Shattered Chances: A Breaking Black Companion Novel Read online

  Shattered Chances

  A Breaking Black Novel

  Addison Kline

  Shattered Chances

  ISBN-13: 978-1500194611 (CreateSpace-Assigned)

  ISBN-10: 1500194611

  Copyright 2014 – Addison Kline

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art- Obtained from depositphotos.com olly18

  Fonts obtained from 1001 free fonts baby and font squirrel: Eutemia I, Gabriola

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Any resemblance to persons dead or alive are sheer coincidence. This is a work of fiction and is the product of the author’s imagination.

  Dedication

  To Tessa Burman:

  My Assistant. My Friend. Randy’s biggest fan.

  #CheyenneWho? #TheRealMrsRandyFord

  You rock, woman!

  PROLOGUE

  Cheyenne

  Seven year’s bad luck. It seems an awfully steep punishment for slamming my fist into a mirror… but that is exactly the sentence I got. Seven years without him. Seven years where I could barely look at myself in the mirror. Seven years I couldn’t stomach the sight of myself, without Randy by my side.

  Randy. He’s not as big of a hard ass as he wants everyone to believe. It’s a guise; a shield, a barrier. Underneath his tough as leather exterior, his brash attitude, lethal glare and seemingly out of control temper, lies a heart of gold. A heart I’ve dropped more times than I’d like to count.

  Randy’s always been a little crazy. You can’t pin that on me. It’s probably why I found the boy so effing irresistible. He knew a thing or two about rising up from a broken life. Yeah. I guess you can say that about me, too.

  My name is Cheyenne West, and my heart belongs to one man. Say what you will about the road we’ve traveled… It’s real. It’s raw. It’s not a God damn fairytale. Randy is no Prince Charming and if you call me a damsel in distress, I’ll chop you in the throat. I know what you’re thinking… You’ve heard this story before. But trust me when I tell you, honey, you don’t know shit.

  So if you can sit there and get over your hearts and rainbows and Walt Disney version of what you think love is supposed to be, I’ll tell you about how Randy and I came to be.

  We have a love that’s real. Emotions that are raw and unforgiving boil over. We are two people that love each other, but don’t always make the smartest decisions, but somehow, we always manage to run right back to each other.

  That mirror I broke after Randy left, my bloody wrist breaking the smooth surface of my reflection into a jagged mess of glass and sand, fell to the floor in a million tiny pieces. Pieces of us scattered across the bathroom floor. Our reflection broken, our relationship fractured. The average person sees a broken mirror and they see something destroyed, an unfixable object; something to be swept away and discarded, but I was born with an artist’s eye. It’s a rare gift to be able to take something broken and create something beautiful… something better. That is exactly what I set out to do… take the broken pieces of us, and create something beautiful.

  It wasn’t easy. Even the cautious hand could be attacked. These pieces of us… they draw blood. But until all the crimson was drained from my heart, I would never give up on him. Every shattered chance acted as a challenge, a catalyst, tempting me, no, daring me to pick up the pieces and create the life we were meant to have.

  We’re crazy in love… that’s for sure. But we’re crazier apart. Go ahead. Judge me. Label me. Just don’t ever get between me and my man.

  1.

  Randy

  “Cheyenne.”

  Sigh.

  My love for her is a sickness, a madness that infiltrated my body, spreading from cell to cell, until she was all i thought about. All I knew. I had to have her, and once I had her, there was no turning back.

  I sat under the dim red hue of the traffic light, not so patiently waiting for it to turn green. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I cast my eyes on the taxi cab in front of me, if looks could kill, the cab would burst into flames, right now. Cheyenne, as usual, refuses to listen to me. But this isn’t her fault. Not by a long shot. I am an idiot; a dunce-cap wearing imbecile who cannot manage to sit alone for ten minutes at a bar without getting myself into some ridiculous situation. I should have just waited for Chey, Colt and Averi at home instead of heading to the bar early, straight from work.

  Even I had to admit that it looked bad. Real bad. Caught in a lip lock with some gorgeous girl from Nebraska that I barely knew. Her hands were all over me, and me with my bewildered What the fuck is happening?! look that Cheyenne apparently confused with my Oh, Baby! stare. How on earth was I going to talk my way out of this one? I had already explained that it wasn’t what it looked like, but Chey isn’t a stupid girl. I was going to pay for this big time.

  I never thought that I would be chasing behind Cheyenne’s cab that was bolting up the road en-route for San Antonio International Airport. My heart pumped in my chest, rattled and stressed. Tapping my fingers against the steering wheel as I waited for the light to change from red to green, I felt as if I was about to have a heart attack.

  “C’mon!” I yelled at the light, my eyes glaring with a dangerous edge.

  How did it come to this? Our reunion, which was so blissful, so victorious for both of us, how could a simple slip of the tongue from a girl I didn’t even know bring it all crashing back down again? Surely our love was stronger than that? But as I fought to catch up with the taxi-cab, my mind was giving me a million reasons why we failed.

  “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let her walk away without hearing my side of the story.”

  Oh, how the tables have turned.

  As the light turned green, the engine fired, catapulting me forward at 70 miles per hour, hell bent on setting the story straight and getting my girl to come home. This is not how I wanted to spend my thirtieth birthday, but I’m not about to let Cheyenne walk out of my life forever, especially over something as inconsequential as this.

  She kissed me.

  Now with just forty minutes til her flight departed, I was in a race against time.

  “How did it come to this?”

  2.

  Cheyenne

  “Where to, darlin’?” The driver of the yellow taxi cab asked me as I got in with nothing more than my heavy Coach bag. The driver looked at me strangely, probably staring at my pair of dark Jackie O sunglasses on my eyes. It was night time, the shades weren’t being used to block out the bright Texas rays. It was to hide my eyes. I couldn’t let Randy see my eyes. He knew me too well. There was too much truth there. He’d see right through me.

  I passed a piece of paper to the driver as Randy ran to the window to try to stop my hasty departure.

  “Chey!” Randy yelled with a hurt look upon his face.

  I couldn’t stomach this. I felt like my heart was about to give way. It had to be done, though.

  “Everything okay, Miss?” the driver asked, looking in his rear view mirror at me.

  “Fine. Hit the gas.”

  As the cab sped away, I watched out the back window as reality set into Randy’s eyes.

  3.

  Randy

  14 years earlier…

  “Honestly, Randy! You’re a mess!” Mary Hall complained as she looked at my dirty face. She licked her thumb and proceeded to wipe the dirt off my cheeks. I scrunched my face up in disgust.

  “Gran! Ugh! That’s disgusting!” I c
omplained.

  Player # 11, the new kid, laughed at me as my grandmother washed off the dirt as if I was a messy toddler who had just made a mess of himself while eating a cookie. Colt McClain, bane of my existence, strolled up to the new kid, and began to sneer at me.

  “Shut up!” I yelled.

  “Manners…” my grandmother reminded me.

  “Oh, Mary. Leave him alone… it’s all part of football. Getting dirty. Talking trash,” Hank, my grandfather said as he peered down at me with a raised eyebrow. I had escaped my grandmother’s reach and put my football helmet back on, but before I could escape completely, my grandfather grabbed the mask of my helmet tightly with his calloused hands that had turned leathery from so many years of tending to the ranch.

  “Look here, boy… One thing you need to do is harness all that negative energy. Instead of fighting with #11 over there or the McClain boy…”

  I looked over at Colt who proudly wore his #13 jersey. He gave me a smug look while he said something to #11. Averi sat nearby on a bleacher cheering them all on.

  “You need to focus your energy in getting the ball into the end zone. You don’t fight with your own team mates,” my grandfather reminded me.

  “He started with me,” I carefully reminded my grandfather.

  Hank grabbed my helmet again and tugged hard.

  “Don’t back talk me. Get the ball in the end zone. Focus.”

  Tim, my brother who now towered over our grandmother, ran up to her with a broad smile on his face.

  “Gran… Can we get hot dogs? Me and Averi are hungry.”

  Without much thought, my grandmother pulled out her black coin purse, popped it open and gave Tim a ten dollar bill.

  “Get me one, too. With relish.”

  “Blech, relish…”

  “What?! It’s delicious.”

  “Pop, do you want one too?” Tim asked, waiting for his grandfather to respond.

  “Yes, no relish, though. Onions and ketchup.”

  “You guys are gross,” Tim said as he walked off to the hotdog stand.

  “Get me two, with ketchup!” I yelled, but my grandfather nudged me in the shoulder and gave me an evil look.

  “Do you wanna upchuck all over the field? Eat after the game.”

  I roll my eyes, even though I know he’s right.

  I’m freaking starving!

  The thought was fleeting as my grandfather grabbed the cage of my helmet and gave me an intimidating look.

  “Listen up… Harness all that energy and rage, and you work it out on the field.”

  “I’m still pissed I wasn’t picked to be quarterback, instead they gave it to that smug jackass over there,” I said as I pointed to Colt who was practicing his throw with a couple of the other players.

  “You’re too strong to be a quarterback. You’re no featherweight!” Hank said as he swatted Randy in the gut. “You’re all brawn! Now get out there and get the pigskin in the end zone.”

  I rolled my eyes. I wonder if any linebacker has ever been disqualified for sacking their own quarterback. I was willing to find out.

  I don’t make friends easily. I never enjoyed answering the questions that come with meeting new people. How are you? What’s your name? Where are your parents? Why are you so angry? Why do you hate Colt McClain so much? Let me tell you, if you walked my path, you’d hate him, too. His father killed my parents, and he has my sister fooled into thinking he’s a good guy. We used to be brothers. My mother actually adopted him after his mother and grandmother died and his father skipped town. It was probably the biggest mistake of her life. It was because of Colt that she’s dead, whether he pulled the trigger or not. It’s something I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive. My grandparents take care of my brother, my sister and I. They try to give us a normal upbringing. It’s hard, when half of our family is gone. Black Horse, Colt’s father, killed my father, Nathan, my mother, Corinne, and my older brother Seth. You walk away from something like that and not be filled with rage.

  My Uncle Shawn came onto the field and blew his whistle, calling all the Bulldogs to the field.

  “I want a clean game. Work together!” my uncle said as he grabbed both mine and Colt’s helmets. “Not kidding, fellas!”

  As the ref blew the whistle, we got into formation, ready to take on the pathetic 0-7 Lawson High Lions.

  ***

  The game was going fine until the fourth quarter. We were up by two solid goals. First, Kenny Fischer, being the moron that he is, fumbled the ball and the Lions intercepted, and scored a touch down. That’s nothing compared to the travesty that happened next. Our brain dead quarterback got the ball back, I’m ten yards from the end zone, TEN YARDS, and what does he do? He throws it to #11 who was at the 13 yard line. Let’s do the math… Ten versus thirteen. Which do you think is closer? Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner! But what does jackass do? He throws it to his new best friend, #11. Don’t get me wrong, the guy got the touchdown, but I would have made that goal look good. Instead, #11 damn near barreled me over to get the damn ball in the end zone. To say I was pissed, would the highlight of the year from Captain Obvious.

  While the rest of my team mates celebrated the 21-17 win over the Lions, I was racing after #11 up the tunnel that led to the locker rooms. I probably looked completely insane, I could feel the rage rising within me. Finally, I was just a feet behind him.

  “What the hell, man?!” I yell loudly at #11, but they acted like they couldn’t hear me, quietly strolling up the tunnel at a leisurely pace.

  “Dude, you deaf?! I had that ball!” I screamed, getting more and more pissed off by the second.

  Colt, who was only a few feet behind me, started laughing hard. “Ford, you didn’t have shit. There were three guys on you and 11 was wide open.”

  “Fuck off, McClain!” I screamed, casting him a vicious look. Shit he’s annoying!

  “Dude!” I continued calling after #11 as I gripped up his jersey.

  #11 shrugged me off, pushing me hard against the brick wall. I must have looked shocked. The player pressed a finger hard into my chest.

  “What man?! Come at me, bro!” I demanded. If they were going to put their hands on me, they were going to get a fight.

  They hadn’t said a word, though. I stayed silent in mixed shock and curiosity. The hand that was laid upon my chest had glittery purple polish lacquered on the nails. A laugh sounded from behind the helmet as they lifted a hand to remove the helmet from their head.

  As the helmet was removed from the player’s head, I was rendered speechless. Soft brown hair fell in waves over the player’s shoulder and the sweetest pair of blue eyes I had ever seen stared back at me. #11 wasn’t a guy after all, but a girl. A really pretty girl.

  “Come at you?” the girl said as she smiled, the curve of her lip curling up as she ran her hand through her still wet chestnut hair.

  As her polished finger nails reach the ends of her hair, she placed both hands on my chest. My heart was hammering and I must have looked dumbstruck.

  “What are you doing?” I asked dumbly.

  Seriously? That’s what you say at a moment like this?

  #11 had a devilish look in her eyes.

  “Comin’ at you… Bro.”

  Before I could even reply, the girl had rushed me. Her lips locked with mine, and I swear, every nerve was alive and on fire. My skin tingled as I pulled her tight and kissed her back. I didn’t know her. I didn’t care. She was a small piece of unexpected heaven. But as quick as she rushed me, she retreated, leaving me with just a small taste of what she had to offer. I watched as she darted up the tunnel, leaving me standing stunned.

  “Hey!” I called after her, desperate for something more. A name. A number. Hell, I’d even settle for a go to hell. I just wanted her to say something; validate that this was real.

  “What?!” the girl said turning around on her heel with a cocky look on her face.

  “What’s your name?” I asked and I smiled at he
r. I couldn’t help it. What the hell was happening to me? I’m smiling at her like an idiot?!

  The girl winked at me slyly and said, “Cheyenne West.”

  “Randy Ford,” I spit out.

  “Meet on the Center in twenty,” Cheyenne said as she disappeared into the girl’s locker room with a sneaky smile on her face.

  As I watched the door slam shut, I fell back on the wall and let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

  4.

  Cheyenne

  My heart raced as I sped off to the empty girl’s locker room – a perk of being the only girl on an all boy football squad. I had never been so bold. I don’t even know what had come over me. I had just demanded a date from Randy Ford. We had a few classes together, though I doubt he recognized me. The day the Principal introduced me to my teachers and classmates, Randy was out sick, and I like to blend in. I had met his sister Averi on my first day, and she seemed nice. But then, when she went to introduce me to her brother, he snapped! Randy saw Colt McClain making eyes at his little sister, and Randy chased him down the hallway like a madman. Most people would have been like, “Holy shit, Batman!” but I actually found him to be adorable. Colt had a good six inches on Randy, but Randy didn’t care. He had a cute face, anybody could see that. But he was feisty, protective, and as he ripped off down the hallway, I couldn’t help but smile. That boy has spunk. Pretty boys bore me. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a boy that looks at his reflection more than me. If my past has proved anything, it’s that I need a guy who is as rough around the edges as I am.