Once Upon A Sure Thing Read online

  Contents

  Also By Lauren Blakely

  About

  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

  Epilogue

  Another Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Once Upon A Sure Thing

  Lauren Blakely

  Copyright © 2018 by Lauren Blakely

  LaurenBlakely.com

  Cover Design by © Helen Williams

  First Edition Book

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also By Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  One Love Series dual-POV Standalones

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  Standalones

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  Most Likely to Score

  Wanderlust

  Come As You Are

  Part-Time Lover

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  Unzipped (Fall 2018)

  Far Too Tempting

  21 Stolen Kisses

  Playing With Her Heart

  Out of Bounds

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  Caught Up In Us

  Pretending He’s Mine

  Trophy Husband

  Stars in Their Eyes

  The No Regrets Series

  The Thrill of It

  The Start of Us

  Every Second With You

  The Seductive Nights Series

  First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)

  Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)

  After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)

  One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)

  A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)

  The Joy Delivered Duet

  Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)

  Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)

  The Sinful Nights Series

  Sweet Sinful Nights

  Sinful Desire

  Sinful Longing

  Sinful Love

  The Fighting Fire Series

  Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)

  Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)

  Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)

  The Jewel Series

  A two-book sexy contemporary romance series

  The Sapphire Affair

  The Sapphire Heist

  About

  It's so easy being best friends with a gorgeous, talented, charming guy.

  Said no woman ever. Except me.

  My friendship with Miller is a sure thing — he’s my plus one, my emergency contact, and my shoulder to lean on. He’s also been by my side helping me raise one helluva awesome kid who’s the center of my world.

  Nothing will change our easy breezy friendship. Until I have the bright idea to convince him to start a new band with me.

  Trouble is, our sizzling chemistry in the recording studio is getting harder to ignore, no matter how risky it might be.

  ***

  Sing sexy songs with the woman you’ve been lusting after? Get up close and personal as you croon to the woman you’ve wanted for years?

  Piece of cake.

  NOT.

  Performing with the sweet, sassy and insanely wonderful Ally is like one gigantic obstacle course of challenges for my libido. And my libido is one sexy love song away from kissing her senseless and taking her home.

  But, I’m not a serious kind of guy, and she’s not a one-night-stand kind of woman. If we cross the horizontal line, we might risk our sure thing and end up out of tune forever...

  Chapter 1

  Miller

  This is the big moment.

  I’m focused like a hawk on the finish line, the black-and-white checkered flag in my crosshairs. I’m ready to own it.

  But the prize won’t come without a fight. Our fiercest competitors steer their dingy into the stern of my boat, trying to take Jackson and me down in the middle of Conservatory Water in Central Park.

  That won’t do.

  That won’t do at all.

  A surge of adrenaline rushes through me. Jamming on the controller, I gun the engine on the speedboat, powering ahead.

  One length.

  Two lengths.

  Almost there.

  Bam.

  “Take that,” I mutter as I jet away from the wily ones in the nick of time, gliding under the flag mere seconds before those ferocious twelve-year-olds can catch the twenty-nine-inch radio-controlled speedboat that just bested all others.

  I high-five my teammate, Jackson, triumphantly. Victory tastes so damn good. “We did it! I knew we could pull it off.”

  He beams. “You’re the man, Miller. You are one hundred percent the man.”

  Minutes later, the race organizers hang a medal around my neck, and I whisper a grateful thank you before they give Jackson his medal too.

  This medal is a thing of beauty, and I love it. Because I love games and fun and enjoying every single second of, well, everything.

  Rubbing my thumb over the gold, a rush of emotion blasts through me, that wild sensation like I’m a bottle of soda about to do the Diet Coke and Mentos dance.

  There’s only one other
feeling that comes close to this.

  I haven’t had that feeling in years, and probably never will again, so I do my best to shove it aside.

  I grab our boat, and Jackson and I head out through the park, the cool autumn breeze rustling the trees.

  “What’s next? Do we graduate to the Hudson River?”

  I laugh. “I was thinking the Atlantic. We can race RC boats through an ocean, right? Now that’d be a helluva thrill.”

  Jackson claps me on the back. “It’s almost the same as playing in front of thousands in a stadium.”

  “Oh yeah. Exactly the same,” I say, deadpan.

  But then, my chest starts to ache, immediately and insistently. That’s odd. Because it feels like a pang.

  Like I’m missing something.

  I like racing boats with Jackson.

  I dig that we won this competition. Yet, there’s something I love more.

  Something that gives me an even greater high.

  That’s what I miss.

  I sigh heavily.

  “You okay, Miller?”

  I quirk up my lips, considering the question. “Ever listen to Depeche Mode?”

  He arches an eyebrow. “Aren’t they like fifty years old?”

  I scoff. “Please. Their heyday was in the 1980s.”

  “You’ve been alive that long?” he asks as we cross over an iron bridge.

  “I was alive and well in the 1980s, thank you very much.”

  Jackson scratches his smooth, seventeen-year-old jaw. He hasn’t started shaving yet, lucky bastard.

  “It’s hard for me to picture the 1980s, since it was another century. Also, it’s weird you were born in another century. You must feel so ancient.”

  I tuck the boat tighter under my arm. “I’m a fossil. I’ll be eligible for carbon dating in a few more months. Anyway, I find myself listening to Depeche Mode and The Smiths when I’m not entirely content with something in my life.”

  “Dude, that’s deep. Is this when you drop me as my big brother?” he asks, in a worried voice.

  I shoot him a look like he’s crazy. We’ve been paired up in the Big Brother program for ten years. “You’re family, man. I’ve been keeping you out of trouble for a decade.”

  He laughs. “It was your influence, was it?”

  I laugh too. Jackson never needed much help to stay out of trouble. He just needed a person, since his dad is out of the picture and his mom works two jobs. “Of course it was my amazing influence.”

  “Also, if you dropped me, I’d have to start acting out. Put the napkins on the wrong side of the plate and whatnot. Answer a question in class without raising my hand.”

  I shudder. “I can’t even handle that kind of rogue behavior. But no, something else is making me tune into those bands. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a happy camper. But I’d be happier if I had one other thing in my life.” I take a deep breath, girding to spill out what I just realized. “Maybe Campbell was right.”

  Jackson stops in his tracks. “Whoa.” He digs into his pocket. “I need to record this for posterity.” Jackson grabs his phone and holds it up, ready to shoot a video. “Say it again. Admit your brother was right. I’ll use this for the video component of my media scholarship application.”

  I wave him off. “No way. Can you imagine the hard time Campbell would give me about that?”

  Jackson laughs, but persists. “C’mon. It’ll be fun. It’s a rare moment, you have to admit.”

  I shrug, and he shoots a short clip. “Fine, Campbell was right.”

  “Talk to me. What is Campbell right about?”

  As he stuffs the phone into his pocket, I wave my free hand to indicate the lake. “I thought all these games like Monopoly and radio-controlled boats would eventually fill this gigantic hole in my heart left behind when the Heartbreakers split.” I tap my sternum for emphasis. “And I do enjoy them. They are ridiculously fun, but at the end of the day, I still want something else.” I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but my older brother knows me well. He knows what my soul needs—to make music again. Since that won’t happen with the Heartbreakers, the band my brothers and I played in for years, I have to choose Plan B. “I need to start a new band. Campbell has been encouraging me.”

  Jackson whistles in appreciation then gets in my face. “I’ve been telling you that for years, man.” He pokes my chest. He pokes it again. “Years.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it till now,” I suggest as we head along the curvy path. “I guess I kept hoping Campbell would see the light and want to start up again with Miles and me. But he’s content as a teacher and with the band he moonlights with, and Miles is busy with his solo tour. So, I need to form a new band. Something local. Something manageable. Like Campbell does with the Righteous Surfboards.”

  “I’m down with this. So what’s the problem?”

  “Here’s the thing. Campbell had an idea that I can’t get out of my head.”

  He taps his chest. “Lay it on me.”

  “Chances are I’ll be seen as a Heartbreaker,” I say, taking a beat. “Unless I do something different. Radically different.”

  “Shave your eyebrows and mime the songs?”

  “No, smart aleck.” I pause for dramatic effect, sweeping my hand out wide, like I’m lighting up a marquee. “Picture this: Miller Hart and Female Singer To Be Determined. It’s time for me to sing with a woman.” I shoot him a curious glance, since I’m honestly not sure how someone—anyone—will react to this plan. “What do you think of that idea?”

  “I’m a seventeen-year-old straight guy. Natch, I think singing with a lovely lady sounds awesome.”

  “Speaking of lovely ladies, I need to go meet Ally. I told her I’d help her with a project.”

  Jackson furrows his brow. “Um, to point out the obvious, why don’t you sing with her? She was the Queen of YouTube.”

  I laugh. “Have you ever heard the two of us sing together?”

  “Um. No. Has anyone?”

  “My point exactly. It isn’t pretty.”

  On that note, I say goodbye to Jackson. After I stop by my apartment to drop off the boat, I head downtown to meet my best friend.

  It’s a damn shame we can’t harmonize for crackers.

  But then again, singing with your best friend seems like a surefire way to torpedo a relationship. I’ve been there, done that, and have a truckload of medals to prove it.

  If there’s one woman I want to keep in my life, it’s Ally.

  Chapter 2

  Ally

  Time to bring it home. Make them feel everything.

  I raise my chin, move close to the mic, and say the final words. “A fresh new hurt surged inside her from this knowledge, but with it came a bold determination to find who had ripped this hole in the fabric of her world. She would track down whoever it was, man or woman, beast or machine. And she would exact revenge. For her people. For humanity.”

  Dramatic pause.

  “And most of all, for him.” A beat of silence.

  And I’m done.

  I shove off my headphones and breathe the deepest sigh of relief, now that I’ve finally, after all those grueling vocal miles, crossed the finish line.

  I open the door of my booth, step into the control room, and pronounce “THEEEEEE ENNNNNND” to the gal on the other side of the glass. “That’s five hundred pages of epic battles, sword fights, brutal deaths, and stolen kisses in the can.”

  “And that’s a big old hallelujah to us.” Kristy joins me in a raise-the-roof dance from her post at the sound desk.

  The latest young adult fantasy novel I narrated required a full week in the booth to knock out the story of a seventeen-year-old orphan who rises above her station to become a warrior princess and save her people from intruders from another land.

  At least, she does that until the cyborgs invade.

  “When the publisher said it was an epic story, they weren’t kidding,” Kristy says, shoving a hand through her dyed
blue hair.

  “I am exhausted on behalf of Malindia.” That’s the heroine from the tale we just finished.

  Kristy stares sharply at me. “There is no time for exhaustion. Tomorrow, you must return to the salt mine and play a jaded teen who inherits her grandma’s doll shop,” she says, referring to the contemporary teen novel that’s on the next day’s docket.

  “Caffeine and I will be here, with bells on. Ready for the next book.”

  “All right, go take a break. Have some honey and hot tea tonight to treat those golden vocal cords. We need them in tip-top shape.”

  Kristy is my primary engineer for the young adult audiobooks I narrate. From the epic fantasies, to the space operas, to the contemporary John Green and Stephanie Perkins–style novels, she handles all of it for me, and I love her mama bear routine.

  “See you tomorrow,” I say as I sling my purse onto my shoulder and leave the booth, heading down the hall of the recording studio that I own an itty-bitty stake in—a stake I’d like to be larger.

  Someday. I’ll get there someday.

  A few feet ahead of me, a young man and woman laugh then duck into studio B. They're the Cooper siblings, and I gave the twenty-something brother and sister musical duo a tour of the studio a few weeks ago when they were searching for a place to record. They were recently discovered online by an agent who now has nabbed them for several commercials, as well as a couple of songs.