You all, I can't even begin to say how excited I am about this cover reveal. IN DEFIANCE OF FATE is a companion to THE COINCIDENCE MAKERS and it is epic and the cover is just amazing. I mean, look at it:
Check it out on Goodreads and add it there!
As far as Ami’s concerned, her job as a cosmic coincidence maker has gotten her all she’s ever wanted: the man she loves, a house on the beach, and work that hasn’t required her to save the world…recently. But, fate is about to drag Ami and Luke back to San Francisco for a job that will make her question everything she thought she knew about who, and what, she is.
So, shall we have a little sneak peak at the first chapter? Bear in mind we're still editing so there will be some rough edges here, but let's see what Ami and Luke are up to!
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Chapter 1
Three hours and twelve minutes. They’d ticked by on my watch—my only real source of light from its faint electronic surface—while I struggled to keep myself from screaming in the tight space that was the trunk of my mark’s FIAT Sienna. A trunk I’d locked myself in, only to later realize I was stuck.
“So, tell me again how you got yourself in there?” Luke thought at me, tapping on the exterior of the all too tiny compartment. The sound was an amplified metallic pinging from where I was cramped.
My knees were pressed to my stomach as I laid on my side in a horrible parody of a yoga position—ironically, I was in yoga pants and a tee meant for yoga, even though I had definitely not been doing that today. Maybe if I had, I might have been able to feel my right hip in the last two hours.
“Just let me out!” I mentally shouted back. With the one leg I could move, I kicked against the side of the car, making a muffled thump.
Luke chuckled and I heard him tinkering away at the exterior lock. It took him all too long to get it popped. If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed he delayed so he could laugh a little longer at the predicament I’d gotten myself into. That thought disappeared as the door lifted and cool air washed over my face.
“Thank the gods,” I breathed aloud, reaching out to snag Luke’s proffered hand. His warm grip wrapped around my much smaller hand, a little rough and very, very right for my soul.
Uncurling myself from inside took a lot more effort than I would have thought. My body was numb and aching as Luke had to half-lift me, his other hand under my knees, from the space. I rested against the dented bumper as feeling slowly returned to my feet. But, as the blood returned, they started to sting with pins and needles, and I longed to kick off my simple flat sandals and go find a quiet spot to lie down. Instead, I stared at my feet and tried to wiggle my toes, painted a bright (“That used to be so scandalous” Luke noted) red. The cracked cement of the parking garage made a pattern that looked roughly like a duck.
“So, the trunk?” Luke asked, watching me with a furrowed brow now that he’d stowed his little leather container for his tools.
I grimaced at my own stupidity, but went with the truth. “I got stuck without a ride. I wanted to make sure they made it here in time, but then he picked up some more people and there wasn’t any space.” I’d been happily riding in the backseat that was coated in a layer of soda bottles and chip wrappers, invisible, pleased I’d managed to get my mark out of his house and to the mall in time to make his appointment with fate. A fate that Luke and I had forced to happen.
Then they’d picked up two more loud and noisy guys and I’d been stuck. A quick move left me scrambling into the trunk, worried they’d had a change of plans and would no longer head to the mall. That had been stupid, as they came here anyhow, and the interior release lever to open the trunk had been nothing more than a sharpened remnant of plastic that damn near cut me. Thankfully they hadn’t heard me swearing about that over their music and laughter.
“So, the trunk. Okay. I mean, you could have just called for a cab or something,” Luke noted.
“And risk them not coming here?” I stood on my painful feet, winced, and sagged back against the bumper rubbing my hands over my face. My skin felt oily and hot, and I longed to wash off the grime of the day.
Luke shrugged. “Well, at least I could find you.”
“My hero,” I said in a singsong tone. It was half to tease, and half the truth. I hated getting stuck in tight, contained spaces. I had nightmares about them, after some horrible run-ins in my all-to-long history. But that didn’t negate how I also felt like a fucking idiot.
Finally, I rotated my ankles one by one and was able to stand. The parking lot was mostly empty vehicles parked haphazardly in every direction, but as I slammed the trunk with a giant thunk, a woman emerged from around the corner and gave me a funny look. Even she didn’t stop me from sticking my tongue out at the Sienna.
Making sure I didn’t have any crumbs or hair stuck to my skin or clothes, I snagged my giant black leather bag (filled with my emergency gear, of which I was now going to add an empty container when we got home because my bladder felt like it was going to explode), and huffed a sigh. “Shall we?” I motioned toward the entrance to the mall, a bright entry into an air-conditioned other world.
Luke did a funny, old fashioned formal bow and offered me his arm. I grinned and rubbed my poor aching fingers once more, before I allowed myself to be led toward the lights and shops and music. My legs still didn’t bend without protest and I longed to go home, but our pay-off was ahead of us and after having to spend that much time in a space I could barely move my head meant I damn well wanted to watch whatever was about to play out with our marks.
The smell of food worked wonders on my senses. So did a quick trip to the bathroom. I’d probably broken my bladder by holding it for hours, especially after all the tea I’d had that morning. When I reemerged, Luke had hunted down a supply of pao de queijo, which were little cheesy bread bites I promptly stole from him.
“I’m not sharing,” I said as I popped one in my mouth whole, trying to make it sound like I joked, but in reality, I was going to smack him if he even tried. I’d skipped breakfast to make it out to my assignment’s house and had regretted it all morning, staring into the dark of the damn trunk. The cheese was sharp and the bread soft and I moaned a little as my stomach stopped barking at me.
“I got my own. Trust me, I’ve learned that lesson,” Luke winked and held up his own portion in the little white paper bag, oil seeping through the corners.
This was precisely why I loved him. It helped that I’d known him for time immemorial and he looked like I’d dreamed up some kind of movie star and made him mine—all dark brown hair just a bit too long and a physique that made me grateful we lived near the beach where he didn’t think anything of taking his shirt off. I, on the other hand, thought about it a lot.
It had been a couple of years since we’d figured out the truth about our relationship, or lack thereof, and I kept waiting for the amazingness to wear off. For the tarnish of reality to sink in. The fact that it hadn’t sometimes made me worried—all relationships had their issues, right? But things had been, well, wonderful. I had someone to talk to, to remember the terrible lyrics to the stupid seafaring tune I’d sung three hundred years ago and couldn’t remember the last verse to (we’d ended up making up our own). I’d worried about realizing this was all some kind of crazy dream, until my best friend Melody reminded me I should damn well enjoy it while it lasted if I was going to think that way.
She was right. So, while I kind of couldn’t believe my luck most days, I didn’t push it. And I did my best to let Luke know how much I appreciated him, even if he did give me shit for getting locked in a trunk for
hours. Which, I deserved, completely.
Mowing down on the little cheesy goodness, we walked into the main area of the mall, which was bright and spotless and filled with people. Terrible music with a too-fast beat kept up a low hum in the background. Stores with perky lights filled the corridors and a large central area was accented with tropical plants in giant white planters that surrounded the seating areas. We snagged an empty table, bolted to the floor off to one side, perfectly positioned to watch all that happened.
My mark currently sat exactly where I’d seen him in the mental image I’d been given at the start of this job. He leaned over a cement picnic table, chatting animatedly with a couple of friends, the three of them sharing a platter of fries. Loud laughter and a few pokes and nudges kept them all engaged, while keeping an eye out for attractive women, of which there were plenty.
“This assignment is depressing,” Luke muttered as we watched his mark enter the central area, arm in arm with a tall guy about her age, somewhere in their late teens. She couldn’t stop herself from touching him, her manicured hands roving his torso, barely masked by a thin white tee. He laughed and drank it in. Not that I blamed him—she was beautiful, with her long curtain of dark hair, flawless tan, and perfect athletic build. It was probably her low-cut shirt he liked best, but I liked to think it was her engaging conversation that kept him laughing along with her.
“Forty-three seconds,” Luke noted, his eyes glued to the table of older teens I’d listened to talk about girls, and food, and porn, and video games, for hours while shoved in their trunk. I returned my attention to them, noticing that one of them was now quiet, watching the PDA couple from across the open dining area with a wide-eyed expression.
We could practically watch his thoughts roll through his mind as he debated saying something about the newcomers. In the end, he didn’t have to. The other guys, my mark included, looked around to try and figure out what was going on that had their friend so dumbfounded.
Which was when my mark noticed the girl. Who he had, until that second, thought was his girl. Seeing her there with her hands in the hot guy’s back pockets, made it clear she had her eyes on a different prize. Namely the hottie she’d started kissing in a way that made me wonder if they planned on devouring each other right out in the open. My little inner prude wished they’d find somewhere private to eat each other’s faces off. I’d definitely spent way too much time in the Puritanical Americas.
“Oh, gods, I don’t think I can watch,” I silently said to Luke, all the same leaning out a little to see around a large planter, trying to get a better look at the whole thing. The leaves were kind of pokey, but I brushed them aside to make sure my view was unencumbered. Popping my last cheesy bite in my mouth, I certainly wasn’t looking away.
My mark stood slowly, hands splayed on the table in front of him. Both of his friends flanked him as he walked, zombie-like, toward his now ex. She didn’t see him coming until he tapped her shoulder and she whirled around in a wave of hair that looked like a shampoo commercial. Her expression ran through a range of emotion so fast that it was almost impressive—confused, then sad, then angry, then clearly, deeply upset.
“I mean, what did she think was going to happen?” I muttered to myself. Not that I wanted to see her get hurt, but it was damn stupid on her part to think this hadn’t been the inevitable outcome.
Okay, so it wouldn’t have happened without some serious nudging from me and Luke. My boy, the cuckolded lover, had been planning on studying all day. I’d had to get his friends to get him out, and it had not been easy to pull him away from his books. He never left them easily. Today, it took reminders of burn out and the need to get out and exercise, and how friendship was more important in the long run, and as much other BS pop-psych that I could dangle in his inbox, on headlines in his social media feeds, or have his friends discuss. Finally, my wheedling won out, just in time to get Luke’s lady in line and here.
No one likes a bad breakup. But, the thing is, making them happen sometimes can be as important as getting two people together. Something Luke had reminded me of at least a dozen times during the past week or so of our work.
So, while we watched the girl’s expression crumple and chase after my mark, only to be firmly stopped by one of his friends, I sighed and tried to not be entirely fed up with the day.
Luke touched his head to mine as we watched the drama unfold, including a glorious send-off from the boy-toy the cheater had been with.
“Maybe he’s supposed to become a famous doctor and needs to spend more time on his studies,” Luke said with a little shrug as we slumped back onto a bench after the others were gone.
“Or she is going to save the Amazon now that she’s seen the errors of her dating ways,” I said. It was a game we sometimes played—we often had no idea why we had to make these little coincidences happen. We figured there had to be some larger reason, and since that was sometimes obvious, or became so over time, even these little weird jobs had to have an underlying purpose. Whatever the hell that was, though, neither of us knew.
Luke slipped an arm around my waist, warm and comforting. I tucked myself in next to him, breathing in his smell of rain and cinnamon. Both of us watched in silence as the world carried on around us. Whatever small tuck in the fabric of the universe we’d just made, it was done, and we were back to being the silent observers of the millennia that passed us by. This had gotten lots more fun and interesting now that Luke and I had figured out our issues. For example, we could sit together and marvel at the way so many stared at their phones all day, oblivious to all that passed them by. Some things never changed though, like the little kids merrily chasing each other around the cluster of tables on the other side of the courtyard, shrieking in glee. Their moms barely glanced up, lost in conversation with one another. Over by a clothing shop, two pre-teens giggled and attempted to flirt, at least until his mom emerged from the store and the kid turned tomato red.
A mom pushing a stroller with her tiny pink-booted baby passed right in front of us. My heart ached as I craned to see the tiny face, scrunched in a frown. She’d clearly just had photos taken and her frilly white dress made her look like a doll. I would have given just about anything—my immortality included—to have a tiny Luke and me baby. While that was out of the question, even all these years later, somehow the sting hadn’t subsided.
Before I could wallow in grief for what could never be, pressure slammed into my chest, causing me to
gasp and press both hands against my sternum. It hurt, like my chest was going to fly apart and my heart land in my lap with a wet plop. I didn’t even have time to go invisible, the pain was just there, pounding, with no room to change my state. It pulsed in my fingertips and behind my eyes, my brain scrambling to figure out why.
Gasping for breath that wouldn’t fill my lungs, I slumped from the bench to the ground. The plants poking me didn’t even register beyond the crashing pain. It was everywhere. Nothing specific was wrong. But, this was not normal. Not okay. Luke moaned next to me and something screamed in my mind that we were both facing this. We had no one but each other to help. Now both of us were crumpled on the bench or ground and trying not to explode into a million little pieces.
Had the snacks been poisoned? Were we going to turn into little puddles of dust right here in the middle of the shopping center, and blow away like a bad vampire film? Was it our time to finally be done with this too long life?
The sharp pain of my heart trying to escape my ribs had all of my attention, no possibility it could hurt more, until my head thumped back against the bench behind me. An image knocked itself into my brain with the force of a baseball bat swung at full speed.
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So, what happens? Well, you'll just have to snag a copy and find out!
