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I looked at him over my shoulder. His eyes glinted with a fierce protectiveness that made me feel immediately at ease. I melted into him and pulled his arms tight around me.
“It’s pretty nice to have a big bad hockey player as a boyfriend,” I said.
He squeezed my torso and then planted a heated kiss on my earlobe that made me melt inside. “It’s pretty nice to have a fierce gamer girl as a girlfriend.”
A satisfied smile grew on my lips. And as the tempo of the music changed, signaling a new song, I turned around and grabbed Gabriel’s hands.
“Dare you to dance with me, tough guy.”
He grinned, flashing his white teeth. There was not an ounce of hesitation in his expression. “Any time, anywhere.”
With that, we joined my friends in the middle of the floor and danced until we couldn’t feel our limbs anymore.
And this gamer girl fell even harder for her hockey player.
***
That’s it! That’s the end of the Rock Valley High “Dare You To” series.
Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. It has been a dream come true to witness people fall in love with this series and see it frequently stay in the top 100 YA contemporary romances on Amazon for over a year (and counting).
If you loved them all – please, please, please go rate them on Amazon. Seriously — it’s the best tip you could leave for an author. If enough people rate it, I might be able to write some additional love stories in the future in this series. Who knows?
In the meantime, please continue reading to check out the first chapter of my brand new Young Adult romance – Cowboy Crush!
Much love,
Lacy
Excerpt from Cowboy Crush
Cowboy Crush
Chapter One
Graham
The day they dropped me off at the Sweet Oak Teen Ranch was the first time someone called me an accidental cowboy. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that wasn’t a compliment. The boys at Sweet Oak were rough and broken. Every last one of them hanging at the end of their ropes, waiting to be tossed back into the system at a moment’s notice.
Today I, Graham McGrady, was busting out of that system.
But not before I left behind a message.
My forefinger cramped as I pushed down harder on the nozzle of the spray can. Red droplets of paint speckled the sun-baked skin on my forearm and the acrid fumes burned my nose, for once pushing out the permanent scent of hay and horses stuck there from living on the ranch. Standing back, I gave myself just a moment to check out my own work. In only a few seconds, I’d managed to turn this boring little white gazebo into a warning sign to all those living in Blue River.
No one cares!
I read my message aloud to myself, the letters printed in bold red. The gazebo stood in a tiny abandoned park on the edge of downtown, surrounded by a dingy rose garden and a rusty old swing set. A single street light illuminated the street across from it, keeping me mostly in the dark. It was a sickly hot August night, the kind that caused the sweat to stick to the back of my neck and made a guy feel in constant need of a shower or an extra layer of deodorant. A few lightning bugs dared to shine nearby, proving how late it’d gotten.
My work here was done. I capped my spray paint and threw it in the nearby trashcan. It wasn’t in my plans to get caught tonight, but if growing up on the streets of Kansas City – before the biggest mistake of my life got me tossed into foster care – had taught me anything, it was to always get rid of the evidence.
I shouldered my backpack and glanced down the road toward the interstate overpass that ran just on the other side of town. Somewhere over there was my ticket out of here. Hitch-hiking wasn’t exactly the coolest way to travel, but I was desperate. I had to get out of here – and I had to find my way back home.
Blue River was a one-horse town – a gaping hole in the ground of a flyover state. But even then, most townies around here never left. And they would’ve been personally insulted by my sudden need to evacuate the place as soon as possible. They didn’t understand that a big world waited out there. A world that didn’t keep them locked down with rules and expectations.
“A world where no one cares if you were a messed-up kid,” I muttered into the empty gazebo, regret and pain taking hold of my gut in a tight grip.
But there was no time for a pity party. I could hear someone headed toward me. It was two people talking. Downtown in Blue River should’ve been practically abandoned on a Sunday night like this, but apparently it was just my luck.
