Book Excerpt Orange Blossom ~ Bookish Madness

Excerpt time! Today we're hosting an excerpt from NA contemporary "Orange Blossom". Have fun reading.

Excerpt

“It’s been such a long day,” I say to Dave, standing in my doorway. He’s watching TV and he turns it off, looking over at me.

“It really has. I’m sorry this is happening. I know we’ve each lived through an entire lifetime already. It’s kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It is. Do you wanna talk about-”

“No,” he interrupts. “I like coming home, because it’s like I can leave a part of myself here and then slip it back on over what I’ve become. I don’t know if I can ever be ready to merge the two.”

I nod. I get it. Maybe not totally, but each of us has had to be more than one person throughout the things we’ve seen. It scares me, because I only know about war from books and movies, and I hate picturing my friend as a part of that, but I know that he hates us picturing it of him more. So I try to remember the guy he was and forget all that when he’s home.

“Hey, this is weird, but I need pallbearers.”

“Of course,” Dave says. “You didn’t have to ask. You’re still my best friend.”

“I brought Lily to the arcade today. It was nice, hiding there for a while.”

“Remember when you broke the Centipede game? And that guy just shrugged and told you it was a shit game anyway?” He laughs, even though the story isn’t really funny. Some asshole at school had been harassing me again, and he’d been saying things about Alana as well. I had wanted to fight him, but after the last time, I hadn’t wanted to be suspended again. So Dave and I had gone to the arcade to forget it, but I’d lost and then I got pissed at the game, kicking and smashing it until it was ruined.

“I don’t have the best history of handling things well,” I admit.

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. But really? If it comes down to it… I’d just… well, a game is a thing. I’d rather see you destroy that.”

About the Book

Title: Orange Blossom

Author: Sarah Daltry

“I’ve never understood a year. A year was always a measurement of something bad for me. A year in my father’s prison sentence, a year since my mom’s death, a year left of school before I could get far, far away from here. Now, as I look down the end of my college career, with only a little more than a semester to go, a year seems like something magical. It has been a year since Lily chose me, since she sat with me on the old swing set and made a decision that I was worthy of her. And every minute of the entire year has been better than the last.”

You already know their stories: Lily, the perfect princess, always living someone else’s life. And Jack, the broken boy, who had stopped believing in hope. Somehow, though, they found each other and what was one night blossomed into a love story.

Now, a year later, Jack and Lily are dreaming of the future. Despite all of his promises to himself that he would never be indebted to anyone, Jack makes a new promise – this time to Lily – that he will be there for her forever. But when life unravels for them, he starts to pull away, and Lily worries he’s out of reach for good.

When Jack does the unthinkable, Lily is left destroyed. Is it possible to have a happily ever after? Does love ever really save anyone?