Page 1 of Little Paper Games
Chapter 1
KENNA
Best laid plans ripped apart by a selfish dumbass. That’s how I found myself sitting here, annoyed while movers made a ridiculous amount of noise and ruckus moving Jude Lincoln’s things into the empty home beside me.
Jude and I had grown up together. My parents moved in across the street from his parents while my mother was pregnant with me. Jude was only a year old at the time. Our parents became the best of friends; the kind you see in the movies.
It had always been the plan for him to move into the other side of the duplex our parents had purchased together, but of course, he had to go and screw that up. Our parents bought the property while we were in high school, thinking that we’d both go to college here in Middlebury. It was a great idea, honestly. Buy a property and let us live there instead of a crappy little dorm. Jude, however, had other ideas, and took an athletic scholarship out of state. I was still perturbed that Jude had wrecked the plan our parents had made. Granted, I was also extremely happy I hadn’t had to live next to him over the last few years.
For the past three years, I had lived in my side of the duplex while Jude’s parents had rented out the other. The last tenants had moved out– rather, been kicked out– a few months ago and the silence that ensued had been complete bliss. Until now.
Bang! Crash!
Wow. Obviously, Jude had splurged for top-of-the-line movers. Or maybe he was doing part of it himself, convincing the movers that he knew the best way to move things and was, as a result, breaking half of his own shit. That made me feel better. Served him right. I put on my headphones and pulled out the latest book in my to-be-read list on my Kindle. A little romance never hurt anyone and it sure as hell beat dealing with Jude today.
There was a part of me that wished our parents could have been right; that we would have been great friends. That we would have grown up, fallen in love, and given them a gaggle of grandkids. Lord knows, he was gorgeous in high school. But it didn’t matter. He and I were just too different. He was the Homecoming King two years running and I was the straight-A valedictorian of my class. We were both popular in our own right, but we ran in very different circles for being such a small town. I understood why our parents wanted all those things for us, but it would never happen. Jude was an asshole jock with nothing but a hollow space between his ears. I was a bit of a pain in the ass at times, especially to Jude. Granted, in my opinion, he deserved every bit of torment I pushed his way. Especially after all that had happened in high school.
Crash! Bang!
I shook the high school memories from my head and turned up the volume on my music, hoping to drown out the sounds from next door and keep myself hidden away for as long as possible. I may or may not have hidden my car down the street just to be sure I didn’t get asked to help. The longer we could keep away from each other, the better.
The night went on like that; the movers making a shit ton of noise well into the late evening hours. By the time they were finished, I felt like I could breathe again. They were so loud even my music didn’t drown it out.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I spoke too soon.
My reprieve was short-lived. Loud music and the sound of hammering jarred me from my book and had me seething. It was going on midnight. Seriously? How inconsiderate could he be?!
I turned up the volume on my music once again and tried to focus on the lusty reverse harem novel I was knee deep into. The pounding of hammers and loud blaring music only slightly ruined the experience of reading about five delicious men and one ridiculously lucky woman banging it out on the kitchen table. But it was better than nothing.
If this was how life was going to be living next to him, Jude was about to get a rude awakening. If it continued, I was going to have no choice but to spell out exactly how things would work here. If that didn’t work, I wasn’t above involving his parents. I had a feeling that trying to reason with the arrogant asshole of 207A Parker Street would simply be a disaster. The two of us coming to any kind of agreement was about as likely as pigs flying or hell freezing over.
“Hey Jude! Don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better.”
Seriously? Now he and whoever was helping him move were singing at the top of their lungs, and off-key at that! The absolute nerve of the man! Did he have no courtesy for neighbors? Did he just think he could be as loud and annoying as he wanted, and what? Just fuck whoever it might inconvenience or bother? Jesus Christ! For having two amazing parents that Iknowraised him better, he was an incomparable ass.
At the end of the day, I suppose it didn’t matter. I was stuck with him.
If I was stuck with him, then he would have to deal with being stuck with me.
It was going to be one hell of a long year.
JUDE
Moving back to Middlebury had never been part of the plan. No. If there was one thing, I was always a stickler about, it was having a plan and sticking to it. The plan had been to get as far away from Middlebury, as far away from Vermont, as I could. Don’t get me wrong, the town was fine. Absolutely gorgeous in the fall, truth be told. My parents were fine. The school was fine. The university was even better. But this wasn’t where I belonged.
When I’d gotten my acceptance letter to Northeastern, it had been the biggest wakeup call of my life. I’d applied there on a whim. Well, perhaps more like a farfetched dream school, if I was being honest. I wanted to go into law. I wanted to do something different with my life than what everyone expected. When I saw that acceptance letter, I gave myself the freedom to really reach for it.
In the end, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was accepted on an athletic scholarship. I talked to my advisors, and it was made pretty clear that I wouldn’t be accepted into other programs, let alone law, on my brains alone. I was there to make money for the school. When I injured my knee at the beginning of sophomore year, I knew I was in deep shit.
I was failing half of my classes, barely grazing by enough to stay on the team. So, when suddenly the team was gone, I was left, barely skating by, on a 2.0 grade point average and about to fail out of college at barely twenty years old. One of my advisors, an older woman named Professor Lamb, pulled me aside one day and asked if I had ever been tested for learning disabilities. Of course, that didn’t sit well with me. Not one bit. But it was that or fail out of college.
After my results came back, it became clear that I did, in fact, have a learning disability. A form of dyslexia. Professor Lamb helped me get audial testing for all my classes, showed me how to use a tape recorder for all my lectures and taught me new ways to study. Suddenly, I was acing my tests and passing my classes well above average. I fell into the love of knowledge I’d had as a child. The one that had been tapped out in high school by bullies, stupid social standards, and plain old embarrassment. That’s when law came back into play for me.
I realized that I really could get into a law program if I worked hard enough. Surprisingly, I graduated with honors in the end. But, to get into a good law program, I needed a little more work.
When I got the call from Professor Lamb that a graduate assistant position had opened back in my hometown that would help beef up my law school application, I didn’t even think twice. I applied and, with the help of Professor Lamb, I was accepted. So, I packed my things and moved back home.
