FALLING FOR TROUBLE
The riot grrrl and the bookworm—just the pair to get the whole town talking . . .
Liam Byrd loves Halikarnassus, New York. He loves its friendliness, its nosiness, the vibrant library at the center of it all. And now that Joanna Green is home, the whole town sizzles. A rebel like her stirs up excitement, action, desire—at least in Liam.
Joanna never thought she’d have to come back to her dull, tiny fishbowl of a hometown ever again. She almost had a record deal for her all-girl rock band. She almost had it made in L.A. And then her deal went sour and her granny broke her leg . . . and now here she is, running into everybody’s favorite librarian every time she heads to a dive bar or catches up with old friends.
He has charm, he has good taste in music—and the sight of him in running shorts is dangerously distracting. But when he loves her old town and she can’t wait to check out, their new romance is surely destined for the book drop....
“Jo? Joey Green?”
And that, in one frustrating nickname, was the reason why Joanna Green never came back to Halikarnassus. The fact that it was a nosy little town with one bar and few people worth drinking with, she could deal with. It was more the fact that everyone in town seemed obsessed with the Joanna she had been in high school—a screwup and a hell-raiser and a general bad influence. She hadn’t been home in years, and that one nickname made it abundantly clear that no one was going to try to get to know Joanna the Adult.
Not that Joanna the Adult was any less of a screwup. Hell, that was why she was standing in the airport, waiting in baggage claim for the suitcase holding all her worldly possessions—with the exception of her guitar, which she would never, in a million years, trust to baggage handlers.
Coming home as an abject failure with your tail between your legs was one thing, Joanna thought. Having to explain that failure to a bunch of people who didn’t expect anything more from you was a new level of humiliation she wasn’t sure she could deal with. Just keep an eye out for your suitcase, she told herself. You don’t have to talk to anyone. You just need to grab the bag that’s holding all your worldly possessions, convince a cab to take you all the way to Halikarnassus, and hope that Granny is home to lend you cab fare.
Totally an adult.
“I thought it was you!”
Joanna could no longer ignore the persistent nostalgia at her elbow. A young woman in an enormous gray scarf was looking at her expectantly. Joanna tried to place her . . . she looked vaguely familiar . . .
“Oh my gosh, you don’t remember me. Skyler Carrington?” Scarf girl gave her a hopeful look.
“Holy crap, Skyler? I thought you were like . . .” The last time Joanna had seen Skyler, Joanna was getting in big trouble for making her cry because she wouldn’t let her play with her very expensive guitar. Skyler had been what, five? Seven? She was ten years younger than Joanna, a fact that had caused Trina, Joanna’s best friend and Skyler’s big sister, a minor adolescent breakdown. Then, of course, Trina was ruthlessly protective of her sister who was, frankly, a brat.
Skyler had been three. Or five. Or whatever. That was a long time ago. She was probably much better now. And wasn’t that why Joanna had avoided coming home? Because she knew people would only see her as she was back then? Pot and black kettle and all that.
Back then, Joanna was a foulmouthed, rebellious, broke teenager. Now she was . . . well, she wasn’t a teenager.
God, how depressing. She’d left town to shake off the image everybody had of her only to find that the reason they had that image was because it was who she was.
Except that now she was old. And Skyler Carrington was as tall as she was.
And Skyler Carrington was leaning forward to give Joanna a hug. “Trina’s not going to believe this! What are you doing here?”
“Just, uh . . .” Skyler Carrington didn’t need to know the whole sad, sordid story, and it made Joanna feel a little better that news of her epic failure hadn’t reached Halikarnassus yet. At least, not the airport two hours from Halikarnassus. “Just visiting.”
“Granny! How’s Granny?”
“Good, fine.” She hoped anyway. Granny hadn’t answered her early-morning call. But then, ever since Granny retired, she was always busy. Still, she usually returned calls.
Joanna waved her hand. “What are you doing here? Love the scarf.”
“Oh my God, I just finished a semester in France. I’m, like, so not used to speaking English! And everyone here is so . . . American!”
“You’ll get that, what with being in America,” Joanna suggested.
“I’m just having, like, culture shock. Literally everything in France is, like, so much better. I can’t even with this.” Skyler waved her hand around.
Joanna couldn’t even with the baggage claim either. She also couldn’t with this kid having adventures in France while Joanna had been working hard, making music, then throwing it all away in one stupid night. Skyler had probably done more in her teenage life than Joanna had in her . . . more than teenage life. They both talked big; this kid had actually done big things.
Fortunately, the baggage claim started to move and, as if the gods of Joanna’s hometown shame were looking down upon her struggle to keep it together in a conversation with her old friend’s formerly bratty toddler little sister, her suitcase came out first.
“Well, this is me. Nice to see you.”
Skyler reached forward to help Joanna with her suitcase. “Are you going to be home for a while? Trina is going to die when I tell her I saw you.”
Joanna pretended not to hear. She just waved and lost herself in the crowd, dragging all of her worldly possessions behind her.