Tia Louise's Blog: ONE TO BLOG - Posts Tagged "small-town"

EXCERPT
MAKE YOU MINE
By Tia Louise
© TLM Productions LLC, 2018

Drew

This is a bad idea. I shouldn’t be here alone with him. I need to go to the lake house and go to bed.

Gray shrugs. “I also wanted to be sure Ralph didn’t get too… handsy.”

“I met Ralph tonight because we can’t be together anymore. You’re no good for me. Remember?” The words are like acid on my tongue, but they’re his words. He needs to hear them again and decide if they’re true.

His brow tightens, and he looks down. “I remember.”

A drop of rain hits my cheek, and I wipe it away angrily. “How dare you come back here, acting like there’s nothing between us, then get jealous because I’m on a date?”

“I don’t like you putting yourself in danger.”

I’ve had enough. “I’m not doing this,” I say, pushing past him. “I’m leaving.”

He catches my arm. “Not yet.”

“Stop it.” I’m losing my fight against the tears. “You left me. I was right here, and you left like you forgot all about us.”

He moves in closer, heat in his tone. “I remember every detail of us.”

“Prove it.”

Fire is in his eyes, those stormy eyes I love, but he’s still holding back, fighting me. I’m out of patience.

Raindrops fall faster on my arms. “It’s starting to rain.”

A flash of light in the sky distracts him, and I take the opportunity to pull away, jogging to where the Jag is parked. The top is down, so I throw my bag inside and jump behind the wheel.

“Drew, wait!” Gray jogs after me, but I floor it, throwing rocks as I rush out of the gravel parking lot. I’ve had it with the games…

* * *

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EXCERPT
MAKE ME YOURS
By Tia Louise
© TLM Productions LLC, 2019

Remi

“What are you doing in here?” Her voice is soft, a little flustered, but I can tell she’s trying to tease me.

She’s standing there in cotton shorts and a thin tee with “Dream Big” printed on the front. A robe hangs from her shoulders, but it’s open. I watch as her eyes travel over me fast, her cheeks blushing pink.

“You blush easily.”

“Do I?” Her voice is soft, and she grins, her cheeks growing pinker. “I never did before. I didn’t mean to catch you in your underwear.”

Glancing down, I see the wife beater I’m wearing doesn’t cover much. I’m sweaty, my hair’s a mess, and I’m standing barefoot in the kitchen. “I just got back from a run. I thought everyone had gone to bed.”

“Lillie’s in bed.” She comes closer. “I don’t know where Eleanor is.”

Lifting my chin, I return to the refrigerator, where I’m holding the door open. “I just needed a little something more to help me sleep. I was thinking about Lillie’s leftovers, wishing we had something like cookies or pigs in blankets.”

She almost laughs. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to contaminate Lillie with my horrible food choices.”

“You should have a baking day, make cookies.”

Her voice turns sassy. “Are you saying you want my cookies?”

“I’ll eat your cookies.” I give her a wink, meaning it in every way.

She snorts a laugh, and it makes me smile. I love when she plays with me. Returning to the fridge, I take out a plastic container of what looks like cantaloupe. When I open it, it smells like alcohol.

“Hm.” I study the salmon-colored fruit. “This might be bad. I’m going to need you to taste it for me.”

“I don’t think so. That’s not my job.” She does a hop, and she’s sitting on the bar.

Perfect. I step between her legs, lifting out a cube. “You’re saying you won’t taste this to be sure it won’t hurt me?”

Holding it up, I lightly trace the corner across her full bottom lip. She pulls her head back. “It smells like it’s fermented.”

“Will you nurse me if I get sick?” I pop it in my mouth, imagining her in a sexy nurse outfit. It makes my dick twitch. “Tastes okay.”

“I wouldn’t eat too much of it.”

Stepping to the fridge again, I find a smaller container of strawberries and take it out. “How about this?” I hold a slice of strawberry to her lips. “Don’t you like strawberries?”

“Yes and no—the seeds get stuck in my teeth.”

Parting my lips, I watch as her mouth opens slightly. Her pink tongue slips out and tastes the fruit before she pulls it between her white teeth.

I have a full-on semi at the sight, and I put the other half in my mouth. “It’s juicy and sweet, just like you.”

“Remi…” Her voice is a warning, but my hands go to her thighs.

I slide them higher as I lean closer, possession running hot in my veins. “I don’t like you talking to Henry Pak. I don’t want you going to his condo when he’s moved in. I don’t want him calling you.”

Her eyebrows rise, and her hands grip my wrists, stopping my progress. I’m ready to devour her like that fruit, and I’m pretty sure she sees it in my eyes.

“That’s not your business.” Her voice is low, thick, and her breath is a little faster.

“I can make it my business.”

“How?” Her brow quirks, but her grip on my wrists loosens.

“I don’t want Lillie around him.”

“Henry’s polite, he’s a doctor, he’s Korean…” Her lips twist into a cute frown. “He’s just the type of guy my mother would love.”

“Now I really don’t like him.” That makes her laugh. “Besides, you don’t like polite men. I can tell.”

Her eyes narrow. “How can you tell?”

“I watch and learn. Figuring out what you like has become my favorite pastime.” My hands start to move again, but she catches my wrists.

Her chin lifts, and when our eyes meet, it’s electric, like always. “What are you saying?”

I’m not sure exactly. “You’re important to me… I care about what you’re doing. It matters in a way I didn’t expect.”

“I really need to find my own place.”

* * *
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TWIST OF FATE
By Tia Louise
© TLM Productions LLC, 2021

Scout

People used to say I could sweet-talk the devil into going to church.

My mom, who was a librarian and English teacher and one of the smartest people I ever knew, said I was a misunderstood character.

She said people looked at me and saw a handsome young man—her words—with blond hair and blue eyes who slept with a football instead of a pillow and didn’t make very good grades and assumed I traded on that to get ahead.

That’s where they were wrong, she said. Mom said talking to people and listening to what they said made me just as smart as any valedictorian. She said my brother John, who we all call J.R. is more serious because he’s older.

I loved my mom, but I’m not sure she’s right either. I just learned pretty quickly growing up in Fireside, South Carolina, one of the smallest towns this side of Charleston, I’d get a lot further with being nice to people than being shitty.

For example, when I was in fourth grade, Ms. Myrna was going to flunk me because I couldn’t analyze Stargirl to her liking. I just didn’t understand it. The girl was weird, and I get it, Leo was a nerd with no friends, but what was I supposed to be learning from this story?

What was way clearer to me was Ms. Myrna’s husband had thrown out his back working construction at the new development down on the coast, at Oceanside Beach. He was laid up in the bed for weeks, and I could tell by the tightness around my teacher’s eyes, it was wearing on her.

So maybe I couldn’t write an A paper, but I sure could mow her grass and cut that old vine off her back fence and hold the door for her when she carried too many books from the teacher’s closet.
Ultimately, she said if I could at least recite the plot of the story, she’d give me credit for reading the book.

What did that teach me? Getting in there is better than keeping people at arm’s length like my brother. It’s not manipulation. It’s simple facts.

Facts I never shared with my mom.

She was also the kindest person I knew. Laying in that sickbed, she would trace her fingers along my forehead as I knelt at her bedside, and I never wanted her to leave us.

The night she died, the man from church said heaven must’ve needed another angel. He said she was too good for this earth—something even I knew. He said it was fate.

Losing my mom was a truckload of bullshit. I’ve never felt anger so intense, burning so hard in my chest it radiated up the back of my neck. It made me want to break things. It made me almost forget…

My life was like an etch a sketch Fate scooped up and shook hard. I hated that feeling. It sucked. I never wanted to feel it again.

J.R. and I were left with my dad to figure out what the hell to do with ourselves, so we did what we knew—football. Dad threw himself into work, only noticing us when we were in the backyard drilling, and when J.R. and I became superstars.

Then I was cast in a few school plays, and I discovered I could be somebody else. I learned all that anger and pain disappeared on the stage. People liked watching me, and when I made them laugh or gasp or cry, I felt like I’d done something huge.

I’ve only ever told one person that story, a girl in glasses I discovered at a junkyard, and she didn’t misunderstand. She wanted to know more.

* * *
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TROUBLE
By Tia Louise
© TLM Productions LLC, 2021

Spencer

Prologue

“I have ice. Ice makes the pain go away.” My mom crouches beside me, her entire body shaking as she presses a cloth to my shoulder.

Her face is so white. I want to say her name, but my throat constricts as searing pain burns through my upper body. My eyes squeeze shut, causing tears to stream down my face.

All around us is chaos.

The kitchen table is against the wall, and a chair is broken in two. Beside me on the floor, a splintered piece of wood lies in what looks like a growing puddle of red paint. Only, it’s not paint, and I’m afraid.

“Look what you made me do!” My father yells at us, pacing back and forth. He jerks my mother off of me by her hair. “You made me do this.”

Fear squeezes my lungs so hard, I can’t breathe, and lights flash in the room through the windows like a rainbow. People in white rush into our house, and a woman with orange-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes leans over me.

She puts her hand on my forehead and smiles gently while another person in white lifts me off the floor. She speaks softly, but I can’t understand her.

Is she an angel? Did I die?

It’s my last thought before the darkness closes my eyes…


“This is your room now.” The old man opens a door and gestures me into a space the size of a small house.

My eyes are wide as I step carefully on the highly polished wood floor. It’s made of small pieces of wood arranged in a diamond pattern, and a thin rug with a large, oval-shaped design covers the floor.

Driving up to this place, I gazed up at the soaring white columns topped with curling leaves and scrolls. Above them, so high I could barely see from the car, the roof had a railing, like you could walk around up there.

I’ve never seen a house like this outside of a movie or a storybook.

It’s a castle.

It’s also dark and empty.

“I hope you find it comfortable here.”

I look up at him, unsure what to say.

He’s tall with lots of gray hair that swooshes around his head like that scientist in the picture at my school. He’s wearing a scratchy brown jacket and dark pants, and he has a beard. His dark eyes are intense like a bird or a reptile, watching me.

“Are you a king?” My voice is small.

“I’m your new father. You may call me Drake.” His voice is low and measured, like he carefully chooses the exact word to say before he speaks.

“Where’s my mom?” Sadness pinches my chest when I remember the last time I saw her.

His eyes blink away, into the hall. “She can’t take care of you anymore. You’re going to live with me now.”

I’m not sure what he means. “Did she die?”

“Not as far as I know.” His tone is grave like he doesn’t want to dwell on this subject. “If you’re all settled, I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

I follow him quickly into the massive hallway covered in paintings bigger than me. It’s as wide as a dining room, and long rugs cover the floors that go on for miles.

My footsteps echo off the polished wood as I scuffle after him. “Are we the only ones here?”

He pauses and turns, looking down at me slowly as if I’m an insect he’s considering gobbling up. I shrink back, wishing I hadn’t asked.

“Are you afraid of being alone, Spencer?”

My eyes are wide, and I want my mom. The expression on his face tells me that would be the wrong answer.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Only a weak man is bothered by being alone. Are you weak?”

I’m not sure if I’m weak or if I’m even a man yet, but I know how to survive.

“No, sir.”

His eyes flinch almost like he would smile if that were possible. “Never fall for the lie that you need other people. Only when you are completely independent are you truly strong.”

He starts to go, but I hold out my hand. “But… Why do you need me?”

The spark of approval evaporates like smoke. “I don’t.”

His gaze travels up and around the hall, pausing at a window twice as tall as he is. “When I am gone, I will leave my estate to you, then you will be like me.” Cold eyes return to mine. “Now get some rest. I’ll begin your education tomorrow.”

Dread filters through my stomach, but I don’t dare argue. My shoulder hurts, and I’m sleepy. I don’t know why I’m here, but I remember my mom saying it would be okay.

Returning quietly to my room, I notice a sweaty glass of ice water on my bedside table. Going to it, I lift a cube from the top and put it in my mouth, sliding to sit on the scratchy wool rug covering my floor.

My eyes close, and I focus on the cold as it slowly melts away.

Then I do it again.

* * *
⭐TROUBLE is coming July 19!
Learn More: https://authortialouise.com/trouble
(Also coming to audio July 19)