Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Two broken hearts, pent-up anger, the right amount of Philly grit, painful yearning, and the complete inability to move on… This is Alfie and West’s love story. It begins in the wreckage they created.
Mom always warned me when I was a kid. Remember, mijo, stay away from the Sons of Munster, she’d say, wagging her finger at me and all. They were bad. They were mobsters. Then we’d head into church, and she’d hold my hand almost as tightly as she clutched the secret of who my biological dad was.
Since I’d been a bit of a screw-up all my life, it only made sense for me to blow it out of the park when I finally gave up on my marriage years and years later. Then again, who could blame me? I had two success stories—my kids. I loved them to pieces. But the man I shared them with—the love of my life—was moving on. I was also done pretending to be someone else, I was sick of the lies, and…to be honest, I was going through an identity crisis.
So, to hell with it. Since West wasn’t taking me back, maybe the Sons of Munster would accept me.
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Alfie belongs in the This Life universe by Cara Dee. However, Alfie and West’s story has been written so it can be enjoyed to its full extent as a standalone.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
Los Angeles
West Scott
Iremember the night we met. You poured me my beer and then glanced at the credit card I handed over, and you cocked a brow, smirked that smirk of yours, and said, “Fuckin’ Beaufort? Beaufort Weston Scott. Your folks do not love you, papi.”
Some say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Feed him, and he will love you forever. For me, the magic word was evidently annoyance. With that single line, you irritated the fuck out of me—and that was after I’d come into the bar and low-key stalked you for a couple of weeks already. So I’d been gearing up to buy you a beer and see if you were interested in going out. Then you insulted me to my face?
“How cool is your own name?”
“Very.” You slid the beer my way, still smirking. “I’m Alfie.”
Your definition of cool needed some work.
And yet…back then, I did find you incredibly fucking cool. There was something about you. You were brazen, bold, and so open. I mean, we were in a Philly bar in LA, surrounded by strangers from home who wanted to catch a game.
I’d been careful about bringing up my sexuality my whole life, and you were the complete opposite. For instance, the first time I saw you, you were slinging shots to a couple truck drivers, and it was, “Here you go, hon” this, and “How you doin’, gorgeous” that.
You were by no means flamboyant; if anything, you stood out as a cocky motherfucker with plenty of street-smarts who screamed danger. Even so, your flirtatious behavior left no doubt. You were gay, and you were so goddamn beautiful that I couldn’t look away from you.
I’m an ass man, so for me to get stuck on a pair of eyes was unheard of back then. You were, and are, a special culture cocktail. Irish father, half-Italian and half-Puerto-Rican mother. Your dark hair was short but messy, like you’d spent the day in the ocean, surfing, before starting your shift at the bar. You had a tan and some freckles. And those eyes… My God, Alfie.
A week or so later when we got to talking and you said you were a part-time model, I wasn’t surprised at all. It wasn’t your dream, you said, but the pay was too good to resist.
You were too good to resist for me. I can admit today, I was on edge about your age. Still in your college years, you’d moved to LA to make it big. But I just couldn’t hold back. I put a gag on the jaded fucker in me who said you’d never go for someone like me, and I asked you out.
Meeting you shook my entire existence. For the first time ever, I felt alive.
We went from zero to sixty in one summer. You were gonna be my forever. We were gonna raise a family together. We were gonna spend late nights laughing and fucking and dreaming. You quickly proved you were useless in the kitchen, so I handled that, and you sat on the counter and made up stories to make me laugh.
Boy, did you make me laugh.
You couldn’t say a sentence without cursing, you spoke with your hands, you were so animated, and your joy made those green eyes light up in the way I was addicted to.