tall slim blonde. I was left standing there like an awkward, alcoholic wallflower.

  I had to get over my freeze-up and find a partner for the next item on my list. Get to second base. It seemed like the logical next step for The List before hitting the big leagues, so to speak. On paper it sounded easy enough, but how the heck was I supposed to get there?

  A free-spirited dancing girl bumped my elbow, and one of the drinks sloshed over the rim of the glass and down my hand. I cursed, mentally counting the cost of the lost alcohol. I gulped from what remained of the half-spilled cup.

  The music died away just to pump back up again. The lights switched from dull and pulsing colors to full, bright white and the magic of the room was lost. The dancing crowd went from music-video cool to a mess of limbs. Maybe my own awkwardness wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought. Maybe everyone here was really as odd and out of place as each other. The idea made me laugh, despite knowing that laughing on my own for no apparent reason probably made me seem even weirder.

  A deep voice chuckled from behind me. “It’s lucky I don’t dance. Would’ve hated to be caught in that harsh, bright light of reality.”

  I laughed again, and when I turned to see who my partner in weirdness was, my heart almost jumped out of my mouth.

  The man was like something out of Nordic legend. All I could do was stare at his wide shoulders and the imposing height of him and think he’s just so damn big. His caramel hair was sun-streaked with blond and just a hint too long to be anything other than wildly sexy. It fell around the back of his shirt and I wanted to touch that hair, lift it away from his collar and kiss his neck … I wondered if he’d let me.

  His smile was wide and sly, his face almost boyish except for the strong jaw and high cheekbones. Bright blue eyes shone between thick lashes, flashing with humor and something dark and dangerous. Like he knew exactly how attractive he was, and he knew how to use it. I hoped he was planning to use it on me.

  I should say something. That would be the not-weird thing to do right now.

  All I could do was gawk. My mind looped through another round of sooooo biiig, and the lights switched to strobing. I almost had a word out when that dancing girl crashed into me again. She ran into my back, the contents of my second glass splashed up as though in slow-motion, forming a perfect little mini-tsunami of rum and mint leaves that hovered in the air between me and the man before my chest mashed into his, and the liquid drenched the both of us.

  “I’m so sorry!” I squealed. I tried to brush the droplets of drink off his white shirt with my hands, but all I did was saturate the fabric more, turning it transparent and making me blush from my cheekbones to my knees.

  He picked a mint leaf off my shoulder. “No problem. I think you came off worst from that little scuffle. You’re proper wet.”

  Interesting wording. He had a low husky timbre to his words that made some very pleasant feelings arise between my legs. I’d been turned on before. I knew what w
as going on, but never so much, so easily. And that accent …

  “You’re English?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too dumb, or that he was actually from Australia.

  “What gave me away?” Thor-man’s grin widened, revealing a tiny dimple in one cheek. A very kissable dimple. He wiped the alcohol off his hand, then extended it to shake mine. “I’m Blake.”

  “Georgina.” Darn it. Mouth faster than brain. I should have said something else, made up some awesome exotic name. A fake name would have been a good idea, especially if Blake was going to be an item on my list, which I was hoping he could be.

  I wasn’t sure how someone as beautiful as this man could exist, or be talking to me right then, but somehow, I had to keep him talking, and turn that talking into more. I wanted to go into flirt mode but I’d never acquired that particular skill-set. “So … What are you doing here?”

  “Staring at the pretty girl holding two drinks and hoping one isn’t for your very jealous boyfriend.”

  Pretty? I felt a stutter coming on. “I meant in this country, not in this club.”

  He assessed me with furrowed brows. “Are you avoiding the topic of whether you have a very jealous boyfriend?”

  I narrowed my eyes back. “Are you avoiding answering why you’re in this country?”

  He made shifty eyes and whispered, “Is he standing behind me right now?”

  I cracked. A bashful grin stretched my lips. “No, there’s no very jealous boyfriend.”

  Without warning, Blake threw an arm around me and dragged me between him and the wall. The sheer mass of his bicep pressed against my shoulder, but I managed to see past it to the dancer girl from before, who twirled around where I’d been standing a moment ago.

  He saved me.

  “Someone should revoke her dancing license,” I muttered.

  Blake smiled at me. “So, your boyfriend isn’t very jealous?”

  I liked that Blake had a one-track mind, but I didn’t like the line of questioning. My smile faded. “There’s no boyfriend.”