The Space Between

Check out sneak peak #2 for my upcoming romance book, The Space Between!

The Space Between releases on July 25th, 2023 but is available everywhere for pre-order now. Check out sneak peak #2 below:

We’re behind the curtain, ready for the gig to start. Dean and Dallas already set everything up. We’re tuned. We did our sound test. It’s all ready.
I’m tapping my fingers against my leg, trying to get out the jitters. When we play in the park or at Union Square or Grand Central, we just set up and start playing. Here, people are waiting on us. I can hear their expectation. It’s this crackling, edgy sort of noise.
I glance over at Andi.
She’s leaning against the wall, partially hidden in the shadows, staying outside the circle of the band. When she sees me looking she smiles, stands straight and gives me a double thumbs up.
I smile at her.
Now the jitters I was feeling have settled in my stomach. But I think that’s because Andi’s wearing a top that rides up over her belly button and shows the curve of her waist.
I wonder what it’d be like to dance with her.
I try really, really hard not to stare at her bare skin.
I can imagine my mom smacking me on the back of the head if she caught me looking.
I wince at the thought and send up an apology.
“Who’s the girl?” Dallas asks, shooting a dark look at Andi.
Dallas is a big guy. Refrigerator big. He’s our drummer and he grew up on the top floor of our building. He and Dean are the same age and have always been friends. Dallas’s dad has been in prison since before he was born and his mom was always gone. From what I could tell as a kid, she was gone early morning to late at night.
If Dallas wanted breakfast, he came to our place. If he wanted dinner, he came to our place. If he wanted a mom to
hug him, or a dad to reprimand him, he came to our place.
Mom always called him her fourth son. Let’s just say he took their deaths as hard as we did, and when Dean asked him to take Mom’s place at the drums, he didn’t hesitate.
Dallas glares at Andi and cracks his knuckles. Most people are intimidated when a six-foot-five guy plastered in prison tattoos cracks his knuckles and glares at them menacingly.
But Andi just lifts her chin and says, “The girl is Andi.”
“I don’t like her,” Dallas says, turning away.
I’m not surprised, Dallas doesn’t like anyone outside of Pauly and our family. Mom once said that Dallas has trust issues.
I always thought that was a nice way of saying he doesn’t like people.
It never really bothered me before though. Us five, we’re loyal to each other, and we always will be. We’d do anything for each other.
When River was nine, and Dallas was thirteen, Dallas came home and found River getting beaten by this junkie who’d been sleeping on our apartment stoop. The junkie had snapped and was viciously kicking River, who was curled in this little ball. Dallas went after the junkie. He went after him hard. I didn’t see it, but I saw Dallas after. It wasn’t pretty. The police came. It was ruled self-defense.
Later that night, Dallas set our landlord’s Cadillac on fire. He dumped gasoline all over that Caddy and then threw a burning match on it. Apparently, the landlord was the one supplying the junkie with his fix and allowing him to use our stoop as his bedroom. Dallas didn’t like that.
So he went to juvie.
When he came back, his trust issues were even bigger.
But he says he’d do it again. Anything for his family.
But even if it is Dallas, I’m not going to let him bully Andi.
“She’s with me.”
Everyone turns to look at me. And it’s funny, because even though only Dean and River are related, they all have identical expressions of surprise.
River is the first to recover.
“Nice to meet you, Andi.” A wide grin splits his face. “I’m River. The nice brother.”

Check out this sneak peak for my upcoming romance book, The Space Between!

The Space Between releases on July 25th, 2023 but is available everywhere for pre-order now. Check out the sneak peak below:

HER RED SCARF HANGS DOWN, THE TASSELS BRUSH OVER MY cheek. I stare at her dumbly. Up close, she isn’t as perfect as I first thought. Sure, her long thick hair is my favorite color—it’s the color of the sweet, reddish-amber honey that I drizzled on the biscuits my mom used to make on Saturday mornings. And her eyes are deep set and dark. They’re the rich shade of the butterbrown wood on my (now splintered) guitar. But beyond that, there isn’t anything special about her.

Her nose is straight and a bit too long. Her chin has a small dimple, which I’ve never seen on a girl before. Her cheekbones are high and her face is angular. Her eyebrows fly up in straight, questioning lines. Her top front teeth have a small gap. I guess, though, it’s hard to notice that she isn’t what you’d consider beautiful, because there’s something about her that’s arresting. Something that makes it almost impossible to turn away.
I think it’s the way she carries herself. Like she knows something. Some secret. And the expression on her face…

“Are you going to answer me?” she asks, her voice a rich husky alto, just like Ella singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me” with Louis.
It shocks me so much that I find I can’t answer her.
“Oh no. Are you dying and I’m blocking the light?” She steps aside and gestures at the dull, cloudy sky, a bit of filtered light shining down on us. She frowns at me, “Well?”
I stare at the light playing over her, highlighting the honey color of her hair and the flecks of gold in her eyes.
“You’re beautiful.”
I blink.
That’s not what I meant to say.
The girl tilts her head. “Nope. I’m Andi. Nice to meet you.”
She smiles and holds out her hand for me to shake, like we’re at a tea party at the Waldorf Astoria and she’s in a silk dress and I’m in a three-piece suit. Instead of the reality, where I’m still on the ground covered in blood and bruises, and she’s in a baggy cotton dress and a tattered red scarf.
I push myself up and swallow down the nausea as my head spins. The scent of cigarette has left, blown away on the humid breeze. It’s replaced by a soft smell, like sun-warmed strawberries and cherry blossoms freshly fallen. I sit in the dirt and take her hand. Her fingers are warm and when she squeezes my hand, it feels, for all the world, like coming home. When I was three, and my dad gave me my Martin, it felt like this too. Like I’d been born to hold it.
“I’m Jace.”
She squeezes firmly and shakes my hand. Then leaning close, she frowns.
“Did you know you’re bleeding?”
I nod and feel a little woozy when I do. But I push past it.
“It’ll be fine.”