Page 1 of The Road Trip Romance

CHAPTERONE

Sophia

His hand caresses her cheek as he leans in, his lips brushing against hers.

“You’re the one. You’ve always been the one,” he says, pressing his lips firmly to hers as his hand slowly lifts the hem of her skirt.

She sighs as he deepens the kiss…

Wait, can you sigh if you’re being kissed?

She whimpers as he deepens the kiss…

Doeswhimpermake her seem too needy?

Ugh! I push the laptop alongside the pile of laundry I should have finished folding by now. I’ve been working on this scene for days, but I can’t seem to get it right.Maybe it’s because you haven’t had sex in years!Nope, not going to fixate on that factoid.

I sigh as I stare back at the screen, rethinking the words I’ve written.Yep, she definitely isn’t sighing while her soulmate shoves his tongue down her throat.

I pick up the last shirt on the dryer top and finish folding it. Placing it on top of the mound of clothing in the basket, I knock a sock off the pile, and it falls to the floor. I pick it up with a groan.

“Seriously?” I mutter to myself. I look around my laundry room as if the matching sock will appear out of thin air before me, returned by the sock goblins. I laugh at that ridiculous thought and open the dryer. No sock. I frown. I swear to God, this is a conspiracy by sock makers everywhere, so we have to buy more socks. I open the washer and stare at the sock lying wet at the bottom.

How in the heck did I miss that? I hear movement above me, giving me my answer. As if on cue, my daughter screams, “Mom! Where are my socks? My feet are cold!” I have no idea how she could have cold feet in June. I really need to start teaching them how to do their own laundry.

Taking a steadying breath, I toss the sock into the dryer.Wait, maybe microwave it? Oven? Am I seriously about to run a dryer load for one sock?

“Mom!” Lizzie screams at the top of her lungs from the kitchen.

“I hear you!” I yell before taking a long steadying breath.

“Socks!” she reiterates. I throw the sock in the dryer. I haven’t the will to do anything else. The kids leave for my ex’s house in a couple of days. After four years of divorce, Mark and I have worked our shit out and now I can honestly say we are good friends. Even his girlfriend, Taryn, is a friend of mine. Thank God he found himself a cool woman. Maybe I will actually be able to get something clean around here while my kids are away. I take a second to remind myself that I will miss them, just not their mess caused by the copious amount of accessories that children seem to acquire…hourly.

I take another cleansing breath and head upstairs. It’s Sunday and all I want to do is hide away in my writing alcove in my cluttered kitchen and write. My day job has been so busy lately, I haven’t written as many words in my next novel as I had hoped to do. Plus, I’ve been stuck on this scene for days. But instead, I have to get dinner ready, and the kids packed.

“Cal? Did you start setting out your things for Dad’s house yet?” I ask my son as I set the basket of neatly folded laundry that will no doubt be wadded into a mess inside my kids’ suitcases in about twenty-four hours.

“Yeah…uh, in a minute,” he mumbles as I watch him playing a video game.

“Cal!” I scold.

“Mom, I swear I’ll do it in a minute. I’ve almost got to the next level,” he whines, not even looking in my direction.

“Fine, fifteen minutes,” I state, deciding this fight isn’t worth my time. I turn to my daughter who is coloring in a…wait a minute…adult coloring book that I got at a signing from an author friend of mine. I grimace.Oh, crap.That’s not a child-appropriate coloring book.

“Lizzie, can you help me start dinner?” I say as I try to distract her. She looks up at me from the far side of the table.

“Mom, what’s omega?—”

“Let’s finish this later. We really need to start dinner. I’ll help you clean this up,” I interrupt, grabbing the coloring book that she clearly nabbed from my desk while trying to toss crayons into a plastic container.

She glares at me and crosses her arms. “Mom, I wasn’t done.” When did my cute little girl turn into a sassy seven-year-old? I glance at Cal. Hell, he looks more like a pre-teen every day. I miss when they were little.

“I know. You can finish later. Let’s get going. You can microwave some corn,” I offer as though that’s going to appease her.

She rolls her big blue eyes. “Can’t I chop something?” Her eyes flicker to my knives and then to the scar on her finger.

I give her a knowing look.

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