Disclaimer: None of the work in Reading With Star belongs to me. The author owns all right to the book. They have given me permission to share a bit of their work with you.

https://amzn.to/3LoDr5B

Blurb:

For as long as I can remember, my life has been all about Country music. It’s my father’s legacy, and I was determined to follow in his footsteps…
Until I met Avery.
Suddenly, what I wanted started to change.
The passion I had always felt for music was overshadowed by the love I felt for her.
I never dreamed about falling in love, but I found myself torn between the music I craved, and the woman I couldn’t live without.
Love is messy. I didn’t want to break someone’s heart. But that’s exactly what I did to her, whether it was part of the dream or not.
Wild Hearts can be broken, and some choices can’t be undone.

Excerpt:

Avery

“Who’s the hottie?” I muttered to my co-worker, Blake, through the scrunchie I gripped between my teeth. I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and nodded toward the guy sitting at the farthest table possible from the counter. He was tucked into the corner, but hard to miss. That dark hair and facial scruff hit me right in the lady bits as soon as I’d walked through the door. Sculpted biceps strained against rolled-up sleeves. Built, scruffy, and rugged—just how I liked ’em. He held a pencil loosely between his lips causing them to be all pouty, and my nether regions burst into flames.
“Hey, bitch!” Blake smiled widely when she saw me. She removed her apron and tossed it onto the counter. “How did midterms go?”
I loved Blake. She’d become my ride or die when I moved to Nashville alone. It’d been the biggest and scariest thing I’d done in life up to this point, and I could never repay her for taking me under her wing. We were practically sharing the same umbilical cord at this point. She was the one who got me this high-paying, low-work job I wouldn’t ever leave, even if it burned to the ground from the empty coffee carafes I always forgot to fill and left on the warming plates. We’d hit it off the moment I’d strolled in asking for an application and we’d been best friends ever since. When we learned that we lived in the same building—we blamed it on kismet. Blake was on floor two, while I was on four. She showed me how much Nashville could offer a girl like me—a once sheltered child from Massachusetts.
“Oh, they went,” I told her, joining her behind the counter and grabbing my work apron from off of the hook. I hadn’t been into work in over a week, as I’d been in the biology department lab until the early hours of the mornings cramming until I’d started second guessing everything. I was finally in my junior year of college at Vanderbilt for my undergrad in biology. My parents were both distinguished doctors. I was hellbent on following in their footsteps. I’d taken a few years off after my sophomore year, and because of the circumstances surrounding the death of my parents, the school graciously let me defer and stay enrolled.
I glanced over at Mister Pouty Lips as I twisted the scrunchie around my hair. “Hottie?”
Blake shrugged. “Dunno. Started coming in last week with his guitar in tow. He sits, he drinks, he writes. He’s here almost every day. He doesn’t say much, but he tips well.”
“And you haven’t found out his name, birthday, social security number and socials yet? What’s wrong with him?” I glanced at him again—deep in thought—his tongue slowly licking his bottom lip in between his scribblings in his notebook. Holy hell, that man was delicious.
Blake giggled. “Nothing, I don’t think. He’s so focused, I haven’t wanted to bother him.” She shrugged. “He’s not my type, anyway. Probably just another wannabe singer trying to make it in Nashville. They’re a dime a dozen around here.”
I tied my apron, staring. I couldn’t help it. After nearly frying my brain last week, it wanted to look at shiny new toys, not textbooks. He wore a dirty Titans ball cap that looked as though it’d seen some shit in its day. Black hair poked out under the brim, curling slightly at the ends. He bit on his pencil and rubbed a palm along his nape, deeply engrossed in his notebook. I suddenly wanted to know what every word in it was. I wanted him to put that mouth all over every inch of my body so we could compare notes.
Blake was probably right with him being just another stuck up song writer wannabe. Most of them hit up karaoke nights at the bars on the strip though, not this hole in the wall coffee shop that couldn’t be farther from Lower Broadway if you tried. No one was going to get noticed at Peg’s. It was a career killer.
Peg’s was nothing special. A simple coffee shop stuck in the seventies that served better-than-average coffee and tasty pastries five days a week. We were closed on weekends, for some reason. We were lucky to get a dozen customers a day—there was no purpose for this place to still be open, but I was glad it was. It’d become my home over the last year—something I didn’t know I’d been missing until I left Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a one-way ticket to Nashville.
Peg won the lottery ten years ago, and she’d been sitting pretty in her mansion ever since. I’d assumed she didn’t have the heart to close it down because the shop had been her husband’s dream before he’d passed, and Peg wouldn’t see his dream go to ruin. At least, that’s the story I made up to justify how much she overpaid me. I’d had a lot of time on my hands doing nothing at Peg’s, so I could come up with a few solid stories should anyone ever ask.
“I’m off,” Blake said, kissing me on the cheek. “Text me when you get home so I know you haven’t been gutted like a fish in some back alley.”
“Love you, whore.” I smiled as I waved her off. Blake worked the morning shift, while I took the afternoons or evenings. It worked.
She was older than me and a complete bombshell. She was one of those tall, blonde babes with curves in all the right places, natural plump lips—no fillers necessary for Blake. When I was old and gray, she’d still look twenty-five. I hated her for it in the most loving way possible. I asked her once why she worked at Peg’s and not the bars downtown where the money was far better—like, way better—and she’d told me she was tired of being groped by old, greasy slimeballs. She’d turned that question right around and asked me the same thing—but with more gusto.
I’d agreed, and that was the last we’d talked about it. We were both going to be serving at Peg’s when we were geriatrics. I stayed at Peg’s because she’d become something of a grandmother to me, and insisted I do my schoolwork on the clock. Yes, she paid me to do my homework. It was a win-win situation, really. Peg paid us an ungodly amount of money. Hardly no one walked through the door. I could study in silence, away from the insane college scene. I also occasionally served some coffee or cinnamon rolls.
I kissed the air as Blake reached the door. “See ya, babe,” I told her, slinging my backpack up onto the counter.
She waved, then mouthed, “Go talk to him!” with wide eyes and a shit-eating grin that would give the Devil a run for his money. She waggled her eyebrows at me, then disappeared through the door.
I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed was throwing guy problems into my already don’t-have-enough-time-to-pee schedule. I scooted my bar stool closer to the counter. I probably should’ve made sure Hottie McHotterson didn’t need anything before I dived into my paper on molecular and genome evolution in bioinformatics—truly fascinating stuff—so I called over to him, “Hey, can I get you anything? Another cup of coffee?”
He looked up at me, and I suddenly forgot how to breathe.
Eyes the color of spring clover—seriously, like the greenest green I’d ever seen on a person before—raked over me with curiosity. The dark stubble covering his jaw and upper lip giving him this rugged mountain man persona and it took me a minute to realize I was staring at him with my mouth half-cocked like an angsty teenage girl. Which I was not.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’m good.”
A Southern boy. Shit. I crossed my legs on the stool, willing my vajayjay to stay calm. I was such a sucker for Southern boys and diverted my eyes. Should I apologize? No, that would make this even more awkward than it already was. Instead, I turned my stare to my textbook and hoped to God he couldn’t see the flush creeping up my cheeks—I could certainly feel it. I opened my laptop to where I had left off on my paper, but I couldn’t concentrate. Not when my entire body wanted to throw itself over his table and scream draw me like one of your French girls right then and there.
Hottie McHotterson strummed his guitar and sang a bit, interspersed with sighs that echoed my own frustration.
I tapped my pen on my notepad. This guy was seriously killing my routine and my vibe. I slapped my hand over my pen, pinning it to the notebook I hadn’t written a thing in.
“You gotta give me back my heart,” he muttered, finding the chords he needed then marking them on his sheet music. “Back my…back my…”
I stared up at the ceiling. “Try ‘you gotta give me back my love’ for the second one,” I suggested, hoping that the idea would shut him up. It’s not that he had a terrible voice or anything—he sounded freaking amazing, actually—but I had to get work done. I wasn’t going to get a thing done on this paper if he kept singing and sulking in the corner like that, like a wounded puppy looking for love.
Southern Boy went full on country singer on his acoustic, strumming away with the new lyrics. I stared at him in awe. He was amazing. Then, as abruptly as he’d started, the music stopped, and he wrote furiously on his paper.
Then…silence.
I twirled a loose strand of my hair by my nape, focusing back on the paragraph I’d already read a half-dozen times, hoping that this time, I’d understand the content. No such luck. I groaned out my frustration and closed my laptop. I needed coffee. Productive thoughts weren’t going to happen unless I was highly caffeinated anyway, so I grabbed a clean mug and poured myself a hot, steaming cup of Death by Caffeine, our strongest brew. I added my cream and sugar, morphing the cup into a steaming cup of cream with a bit of coffee, then inhaled the intoxicating aroma of the dirty bean water. The coffee here was so much better than the crap I’d been drinking in Cambridge.
“Thanks.”
I looked up from my cup.
Country Boy cleared his throat. “Thanks…for the lyrics.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “You’re welcome.” Against my better judgement—I tried not to talk to the customers—most wouldn’t ever shut up once they started…I leaned my elbows on the counter and took a sip of the still too hot coffee. “You a songwriter?”
He chuckled. “Trying to be, although finding the right words for this song—” He placed his guitar against the wall and leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms above his head. His biceps bulged against the tight sleeves of his tee. The edges of ink on his skin peeked out under the fabric. Of course, he was tatted up. All the good ones were.
God, this boy was going to be the death of me. Forget the caffeine—it would one hundred percent be those biceps that did me in. I couldn’t get the thought of them curling around me out of my mind, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my paper. That was always the perfect mood killer. I should leave this boy alone. I shouldn’t get involved in his writing, or him.
Fuck it.
I took a deep breath, then twisted toward him on my stool. I took a long sip of my coffee and choked the burning liquid down. “I always find it’s easier to write if you’ve actually experienced what you’re writing about.” I could probably write a book about heartache and loneliness at this point in my life.
His brows raised. “Yeah? You’re a writer, then?”
“If you call twenty-page papers on molecular genome evolution writing, then sure.”
His mouth quirked, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I think song lyrics would be the easier choice.”
I held up my blank notebook. “I’d have to agree. Although scientific papers don’t have to rhyme.” I saw my opening, and I took it, making my way to his back table so that we weren’t talking from across the room. “I’m Avery,” I said, sitting in the chair opposite him.
Those devastatingly green eyes flickered over my face and his lips parted slightly, like he had something to say, but hesitated. Then suddenly he swallowed hard. “Jack.”
“Well. It’s nice to meet you, Jack.” I took a small sip from my mug. We were both quiet. Anxiety crept into my chest. Was I bothering him? Was my intuitive opening completely wrong? I leaned back in my seat, still grasping my mug with both hands—maybe to keep from shaking. Country Boy—Jack—took my breath away. From the slight dusting of freckles on his cheeks to the dark lashes framing those gorgeous eyes which made me instantly jealous… I mean, why did guys always get blessed with the Elizabeth Taylor eyelashes?
He tapped his pencil on the table, still looking at me expectantly.
“Oh my God, I’m intruding. I’m so sorry. Let me just…” I pushed the chair back, ready to head back to my work, when he finally broke the awkward silence.
“Please. Stay.”
I paused, half standing, half hunched over the chair.
He pulled off his hat to run his hand through his hair. A mass of soft, black curls fell, framing his face. “I could use a fresh take on this song. I mean, if you’ve got the time.”
I looked around the empty shop and shrugged. “I mean, I’d have to ask the rest of the customers if they’re okay with me taking my break, but yeah…I guess I can make some time.”
A slow smile spread across his face, and he shook his head slightly. “So, what do you know about heartbreak?”
“A freaking lot.” I scooted my chair in, resting my chin in my hands with my elbows propped up on the wooden table. I shook my head. “But it doesn’t matter what I know, it’s what you know. Have you ever been in love? Lost that love? Had your heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces?” That got deep, fast.
“No,” he said, looking down at his papers. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Never been in love, huh? Maybe you should write about drinking beer with the boys?”
He laughed at that, then placed his hat back on his head, only backwards and completely adorable. “Is that what you think country music is? Beer and boys?”
“You forgot trucks.”
He snickered, shaking his head, then ran his fingers over the scruff on his chin. “You listen to a lot of country music, Avery?”
“Nope. Not much of a fan. But I do know, that if you throw in a dog, you’ve got yourself a ballad.” I teased.
Those green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Shh, don’t give away the secret.”
“Has Taylor Swift taught us nothing?” I shrugged, exaggerating my movements. “I’m just saying…if you want to write about a girl stealing your heart then breaking it, maybe that’s something that needs to come from a broken heart.”
“All right master song lyricist…tell me, how many times have you had your heart broken?”
“It’s…irreparable at this point.” So many times, I no longer had pieces to give. Sadness inched its way into my thoughts, and I furiously blinked them away. “But this song isn’t about me. It’s about you. Show me what we’re working with.” I placed my mug on the table then rubbed my palms together. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them, guarding myself against Jack, sensing any emotion that may slip out on my words. Digging up my heartbreak was the last thing I wanted to do.
He picked up his guitar and cleared his throat, then strummed a few chords before diving into the words he’d written.
“You were right there, standing there
and I didn’t see or care
how much you mean to me
I tried to deny it
These feelings I hide ‘em
And still I pushed until you walked away
Girl, you gotta give me back my heart
You gotta give me back my love
‘Cause I can’t take anymore of
this heartbreak”
His strumming abruptly stopped. He looked up at me. “That’s all I have.”
“Wow,” I breathed. The grit in his voice dripped with so much heartache for someone who had just told me he’d never experienced it. Hell, he’d convinced me in less than sixty seconds.
“Nah, don’t be ‘wowing’ it just yet. It still needs a chorus, a bridge, and a major rewrite, but it’s getting there.”
“Want to write my paper for me?”
“Hard pass.”
I groaned inwardly, knowing I’d procrastinated long enough and my paper wasn’t going to write itself. “Break time is over.” I gave Jack a small smile. I returned to my place at the bar and opened my laptop to stare at it once again. We wrote in solidarity and silence. I caught myself humming Jack’s tune more than once when I got up to refill my coffee. I made sure to ask him if he needed anything. He declined every time. I hadn’t realized the time until he stood and stretched. His shirt rode up his midsection, teasing me with a happy trail leading into uncharted waters I so wanted to explore.
“I believe you closed an hour ago,” he said, looking up at the clock.
“Oh, shit.” I cleaned up my stuff and shoved it all in my bag so I could start closing. I’d found my groove and had got a few worthy pages written.
“Thanks again for the help.” Jack stood near the door, his guitar case in hand.
“You’re welcome,” I told him, turning off the brewers. “Remember the teachings of Taylor. She’s got it figured out.” I pointed my fingers at him. Did I just shoot finger guns at him? I quickly turned to busy myself to hide my embarrassment, hoping he couldn’t see the flush on my cheeks. Why was I like this around cute boys?
Jack chuckled. “See ya, cowboy.”
I craned my neck over my shoulder as he stepped through the door. “I said what I said!” I called out after him, but the only return sound was the dinging of the bell above the door. I wiped down the tables and started the closing procedures. When I reached Jack’s table, I found two twenties along with a note scribbled on a torn piece of notebook paper.
Thanks for the inspiration.
—Jack
A tip for the coffee I didn’t serve? I smiled warmly and tucked the note and the cash in my back pocket, then hurried through the rest of my closing procedures mental checklist. Cash in the safe, ol pastries put in boxes for the homeless shelter—Peg took care of that—and all surfaces wiped down. I triple checked to make sure all machines were off. I somehow still forgot to turn one off during my first, and second, checks. I blamed it on Hottie McHotterson. I shut off the lights and locked up, then hurried to my car so I could get home.
I had a date with my vibrator.

Author Bio:

You’ll rarely find Melissa without a cup of coffee in one hand, and a book in the other. When she’s not busy carting around her six children (tuck and roll, kids, tuck and roll), you’ll find her hiding from them with a laptop and streaming Morgan Wallen or Taylor Swift for her copious amounts of plants. A lover of all genres, she puts to paper what she can’t get out of her brain—which is pretty much everything. She loves romcoms, sappy romance, and Happily Ever Afters the most.

https://linktr.ee/MelissaMackinnon

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