Whitney D. Grandison
On Sale Date: January 7, 2020
Inkyard Press
9781335016041, 133501604X
Hardcover
$18.99 USD, $23.99 CAD
Young Adult Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
Ages 13 And Up
464 pages
Summary:
A fantastic enemies to lovers romance about an It girl whose world is upended when a boy from the past moves into her house after tragedy strikes. For fans of Ibi Zoboi's Pride, Mary H. K. Choi and Samira Ahmed. Wattpad author Whitney D. Grandison's traditional publishing debut.
When they're stuck under one roof, the house may not be big enough for their hate…or their love
When Tyson Trice finds himself tossed into the affluent coastal community of Pacific Hills, he’s ready for the questions, the stares, and the total feeling of not belonging in the posh suburb. Not that he cares. After recovering from being shot and surviving the mean streets of Lindenwood, he doesn’t care about anyone or anything. He doesn’t even care how the rest of his life will play out.
In Pacific Hills, image is everything. Something that, as the resident golden girl, Nandy Smith knows all too well. She’s spent most of her life building the pristine image that it takes to fit in. After learning that her parents are taking in a former childhood friend, Nandy fears her summer plans, as well as her reputation, will go up in flames. It’s the start of summer vacation and the last thing Nandy needs is some juvenile delinquent from the ’Wood crashing into her world.
Stuck together in close quarters, Trice and Nandy are in for some long summer nights. Only, with the ever-present pull back to the Lindenwood streets, it’ll be a wonder if Trice makes it through this summer at all.
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Excerpt:
About the Author:
1 | TRICE
Getting shot isn’t the worst part.
It’s the aftermath that really fucks you up.
Six months ago, on a dark December night, I was lying in a pool
of my own blood on the living room floor. Six months later, I was sitting in a
car on the way to a new town to start fresh. In some ways, yeah, the wound had
healed. In others, it never would. I didn’t care, though. The last thing I’d
cared about got me where I was.
“You’ll like it there, Tyson. The Smiths have prepared a new
home for you,” Misty from social services was saying as she drove the long
stretch of highway toward Pacific Hills. It was only an hour away from where I
used to live in Lindenwood, California.
I didn’t respond. Home was a meaningless word to me now.
Misty peeked at me. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I can leave as soon as I turn eighteen, right?” That was all
that mattered. Fuck the rest. Five months, aka one hundred and sixty days, to
go. On November twelfth, I’d be free.
Misty sighed. “Look, I know what you’re going through—”
“Word? You’ve been shot too and all’at?” I glanced her way. This
lady was going home to a million-thread-count sheet-and-pillowcase set, resting easy once I was off her hands.
Fuck outta here.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then shut up.” I faced the
road ahead, done talking.
Misty let out a breath, her light tan skin no doubt holding a
blush upon her cheeks. “Do you kiss your—” She caught herself, as if realizing
where she was about to go. “I—I’m sorry. You just shouldn’t speak that way.”
I felt an ache in my chest, but I let it go.
I didn’t care.
Half a beat later Misty was rambling on about food. “Do you
wanna stop and get something to eat, you must be starving.”
“I told you I wasn’t hungry.”
“Oh, well, are you nervous?”
I hadn’t thought about being nervous or the fact that I would
never return home again and lead a normal life. Not like I’d ever led one to
begin with.
“No.”
“Well, good. Think of it as going to a sleepover at an old
friend’s house.”
One thing was true, the Smiths were old friends, but this setup
was for the next five months.
“It’s been ten years since
I last saw them,” I spoke up. “This ain’t no damn sleepover, and it’s not about
to be all kumbaya, neither.”
At least they were black. Moving
into the uppity setting of Pacific Hills was sure to be hell, but at least I
would be with a black family. Even if I wouldn’t exactly fit in.
I didn’t look the same. I didn’t
act the same. I wasn’t the same. And I didn’t care.
“Tyson—”
“It’s Trice.” I had asked her to
call me that from jump street. No one called me Tyson.
I didn’t want to think about
that. I didn’t want to think about anything. I didn’t care.
“Trice, please, try? I know it’s
been rough these past few months, but you have a chance at something fresh. The
Smiths are good people, and Pacific Hills is a lovely town. I’m sure soon
you’ll be close to your old self.”
Misty had no clue what she was
talking about. My old self? She obviously hadn’t paid attention to my file, or
she would’ve been smart enough to leave it at fresh and not bring up my past.
Tyson Trice was dead.
He died on the f loor in the
living room that day, and he was never coming back.
When I didn’t respond, Misty let
up, probably getting that I didn’t give a shit either way.
I didn’t care.
2 | Nandy
I told myself I didn’t care about
the juvenile delinquent my parents were moving into our home. I told myself it
was no big deal an ex-con would be sleeping right next
door to me. I told myself that my parents hadn’t made the worst decision in
everdom.
It was
just an everyday occurrence in the Smith household.
Still, it wasn’t fair.
As I paced around the pool in my
backyard and complained to my best friend, Erica Yee, over the phone, I
expected her to be on my side and console me.
“This was supposed to be a great
summer and they pull this?” I whined.
“You can still have a good
summer,” Erica responded. “This doesn’t have to be the end.”
But it was the end. My parents hadn’t gone into detail about the boy’s
situation, just that he was in a “rough spot” and would be living with us for
now. And that he was from Lindenwood, otherwise known as the ghetto.
I’d never gone there, but I’d
heard enough stories to know to be cautious. When my parents watched the news,
there was always a segment on some tragedy that had happened in Lindenwood.
Some high-speed chase, or
little kids killed during a drive-by, or a robbery gone wrong among
the usual clutter of crime that kept the LPD busy. Lindenwood was notorious
for its drugs, thefts, assaults, and murders.
I shivered.
It probably hadn’t been the best
idea to stay up lurking on the local news feeds right before the delinquent
moved in.
Everything would be ruined.
“It is the end,” I insisted. “I mean, they spent all this time
whispering and having these hushed conversations behind closed doors, and they
barely revealed last night that he’s from Lindenwood!”
Maybe I was acting childishly,
but I felt like a kid with the way my parents had shut me out on the biggest
detail of all when it came to the boy coming to stay with us out of nowhere.
For two weeks, they’d been scarce on the topic and evaded any and all
questions. Now it felt like they’d dropped a bomb on me.
For all I knew, this kid was a
total ex-gangbanger and
my parents were intent on opening our home to wayward souls.
Dramatic? Sure.
Precautions? I was definitely
taking them.
“Right now, you’re probably
pacing around your pool in a Gucci bikini while your happily-in-love parents
are inside preparing dinner together. God, Nan, your life is incredibly boring.
You could use this delinquent to spice things up.”
Well, it was a Sunday evening,
and the sun was beginning to set. My parents always made dinner together on
Sundays, because they were both off work and able to do so.
I stopped pacing and glanced down
at my white Gucci bikini. “Yee, you try new hobbies to spice things up, not invite
ex-cons to move in
with you. Look, whatever, let’s just get away for a few hours. The longer I put
a halt on this, the better.”
“When is he supposed to show up?”
“Sometime today. I just wanna
blow it off. Maybe you, me, and Chad could grab a bite at the club or
something.”
My boyfriend’s family had a
reserved table at the local country club. Anything would be better than dinner
with the delinquent. I wasn’t 100 percent sure he was a criminal, but I wasn’t taking any chances. When it came to
Lindenwood, you couldn’t be too sure.
“You in?” I asked.
“If we must.” Erica pretended to
sound exasperated. “Call me with the details in twenty, okay?”
“Deal.” I hung up and sighed, tilting
my head back toward the darkening sky and questioning what I had done to
deserve this.
It was the first week of June,
and school had ended last week. I intended to spend this summer before senior
year going to beach bonfires and parties with my friends, lounging around,
preparing for cotillion, and just staying as far away from home as possible.
With a plan in motion, I went
around my pool and stepped into our family room through the patio doors.
“Shit!” I jumped back, dropping
my phone and barely registering the sound of its rough slap against the hardwood floor.
My parents were standing in the
room with an Asian woman who was dressed in a violet-red pantsuit.
But it was the boy beside her that startled me. He towered over my father,
with broad shoulders and a wide chest, and arms that let me know he worked out,
even though he seemed drenched in black with his long-sleeved shirt
and matching pants. He had deep, dark brown skin with a clean complexion. But
what really stood out was his hair. The boy had cornrows braided to the back of
his head—well-aged cornrows.
Ugh, he looked so unpolished.
Suddenly I remembered my fallen
phone and looked down to discover the screen was cracked. Because things aren’t messed up enough already.
“And you remember our daughter,
Nandy.” My mother played it cool, gesturing toward where I’d frozen near the
patio doors.
Everyone faced me, looking just
as uncomfortable as I felt.
Great, I was making my first
impression completely inappropriate in a bikini.
Awkwardly, I waved and forced a
smile onto my face, showing off the result of two years of braces.
“Nandy, this may be a little bit of a surprise, but you remember
Tyson Trice, don’t you?” my father asked, looking between the two of us.
At first, the name vaguely
rang a bell, but then it hit me. Tyson, the boy I’d played with when I was younger. He used to come by
in the summers when his grandfather would do lawn work around our subdivision.
There’d been a few times during the school year when he’d come by too, but it
was mostly a summer thing. Until he stopped coming altogether.
The revelation brought a sense of
relief followed quickly by a foreign anger that I couldn’t explain.
That was then;
this is now.
Now Tyson Trice had hit a mega
growth spurt and stood before me nearly a man, appearing not at all like the
seventeen years young that we both were.
“Right.” I nodded my head.
“Tyson, hey.”
Tyson didn’t shift focus to my
body. He stared straight into my eyes and bore no friendly expression or a tell
of what he was thinking. He was far across the room, but I didn’t need to be
right up on him to know that he had the angriest eyes I’d ever seen. Dark,
soulless abysses stared at me, making me shiver.
Right on, Dad.
Thanks for inviting a possible murderer into our home.
“And this is our son, Jordy.” My
mother didn’t miss a beat as she went on, downplaying how awkward everything
was.
Jordy, my eleven-year-old little
brother, was sitting against the ottoman, playing a video game on his handheld.
Tyson glanced at Jordy, and I felt protective, seeing curiosity
briefly cross his face as he laid eyes on my Thai brother.
Jordy looked up from his game.
“Hey.”
Tyson lifted a brow and turned to
face my parents in that familiar way most outsiders looked at my family once
they realized a black family was raising a Thai son.
Jordy smirked, shaking his head.
“They wish they could’ve spawned a kid as good‑looking as me.”
My father chuckled. “We spoke
about adopting for years after having Nandy, and right around the time she was
eight, we got approved and Jordy came into our lives.”
“He was just two years old,” my
mother gushed. “He was so adorable, we fell in love with him instantly.”
I came more into the room,
wanting to shield my brother from Tyson. Someone had to think of the kids.
“Nandy, why don’t you go put some
clothes on.” It wasn’t a question. My mother was ordering me to cover up and
look more presentable for our guests.
“I was actually on my way out to
meet up with Erica, we’ve got this—”
“Right now?” she asked. “We’ve
got company.”
I glanced at Tyson, hating him
again for spoiling my summer. I’d seen him, and I’d spoken to him. What more
did she want?
“Yeah, but Erica and I had plans
to go to the country club and talk about cotillion.”
My mother pursed her lips.
“Nandy—”
“You know what,” my father
stepped in, “that’s a great idea. Nandy could take Tyson and the two could get
reacquainted, and that’ll give us time to talk to Ms. Tran here.”
My eyes practically shot out of
their sockets. There was no way in hell I’d share a car with Tyson.
After thinking it over, my mother
seemed to agree. “That is a great idea. We can all sit down together later.”
My jaw hit the ground.
I shook my head. “You know, never
mind, suddenly I’m not as hungry as I thought. In fact, I feel sick to my
stomach. I think I’ll go lie down.”
By the way my mother narrowed her
eyes, I knew she’d be giving me hell later about my behavior. I didn’t care. It
wasn’t fair to me to force some scary-looking guy into my hands to be babysat.
With one final look at the newest
arrival to the Smith household, I picked up my phone from the floor and made my
way up to my room.
Long after Ms. Tran had left and my mother had scolded me in our
family office, I sat in my room, maneuvering with a broken phone as I texted my
boyfriend. Going on a hunger strike didn’t last long for me. After having
refused to go down for dinner, I was starving.
My cell phone chirped as Chad
texted me back.
Chad: Outside
Me: Thank God
My parents were probably still
up, no doubt discussing either my punishment or how we were going to work
Tyson into the family.
With their bedroom being in a
different wing of our house, sneaking out was always an easy feat. Still, I
made sure to keep extra quiet as I crept out of my room and slipped down the
staircase.
Chad was waiting for me out
front. He’d been pacing back and forth in front of our walk as he waited, and
as I stepped outside I was elated to see him.
“I’m thinking sushi, you in?” I
asked as I walked past him, heading for his car.
“Yeah, sure. What’s going on?”
Chad asked as he caught up to me and fell into step.
I peered up into his blue eyes.
“You don’t want to know.”
Chad ran a hand through his
auburn hair, appearing confused but conceding. “O-kay, let’s go
get some sushi.”
At the feeling of being watched,
I glanced back at my house. On the second floor, through one of the large bay
windows, I caught sight of a silhouetted figure.
It was him.
Creep.
I turned back to Chad and reached
out and caught his hand. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
This was my summer, and no one was getting in the way of that.
Excerpted from A Love Hate Thing by Whitney D.
Grandison. Copyright © 2020
by Whitney Grandison. Published by Inkyard Press.
Social Links:
Instagram: @wheadee
Twitter: @whitney_DG
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