Chasing Olivia by
Micalea Smeltzer
Playlist.
1. Lost at Sea-Zedd feat.
Ryan Tedder
2. Gotta Be
Tonight-Lifehouse
3. Highway Don't Care-Tim
McGraw
4. Long Hot Summer-Keith
Urban
5. Never Gonna Let You
Go-Tony Lucca
6. Home-Edward Sharpe and
The Magnetic Zeroes
7. Light Me Up-Hunter Hayes
8. Best I Ever Had-Gavin
Degraw
9. Mirrors-Boyce Avenue
feat. Fifth Harmony
10. Wake Me Up-Avicii
11. Just a Dream-Nelly
12. Live for the
Night-Krewella
13. Neon Lights-Demi Lovato
14. Burn-Ellie Goulding
15. Skin-Zola Jesus
16. Here with Me-Robot Koch
feat. Susie Suh
17. Hear Ya Say-Tony
Lucca
18. In the Air-Morgan Page
19. Made in the USA-Demi
Lovato
20. Hurricane-Parachute
21. Battle Scars-Lupe
Fiasco & Guy Sebastian
22. Burning Bridges
(Acoustic)-One Republic
23. Something I Need-One
Republic
24. We Own the Night-The
Wanted
25. First Time-Jonas
Brothers
26. Levels-Avicii
27. Pieces-Andrew Belle
28. Mirrors (Radio
Edit)-Justin Timberlake
29. Fall Down-will.i.am
feat. Miley Cyrus
30. Safe and Sound-Capital Cities
31. Let Her Go-Passenger
32. Who's Gonna Save
Us-Gavin DeGraw
33. Adorn-Miguel
34. Marry Me-Jason
Derulo
35. God Gave Me You-Blake
Shelton
36. Carry Me-Morgan Page
37. Turning Page-Sleeping
at Last
38. Blown Away-Carrie
Underwood
39. Over the Rainbow-Jason
Castro
40. I Believe-Timeflies
41. Aw Naw-Chris Young
42. Compass-Lady Antebellum
43. Love Don't Die-The Fray
44. Story of My Life-One
Direction
45. All I Need-AWOLNATION
46. American Girl-Bonnie
McKee
47. Cruise-Florida Georgia
Line
48. Starry Eyed-Ellie
Goulding
49. The Last Time-Taylor
Swift feat. Gary Lightbody
50. Who Would've Known-Lee
DeWyze
Excerpt 1
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Bang.
Knock.
With a groan, I sat up. What the heck was
going on? It had to be the middle of the night.
I climbed from the bed to investigate the
strange sound. I couldn’t decide if it was someone knocking on the apartment
door or something else. The noise was strange…
Once I was out of the bedroom, it was easy
to deduce that the noise was, indeed, someone at the door. But they definitely
weren’t knocking on it with their fist. It sounded more like they were using
their whole body…or head…
Scared to go to the door—because let’s
face it, I wasn’t exactly the strongest person on the planet—I went to wake up
Trace.
“Trace,” I pushed his shoulder, trying to
rouse him from sleep. “Trace,” I shook him a bit harder.
“Huh?” His eyes cracked open a bit, just a
thin slit of green showing through.
“There’s someone at the door,” I hissed.
“What time is it?” He rubbed his eyes,
yawning.
“Two,” I muttered, looking at the clock
beside the bed. “I don’t know who it is and I’m scared to open the door,” I
admitted reluctantly, playing with the ends of my hair.
He sat up and rolled out of bed, pulling
on a pair of jeans, which he left unbuttoned. “I’ll check it out,” he assured
me, kissing the end of my nose.
I tiptoed behind him and out of the
bedroom. He undid the deadbolt and slowly opened the door.
Whoever was standing there fell into his
arms.
“Avery?” I gasped, taking in the vibrant
red hair.
“Mhmmmmitsme,” she slurred drunkenly.
Since she seemed to have lost the ability
to move her legs, Trace picked her up, and gently laid her down on the couch.
I grabbed a bottle of water before
kneeling beside her. She was completely wasted and the dress she’d worn to Nick
and Nora’s wedding was ruined. It was covered in grass and mud stains, as was
her body.
My eyes widened, zeroing in on something
wrapped around her neck. I gasped when I realized what it was.
“Avery! Why is your underwear around your
neck?” I bit my lip to hold back laughter. I mean, it wasn’t every day your
best friend showed up at your place drunk with underwear around her neck.
“Huh?” She looked at me with bleary eyes
and fingered the silky string of fabric around her neck. “Must have taken em’
off.”
“Obviously,” I snorted. “What were you
doing?”
“I’m pretty sure it involved beer and sex
in a field…by the way, don’t ever try that,” she warned Trace and me, pointing
at us with a shaky finger, “it really itches.”
EXCERPT 2
With a shake of my head I padded out of
the bedroom and into the kitchen, determined to make Trace a delicious
breakfast. While I could cook well, Trace usually made all our meals because he
loved it. The man was perfect…except for his dancing.
I pulled out the carton of eggs and set
about making scrambled eggs.
By the time Trace came out of the bedroom,
the eggs were ready and I’d fried bacon.
“I’ve been thinking,” he started, leaning
against the doorway to the bedroom, his hair sticking up adorably in every
direction.
“About what?” I asked, placing our plates
on the bar-top that overlooked the kitchen.
“I—we—need
to get away.”
“We do?” I raised a brow.
“Yeah,” he rubbed a hand over his stubbled
jaw before stifling a yawn. Rumpled and straight out of bed, he was still the
sexiest man I’d ever seen…it probably helped that he was shirtless and my mouth
was watering at the sight of his bare chest. Seriously, how did guys get that
V? It was a woman’s undoing. It made smart girls do stupid things…I would know.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been anywhere. You’ve graduated and I know
Marcy wouldn’t care if you took off for a bit,” he shrugged. “Pete understands
and Gramps…well…he’ll have to get over it.”
“Where would we even go?” I questioned.
He smiled. “Nowhere. Everywhere. It
doesn’t matter.” He strode across the room until he was in front of me. He
grabbed me by both arms and bent his tall frame so he could look me in the eye.
“We’ve both been going through the motions for so long, Olivia. We need to get
our spark back.”
“Our spark back?” I looked at him like he
was crazy.
“Our spark for life. I miss all those
crazy adventures we had when we were crossing things off your list. The
spontaneity, the craziness, I miss
that.”
“I miss it too,” I admitted.
While the past two years had been great, I
understood what he meant. We’d become like an old married couple, content to
stay in and do nothing. But when we’d been crossing things off my Live List,
we’d had so much fun, and had so many
crazy adventures.
Yeah…I wanted more adventures.
“But what would we do?” I asked him.
He surprised me by grabbing my cheeks and
smacking his lips against mine. I’m pretty sure he slobbered on me too. Ugh,
that was Trace for you.
His green eyes were full of excitement.
“Let’s go on a road trip.”
“A road trip?” I repeated, mulling over
the idea.
He nodded giddily, dancing on the balls of
his feet. “Yeah, we could head north. Maybe visit the lake house in Maine.”
“This is crazy,” I shook my head. “We both
have jobs, Trace, and what about Ace?” I pointed to the dog currently sprawled
on the floor licking his paw.
“I already told you, they won’t mind if we
take off. As for Ace, Trent will take care of him. The freak has a ferret, I’m
pretty sure he can handle a dog. Please, Olivia,” he begged, even jutting out
his lower lip. He wasn’t fighting fair.
I decided not to think about it.
Sometimes, thinking got you in trouble, and you needed to jump in feet first
and think about the consequences later.
“Let’s do it.”
EXCERPT 3
“Well,” he stood, grabbing his guitar
case, “I better get ready.”
“You already signed up to sing, didn’t
you?” I questioned. “Before we even got here?”
He nodded. “I always have an agenda,
babe,” he kissed my cheek before heading for the stage area. He bent to speak
with someone, whom I assumed was a manager at the bar, and then he was escorted
behind the stage.
I really
hoped he didn’t do something to humiliate me. But knowing Trace, the lengths to
which he’d go to embarrass me were endless.
I turned in my barstool, so I could see
the stage better.
Somebody’s arm brushed mine and I jerked
in response.
“Sorry,” they said, and their voice was
way too close for comfort. I turned my head sharply and found a guy about my
age sitting in Trace’s vacant chair. He had curly blonde hair and pale blue
eyes clouded over from alcohol.
“Can I help you?” I questioned, giving the
guy the benefit of the doubt.
“I just saw you sittin’ here and thought
you looked lonely,” he slurred with a grin, leaning much too close to me.
Somebody needed to teach this guy the rules of personal space because he was
all up in my bubble, and if it popped, I could not be held accountable for my
actions.
“I’m not lonely,” I said sternly, glaring
at him, “so run along now.” I waved my hand in dismissal, hoping he got the
message.
He grabbed my arm, squeezing much to
tight. I bit down on my lip, breathing in and out sharply, hoping to avoid a
panic attack. I hadn’t done well with strangers touching me after what Aaron
did to me.
“There’s no need to play hard to get,” he
flipped a stray blonde curl out of his eyes.
“I’m not playing anything,” I tried to
yank my arm from his grasp but he was too strong. “Let me go!” I screamed as
panic crawled up my throat. Tears burned my eyes. I pulled my arm again and
this time I managed to get him to let go, but I went falling from my seat in
the process and landed on the ground, smacking the side of my face sharply against
the concrete floor.
“Olivia!” I heard Trace yell, his voice
echoing around the whole bar as he yelled into the microphone. I’d been so
preoccupied with Mr. Touchy Feely that I hadn’t seen him come out on stage.
Before I had a chance to move, Trace’s familiar
scent surrounded me, and his large hands were on my body picking me up.
“Olivia,” he whispered, looking me over.
“You’re bleeding.”
I reached up and felt around my eye. My
fingers came away with a small smearing of blood. “It’s not that bad,” I shrugged.
His jaw was clenched tight and his eyes
screamed murder. “You’re hurt.” He
shoved me behind him and glared at Mr. Touchy Feely who was still sitting in
his former seat.
“I didn’t do anything,” he held his hands
up in surrender. “She just fell.”
“She didn’t just fall,” Trace seethed. “You grabbed her arm and you wouldn’t let go.
When a girls says no, it means no!”
Suddenly, he was reaching out and grabbing the guy by the shirt collar and
lifting him out of the chair.
Holy shit, I knew Trace was strong, but
this guy was double his size and built like a linebacker.
“Dude, let me go,” Mr. Touchy Feely tried
to pry Trace’s hands off of him, but it was pointless. Trace was in a rage and
there was no stopping him. “I wasn’t gonna hurt her.”
“I don’t care what your intentions were,”
Trace growled, right up in the guy’s face as he shoved him into a wall. “When a
girl tells you to let her go, guess what? You
let her go!” He shook the guy forcefully.
I hadn’t seen Trace get this angry in a
long time…not since Aaron attacked me. Trace was an easygoing guy and it took a
lot to get him riled.
“Trace,” I whispered, placing my hand on
his taut arm. “I’m okay.”
Slowly, he turned his head towards me, and
some of the anger drained out of him. He released the guy, but not before
giving him a hard enough shove that he went sprawling to the ground. The guy
looked up in disbelief. For a second I thought he might attack Trace but
instead he chose to pick himself up and walk away. I guess he wasn’t as dumb as
he looked.
“Stay here,” Trace growled, bowing his
head as he walked away. The brim of the fedora hid his gaze from me and I
chewed my lip nervously.
Within seconds he was back, his guitar
case slung over his shoulder. “We’re leaving,” he took my hand and practically
dragged me out of the building.
People stared as we passed, the blue
lights in the bar making them look strange—almost alien.
We drove back to the motel in silence, his
grip so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckles turned white, and his jaw
was clenched. I wanted to say something, but I figured silence was better.
He opened the motel door, letting me in
first. I sat on the edge of the bed, nervously fiddling with the edge of my
tank top. “Trace—”
“I’ll be back,” he said in a steely tone,
slamming the door closed behind him as he left. I jumped at the noise.
My bottom lip trembled with the threat of
tears, but I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t.
Frustrated, I tore off my clothes and
changed into pajamas.
I climbed under the itchy covers; eyes
wide open.
Let him leave.
I didn’t care.
Honestly, I didn’t.
Okay, I did.
And that’s why it hurt.
About the Author:
Micalea
Smeltzer is an author from Virginia. Her name is pronounced Muh-call-e-uh. She
is permanently glued to her computer, where she constantly writes. She has to
listen to music when she writes and has a playlist for every book she’s ever
started. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading a book or playing
with her three dogs.
You can email Micalea at:
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