Two Different Sides Read online

  Table of Contents

  Books by L A Tavares

  Title Page

  Legal Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Read more from L A Tavares

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  About the Author

  Totally Bound Publishing books by L A Tavares

  Single Books

  Each and Every Summer

  Consistently Inconsistent

  One Motion More

  Consistently Inconsistent

  TWO DIFFERENT SIDES

  L A TAVARES

  Two Different Sides

  ISBN # 978-1-83943-540-9

  ©Copyright L A Tavares 2021

  Cover Art by Louisa Maggio ©Copyright August 2021

  Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2021 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.

  Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.

  Book two in the

  Consistently Inconsistent series

  All bets are off.

  Blake Mathews is out of luck.

  The music, the fame, the love of his life… They’re not enough for him. His tendency to make large bets at expensive tables could cost him everything—the band, the money and the girl.

  Blake thought things couldn’t get any worse, but he lost that bet too. Someone from his past shows up after a decade of silence with new information about who Blake is, where he came from and the fact that he has family who is closer than he thinks.

  Told on two different timelines—now and then—the story recounts the upbringing of the bass guitarist and his friend, lead singer Xander Varro, dating back to the two meeting, starting the band and the trouble and triumphs that unfold as the two grow to the present-day versions of themselves.

  For Blake, history tends to repeat itself, but with the help of his band, the girl he’s been chasing since his teen years and the family he didn’t know he had, the chance to break the dark cycles is in the cards for him, if he chooses to play the game.

  Dedication

  Kati,

  Once again, because without you I wouldn’t be writing this dedication at all.

  Blake’s story exists because you asked for it. We wouldn’t be turning these pages if you hadn’t inspired me to write them.

  This was the dream.

  Rock on. I love you. And, most importantly, Happy Birthday.

  Acknowledgements

  Since One Motion More published, I’ve received such an incredible outpouring of love and encouragement that I couldn’t possibly thank everyone properly. If you’ve read my pages or invested yourself in one of my characters, just know you’ve changed my life with your support.

  To my editor, Jamie… Your patience truly is a virtue. I write the stories but you make them readable, and for your talents and knowledge, I thank you for standing by me and trying to mold me into a better creator.

  In 2018 I stumbled across a band on Twitter, and there were certain similarities I couldn’t ignore. They reminded me so much of the “then” version of Consistently Inconsistent in this book. As a thank you for writing the music that fueled so many of my late-night writing sessions, I added their name into one of the concert scenes in this story as a hat tip to their amazing work. First and Forever, keep doing what you do best. I can’t wait to see what big things come next for you.

  To ‘Favorite Uncle’ Russell, I could write an entire story all of its own right here in the acknowledgments and it wouldn’t be nearly enough. You always were one of the best supporting characters in Brad’s and my own story and for that, I’m eternally grateful. Until we meet again.

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Prius: Toyota Motors Corporation

  Tupperware: Tupperware Corporation

  Fight Club: 20th Century Fox

  A League of Their Own:

  Gibson: Gibson Brands Inc.

  Band-Aid: Johnson & Johnson Corporation

  Boy Scouts: Boy Scouts of America Corporation

  Red Sox: Boston Red Sox Baseball Club LP

  Gatorade: Stokely-Van Camp Inc.

  A Charlie Brown Christmas: Charles M. Shultz, Lee Mendelson Films

  Home Alone: 20th Century Fox

  Jacuzzi: Jacuzzi Inc.

  Marlboro: Phillip Morris Incorporated

  Frisbee: Wham-O Holding Ltd.

  Sesame Street: Sesame Workshop Corporation

  Chapter One

  Now

  It was about damn time I took things into my own hands.

  I’ve loved her for too long and have nothing to show for it. For years I’ve admired her from afar and she’s given me none of her time and even less of her heart, yet she holds mine in her hands. She always has.

  Touring and being on the road is exactly what I always wanted, but I wouldn’t have any of it without her—in more ways than she even knows.

  Now, I stand outside the doors of The Rock Room, ready to give the performance of a lifetime without ever stepping on the stage at all.

  The doors creak as I push them open and strut across the venue floor. My steps echo and my heart rate quickens. She’s on the s
tage walking back and forth in heeled knee-high boots. Her blonde hair falls in curls down her back.

  “Kelly!” My voice echoes as it leaves my throat and bounces off the walls of the empty venue. She looks at me and her mouth parts, but I don’t give her time to speak. I have to get this out. If I don’t say the words now, I never will. “I have loved you since the first time I saw you. I’ve never been able to give my heart to anyone else because it has always only been yours. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to get your attention and the truth is, I’ll keeping wasting it if you ask me to. I will wait for you, but I’m hoping you won’t make me.”

  There is a long pause. She’s completely still—unmoving and holding her breath. I swallow, hoping she speaks because…I’ve got nothing else.

  “Blake,” she says, my name echoing through the venue. “Can we…can we do this later? We’re auditioning musicians for the house band…” She lifts her hand and points to the seats where bodies fill the spaces that I’d assumed were vacant. I rub my hand at the back of my neck while my cheeks flush something fierce. With no other option, I turn on my heel, leaving without the girl but with my fill of embarrassment for the next few years.

  I slam the doors open and stomp through a two-day-old puddle in the alley behind The Rock Room, but the doors reopen and she runs out behind me, her boots hitting the water as she heads toward me.

  “Blake.”

  “No, it’s fine. I don’t know what I was thinking—”

  “Do you ever stop talking?” She grabs the collar of my leather jacket, pushes my body against the cold brick wall, then pulls me toward her—against her—and places her mouth on mine in a kiss that was more than worth the wait.

  “I’ll come by tonight,” she says through the kiss. “I have to go back to work.”

  “Mmm, you should quit.” I keep her close to me.

  “Not a chance.” She steps away, adjusting her clothes and hair before giving me a smile over her shoulder and heading back inside. I slide down the brick wall and sit in the alleyway. Though the ground is wet and cold, this all feels too good to be true—a dream.

  * * * *

  Hours later, I’m still convinced I made up the whole event—fabricated it to fulfill some decade-plus-long unrequited love quest I’ve been on since my preteen years. But I sit here, playing new riffs and exciting patterns on my guitar that I’ll never remember later because my mind is occupied with thoughts of only her. There is a knock at the door. I ditch my instrument and head to answer with my expectation bar low. With my luck, it will be a package to be signed for or my band mate and best friend, Xander, dropping by without notice.

  The knob clicks as I open the door, slowly and cautiously, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.

  “Where were we?” Kelly speaks in a velvet tone and she waltzes in the house like she’s been here a million times. She slides off her jacket and drops it to the floor, turning toward me and pressing me against the door as I close it.

  Soon she is lying in my bed and arches her back as I slide off what little clothing she has left. I can hear her inviting, requesting breath in my ears as I lean forward over her with my chest touching hers.

  She’s the very picture of alluring—her body bare and lit by only the moonlight peeking through the windows. Goosebumps appear at the surface of her skin, following the trail of my fingers.

  My gaze falls to her ribcage, where a tattoo of song lyrics is scripted into her skin. I press my lips to the inked words.

  “I like this.” I run my thumb over the black script.

  “You should. They are from one of your songs.”

  “How long have you had it for?” I ask between kisses.

  “Since high school.”

  I think for a moment that all the years I spent watching her from afar, she was watching me too.

  “I’ve always wondered about these.” She lightly glides her fingertips over the right side of my chest and shoulder, touching the pictures embedded into my skin. “What’s the story?”

  “I was young, stupid and best friends with Xander.” I laugh but she’s still staring at the design, tracing the image with both her hand and her eyes. “Seriously, Kelly. There’s no story.”

  The image is a half-sleeve that extends over my shoulder and to my chest. The collage features a pair of dice, a shamrock and one-hundred-dollar bills twisted to look less like money and more like roses. At its center sits five cards meant to be a royal flush, all hearts in suit. The ten card starts the piece and a Jack sits next to it. At the other end there is an Ace and a stern-looking King. A fifth card ties the flush together. Well, it would…if it were filled in.

  “Why’d you leave this card blank?” Kelly pushes the spot with her finger tip. “Ten, Jack, King, Ace. You’re missing a Queen.”

  I push my hair back off my forehead and sigh. She’s not going to like the answer to this question.

  “I read about this tattoo in a magazine once,” she admits. A pink color blushes at her cheek.

  “So, you already know then.” I lean in and kiss her in an attempt to distract her, but my efforts fail, and she continues to press for an answer.

  “I know what the magazine says. I want to know if you tell a different story.”

  I give up and roll off her, collapsing in a heap.

  “In the article I read you said you didn’t fill it in because there is—and I quote—no one Queen.” Her lip curls at the corner and she raises one eyebrow.

  That part of the story is somewhat but not all true. At the time I was young, single and carefree. I had developed quite the reputation and nothing anyone said bothered me. If they photographed me in some trash tabloid every day with a different woman? So be it. I wasn’t sorry for how I had lived my life.

  But I’m older now. I’m changing, hopefully for the better. I gave them the answer that magazine wanted. They printed the words they thought would sell.

  I roll to one side and look at her then run my fingers through her mess of blonde hair. “It’s not that I couldn’t commit to only one Queen, Kelly.” I graze her neck with my lips, and she tilts her head back. I pull my body up over hers and look into her perfect eyes. “I just hadn’t found her yet.”

  A short while later in the pitch-dark hours, she breathes even, slow-paced breaths as she sleeps next to me. My phone buzzes wildly on the bedside table and I answer it, groggily, rubbing the tired from my eyes.

  “Xander?” I say once I hear the voice, and Kelly wakes too, wide-eyed and wondering.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I’ll be there. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Is everything okay? Is Natalie okay?” She jolts to an upright position, covering herself with the sheet.

  “Yeah, yeah. Natalie is fine.” I stand from the bed then hop into my jeans, after I pick them up off the floor. I swallow hard. She’s not going to take this well. “Xander got arrested.”

  Her eyes widen and she doesn’t need to ask the question for me to know she wants more answers.

  “He went to Julian’s house. Mariah was there. I don’t know all the details, but he’s in real trouble this time, I think.”

  “He…went to Julian’s house?” Her voice sways closer to anger than worry. “Do me a favor, Blake?”

  “Anything,” I say, sitting at the edge of the bed beside her.

  “Let me go pick him up.”

  Chapter Two

  I had imagined Kelly and my beginning going much differently. After our first night together, I expected that coveted honeymoon phase where everything is simple and right, but that’s not what I got. I haven’t even heard from her in days.

  “Are you avoiding me?” I slide onto a stool at the bar in The Rock Room. She wouldn’t come to me, so I went to her.

  “Not avoiding you,” she says, but her eyes—dare I say it?—avoid mine.

  “I don’t get it. Xander shows up to someone’s house and busts through the door. Xander threatens someone. Xander gets a black eye, a bloody nose and
an overnight in a cell and somehow I’m the one in the doghouse?” I run my fingers through the roots of my hair and leave my head resting in my hand, my elbow against the bar top.

  She finishes pouring the beers from the tap and slides them to two customers sitting near me, then comes around the bar, takes my hand and leads me away from them.

  “This isn’t just about what happened with Xander.” She bites at her manicured nails and still won’t look directly at me. She rocks back and forth on her heels.

  I place my fingers at her jaw and turn her face so she’s staring at me. She rests her cheek in my hand where her skin is soft against my rugged palms. I trace where her hairline meets her neck with the tips of my fingers.

  “Blake…” she says, and I can tell the next words off her tongue aren’t going to be promising. “I’m just not… I’m just not looking for anything serious.”

  The words cut through me as easy as scissors through paper.

  “I thought…”

  “I know. I know.” She bites her lip. “Everything you said was beautiful. And I thought I wanted it too. But you guys are just so complicated.”

  She walks away, taking the last word with her. By myself, standing in the middle of The Rock Room with my heart in my hands, I sway back and forth in the same spot I was standing just a few days ago. And just like that, the dream is over.

  * * * *

  Days turn into weeks where I am oh so lucky enough to watch Xander get everything he has ever wanted. He got down on one knee and proposed to his girl, who said yes, and they start their life together, all while it’s his antics that lost me the girl I’ve been chasing after for years.

  Makes sense, right? He screws up for the millionth time and I lose the girl because I am, as they say, guilty by association.