Reckless Youth: Reckless - The Smoky Mountain Trio Read online

  Reckless Youth

  Book 1 - Reckless Serial

  The Smoky Mountain Trio

  by

  Sierra Hill

  Copyright © 2018 Sierra Hill

  Published by Ten28 Publishing

  Cover Design: Porcelain Paper Designs

  Photography: Shutterstock (Standard License)

  Editing by: Two Naughty Book Babes Editing

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without prior written permission by the author, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used factiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, business establishments, or educational systems is entirely coincidental.

  All products and/or brand names mentioned are registered trademarks of their respective holders/companies/institutions.

  Other Books by Sierra Hill

  The Physical Series

  Physical Touch (Book 1 in the Physical Series)

  More Than Physical (Book 2 in the Physical Series)

  Physical Distraction (Book 3 in the Physical Series)

  Physical Connection (Book 4 – a MM novella)

  Standalones:

  One More Minute with You (A standalone novel)

  The Reunion (A standalone novella)

  Character Flaws (A Standalone RomCom)

  New Adult/College Sports

  The Sweetest Thing Series

  Sweetness (Book 1 Ainsley and Cade)

  Sweet Girl (Book 2 Kylah and Van)

  Sweet Summer Love (Book 3 Logan and Carver)

  Sweet Disaster (Book 4 – Kady and Gavin)

  Sweet Little Lies (Book 5 – Mica and Lance)

  The Reckless Serial

  Reckless Youth (Book 1 – London)

  Reckless Abandon (Part 2 – Cam) – Coming October 2018

  Reckless Hearts (Part 3 – Sage) – Coming soon

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgments

  Part One

  London

  Chapter 1

  I’ve known Sage Hendricks and Cameron Lucas since we were five years old.

  We started out as friends, then grew to be more as the years progressed.

  We were a perfect band of misfits – the smarty-pants princess, the angsty punk kid and the Prom King jock. Yet somehow, we worked – most of the time, anyway. Even in grade school, when we first met over their stupid boy antics, they both stole equal parts of my heart, never to return it in the same shape they found it.

  The day we met on the playground was the day that changed the direction of my life.

  That was the day we became a trio. The Three Amigos.

  From that day forward, we were inseparable.

  I remember that first day of kindergarten like it was only yesterday. I was the sassy know-it-all, trying to change the world through rules and authority.

  “Stop it right this minute you two hooligans,” I commanded. My tiny hands at my hips to prove my resolve and seriousness like my momma always did. “Or else I’m gonna tell Miss Lund and then you’ll be in big, big trouble.”

  I stood behind the two boys who were fighting over the big yellow bulldozer in the sandbox; my chin up, trying to muster all the bravery I had inside my pixie five-year-old body.

  The two boys halted their arguing, each keeping a grasp on the toy and peered up at me. One stocky toe-headed kid with bright blue eyes, and the other a scrappy dark-haired boy with the freckles and eyes so brown they looked like the bottom of Pitney’s Pond.

  The blond kid sneered, saying with a lisp from his missing teeth, “Nobody likes a tattletale.”

  The other kid, dirt caked on his face, snorted a giggle, repeating the words of his nemesis. “Yeah, nobody likes tattletales.”

  I crossed my arms over my favorite pink polka dot dress. My momma tried to suggest that I wear something less fancy, but it wasn’t her first day – it was mine. And I wanted to look pretty and stand out in the crowd, just like my daddy always encouraged me to do.

  “I ain’t no tattletale,” I said with as much bravado as I could muster. “But we’re supposed to share. That’s what my Sunday school teacher tells us. We’re supposed to turn the other cheek and not sin, either.”

  My voice held a level of authority that typically doesn’t come from a little girl and the boys seemed to consider my theological wisdom – for a second - until the bigger blond kid yanked the truck from the scrawny kid’s hands, sending him flying face first into the sand.

  He came up sputtering, as I ran over to lend my hand. Tears streaked down his already dirty cheeks and he tried to hide the fact by wiping at them with the back of his hand. The other kid – looking a bit surprised – began laughing out of spite.

  “What’d you go and do that for?” the dark-haired boy asked, pushing himself up off his knees.

  I chimed in. “Yeah, you big meanie. You’re just a big ol’ bully.”

  My little temper got the best of me, regardless of the fact that I knew fighting was against the rules that Miss Lund had gone over just that very morning. But I couldn’t help it. I gave the blond boy a jerking shove to his shoulder, but he was quicker than me and he dodged it by turning his back, as I went sailing into the sand face first.

  I landed in the sandbox angrier than a mangy dog and completely humiliated at how I was bested by a bully.

  When I moved to get back up, the two boys were already going at each other – like scrappy little bear cubs – throwing punches and slapping at each other’s faces. A group of kids formed around us, wanting to see the tussle, all screaming and yelling.

  “Hit ‘em!”

  “Sock it to him!”

  “You hit like a girl, sissy!”

  That’s when I jumped in to break things up. It’s was an abomination that they would fight like that. My momma always said there’s too much war and hatred in the world and we should love thy neighbor. Which in theory sounded good, but I could never quite understand the rationale, since Mrs. Johnson was our neighbor and she was a mean old witch that yelled at me once for trying to pick up her cat, Luscious.

  “You better stop this right now, both of you. You’re behaving like…like…miscreants.”

  I had no idea what that word meant, but I’d heard my momma use it many times before with my older brothers, Grady and William. So, whatever the word meant, it wasn’t a good one, for that I was sure knowing the headaches my brothers gave my momma.

  My commands went completely ignored as the two boys continued to wrestle and kick, knocking each other around, creating a spectacle of themselves in front of our new classmates. So, I did the only thing that I could thin
k of to break up the fight.

  I joined in.

  The bigger blond headed boy was on top of the small lanky kid, so I jumped on the back and yanked at the blond boy’s hair.

  “Ow!” he howled, trying to buck me off his body with a wiggling motion, but I wouldn’t give up. I kept at him and his arm came back behind him and he ended up grabbing a piece of my long pony-tail, taking a chunk of it in his sweaty, dirty fist and pulling my head to the side.

  While it stung and brought bright tears to my eyes, I wasn’t that easily immobilized. I’d fought with my brothers and picked up some good tactics along the way since I was old enough to walk. This was nothing in comparison.

  Leaning down over my opponent’s head, I bared my teeth, getting a good piece of the earlobe on the boy.

  He wailed loudly and we both landed in a heap, his back ending up on top of my chest, crushing me and getting blood on my pretty new dress.

  It was then that the teacher finally realized what had been going on and she came running over to the sandbox and wading through the gaggle of kids who were still hooting and hollering over our interesting little scene. Had we been a few years older, the kids probably would’ve been placing bets, like I’d seen at the illegal cockfights at a neighboring farm.

  “What do the three of you think you’re doing? This is not how we treat one another or make new friends.”

  Miss Lund took a giant step into the sandbox, and grabbed hold of tiny, flailing arms, pulling us up to our feet one by one. With a swat to our rear ends, she marched us into the Principals office as the other kids giggled and squawked behind us.

  What happened next will forever cement our loyalty and friendship, even though it eventually led us in opposite directions.

  The Principal, Mr. Schuler, with his gruff face and graying hair, sat at his desk and eyed us each with pointed stares. I sat in the middle between the two boys, our feet dangling over the chairs above the blue carpet. I still hadn’t even learned their names.

  “Who would like to tell me what started this fight?”

  I glanced side-to-side to each boy to see if they were going to fess up to their actions. When it became clear that neither of them would speak up, based on their bent heads and downcast gazes, I stretched out my hands, grabbing a hand of each boy, holding them tightly as I spoke.

  Surprisingly, my voice didn’t wobble or shake, and I didn’t cry. For some reason, being in the middle of these two boys made me feel strong and confident. Like they propelled me and held me up in some manner.

  I had no idea what it really meant when I said what I said, but I’d heard it mentioned before when a man does a solid for a woman. And at that time, I felt it was my responsibility to speak up for these two rough-necked boys. Something inside me felt a connection worth holding on to. And worth lying about.

  “They were defending my honor.”

  And thus, our friendship began.

  Through thick and thin.

  Good times and bad.

  Until our worlds were ripped apart and they broke my heart in ways that it could never be salvaged. Burnt beyond recognition in a blazing fire too devastating to collect the pieces it left behind.

  Chapter 2

  By seventh grade, our worlds revolved around each other like planets to the sun, and every free moment we were together. It never seemed to matter to Cam and Sage that I was a girl and they were boys.

  Until the summer break between seventh and eighth grade. That’s when it became more than a little apparent that as a female, I was made different.

  At that point, our bodies began developing. I was no longer the skinny, knobby-kneed girl with pigtails. Cam’s voice had dropped an octave and his chubby-cheeks and pudgy boy body began to fill out into a more muscular build, especially since he was working out with his junior high football teammates all the time.

  And Sage…well, not only did he shoot up a foot to six-foot but the Halloween before, he’d dressed up as Jack Sparrow and found that the smudged eye-liner look appealed to him in many ways. He never wore it around his dad, though, for fear of being smacked around for looking like a “faggot.”

  As for me, I began trading in my grungy cut-off shorts and baggy t-shirts for more “acceptable” feminine clothing, as my momma called it. Throughout grammar school, I learned that fitting in with the boys was easier if I looked more like one. As I hit puberty, it also helped to conceal my growing breasts. So, momma was happy as a Georgia peach that I was becoming interested in fashion and would take me shopping every chance she got.

  One lazy Saturday afternoon, while Cam was off at some football camp, Sage and I moped in my basement, playing video games, when my momma asked us if we wanted to go to the mall. Had it not been for the way Sage’s eyes lit up with the opportunity, I would’ve politely declined. But seeing as he was excited to go, we all piled in my momma’s red sedan and drove the thirty miles to the one shopping mall in the county.

  She dropped us off in front of Dillard’s, giving us each a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. The look on Sage’s face was one of appreciation and mortification.

  Trying to hand it back to her, he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Moriety, but I can’t take this from you.”

  Momma waved him off. “Now, Sage, honey. Of course, you can. This is my gift to you since I didn’t get you anything for your birthday.”

  He knew it was all a bullshit lie, because my momma made the best cake this side of Texas for him, knowing full-well that his father would undoubtedly forget his son’s birthday. That was my momma. Compassionate and caring. It didn’t matter that she had three of her own children, my friends always had a place in our home and in her heart.

  Shooing us off in the opposite direction, she sent us on our merry way.

  Walking side-by-side, I bumped his shoulder with mine.

  “What do you think you’re gonna buy?”

  I’d only asked the question to hear him say it out loud because truthfully, I already knew. I just wanted to see his face light up with the desire that he’d kept hidden deep inside him.

  There was a music store in the mall, full of instruments and all kinds of musical equipment, amps, songbooks, tuning apparatuses. And I knew Sage like the back of my hand. He had been eying a guitar for the last year, looking at it wistfully every time we passed the store window, although he’d tried to hide his yearning.

  Sage had always been interested in music and knew every song on the radio. He’d sing along, with a pretend mic in hand, belting out the tunes at the top of his lungs. And he was good.

  He could also write lyrics and had notebooks filled with words and poems. In fact, that’s what I got him for his fourteenth birthday a month earlier, a beautiful, handcrafted leather-bound notebook so he could write down his thoughts and feelings and turn them into music.

  “I’m going to get that guitar,” he said, pointing to the window where a shiny acoustic six-string guitar was prominently displaced.

  He might have stood there all day long staring longingly at that instrument had I not grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside the store. When we stepped in, a salesperson came toward us from behind the counter.

  “May I help you two today?” His nametag said Clarence and he smiled at us politely.

  Sage moved toward the guitar, hesitantly stopping himself from reaching for it.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “He’d like to buy that guitar. How much is it?”

  The man nodded and plucked it off the stand, the tag dangling from one of the pegs.

  “This one here is one-hundred and seventy-two dollars.”

  Sage’s body jerked as if he’d been shot and he slowly turned back to me, an expression of sorrow and defeat written across his face.

  Knowing he wanted nothing more in the world than that guitar, I did what any good friend would do in that case, I gave him some of my money as a loan. He could pay me back when he earned enough through odd neighborhood jobs that summer.

  He was never one to smile a
lot, but a huge grin overtook his face and he hugged me tight.

  “Thank you, London. I’ll pay you back, okay? Don’t you worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried a bit. But the least you can do is write a song for me someday, okay?”

  And from that moment on, he was rarely ever seen without that guitar in his hands. He’d keep it in his locker while we were at school, telling me once that he was worried his dad would hock it for booze money if he didn’t keep it away from him.

  That summer was when it became glaringly obvious that Sage had a talent so incredible that he was destined for big things someday.

  One night, as we laid next to one another out in my backyard under the stars, Sage began to play a song he’d written that day just for me.

  It may have been rudimentary at the time and needed some polishing, but it was still the most beautiful song I’d ever heard because it was filled with all the things that he couldn’t say but felt to the bottom of his soul.

  I climb into bed each night,

  Closing my eyes tight.

  Hoping to wake with something different

  Than what I’ve been giving in my life.

  I thank the good Lord for my friends,

  Although sometimes I’m desperate

  For something I can’t have.

  And alone in my feelings and worried that it’ll end.

  It wasn’t the last time he’d write a song about heartbreak and despair. Of confusion over who he was and what he meant to the world.

  As he finished the song, our gazes snagged, and I reached for his hand. I was scared to ask the question, but the opportunity was there. So, I took the chance.

  “Sage, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  I heaved in a breath. “Are you gay?”