Live at Midnight June 23rd!

The Girl I Was Before - Book 3 in the Falling Series

What a ride it's been! This series has been an absolute joy for me--I've loved connecting with so many readers over it, weaving together the lives of six people through three books and taking you all on an important coming-of-age journey. As of midnight on June 23rd, the final planned book goes live for your reading pleasure. I say planned because I'm not sure I could ever say goodbye to this group forever. These characters have dug into me, and I don't think letting go is possible at this point. When you read book 3, you'll see just how misty I get over the end of the series in my acknowledgements. As much as you love the Preeter boys, I promise you, I love them more. So, this book...it's the end for now. But who knows...I have a very active imagination, and Tyson Preeter is one obnoxiously persistent SOB - he might just convince me otherwise down the road. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy. And please consider leaving a review if you do - it's the greatest gift you can give any author. I love you all to pieces!

XO and much Fussy Fuss!

~Ginger

Synopsis:

I’m the selfish one. I suppose that’s the nicest thing people say about me. I’ve heard the other things, too. “Paige Owens is a pretty girl with nothing else to offer. She’s just a good time at a party. She’s stupid, heartless, cold and useless. All she cares about is getting a guy to look at her. Why would anyone want to be her friend?”

Some of those things are true. Others were true. They’re all hurtful.

None of it matters.

I’m ready to make the hard choices. I’m ready to face the consequences. I’m ready to be the girl I was before, and I’m done being the one who lost her way.

I’m ready to become the girl Houston Orr sees when he looks at me.

Houston isn’t a star athlete. He doesn’t play in a band. He’s never going to be president, and his life is so far away from simple and easy it isn’t even funny.
He wasn’t part of my plan. But I’m starting to think plans are overrated, and maybe our stories are what we make them. And mine depends entirely on me, and the choices I make…starting now.

Houston is my fairytale. He’s perfectly imperfect. He’s poetry and life. He’s truth and heartbreak, all rolled up in a tall body with dark hair, broad shoulders and green eyes that lull me into submission. He’s nothing I ever thought I wanted, but the very thing I need. He’s the only guy I’ve ever really loved, and he thinks I’m a princess. I fell into him, and now I’m holding on.

But sometimes life takes away our ability to choose. Sometimes…things aren’t in your control. Sometimes, it hurts to be selfless. My only hope is that when it comes time to choose, I get it right.

Welcome to my once upon a time and wish for happily ever after.

Excerpt:

I like you. I don’t wanna like you. But I do.

I have been repeating her words in my own head since I heard them. I’ve been saying them like a mantra because of that part of me that doesn’t want her to like me either. Because if she likes me, then maybe how I feel is okay too, and maybe acting on it is okay, and then shit gets real. What does that even mean? Shit gets real? Shit gets hard—that’s what it means. Real hard. I have to make time for someone else; I have to take a leap of faith and risk that my world will fall apart again. That’s what that means.

“I like you too, Paige,” I whisper. “And fuck if I don’t want to. But I do.”

I take a few seconds to jog in place, stretching my neck from side to side like I’m about to step into a fight. Maybe I am. But fuck it, shit got real a long time ago. What do I have to lose now?

“I’m not looking, I swear,” I say, keeping my eyes at the floor as I barge into the bathroom. I cannot believe I’m doing this.

“Out!” she yells from behind the shower curtain. “Not even funny. Not even clever. Out, you fuck stick, out!”

Her anger makes me laugh, and fuck stick? Really?

“I have to brush my teeth. We’re pushing it close on time. I’ll be fast, and I’ll keep my face forward. I swear,” I say.

I’ve already brushed my teeth, but she doesn’t know that. I turn on the water and load up my brush. I hear the curtain slide behind me, and I know she’s looking at me. I don’t have to turn around or look into the reflection to know what her face looks like—her brow is furrowed and her lips are tight, and she’s making sure I’m keeping my promise. Don’t worry Paige; I won’t look. But I know you want me to.

I’m spitting into the sink and reaching for the towel by feeling, careful not to glance up, when I hear the water switch off and the curtain slide open. There’s no towel near her or the tub; I know it because I see them hanging on the rack several steps away. She’s cheating.

I notice her shape move into my periphery to my right, and I glance briefly to catch her hand reach for the towel. When I see her back is to me, I go ahead and look long enough to take a mental picture. Her hair is soaking wet and dripping a line down her perfectly sun-kissed skin, a trail of water I let my eyes follow down her shoulder blades, to the small of her back, to an ass that is so perfect I wish I were the kind of asshole who would reach out and smack it at a time like this. I just hold my breath and memorize it instead. I turn back to the sink, lay my towel down, and move to leave.

“You looked,” she says, and I pause with my hand on the doorknob, the curves of her body now ingrained in my memory. I smile.

“Yeah, I did,” I say, before stepping into the hallway and shutting the door behind me.

Add to your Goodreads shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24204235-the-girl-i-was-before

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