So this is only a SAMPLE of the first fifteen (unedited) chapters of the book. It WAS completed on Wattpad, but as I am now a published author (The Kissing Booth is available as an ebook, and paperback) with Random House, they've decided to publish Rolling Dice as my second book.
It will be out in the UK as both paperback and ebook in September this year (2013) - and it will follow in the USA probably around the same time!
First off, I'd like to say a massive thank you to all of you for the support on The Kissing Booth (which won Most Popular Teen Fiction in the 2011 Watty Awards) and now exams are finally over so I can give you all another story!
I hope you all like this book. It's less romance and more Young Adult genre, and I'll post a second chapter in a couple of days. Please let me know what you all think, though!
:)
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Chapter 1
“Uh, a latte, please,” I say, not even looking up at the waiter. I don’t know why I ordered a latte. I don’t even like coffee. I’m an iced or herbal tea kind of girl.
But sitting here in this smart café with its posh name – Langlois – made me feel so… I don’t know, cosmopolitan? Upper class? Cool? Either way.
“Coming right up.”
I hear the waiter walk off, and focus all my attention back onto the cell phone in my hands. It’s some swanky new model – it has a slide-out keypad, 3G internet, unlimited texts, stores tons of music… It sounds like a good phone. It looks like a good phone. The woman in the store said it was a good phone.
Shame I have no idea how to work it.
The manual is on the table beside me, but the spine is stiff, the book unwilling to stay open at the page telling me how to set up the internet.
I mean, it’s not like I know what I’m doing. Not only am I kind of useless when it comes to technology – unless it involves downloading and converting music files – I’ve never had a cell phone before. I’ve never really needed one. It’s not like I got out much back in Pineford.
I don’t think of it as ‘back home’.
Why should I? It’s not like I miss it.
We’ve been here in Florida for ten days and counting so far. And I love it already. It isn’t just a chance for me to turn over a new leaf – it’s a chance for me to have a whole new life.
A throat clears, distracting me just as I think I’ve worked this internet thingy out.
I realize why the guy doesn’t just put the steaming white mug on the saucer down at my table; my purse, the empty cell phone box, wires, and the tiny manual are covering every space inch.
“Oh, sorry!” I apologize automatically. I sweep my bag off the table and bundle the wires haphazardly into the box to clear space.
He sets the latte down and for the first time I really looked at him.
He isn’t anything special. You wouldn’t look at him and think ‘Ohmigod!’ because he’s so hot. But he is, I have to admit, kind of cute.
The black uniform and dark green apron probably makes him look a little paler than he really is. He has a long, bony nose and really bright green eyes with thick, dark eyelashes. His dark hair is short, in tight half-curls. If he ever grew it out longer, I bet he’d have a mass of springy ringlets most girls would envy. He’s tall, but not insanely tall. A few inches higher than me, maybe? His long limbs make him look kind of gangly though.
But there is something about him that I have to think, is cute.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“No, thanks, that’s fine.”
I look back at my new cell, looking at the manual again – I’m holding it open with my elbow. It sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to be honest. But there is no way I’d ever figure out this darn thing by myself.
“Do you, uh, need a hand?”
I blink, looking up at him. I hadn’t even realized he was still there.
“Don’t you have people to serve?” I probably sound like a stuck-up snob, but I don’t mean to; I’m just getting frustrated with the phone. I’ve been here for at least ten minutes already trying to work out one tiny thing.
“We’re not that busy, I think I can spare a few minutes.”
He sweeps a hand around and I see he’s right – a group of three gossiping girls, a couple tucked away in the corner, and a man typing away at his laptop.
“Everybody’s at the beach,” he carries on by way of explanation. “Enjoying the last few days of summer before school kicks in. Usually this place is heaving.”
I nod.
“So – you want some help, or not?” He gives me an easy, friendly smile. It’s a kind of lopsided smile, going up higher on the left, but it looks quirky and cute on him.
I don’t know if it’s the smile or just that I really do need the help, but I give in.
“Please?” I say, laughing sheepishly.
He scrapes out the chair opposite me, dropping into it. “What’re you trying to do?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure. It said something about having to setup the internet before you can use it, and there’s some kind of code on the box, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
He holds out a hand and I pass the cell phone over. I hover over the manual, wondering if he needs it, or if I’m just an idiot not to make any sense of it.
He doesn’t need the manual, as it turns out.
“What’s the code?”
I read it out off the box, and a few taps on the cell phone later, he hands it back over. “There you go. All done.”
I smile. “Thanks! I swear, technology has a vendetta against me. I almost broke the microwave just last week.”
It was a bit of an exaggeration, sure. I’d put it on the wrong setting and my pasta had exploded, and then the microwave shut itself off automatically. I thought I’d broken it though, for a while.
The guy laughs.
He has a nice laugh too. I don’t know how to describe it. Somewhere between a big, hearty laugh, and a chuckle. But it’s nice, and it makes me want to smile.
Now he’s closer to me, I can see there are freckles scattered all over his face, clumped around his nose and thinning out as they spread over his cheeks.
“You’re new around here then? I’d have seen you here before otherwise.”
I nod. “We just moved here. From Maine.”
“Nice. My cousins live up there. I’ve been there a few times for Thanksgiving.”
“It’s okay.”
“You prefer Florida?”
I nod, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, since he chuckles a tiny bit. “Better weather, for one thing.”
“You haven’t seen the storms yet.”
“Can’t wait,” I say, semi-sarcastic, and he smiles again with a laugh.
I smile back.
I’d been so worried it’d be hard to make friends here. I’d been paranoid beyond reason that things here would be just the same as they had been in Pineford, that people just wouldn’t want to get to know me. Especially being the new girl – that could go one of two ways, as I see it. They’d either be fascinated by the shiny new toy, or they’d shun me automatically.
It’s not that I can’t talk to people, or that I’m not friendly. I just had never had people interested in talking to me. Years of that makes a person a little shy, to say the least.
But making friends apparently was easier than I’d anticipated.
“What school do you go to?” I ask. He looks around my age, but maybe he’s a senior.
“Midsommer. I guess you’re enrolled there too, right?”
I nod – yet again. “I’m a junior. Well. I will be, in a couple of days, anyway.”
He laughs again. “Same.” He holds out a hand. “I’m Dwight.”
Dwight?
Now that is a weird name, I think. I have never in my entire life heard of anybody called Dwight.
But somehow, it fit this guy. It didn’t seem so uncommon on him.
“Madison,” I introduce myself. I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. How come you’re not at the beach then? Catching some last minute sun, checking out the guys?”
I laugh. “I didn’t really fancy going on my own. Plus, I needed a new cell.”
I say ‘new’ on purpose. I thought it’d seem weird if I told him I’d never owned a cell before now.
“Ah.”
“What about you?” I counter.
“The waves are no good today,” he says, “but I had to cover a shift anyway.”
“Waves?”
“For surfing.”
“Oh. Cool.” I scrutinize him a little. He doesn’t look like a surfer. I’d always pictured surfers as broad-shouldered, muscled guys with a deep tan and blond shaggy hair. But I’d have thought surfers would be at least tanned from being out in the sun so much. He looks too pale and gangly, I think.
I sip the latte to fill the silence a little, and can’t stop myself pulling a face.
Yup. I will definitely never order a latte again.
“Too hot?” he assumes, biting back a smile.
“Uh, yeah…”
He laughs a little. “You think you’ve got that sorted now?” He nods at the cell phone I’d put in front of me on the table.
“I should do, yeah. Thanks.”
“Give me a shout if you need anything else, okay? I’ve got to get back to work before the boss tells me to stop mingling with the customers.” He smiles at me again. “I’ll see you around?”
It sounds like a question, rather than a statement.
So I reply, “Yeah, sure,” and smile back at him.
“Nice meeting you, Madison.”
“Nice meeting you, too, Dwight,” I say to his retreating back, my smile stretching out a little more.
Looks like you just made a friend.
And I feel all light and bubbly inside. Maybe fitting in here won’t be so hard after all.
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Please, let me know what you guys think! Feedback is greatly appreciated!
I will post chapter two in a couple of days :)