MoreJade_LPavlov-eBooks Read online

  Copyright © 2020 Laura Pavlov

  Contents

  More Jade Playlist

  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

  A Love You More Rock Star Romance Series...

  Chapter One

  Acknowledgements:

  Pav-Love’s Readers

  More Jade Playlist

  If I had a gun ~ Neil Gallagher

  Milestone ~ Matt Walden

  Unsteady ~ X Ambassadors

  Us ~ James Bay

  One thing right ~ Marshmello & Kane Brown

  Crossing a line ~ Mike Shinoda

  Shining Star ~ Earth, Wind & Fire

  I Found ~ Amber Run

  To Greg, Chase & Hannah,

  Thank you for always believing in me, supporting me and encouraging me to reach for the stars. You are the loves of my life! xo

  There is no

  remedy for love,

  but to love more.

  -Thoreau

  Chapter One

  Jade

  I gazed around the room one last time, taking it all in. It wasn’t like I was moving far away—but this was home. The only home I’d ever known. It was pancakes on Sunday mornings and Friday movie nights. Family gatherings, card games, and Monday night football with Dad and his friends. This thousand square foot space owned the happiest and saddest memories of my life thus far. Dad and I had lived in this apartment since the day he and Mom brought me home from the hospital.

  I opened Mom’s journal and found today’s date. It was a ritual for me, reading along on the same day all these years later. It somehow made me feel connected to her. Like we were experiencing things together. Maybe in a way we were.

  August 21st

  Dear Journal,

  Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am about to walk to my first class at Northwestern. I feel like I’ve been preparing for this day for as long as I can remember. I went to my first official college party last night and met a boy named Jack. He doesn’t even go here. He was with a group of high school friends that attend the university, and he came along to the party. We stayed up talking outside my dorm until almost 2 o’clock in the morning. He wants to be a firefighter. He doesn’t live far, as he’s from Bucktown. I like him. He’s gorgeous, and smart, and funny. I’m meeting him for lunch after class, so I’ll keep you posted. I’m off to charge the tundra. Change the world. I’m so ready for this next adventure.

  Ciao for now,

  J.E.

  “You ready, Jady bug?” Dad called out from downstairs. I closed Mom’s journal and slipped it in my backpack.

  “I’m going to college today. Don’t you think it’s time to drop the charming nickname?” I said as I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. I dropped my backpack on the table and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.

  “Ah, big college girl. What should I call you—Dr. Moore?”

  “Dad,” I moaned. “I’m an undergrad. How about you call me by my actual name.”

  “Jade? Nah, that’s boring.” He laughed.

  My dad, Jack Moore, was the newly promoted captain of his firehouse in Chicago, a single dad, and my favorite person on the planet. He was a chronic jokester, ridiculously protective and fiercely loyal.

  I tossed him a banana and tried to hide my smile. “News flash. You named me.”

  “News flash. Your mother named you.” He grabbed his keys off the counter and scooped up my backpack. He already loaded everything in the back of his truck at oh-seventeen hundred hours, because the man functioned on no sleep.

  “Well, she didn’t name me Jady bug,” I say.

  He backed out of the driveway and I didn’t miss the forced smile. It was still hard for him to travel down memory lane. Even after all these years. It was still raw. Jaqueline Marie Edington-Moore had been the love of his life, and for the short time I was with her, she was the love of mine too. My memories had faded, but her absence was always there. Like a big, black gaping hole. There had been a void in Dad’s life ever since we lost her. I’d tried hard to fill it, but he missed his wife. He always would.

  The guys at the firehouse all stepped up after Mom died. My grandparents picked up the slack when Dad had to work, as I was all they had left of their daughter. You know the saying it takes a village? Well, I was the epitome of that saying. I lost my mom unexpectedly at five years old to a rare congenital heart condition. Thankfully, Dad and I weren’t alone with the support of my grandparents living nearby and a half dozen men that were more like family. They had worked with Dad at the station for the last eighteen years. And now, for the first time in my life, I was going to be living on my own. And so was Dad.

  Northwestern University had been my dream school for as long as I could remember. Mom was a Wildcat and so was my grandfather. I’d always imagined that if I got in, I’d be commuting from our apartment to school each day. Dad and I lived in a two-bedroom walk-up in Bucktown, which was about thirty minutes from Evanston on a good day. With no traffic. Which never happened. Commuting more than an hour each way on public transportation was not ideal. So, when the university offered me not only an academic scholarship but room and board, it was a no brainer. Dad wanted me to have the whole college experience, but I worried about him. I worried about him all the time. I hated the thought of him being alone. But a part of me knew we both needed this. He needed to start living for something other than me. It was time for him to be selfish and do things for himself. And I needed to spread my wings and see where they took me. I would still see Dad often, just not daily.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked as we moved fifteen miles an hour in traffic.

  “No. Not really. I’m not going far,” I said, but we both knew I was lying.

  “Always so stoic.” He reached over and rumpled my hair, which annoyed me. Obviously.

  “I learned from the best,” I said.

  “You know I can be there in thirty minutes if you need me.”

  “I know, Dad. I’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

  “Uncle Jimmy can be there in half the time. You know that, right?”

  He’d told me this more than a dozen times over the last twenty-four hours. Uncle Jimmy was Dad’s best friend, and they worked at the firehouse together.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t be a helicopter parent. You know they frown upon that in college, right?” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve mentioned it. I’m sure Sam will be checking in on you often too.”

  Uncle Jimmy’s son, Sam, was more like a brother to me, as we’d grown up together since birth basically. He was a year older than me, and our dads had been in the same firehouse our entire life. He attended an art school in the city, which was only an hour away. Last year sucked when he left for college, and I still had one more year
at our uber small Catholic high school without him. Thankfully, I had a good group of girlfriends who I’d gone to school with since kindergarten, so I survived without him. I didn’t know anyone attending Northwestern, so I’d actually be friendless until I met some people. My roommate Meagan seemed nice enough, at least from what I could tell over email. I didn’t require much from a roommate, and I’d settle for not crazy. Sam loved to tell me all the insane horror stories that had gone on his first year in the dorms.

  Meagan was from Michigan and she had a boyfriend of four years who was going to school out west. They were going to try the long-distance thing. She asked me to help her stay in line, whatever that entailed, I had no idea.

  “Yep. He’s just waiting until I get settled and he’ll come visit. And I can always take the bus out to see him. It’s only an hour away. You need to stop worrying.”

  “I’ll try, Jady bug,” he said, pulling into a front spot marked ‘resident unloading area’.

  “Are you trying to ensure I make no friends?” I whined when he called me by my nickname again before I hopped out of the truck.

  “You’ve got plenty of friends already. You don’t need more,” Dad said when he met me at the back of the truck. I gave him a hard stare. He was familiar with the look.

  “Alright. I’ll stop. It’s a big day, kiddo.”

  “Yep.” I led him toward the dorm check-in.

  The girl at the table asked me my name, and shuffled through some folders, pulling a file from the stack. She looked a few years older than me and appeared to be running the show.

  “Here you are, Jade Moore. I’m actually the RA for the fifth floor, so we’ll be seeing a lot of one another. I’m Dominique, but everyone calls me Dom.” She reached over the table and shook my hand.

  “Nice to meet you. This is my dad, Jack.”

  “Great to meet you both. I’m available for anything you need,” she said.

  Her blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders in perfect waves. Her makeup looked like she’d just come from a makeover at Sephora. She was stunning, and a reminder of how not put together I was. Insecurity reared its ugly head. My dark hair fell just past my shoulders, and of course I let it air dry this morning which left it looking disheveled.

  Half straight, half wavy. Mostly hot mess.

  This is how I usually wore it, but I wasn’t normally surrounded by people who looked so put together daily, either. I subconsciously tucked my hair behind my ears. Dom pushed to stand, and I zoned in on her preppy navy pencil skirt, white button-up, and some sort of fancy name brand of flats I’d seen before, but never paid much attention to. Damn. My Chicago fire tee, skinny jeans, and white Chucks suddenly felt inappropriate.

  She handed me a few items and talked a mile a minute. “These are your keys. The green one opens the main door, the yellow one opens your dorm room and the purple one is your mail key. You’ll need to keep these with you at all times to get in the building.”

  “Okay. Thank you,” I said, looking up at Dad. He put a hand on my shoulder because his bat senses always went off when I was anxious. He was far too intuitive for a man.

  “Of course. We’ve got a crew over here to help unload your car. I can walk your dad over if you want to go check out your room. He can meet you up there with our awesome move-in team,” Dom said.

  Five minutes with her and it was easy to see that she was a leader. I tended to sit back and observe rather than taking charge of situations.

  “Yeah, sure. Thank you,” I said, trying to remember what key went where.

  I found my way to the fifth floor. When I stepped off the elevator, there were signs pointing to the boys’ and girls’ wings of the floor. The guys’ side was to the left. I made my way to the right. An odd odor lingered in the air. A mixture of stale beer, urine, and lemons. Obviously, they were trying to cover up the disgusting smell while students moved in and the parents were here. Lemons weren’t a bad choice; however, they weren’t strong enough for this particular situation.

  I made my way down the hall and tried to calm my racing heart. My entire life had led up to this moment. I wanted to take it all in. Be present. It wasn’t a strength of mine, but I was trying.

  Enjoy this.

  Don’t think so far into the future.

  I silently repeated the mantra in my head.

  At the end of the long hallway, I found room five-fifteen and stared at my keys. Yellow. Yellow opened the door to my room. I shifted my backpack on my shoulder and tried the key. I had to jiggle it a little before I got the door open. Someone gasped loud enough to startle me, and I heard a guy mumble, “Oh shit,” as I stood there stunned by the scene before me. I could only assume it was Meagan, my new roommate, down on her knees with her back to me fumbling about, while her boyfriend quickly adjusted himself while he sat on the bed. He pushed her head back from between his legs and she broke out in a fit of giggles.

  Welcome to college, Jade.

  I couldn’t imagine being caught with my head between some guy’s legs, and giggling. Not the best first impression. I mean, to each his own, but come on. She knew I’d be arriving this afternoon. And why is her boyfriend here when he goes to school on the west coast? I hoped this wasn’t a preview of the upcoming year. I didn’t want to have some strange dude sleeping in my room every day.

  I turned around for a second to give them a moment. “Sorry about that.”

  Why the hell was I apologizing? Shouldn’t she be the one apologizing to me? I just walked in on her giving her boyfriend a BJ, after all.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, no. You must be Jade. I’m Meagan. I’m so excited we’re rooming together. We’re going to have the best year,” she said, extending her hand to me. I smiled and nodded, pretending my hands were full holding the one backpack. I knew where those hands had just been.

  No thanks.

  “Nice to meet you.” I dropped my bag on the empty bed and glanced over to find her boyfriend watching me. Stalker much? Maybe he’s embarrassed and this was his coping mechanism. You know, to be super creepy and gawk at his girlfriend’s roommate.

  “Okay. You scared the bejesus out of me, and now I have to pee. This is Cruz. Cruz, Jade. I’ll be right back,” Meagan said as I processed the fact that I was ninety-nine percent sure she’d told me her boyfriend’s name was Josh and this must not be him.

  She left the room, and the creeper pushed to his feet. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Dad didn’t witness this little welcome party going on in room five-fifteen. He would have tried to haul me back to Bucktown. To call him protective was an understatement.

  The Cruz guy moved to stand beside me and reached for the welcome folder I had just dropped next to my backpack on my bed.

  “Jade Moore,” he said.

  “Impressive. A college kid who can read.”

  “So, Jade Moore’s a wiseass.”

  “Do you even go to school here?” I asked.

  “It’s your lucky day, because, yes, I’m a student here. I’m a junior. My friends and I just came over to visit the dorms and welcome all the new freshmen to Northwestern,” he said.

  I had to look up at him, so he had to be over six feet tall. He wore a backward baseball cap with dark blond scruffy hair poking out, a torn-up white T-shirt, and black skinny jeans. His gaze locked with mine. His eyes were an unusual color, one I’d never seen before. Although keep in mind, I hadn’t been out of the state of Illinois. Ever. So, it wasn’t saying much. They were a light honey-brown with orange and gold specks. He had a bit of scruff peppering his chin. He was definitely good looking, and he knew it. The boy oozed confidence.

  “Ah, sorry to disappoint you, but no one else in this room is going to drop to their knees for the welcome wagon. Feel free to move along,” I said, and made it clear that his ogling was not impressing me. The kid just zipped his pants up after having my roommate between his le
gs. Have some dignity, man. Instead he laughed. Loud. Like I just told a super funny joke. It’s called rejection, bud. It wasn’t supposed to be funny.

  “Very witty, Jade Moore. I like that. Wouldn’t mind seeing more Jade,” he said with an arrogant smirk.

  Ah, the play on words. Jade Moore. More Jade. Every once in a blue moon, someone got it and used it. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last.

  “That makes one of us,” I said, turning my back to him just as Meagan threw the door open.

  “Look who I found hanging out down the hall,” she said as two guys followed her into our room.

  “Jade, this is—” She paused and laughed, all while twirling a chunk of blonde hair around her finger. “I’m sorry, what are your names again?”

  Someone, please stab me and put me out of my misery. I felt like I was trapped in a bad reality show.

  “Hey, I’m Lennon and this is Adam,” one kid said.

  These guys actually appeared normal, unlike the jerk who just got caught with his pants down. Lennon was shorter than Cruz and Adam who were about the same height.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Jade.” I smiled.

  Thankfully, there was a loud ruckus and the door swung open again. It was Dad, along with four large guys carrying what looked to be everything in one shot. My dad had a huge box in front of his face, and I guided him over to my desk to set it down. The room was crowded, and I wished Meagan would say goodbye to her friends so Dad and I could get me moved in. Everyone was talking at the same time when Cruz sidled up next to me, grabbed my hand, and shoved something in it before I could tug it away. He closed my fingers around it. His nearness made me uncomfortable. My palms were sweaty and my mouth dry. No one was the wiser as Dad grabbed laundry baskets from two of the guys and stacked them on my bed. He insisted on filling these ridiculous baskets with clothing because I could load them up, empty them and he could take the empty baskets back home.

  When I opened my fingers, I saw my pink and white panties which must have fallen out of one of the stupid laundry baskets. Dammit. This would have been a helpful tidbit to mention when I begged Dad to buy actual boxes. If he knew this boy just handed me my panties, he would have a conniption.