Chapter one

Crazy for you

After Dark Series – 01

2 nd edition

Copyright © 2013 by A. C. Meyer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means without the written permission of the publishers.

Copy editing: Laura Pohl

Digital layout: Andreia Barboza

Cover: Fernanda Fernandez

Text revised according to the new Orthographic Agreement of the Portuguese Language.

Translation to American English by: Paulo de Faria Lopes

To my mother. Because no other love in the world compares to hers.

Chapter one

Julie

Can you picture this girl lying in bed? Yes, the thin little blonde one, with glasses on and Sponge Bob pajamas, wrapped up in her duvet and hearing the moaning going on next door?

Lovely to meet you, that’s me, and I’m going to tell you my story.

Every night I wake up frightened by the sounds from the house next door. And every night I feel jealous of those moans from random girls that I long to be my own…

I am Juliette Walsh, but everybody calls me Julie. I am 23 years old, and since childhood I have been head over hills in love with this guy that doesn’t even bother to look at me. Worse than that, he sort-of sees me as his younger sister. This is the guy that causes those moans all night long…

I’ve known Daniel all my life. He’s three years older than me, and his sister, the actual one , is my best friend. We were neighbors. Our parents were very close friends and when I lost mine in a car accident at the age of 14, their mother started taking care of me as If I was one of her own children.

I’m an only daughter, so were my parents and my grandparents had already passed on. The Stewarts were the only family I had left. My family from the heart.

My mother was a beautiful woman, with long blonde, shining hair and vibrant blue eyes. I inherited those physical features, but I’m not quite as beautiful. She was one of those people absurdly in love – with my father, of course. The sudden loss of my whole family meant a lot of suffering, but it may have been better that way. My parents were an annoyingly happy couple, and I don’t think one would have survived the loss of the other.

I inherited from them my belief that love must move our lives, and that one day I will also find my prince charming that will rescue me from all my troubles, and will take me along on a sunset ride, towards our happily ever after… …

And I found him. First, as a naughty boy, who pulled my braids and made Johanna and I run after him.

Later, in my teenage years, I saw that naughty boy become a charming young man that conquered the heart of every girl from school with a snap of his fingers. Including mine.

After losing my parents, I went to live with the Stewarts – who gained custody of me, something I am absolutely grateful for – and Danny went on to take even more care of me. He didn’t let me date nor go out with his friends because he said I wasn’t old enough to play “grown up games”. I wasn’t the only one under fire, though. He extended this sort of behavior towards Jo as well.

Eventually he went to university to study Management, and I finally got the chance to have boyfriends. Nothing serious. Actually, they sort of paved the way for when Danny would eventually come home for good, and to my arms, of course.

Though that’s not what happened. After graduating, he came back more handsome, alluring and charming, and treating me even more as a younger sister, as if I was still that little 14 year old girl and not a fully grown 21 year old woman, driving me mad with rage.

Danny came back from college with a life plan that fit in perfectly with mine: he decided to start a business in partnership with his two best friends, Rafe and Zach. They owned a bar with live music every day and a group of mega friendly bartenders. Eighteen months later, After Dark opened its doors with thunderous success and became the hottest spot for the youth of Los Angeles.

You're probably wondering how my life plan fit in with his. Simple: what I do best in life is sing. It's the only thing I know I can do, that I dreamed and prepared for... But Danny won't let me do it. How could I handle it?

When they started interviewing the bands for the bar, I offered, asked, and begged for a chance, but Daniel said I wasn't ready to face a crowd, and he barred the guys from bringing it up.

When I said I'd audition elsewhere, there was panic. We argued a lot and I always ended up yielding. Why is that?

Because love is blind, deaf, dumb and stupid.

Since I couldn't follow my dream of singing, I ended up agreeing to work at After Dark as a waitress.

I never wanted to go to college. My life's dream was to live off music. I took countless singing and dancing classes, I learned to play various instruments. So I never prepared for any other kind of job.

Shortly after the opening of After Dark, I decided to move from the Stewart house. I love Daniel's parents as if they were my own, but I wanted to have my own space. Coincidentally, a property next to Daniel's house —who lives alone—became vacant, and he suggested I move there. Thus, he wouldn't have to worry about me, and I'd have a "family" member close by.

All I could think was that he understood that I had grown up, that I wasn't the little girl in braids he knew anymore. I rescued one of the investments that the accountant had made with the inheritance that my parents left and I bought the house, dreaming that if I stayed there, one day Danny would finally notice me.

Did you really think this would work? There you go, I shouldn't have thought it either. That's why I'm lying in my bed, alone, during my Friday night break, listening to the increasingly loud groans of the slut of the day, who is getting on with the man that should be mine.

Danny's house looks more like a brothel. He's an assumed womanizer and is with someone different every night. Fortunately, most of the neighborhood is single too, and they don't care about that. It would be tricky if we had elderly neighbors wanting to watch the soap opera while the porn channel seems to be on live display in the house next door.

The fact that he owns a bar helps him with his conquests. Every day Daniel gets out of there towards his love nest with a girl hanging on his arm. Despite this high turnover and the variety of women, he never gave me a chance to at least experience the taste of his kiss.

Of course not. I sit here panting and frustrated while he gets off with casual sex.

You must be wondering why I don't get out of here, why I don't change my life.

Let me answer that, and I'm sure you're gonna find me even crazier: what keeps me here is hope... That's what makes me remain here and take a job I didn't dream of, let go of my desire, and spend my nights enduring the groans from the house next door. The dumb hope that one day he'll wake up and see that I am the woman of his life. Oh, dear God. That just sounds stupid even to me. But who says I can give up this man?

That's why every night I go through the same torment. It starts with anger and then frustration. I get up and drink water to try to and calm down, because I refuse to touch myself to seek some relief from the torment while he's having sex with some girl. So, I lay down again, turn on the TV, go on to the internet to find something interesting on social media, or at least someone to chat with. I toss and turn in bed. Sometimes I feel inspired and write songs I shall never sing for anyone, and there I tell all the love I feel for this fool. There I am until dawn, the house next door falls into silence, and exhausted, I fall into sleep.