Life Unexpected Read online

  Life Unexpected

  "The Unexpected Series" Book One

  J.S. Baker

  Copyright © 2020 J.S. Baker

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9798651807949

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Silla Webb

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Sometimes what you're looking for comes when you're not looking at all.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgement

  About The Author

  The Unexpected Series

  Books By This Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  For Benjamin Franklin Douglas, the year 2018 definitely started off with a bang. He was twenty-two years old, stood at five foot ten, and was a little boy disguised in a fresh out of college grown up manly body. His short spiked light brown hair and sultry brown eyes were enough to make most women melt at the mere sight of him up close, but then he also had the chiseled jaw and arms that made it obvious he took time to focus on his body. He was an eleven on a scale of ten in the looks department.

  But he wasn’t just brawn--he was brains, too. He spent the previous four and a half years at the University of Texas in Dallas, or UT-D, working on his Bachelors in Business Administration degree, focusing on business management. He was also hardworking and a gentleman.

  He wasn’t a trifecta--he was a quadfecta.

  His first year at college, Ben started working part-time at Wildfire, a local and busy bar and grill, trying to learn as much as he could about the restaurant business. He started out as a bus-boy (which he hated because the pay was abysmal), eventually became a server (which he hated a little less because at least he could schmooze his way into getting some extra cash through tips), and then moved up to bartending (which was the best way to earn tips from attractive women and drunk men who were trying to get with those women way above their league, as well as get free drinks for himself and his friends).

  Eventually, the manager moved him to an assistant manager position where he could take on more responsibilities such as handling deposits and scheduling events. Wildfire always drew a big weekend crowd, but Ben was tasked with increasing business on weeknights. He instituted themed nights such as Music Monday with karaoke and dollar shots. It was a booming success! Mack, the owner and current manager, promised Ben that if he finished school and kept doing a great job that he could run the place. That became Ben’s goal.

  His plan was to graduate college, manage Wildfire, and attempt to become a true responsible adult. With graduation now a few weeks behind him, he was going to be promoted to manager. Ideally, he would even open up his own restaurant. Some day. But until that R.A.T. (Responsible Adult Time) came after the first of the year, it was okay to be young and stupid. And boy could he be really stupid sometimes.

  So, back to New Year’s Eve. Ben’s roommate and slightly older, but not wiser best friend of the previous four years talked him into going to a huge party.

  Conner Wade Young.

  While he didn’t have a clue as to who was throwing the party, Conner at least had the address. There was no way was he going to let Ben pick up another shift at work and miss out on all of the chicks that would be there. R.A.T. was looming for both of them. This was the time to enjoy being young. There would be plenty of beautiful and unattached women at the party, and this was not an opportunity that he wanted his best friend to miss.

  Conner was the guy that everyone loved to hate, but you couldn’t help but love. After spending one day with him, you wouldn’t know whether to punch or hug him. He would gladly take either. And while he appeared like he didn’t have a care in the world, Conner would be there for his friends the instant they needed him.

  He is a multi-dimensional complex hunk of a man.

  A just under six-foot-tall All-American male with blonde shaggy hair who always seems to have a half-smile smirk on his face that indicates he is scheming up something. Unlike Ben, he works out every now and again, but he doesn’t really need to. Conner was the quarterback in high school and the class goofball. Go Hill House Hillbillies class of 2013!

  When Conner graduated high school, he wasn’t ready for the looming rigor of college and the eventual path of business success that it would lead to, so he took a year off to travel the world. After eight months of backpacking through Europe, staying at hostels, and catching a temporary STD, he decided he had seen enough and started school at UT-D. It seemed like the next logical step in his “live each day to its fullest” kind of life.

  Conner’s dad built a successful advertising firm from the ground up and always wanted his only son to take the reins one day. While neither he nor his father liked to talk about Conner’s eight months of ‘recreational time,’ they both agreed to it. The deal was that Conner would get to live his life the way he wanted to and his father would fund it, provided Conner made his way to working for the company by his twenty-third birthday with a college degree in marketing and a minor in business.

  That clock was set to expire in five months, and Conner was not about to let any of those minutes go to waste.

  He un-affectionately referred to his upcoming twenty-third birthday as Doom and Death Day. The day his life of fun and carelessness would be over, and he would be doomed to a life of boredom and corporate stuffiness--it seemed appropriate.

  Ben and Conner hit it off right away. They met at the beginning of their freshman year at a mixer their residence hall was throwing for new students to the dorm building. The hosts made everyone play a getting-to-know-you activity where they had to put a sticker on their forehead with the name of a celebrity. No one had any idea as to who was on their own forehead sticker, so each person had to go around asking one yes or no question to each other person until they guessed the name on their own sticker correctly.

  Holding a can of Mountain Dew in his hand, Conner walked around the dorm lobby and noticed Ben’s nametag on his chest.

  “Ben, huh?” he questioned with interest. “Well, help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope!”

  Ben smiled and cocked his head up. “When I left you, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.”

  “Only a master of evil, Darth,” retorted Conner in his best Sir Alec Guiness impression.

  At that moment, they both reached at their sides to draw out their invisible light sabers, started making sparring sounds, and acted out a fight scene. That was until the Resident Advisor loudly chastised them for not taking the activity seriously. He was dressed in a blue striped polo, matching blue pants, and his black hair was completely greased down. He was the epitome of a differently dressed Pee-Wee Herman.

  They both gave the Advisor a fake smile before turning their backs on him and rolling their eyes.

  Ben asked Conner quietly, “What does my sticker say?”

  “Britney Spears. What about mine?”

  Ben ripped the sticker off his forehead, wincing at the sting. “Seriously? Well, hit me baby one more time! You’ve got Justin Timberlake. Aren’t we a match-made in heaven?” Ben did an excellent teenage valley girl impression. “Like, do you wanna be, like, friends with me?”

  Conner chimed right in, twirling his short locks around two of his fingers. “Oh my gosh! I thought you would never ask. Besties!”

  A friendship was instantly cemented. That night, they decided to move out of the dorms as soon as possible and get an apartment together--a true bachelor pad. They pooled their money for the deposits, most of which came from Conner, and were fortunate to find a decently sized two-bedroom apartment in a building a few miles away from campus.

  Most of the time, Ben wasn’t at the apartment due to work and classes or studying at the library. He got more accomplished in the library than he ever could with the distractions at home. Conner could usually be found on their sofa in front of their video gaming console or taking his latest flavor of the week out for a good time. He was notorious around campus for his good times.

  Even though Ben stayed busy with school and working part-time at Wildfire, he tried to make time for going out with his friends and for the occasional long-term girlfriend.

  The first was Chloe. They were both freshman and assigned to the same English Literature discus
sion group. She was majoring in General Studies and hoping to find some sort of career direction before she graduated. In hindsight, she was probably only at college to get her MRS degree and snag a husband so she could be a trophy wife.

  When the semester ended, she was the one to ask Ben out. They were together for nearly two years after that. Chloe described him as the perfect boyfriend--outgoing, loyal, and faithful. Conner said that description made his best friend sound more like a golden retriever.

  He further remarked, “You could probably even pet him and his tail would wag.”

  Chloe was more like a Chihuahua--petite, lovable, blonde, and annoying to anyone with an ear drum.

  Their relationship lasted as long as it did only because Ben was more afraid of breaking up with her than staying with her. In the end, she dumped him for a guy from the mobile store that sold her the newest cell phone. She liked to joke and say that he helped her find her ‘calling’ in life.

  It should also be mentioned that his name was Collin.

  Ben wished that story was made-up, but that was his reality.

  After Chloe, Faleesha entered his life. She was a Criminal Justice major who was well on her way to being accepted to law school. She was hot in a classy kind of way. You would never see her in a t-shirt or tennis shoes. For date nights, Faleesha thought it was fun to watch reruns of Law and Order. Ben was more of a Sons of Anarchy fan. She ended up breaking up with him and finding love with the President of the Student Government Association.

  There went another six months of his life.

  After Chloe and Faleesha, there were a few women here and there, but nothing stuck. Ben was perpetually single for most of his senior year of college. There was no shortage of girls who wanted to be the woman in his life, but he had no intentions of settling down any time soon, if ever.

  His brother, Patrick, was the complete opposite; two years older than Ben and always driven for success. He hoped to one day have a barefoot and gorgeous wife at home to cook and clean with their three kids and a fourth on the way. With his good looks and charming personality, it was a wonder he didn’t have the wife and at least two of those kids already. He topped Ben at six foot two and had always been slightly more attractive with similar physical attributes, but he was too humble to admit it or use it to his advantage. Their family was a genetic wonderpool of good looks and charm.

  Patrick graduated in the top ten percent of his high school class and immediately went off to Baylor University and put all of his efforts into his studies. When he graduated with a finance degree after only three years, he landed a job back in Dallas at an investment division of a mainstream bank making more money than he would ever need.

  Ben was always a bit more casual in his appearance with t-shirts and jean pants, maybe a nice button-down shirt on occasion. His brother was more comfortable in a polo shirt and slacks or a three-piece suit. Patrick was a hopeless romantic who fell out of love quicker than it took him to fall into it.

  But it wasn’t too surprising to him that he didn’t have the family he wanted yet. He was perpetually and forever in love with ‘the girl next door.’

  Danyelle.

  Everyone called her Danny, except for him. A beautiful name like that should never be shortened. In return, Danyelle called him Pattyrick--always had and always would.

  Danyelle Abigail (she hated her middle name) Strickland became the girl next door when she and Ben were in the second grade and Patrick was in fourth. The three of them became an instant group of The Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all!

  Danny wasn’t your typical tomboy in overalls and mud on her face and her hair in braids. She was classy and beautiful and always dressed in the latest styles. Her auburn hair was never shorter than her shoulders and always had a natural wave at the end of her straight locks. Danny’s family was wealthy, but she tried not to flaunt it around or even talk about it much. When she moved in next to the Douglas family, her dad had just married wife number two, and since wife number one got their house in the divorce to share with her aerobics instructor, Danny and her dad found a fresh start elsewhere.

  As they got older, Ben and Danny became best friends and Patrick found his own group of friends, but still made time for their trio. Danny never dated either one of the Douglas boys, a rule they all agreed to at the beginning of their Musketeer formation, but she and Ben had spent seven minutes in heaven together in eighth grade. The first six minutes were spent with them pretending to be British while they discussed the bloody coats in the bloody closet and the pish posh linens.

  There was a knock on the outside of the closet door from another party goer giving them a one-minute warning. Ben put his hands-on Danny’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.

  He gathered his nerves to say in his most manly voice, “You’re my best friend. I think you should be my first kiss. That way you can at least tell me if I am terrible at it.”

  Danny did nothing but blink at him for what felt like forever. But then, when he least expected it, she leaned forward and pressed her lips harshly to his.

  At first, neither one of them knew quite what to do, but it didn’t take them long to get the hang of it. Neither one of them wanted to stop. It didn’t feel like kissing a sibling, but it also didn’t feel like those instant sparks they had seen in the movies they watched. Ben and Danny loved each other without a doubt, but they were friends, forever and always. That seventh minute didn’t last long enough for either of them, but they left that closet and pretended like it never happened.

  That ignorance happened with a few things from their boy-girl friendship.

  One night, when they were fifteen, Danny wanted to give Ben a facial using only items from her refrigerator. Before the night ended, Ben’s face was plastered with peanut butter, his eyes were covered with two pickles, he had a slice of gourmet cheese on his forehead, and his mouth had a lemon peel shoved into it. Somehow, Danny had convinced him that all of it would help whiten his teeth and soften his skin. It wasn’t long after the entire application that the pickle juice started burning his eyes. They rushed together to get everything off his face and rinsed off before any permanent damage could be done. Or anyone else could see. Ben made Danny pinky-swear to never tell anyone about that night.

  As they got older, they stayed close friends who shared almost everything with each other. They never crossed the lines of friendship again. Danny knew about the girls in Ben’s life and Ben was always there as a shoulder to cry on when Danny felt bad about breaking some innocent guy’s heart.

  And Ben was grateful that he was never that guy.

  ***

  Ben tried to get Danny to go with him to the New Year’s party, but she wasn’t quite ready to spend time socially with Conner yet. The two of them had just broken up--for about the fourth time. Canny (Conner + Danny) had been on-again off-again for so long that he had lost track. Ben tried not to get in the middle of the relationship between his two best friends. When they were together, they were like peanut butter and jelly--practically inseparable from one another. But when they were off-again, it was either like walking into a freezer or Hell. It was better to stay like Switzerland and be the sounding board for each of them.

  When Conner and Ben showed up to the party, they were ready to get drunk and let loose. Patrick was on stand-by to take them home. He was the perfect choice seeing as he had a work soiree to attend where he wanted to network and pass out business cards before joining them at the party.

  When he finally arrived three hours later, he spotted ‘Dumber and Dumbest’ (as he called them) doing a keg stand in the kitchen. He was disappointed to not find Danyelle anywhere so they could catch up together. She rarely had time for him when she was involved with Conner. He found an available spot on a part of the couch that didn’t look stained (thank you for small miracles) and texted her.

  Patrick: You’re missing out on some quality photo ops of your bestie and his bestie.

  She instantly responded and his heart fluttered.

  Danyelle: I have plenty of pictures of those idiots. Let me guess, beer stand?

  Patrick: It’s like you’re here. Are you hiding out somewhere?