Beneath the Stands: An Enemies to Lovers, Best Friend's Brother Romance (Sugarlake Series, Book Two) Read online

  Beneath the Stands

  (Sugarlake Series, Book Two)

  By: Emily McIntire

  Copyright © 2020 by Emily McIntire

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Clarise Tan—CT Cover Creations

  Editing: My Brother’s Editor

  Proofreading: My Brother’s Editor

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-7349994-2-6

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-7349994-3-3

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Note

  Reader Discretion Advised

  Beneath the Stands Playlist

  1. Becca

  2. Eli

  3. Becca

  4. Becca

  5. Eli

  6. Eli

  7. Becca

  8. Becca

  9. Eli

  10. Becca

  11. Becca

  12. Eli

  13. Becca

  14. Eli

  15. Eli

  16. Becca

  17. Eli

  18. Becca

  19. Eli

  20. Becca

  21. Becca

  22. Eli

  23. Becca

  24. Eli

  25. Becca

  26. Becca

  27. Eli

  28. Becca

  29. Becca

  30. Eli

  31. Becca

  32. Eli

  33. Eli

  34. Becca

  35. Eli

  36. Becca

  37. Eli

  38. Eli

  39. Becca

  40. Eli

  41. Becca

  42. Eli

  43. Becca

  44. Eli

  45. Becca

  46. Eli

  47. Eli

  48. Becca

  49. Eli

  50. Becca

  51. Eli

  52. Eli

  53. Becca

  54. Becca

  55. Eli

  56. Eli

  57. Becca

  58. Eli

  Epilogue

  Thanks for reading!

  Also by Emily McIntire

  Stalker Links

  Acknowledgments

  About Emily

  Note

  Beneath the Stands is the second interconnected standalone in the Sugarlake series. There are plot points and side stories that start in book one and run through the series. While not necessary, it is recommended to read in order for a full reading experience.

  Read Book One: Beneath the Stars (FREE in Kindle Unlimited)

  Reader Discretion Advised

  Beneath the Stands features strong language, explicit sexual scenes and mature situations which may be considered triggers for some.

  If you’re looking for a safe, easy romance with no angst, this is not the story for you. These characters are real. Raw. Flawed. They will make mistakes and they will piss you off. They’ll also love so hard it hurts.

  As always… Trust the process.

  Beneath the Stands Playlist

  Maybe Don’t - Maisie Peters (Ft. JP Saxe)

  Chasing Fire - Lauv

  Rewrite the Stars - James Arthur & Anne-Marie

  All of me - John Legend

  Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

  you broke me first - Tate McRae

  smile again - blackbear

  Empty Space - James Arthur

  A Little Bit Yours - JP Saxe

  Holy - Justin Bieber & Chance The Rapper

  For anyone who has ever felt unworthy. You are perfect just the way you are.

  Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

  Lao Tzu

  1

  Becca

  My palms are sweating. It’s not because of the weather, although Florida in August is hot and humid as hell. It’s because I’m fixing to FaceTime my old man and let him know I’m not coming home after senior year. I’m not sure when I made the decision, although if pressed to think back, I’d guess it was sometime before getting accepted into Florida Coast University, and sometime after I walked in on him screwing the youth leader of our church on his big oak desk. But I digress. The point is that although my hometown, Sugarlake, Tennessee, will always hold a special place in my heart, it won’t hold me. Florida suits me just fine. I’ve fallen in love with the nonexistent winters and the palm trees. And maybe a little bit with the fact I’m not in a town where everyone knows me as Preacher Sanger’s daughter.

  The apple that fell too far from the tree.

  So, here I sit, on the front steps to my apartment complex. I’ve just finished moving in with my dorm mate of the past three years, Sabrina. After Papa found out I was spending more time going to dorm parties instead of classes, he decided to foot the bill for a place off campus. A place where I can “focus” and get my degree “as quickly as possible.” Probably so he can have a daughter with something to be proud of. Momma, on the other hand, is just hoping I’ll come home—back to the church that’s been strangling me my whole life, and into her clutches where she can mold me to perfection. Maybe if I give in, she’d stop with the incessant nagging over all the ways I make her look bad.

  I drop the ends of my frizzy red hair when my phone screen lights up with Papa’s name for a FaceTime call. I may love Florida heat, but it does not love my curls. Wiping my clammy hands on my sun-kissed thighs, I swipe to answer.

  “Hi, Papa.” The smile I plaster on my face strains the muscles in my cheeks.

  “Rebecca. You get moved in alright?” His face is stern, and those jade green eyes, identical to mine, chill me with their icy gaze.

  “You betcha. Sabrina got here before me and picked the better room, but I’m thankful for any extra space. It’s all a mansion compared to the dorms.”

  “Good, good. I’ll let your momma know you made it safe. She can’t come to the phone, she’s makin’ roast for supper and we’re expectin’ company.”

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Of course, Momma’s busy entertainin’ his guests.

  “That’s alright.” My fingers twist my split ends. “But hey, Papa… before you go, there’s somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya.”

  His eyebrow cocks, the only indication he’s listening.

  My stomach pinches and I hesitate, wanting to hang up the phone instead of saying what needs to be said.

  “Spit it out, Rebecca Jean, I’m a busy man.”

  A nervous laugh bubbles up my throat, but I bite it down. “I’m gonna stay out here for a while after graduation. Sabrina’s stayin’, too, so it’s not like it will be a big change.”

  He’s silent.

  A part of me thrills at the thought of his blood pressure rising from what I’m saying. Serves him right, thinking he can control everything.

  “I think it’ll be good for me, ya know? Plus, it’ll give you and Momma a place to visit when you’re wantin’ to go on vacation.”

  Maybe appealing to how it could benefit him
will make him more amiable to the idea. I like to push his buttons, but at the end of the day, he’s the one that holds the reins to everything in my life, and I haven’t figured out how to cut the rope.

  “The heat gone to your head and made you lose it, girl? I didn’t fork out four years of college in that sinful place just for you to spit in my face when it’s time to come home.”

  My heart sinks.

  “Your life is here in Sugarlake. With the church. With your family.”

  Church. Even from thousands of miles away, it clamps its claws into every orifice and makes me feel like I’m suffocating from its presence.

  I suck in a deep breath, pushing out the words on my exhale—afraid if I don’t say it now, I never will. “My life is where I make it, and I’m choosin’ to make it here.”

  His jaw sets, even more rigid than it was when he first called. My chest twinges, aching for the naivete I had when I was a kid. Back when I thought Papa was the closest thing to God. To me, he walked on water. But he was the one who woke me up from that dream, even if he doesn’t know it. He showed me the nightmare of empty words preached from the pulpit and pulled the curtain on the illusion of love.

  So he can hate my choices all he wants. I hate his choices, too.

  “Rebecca Jean. I am not payin’ for you to start a new life. You already have one. You’re comin’ home and that’s final.”

  “No. It’s not.” I try to make my voice sound firm, but I’m sure to him it comes across ungrateful. Like it always does.

  “Then I guess you’re on your own.”

  I jerk, my hair snagging on my ring. The root pulls, making me wince. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re not plannin’ on comin’ home? Then I’m not payin’ your way.”

  He doesn’t mean it. He already paid for my schooling, he can’t just take it back. Besides, he wants my name on a diploma more than I ever have. The only difference is, I’d like to actually do something with it, and he wants it hung on a wall to look pretty. Another trophy he can add to his case.

  “Yeah, okay, old man. Whatever you say.” My eyeballs strain as I roll them.

  “You think I’m jokin’? See how far that attitude gets you when you can’t pay your rent. Call me when you get some sense in that head.”

  Click.

  Papa’s a thief of joy.

  His last words steal the satisfaction pissing him off usually brings. I hadn’t thought being cut off was truly a possibility, and now that it’s happened, I’m not sure how to feel. Part of me revels in the opportunity for freedom, which is the one thing I’ve craved for as long as I can remember. But then my mind races, thinking of everything he controls, both with his money and his iron fist.

  Rent. Food. Basic living necessities.

  My breaths start coming shorter as I scramble to think of a way out of this situation. I have no backup plan, but I can’t give in. Going back to Sugarlake is akin to the lowest levels of Hell. I refuse to live trapped under the will of a false deity and a man who thinks his word is law. I see how that life pans out every time I look in Momma’s eyes.

  No fuckin’ thanks.

  “So, what are you gonna do?” Sabrina runs her fingers through her pink-streaked brunette hair.

  I shrug, throwing my half-eaten pizza back in the box. I know I should eat more, but my stomach rolls every time I think about how Papa cut me off.

  I just filled her and my friend Jeremy in on the conversation with my old man. They’re as supportive as they can be, but they don’t know too much about Sugarlake. It’s nice not having people judge me for things I’ve done—and the family I have—so I like to keep my Florida life separate.

  There’s only one time I let it bleed over and that’s when I talk to my soul-sister. My best friend, Alina May Carson, aka, Lee. I’ve known her since birth and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I would crawl across broken, burning glass for that girl. But even she isn’t enough to keep me there.

  I’ve tried to convince her to move to Florida a million times. All she’s got in Sugarlake is a depressed Daddy and the memory of her brother—one who abandoned them before their momma hit six feet in her grave. But she’s stuck in her ways and I reckon she’ll stay in Sugarlake until she takes her last breath. Thoughts of the same thing happening to me tighten like a noose around my throat.

  “I don’t know,” I say to Sabrina. “Get a job, I guess. Not that I have time with my courses this semester. But I’ll make it work.” I grimace, thinking about my class schedule.

  “Why don’t you just find a job at FCU?” Jeremy pipes in.

  I look at him from where I’m leaning back on the couch. His brows are drawn in as he ponders my looming destitution, and I’m hit with gratitude for his friendship. We met when I was a freshman, at one of the many parties I used to drag Sabrina to. One look at his almond colored eyes and dark brown hair and I was a goner. I spent half the night trying to climb all six feet of him. It was the first time I’ve ever been turned down for a one-night stand.

  When I walked into my Psych 101 course that Monday and saw him sitting in the back row, I plopped my happy ass next to him and demanded he apologize for making me masturbate all weekend. He laughed and told me I wasn’t his type. Turns out, he spent that night climbing a six-foot man of his own. I didn’t find that out until later, of course—once he trusted me enough to spill his soul. Or maybe he got tired of me trying to jump on his dick. Either way, he swore me to secrecy. He’s a basketball player on scholarship and terrified of the fallout if people find out he’s gay. I know what it’s like to feel trapped in expectations, so I swore my loyalty and we’ve been close ever since.

  “What kinda job could I get at FCU before I even have a degree?” I scoff.

  Jeremy shrugs. “They always have students as team managers on the basketball teams, and I know they get paid.”

  I scrunch my nose. “Don’t you have to like basketball to do somethin’ like that?”

  He chuckles. “Probably.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, though,” Sabrina chimes in.

  “Sounds like a shit one to me,” I mutter. “I don’t know the first thing about basketball.”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” Her eyes widen. “At least if you get a job on campus, you won’t have to worry about gas money. The pay probably won’t be great, but it might be enough to get by.”

  I sigh, realizing I don’t really have a choice. It’s either that or finding something off campus and hoping they’ll be flexible. I begrudgingly log on to my computer and pull up my advisor’s email, asking to set up a meeting.

  Having to balance work and school might suck, but it’s much better than going home.

  2

  Eli

  I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s that damn dream again, the one I’m convinced is my subconscious coming through to haunt the hell out of me. I never remember the details, only the whisper of Ma’s voice and the look on my baby sister’s face the last time I saw her. Which was subsequently at Ma’s funeral, after she died in a car crash, three years ago.

  I shake off the nightmare, glancing at my clock. Three-thirty in the morning. Not exactly what I had in mind as the “good night’s rest” before my first day. I know sleep is a lost cause, so I grab my phone off the nightstand and trudge past the white walls of my house, making my way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  Glancing down at my phone, I read through the missed texts from earlier tonight.

  Connor: You in Florida yet? I need my wingman! This weekend, we’re going out. Pretty up that face, so I can use those blue eyes and golden hair of yours.

  Connor’s messages always make me smile. We played college ball together in Ohio, and he was the only one there for me through Ma’s death, and then again when my dream slipped through my fingers. It’s luck my new job as the Assistant Coach to the Florida Coast Stingrays coincides with his contract with the Florida Suns. He’s the best damn shooting guard in the NBA.


  And I’d be the best point guard if fate wasn’t such a fickle bitch.

  I bat away the thought before it can take root and wrap itself around me. I try not to think on the harsh things in life. Easier to push it back and focus on the here and now.

  Exiting out of Connor’s text, I pull up the one from my baby sister, Lee.

  Sis: You gonna make it home for Daddy’s birthday this year?

  I grimace as I close the window, tossing my phone. I wish she’d stop sending me messages like this when she already knows the answer. They don’t really need me there, anyway. I doubt Pops is in a celebratory mood—he never is these days, and I don’t know what to do with this new version of him.

  My entire life he’s always been the one at my back, pushing me to go harder, dig deeper, succeed better. Hell, he’s half the reason I wanted to get out of Sugarlake in the first place. I love Pops, but the pressure he mounted on my back had me struggling for breaths every damn day. But I’d take that version over the ghost of who he is now.