All Our Secrets
Michelle Gross
Publication date: December 12th 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Suspense
“Moments define us. A split-second decision can shape your future, and you don’t realize it until it’s too late.”
Peyton Johnson:
The day I meet my boyfriend’s best friend, King; my king disappears. Everything’s fine when my gaming friend fades away like smoke because Theo consumes me entirely. Theodore Johnson becomes my husband, and our life is beautiful until it isn’t.
Theo’s gone and all that’s left of him is the unborn child in my stomach.
Silas King:
The day I meet my best friend’s girl, my heart recognizes her as my Peyton. I loved her first, but that doesn’t matter. Theo’s the only family I’d ever known and compared to him, I’m ugly and scarred. Peyton’s king disappears because Theo is everything I’m not. He will make her happy. I think that will be enough for me to let go, but it isn’t.
Then he dies, leaving her behind…Until he comes back and I’m the only one that can see him.
Theodore Johnson:
The day I meet Peyton; my life is complete. I want to give her the world, but life doesn’t always work out that way. Now, I’m fog, slipping through her life without her knowing. Silas is the only one that knows I’m here, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to steal her away. I can’t let him.
I loved her first, and forever will.
A romantic standalone with a ghostly twist!
Excerpt
Staggering into the living room, I caught my shoulder on the doorframe. A sharp pain sliced up my arm, but that was nothing compared to the ache inside my chest. The fucking useless organ never stopped hurting. For my best friend’s girl.
The girl who should have been mine. Fuck. It shouldn’t have been like this. I shouldn’t have been in that house alone as a child either. My mother shouldn’t have left me. These scars weren’t meant to be on this body. Peyton wasn’t supposed to meet Theodore. She was supposed to be mine.
None of it should have happened, but it did.
I can’t do it anymore.
And it wasn’t the alcohol pumping in my blood that had me thinking like this. These thoughts ran on a constant loop.
All I wanted was her back in my life. Not this fucking awful life I created. The one where I ignored her while she existed beside Theodore. I wanted her back.
If that meant coming clean and upsetting her, so be it. I needed her friendship. I needed our conversations.
If I had to call her Theodore’s wife one more time, I’d go ballistic. Everyone was always saying, “Theodore has such a lovely wife” and “Peyton and Theo make such a beautiful couple.”
I fucking hated it, but that was of my own fault. I let a chance slip by. Now all I could hope was for her forgiveness. Her smiles and friendship once more.
If I didn’t get her back in my life…
I dug my PlayStation out of the closet, then carried it to the TV and hooked it up. I hadn’t turned this damned thing on since I’d stopped talking to Peyton altogether five years ago. It took several minutes for it to update. The last messages I found from Peyton honest to God made my heartache worse.
PEYBUNNY33 ADDED MOODYKING1 TO PARTY CHAT.
PEYBUNNY33: KING? WHERE ARE YOU?
PEYBUNNY33: I JUST NEED TO KNOW ONE THING.
PEYBUNNY33: WAS IT YOU? ARE YOU THE KING I MET? THEODORE’S FRIEND?
PEYBUNNY33: YOU CAN’T DISAPPEAR.
PEYBUNNY33: GOD, IT IS YOU, AIN’T IT?
PEYBUNNY33: I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE. I WAS SO SURE… BUT IT’S BEEN A MONTH. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT I DID TO MAKE YOU IGNORE ME.
PEYBUNNY33: YOU’RE REALLY NOT HIM? OF COURSE NOT. YOU WOULDN’T BE SO CRUEL AS TO PRETEND.
PEYBUNNY33: I’M SORRY. I HOPE YOU’RE ALIVE, AND I PRAY WHATEVER LIFE HAS THROWN AT YOU ISN’T TOO HARD.
PEYBUNNY33: I CAN’T PLAY ANYTHING WITHOUT YOU. NOTHING’S FUN ANYMORE.
PEYBUNNY33: BYE KING.
PEYBUNNY32 LEFT THE PARTY CHAT.
The controller dropped to the floor with a thud. Theodore had mentioned how much she kept bringing up her King and me. About how similar our voices were. She’d even asked me, and I lied. But reading these messages was like someone throwing a bucket of cold water at me. I never realized how much she believed I was her gaming pal until then.
I did more than fuck up. I ruined my life. There was no way she’d forgive me. I couldn’t forgive me.
She was at the tip of my fingers—right there waiting for me to see these messages, but I thought I couldn’t compete with Theodore.
I’d lived long enough with this anguish. I couldn’t do it anymore. I would never give up on something I wanted in life. Especially her.
Never.
Fucking.
Again.
Swallowing my nerves, I picked up the controller.
MOODYKING1 ADDED PEYBUNNY33 TO PARTY CHAT.
MOODYKING1: I DON’T KNOW IF YOU EVEN STILL HAVE YOUR PLAYSTATION.
MOODYKING1: WE NEED TO TALK.
MOODYKING1: I MADE A MISTAKE.
MOODYKING1: PEYTON?
MOODYKING1: FUCK. YOU DON’T GET ONLINE ANYMORE, DO YOU?
MOODYKING1: I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY. MOSTLY ABOUT ME. WHO I AM. I’M GOING TO RUIN EVERYTHING…
MOODYKING1: WHEN YOU FINALLY SEE THIS, I HOPE YOU FORGIVE ME.
Author Bio:
Michelle is from a small town in Eastern Kentucky where possums try to blend in with the cats on the porch and bears are likely to chase your pets—this is very true, it happened with her sister’s dog. Despite the extra needed protection for your pets, she loves the mountains she calls home. She has a man and twin girls who are the light of her life and the reason she’s slightly crazy.
As a kid, she was that cousin, that friend, that sister and daughter, the talker who could spin a tale and make-believe into any little thing so it was no surprise when she found love in reading, and figured all these characters inside her head needed an outlet. They wanted to be heard, so she wrote.
The voices keep growing faster than she gets the time to write.
The stories are never going to end. That’s perfectly okay, though. We never want to stop an adventure.
She writes and loves many different genres so sign up to her mailing list to keep updated on her releases!
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Thanks for sharing! 🙂