Bad Moon (BBW Paranormal Romance)

Table of Contents

1 Chapter 1

2 Chapter 2

3 Chapter 3

4 Chapter 4

5 About Jackie Sexton

6 Exclusive Preview: Bad Moon

I have always been a bigger girl. My mother
said a healthy girl ‘
necesita comer!’
(has
to
eat)
, and well, it didn't hurt that her culinary flair
produced far too many delicious tacos. It caused for many satisfied
nights after dinner, sitting with my pants undone and sighing on
the couch, but it didn’t do much for those dreadful follow-up
mornings in front of the mirror, remembering that I didn’t have my
mother’s olive skin complexion or her otherworldly ability to store
all her fat in her breasts.

I was the Pillsbury Doughboy incarnate, with
a smattering of freckles across my nose and dull brown, reckless
curls.

That's why it really stung when Jason, my
boyfriend of nine months, said to me before my epic summer journey
cross country, "hopefully when you get back you'll be a little
lighter!" with a flippant chuckle. I fought the tears in my eyes
and picked up my bags, mumbling "good bye," as I headed over to the
back of the beat-up old van.

"What's wrong?" Sierra asked me, tapping my
arm gently. Her beautiful hazel eyes, smattered with honey around
the iris and rimmed with green, scanned my face, deep with genuine
concerned. I sighed. There was no way to lie to one of my greatest
friends and the person I had been living with for the past four
years, but I didn’t want to start off the first day of my trip
being lectured about how awful my taste in men was.

“Nothing...just going to miss Jason,” I said,
giving her a weak smile.

“Hmm,” she said, trying not to betray her
emotions even though I was painfully aware of how much she hated
Jason. “Well...maybe you’ll find someone else to keep you company
on the trip...someone you’ve known all along, but never realized
how much he meant to you...” she said wistfully, dramatically
turning her gaze up to the sky. I gave her a small punch in the arm
and a severe look. But before I could think up a snappy retort,
Trent came up behind her, snaking an arm around her shoulder
casually and giving me a lopsided grin. He looked between the two
of us expectantly.

“Speak of the devil,” Sierra laughed, giving
me a knowing look.

“You guys are talking about me?” Trent said,
cocking up an inquisitive brow. I tensed, instantly cursing Sierra
in my mind.

“No,” I rushed. “I was just saying that I was
going to miss Jason.”

“Yeah, and how much we all hate him, you
included.” Oh how I wanted to wipe that smirk off Sierra’s face
just then.

“Oh yeah, that guy. He sucks,” Trent nodded,
a hard, dull look coming over his gorgeous steel gray eyes as he
looked over to my boyfriend. “Bye, dude,” he called out to him with
a slight head nod.

Jason looked up from his phone and waved,
giving us a half smile before returning his gaze to the little
screen in his hands, furiously typing into it.

“See?” the smile returned to his face. “All
he does is text.”

“He’s a business man,” I said haughtily,
putting my hands on my hips. It was hard hearing from the two
friends I had had since third grade, the ones who I traded
Pokémon cards with and made mud pies to bathe our cats in
(still not proud of that), that the guy I had invested nearly a
year’s time in was a dud.

“Yeah, so he’s the next Mark Zuckerberg,”
Sierra said with a roll of her eyes. Trent chuckled.

“Okay, we’re done talking about this,” I
said, picking up my bags from the ground again and hefting them to
the car. “Thanks for the design work,” I huffed back at Sierra. She
followed me to the trunk of the van, pouting.

“Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye to your
best friend,” she said, helping me shove my bags on top of the
others, adjacent from all the instruments and equipment. “You know
I just want what’s best for you.”

“I know,” I sighed, turning to her once my
bags were settled in the trunk. “And I love you too. Come here,” I
said, opening my arms to envelope her small frame inside of
them.

“I wish I could come with you guys,” she said
as she pulled away, a wistful gleam in her hazel eyes.

“You still can!” I reminded her. “We can
squeeze you in the back, you can be my assistant manager/roadie!” I
was half-joking, but it was still a really nice idea.

“Maybe next time. If only I didn’t have to
repeat that stupid stat course,” she groaned with a roll of her
eyes. I patted her lovely red hair, tucking a stray strand behind
her ear. It was hard graduating without her. I had expected that we
would achieve every milestone together, the three amigos, all for
one and one for all. But her mathematical challenges combined with
Trent’s total disinterest in school left me alone in that frumpy
black cap and gown that day, wishing I could be with them in the
stands instead of in that hot sea of impatient graduates in the pit
of that giant convention center.

“Well, we’ll still see you in Atlanta,
right
?” I said, giving her hand a final
squeeze.

“Right,” she nodded, squeezing my hand back.
“Now go kick ass as the best band manager ever,” she said, throwing
her arms around me one last time. I squeezed her as tightly as I
could, realizing that it was the longest time I would be without
her since I graduated college.

“Also,” she mumbled in my ear before pulling
away to give my outfit a disapproving glance. “That leather jacket
is ridiculous. It’s over ninety degrees right now.”

“Now go before I change my mind and take you
back,” she said with a mock-threatening look.

I laughed as I pulled opened up the van's
side door and plopped down next to our lead guitarist, Marin.

"Ready?" he asked me, giving me a grin as I
buckled my seat belt. "Ms. Goodie-two-shoes?"

"Hey, if we get pulled over I'm not helping
you with the ticket," I said, snapping the belt proudly against my
ample chest. Martin chuckled and shook his head, causing his dirty
blonde mop to flop over his eyes. I had known Martin since middle
school but we became friends in high school, when he and Trent
started playing guitar together. It was then that they started
their first band (SoFlying), and I had my first management gig,
getting them little shows at punk venues and alternative coffee
shops throughout South Florida. I was good at it and I liked it, so
when Trent asked me to manage his new band, Bad Moon, I was totally
in, even if I didn't know the other two guys, Nick and Brandon.
While Nick was still a mystery to me, little more than the
Rastafarian in the corner of parties smoking weed and banging on
anything that could make a beat, Brandon was so outgoing and
flamboyant that I couldn’t help but fall for his eccentric
charm.

"God, look at them. Doesn't it make you want
to puke?" Martin said, nodding his head to the view out the window
on my side, where Trent and his girlfriend, Lola, were passionately
kissing goodbye.

"Oh, not really," I said as my heart sank a
little in my chest.

'
He's always been a really good friend,
and that's it
,' I reminded myself. It was easy to forget about
the massive crush I had on Trent in high school, but it was times
like these where I relapsed.

"Come on, she totally sucks. She's a soul
sucker," Martin said, waggling his fingers in front of his face
like a magician. I laughed. Most of Trent's friends hated Lola, but
I tried to remain neutral, especially since I felt like my dislike
of her stemmed from a place I really didn't want to revisit. It was
that sad, woe-is-me-I-hate-myself place. But really, it was hard
not to feel that way when she was kind of everything I wasn't.
Thin, blonde, and absolutely in control of every situation. When
she walked into the room all eyes were on her, and she made sure of
it. To be fair, it was kind of impossible not to look at her, with
the pink highlights framing her face and the belly-ring on her
constantly showing midriff.

It also kind of sucked that Trent was
everything I wanted in a guy: tall, lean, with broad shoulders and
a shock of black hair that constantly fell over his eyes, giving
him that illusive hint-of-mystery vibe. It made me really
uncomfortable to admit it, but part of me felt like I developed my
"type" of guy completely off of him, which made a lot of sense
since I had known him for so long.

Trent pulled away from his pouting fiancée
after what felt like an eternity, and he hopped into the
passenger's seat next to Nick who was in the driver’s seat.
"Alright, let's do this!" Trent shouted, looking back to the rest
of us and pumping his fist in the air. We all cheered in return,
except for Brandon who was in the very back, lying on the bench
seat with a blanket over his face.

"Shut up!" he growled. We laughed at him,
teasing him and calling him names, and I took one last look out the
window, giving a weak wave to Jason as the van tore out of our
apartment complex, heading for the highway. He still had the stupid
phone glued to his hand.

'If he doesn't change by the
time I get back, I'll dump him. I swear
,' I promised
myself.

"Speaking of bad dates—" Martin cocked an
eyebrow up at me, as if he had read my mind. He more than anyone
knew how much Jason teased me about my weight, thanks to my
babbling drunk mouth at a party a few months ago.

"Hey, if you're looking for one I'll set you
up," I said, giving him a warning glare. I didn't want anyone else
to know about my love life issues. Martin just shook his head and
scrolled through his phone, looking for someone else to bother, I
was sure.

I watched the passing cars and smiled as the
guys blasted Fun Aim’s latest album. They were the headliners in
Orlando and they guys were stoked to be playing with them. Nodding
my head along to the energetic pulse of rock n’ roll blasting from
the speakers, I smiled to myself. This was going to be the best
summer of my life, and I wasn't about to let anything get in the
way of that.

We arrived in Orlando only several hours
after starting our trip, pulling into the grimy motel parking lot.
We were an hour behind schedule because Brandon’s GPS decided to
take us on some strange detour through the backwoods of
Florida.

“It’s avoiding tolls!” Brandon kept
insisting.

I winced at the broken sign of the motel,
hanging vertically instead of horizontally by the grace of a single
chain, and Martin nudged me, flashing a mischievous grin.

"Great place you picked out,
manager
."

"Hey," I nudged back, slightly embarrassed.
The pictures online were way better. They must have been very
outdated or something. "You guys didn't give me a great budget to
work with or anything."

"It is really gross," Brandon said, wrinkling
his nose at me.

"God, stop being such a diva. It'll be fine!"
Brandon could be pretty high maintenance, but he was right. This
place was borderline decrepit, with dirt-covered walls and over
grown bushes threatening to consume the cars in the parking lot. I
had a feeling this would be the first of many creepy hotels we
would be staying at.

“It’s chill,” Nick said, nodding his head as
he scanned the premise. Of course he would say that, Nick found
everything
chill.

“Well maybe it’s just rough-looking,” I said,
trying to stay optimistic.

Once we got out of the van it didn’t take
long for us to realize it wasn’t just “rough-looking,” it was rough
period. It turned out it was an extended stay type place, and we
could hear loud music and hints of weed wafting through the air.
Nick seemed to be in heaven.

"You guys wait here," I said.

"Where are you going?" Martin said, raising
an eyebrow.

"Well all five of us can't go to check in. I
said it was a room for two. It's cheaper that way," I said,
frustrated. "Guys, I can do this myself it's not like I haven't
been to a hotel before."

"Sweetie..." Brandon started. In the short
time that I knew Brandon, I decided he was the only person in the
world aside from my Aunt Cheryl who could call me sweetie. He was
just endearing that way. "You shouldn't be walking around alone in
this place because we’re really not familiar with the area," he
pointed out.