Everything We Need (Finding Forever Book 4)
Table of Contents
About Everything We Need (Finding Forever, Book 4)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Also by Rebecca Raine: Our Little Secret (Finding Forever, Book 1)
Excerpt from Our Little Secret (Finding Forever, Book 1)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by Rebecca Raine: Lost in Amber (Finding Forever, Book 2)
Also by Rebecca Raine: This Time Forever (Finding Forever, Book 3)
EVERYTHING WE NEED
Finding Forever, Book 4
Rebecca Raine
Title: Everything We Need
Copyright © 2017 Rebecca Raine
All rights reserved.
www.rebeccaraine.com
ISBN-10: 0-9945027-7-X
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
Cover by Syneca Featherstone
About Everything We Need (Finding Forever, Book 4)
The path to true love may not begin with a threesome, but you have to start somewhere.
Trina Carrigan is searching for love. After a lifetime of following her instincts, and getting nowhere, she’s determined to use logic to find her happily-ever-after. Unfortunately, there is nothing logical about her attraction to her new gay flatmate, Jeremy. The sooner she finds her Mr Right, the better.
Jeremy Hayden needs a friend. Still recovering from the isolation of an abusive relationship, he’s struggling to build a new life for himself. He’s delighted to find a friend in Trina, but there’s a catch: he’s not as gay as she thinks he is, and he’s having trouble keeping his hands to himself.
Brady Shaw wants only to be left alone. A moment of weakness has torn his life apart, forcing him to walk away from the remains. His newfound peace is shattered, however, when he discovers the perfect incarnation of all he’s trying to escape living right next door. Jeremy brings to life every craving Brady’s ever denied. Trina makes his broken heart ache to be whole. Caught between the two, Brady finds himself facing a whole new problem. He can’t quite decide whom he wants to seduce first.
For Georgia, who helped me make this series everything I needed it to be
Table of Contents
About Everything We Need (Finding Forever, Book 4)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by Rebecca Raine: Our Little Secret (Finding Forever, Book 1)
Excerpt from Our Little Secret (Finding Forever, Book 1)
Also by Rebecca Raine: Lost in Amber (Finding Forever, Book 2)
Also by Rebecca Raine: This Time Forever (Finding Forever, Book 3)
Also by Rebecca Raine: Splinter
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Trina Carrigan crossed the final name off her list with a single violent stroke of her blue pen. The last potential flatmate had sashayed out of the coffee shop and she was still no closer to finding someone she could stand to live with. She’d never considered herself a fussy person, but the increasingly emphatic lines she’d drawn through each name begged to differ. Draining the dregs of her fourth coffee, she stared at the list and heaved a defeated sigh. It was time to stop acting like she had a choice.
Reality dictated she find someone to fill the recently vacated second bedroom in her apartment or face the possibility of being late with next month’s rent. She refused to believe she’d screwed her life up enough to let that happen.
Tearing the page out of her notepad, she rewrote the list of names on a fresh page and tried to look at them with equally fresh eyes. One of these women would be her new flatmate, whether she liked it or not. All she had to do now was decide which one.
The chair on the opposite side of the table squeaked as someone dropped into it. Trina raised her head far enough to see it was a male someone. He was tall and slender, though she could see evidence of a tightly muscled body beneath his white t-shirt and… suspenders? She returned her attention to his face. A lock of straight brown hair fell over the green eyes gazing steadily back at her. She blinked. Was he really wearing eyeliner? A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth—that was a first.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
“You most certainly can, Trina, and I can help you too.” He rested crossed arms on the table as he leaned forward with a rakish smile. Trina wasn’t normally one to use a word like rakish when it came to men, especially men who wore eyeliner, but this guy pulled it off in spades.
Sitting back in her chair, she lifted her eyebrows at him in question. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely.” He nodded as he held his hand out in greeting. “Jeremy Hayden. I’m your new flatmate.”
Trina looked at his proffered hand, but didn’t shake. “Just like that?”
His hand dropped back to the table, but he seemed unperturbed by her rejection. “You need a flatmate. I need a place to live. And here we both are.” He flashed that smile again. “It’s fate really. There’s no fighting it.”
“How is it you know both my name and my circumstances, Jeremy?”
He gestured somewhere off to the left of her. “I was having lunch at the table around the corner there when I became enthralled with the long line of women you had parading through here. I had to know what was going on.”
Leaning sideways, Trina peeked around the corner and saw what had to be the remains of Jeremy’s lunch sitting on a nearby table. She wasn’t surprised she hadn’t noticed him sitting back there, given he hadn’t been visible from where she sat. Who knew how long he’d been listening in on her conversations? She turned back to him with her mouth agape. “You call it fate. I call it eavesdropping.”
“Shameless eavesdropping,” he agreed with a light chuckle. “Why are you meeting people in a coffee shop and not at your apartment?”
“It’s a safety precaution. I’ve lived with a few too many nutters in my time. Now I prefer to meet people before giving them t
he actual address.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough. There wasn’t a decent flatmate in the lot by the way.”
“That’s not necessarily true.” She tapped the end of her pen against her notebook. “I met some very good candidates today.” She was lying through her teeth but, if she was going to be forced to live with one of these women, she figured it would be poor form to bad-mouth them to a total stranger.
Jeremy snorted. “Really? Which one?”
Glancing down at the list of names she’d rewritten, she pointed to the first one. He couldn’t possibly have been listening in on the first interview, it was almost two hours ago. “This woman would make an excellent flatmate.”
He shook his head, nose crinkling. “No way. You’re after a non-smoker, right?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t an unusual requirement, he could be guessing.
“If that woman’s a non-smoker, I’ll eat my hat.”
Trina frowned. “You’re not wearing a hat.”
“She did her best to hide it,” he continued, “but I caught a distinct whiff of ciggies underneath her god-awful perfume.”
The woman’s perfume had been strong—almost overpowering. Trina hadn’t detected the odour of cigarettes though. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibility Jeremy hadn’t been paying as much attention to her conversations as he claimed. If he was serious about looking for somewhere to live, he could be inventing reasons for her not to consider anyone else.
She turned the page so he could see her point to the last name on the list. “What about this one?”
“She was the one with the over-sized handbag, right?” He cringed when she nodded. “Trina, sweetie, she said she could help you with your fashion sense.” He tilted his head to one side, inspecting her simple floral top with grave sincerity. “Do you require help with your fashion sense? Because I could do that too, you know. I have an excellent sense of fashion.”
Okay, he’d definitely been paying attention. “This from the man wearing suspenders,” she said with an incredulous grin.
“Yeah.” He glanced down at himself before announcing, “Suspenders are cool.”
Trina burst out laughing at the deadpan way he said it, as if the coolness of suspenders on a man was a given. “You’re a little bit crazy, aren’t you?”
“Only in the fun ways.” He winked at her, then reached out to nab her notepad and pen before she had a chance to stop him. “Let me narrow down this list for you.” He rubbed his hands together in apparent glee, his smile doing a lopsided thing that charmed her all the way to her toes.
She knew she should probably stop him, but Jeremy’s enigmatic presence was a bright spark in her otherwise dull day and she wasn’t quite ready to walk out on him. Plus, there wasn’t any personal information in her notes, no phone numbers or addresses. It seemed harmless to let him play.
“What’s with the chicken scrawl?” he teased, flipping through the few pages of notes she’d taken during the interviews.
Trina leaned forward to rest her chin in the palm of her hand. “I’m over-caffeinated.”
“Apparently so.” He barked out a laugh. “It looks like you lost control of the pen.”
“Are you always this critical of people’s handwriting?”
“Only when I’m trying to read it.” He perused the pages for a few moments, making notes here and there in a neat, orderly hand.
She made a tutting sound. “Of course your penmanship is excellent.”
“I try,” he said without looking up. “I think it’s important. More men should give a shit about being understood.”
She nodded. “I agree.”
Once he’d finished, Jeremy turned the notepad back toward her and pointed to the second name on the list with the end of the pen. “This one is unemployed.”
That got her attention. “How do you know?”
“She hesitated when you asked where she worked. Then, she gave you details of her work experience without ever saying where she works now. It’s a dead giveaway. I used it myself once.”
“Oh, really.” The last thing she wanted was an unemployed flatmate, no matter who they were. “What about you? Are you gainfully employed, Mr Hayden?”
“Even better, I’m a successful business owner,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I own a store about ten minutes from here called Fandom. It’s brimming with all your pop culture needs.”
Trina did her best to return the damn near blinding smile he gave her. “Wow. It sounds awesome.” Not once in her working life had she ever felt the sort of enthusiasm Jeremy showed at the mere mention of his store. Apathy was a common experience and dread had been known to visit from time to time. But on any given day, mild satisfaction was the best she could hope for in her work.
Smothering a sigh, she reached out to point to the third name on the list—the only one he hadn’t already shredded. “This one wasn’t so bad. I’ll probably end up offering her the room.” The woman had been a few years younger than her, and painfully shy. She hadn’t said much past answering the questions put to her directly, but she’d seemed friendly. With any luck, she’d be quiet enough Trina would forget she was there.
“Nope.” Jeremy shook his head. “She doesn’t want to live with you.”
Trina threw her arms up. “You could not possibly know that.”
“She hesitated too long when you asked what she thought of homosexuality. Then she gave you a pat answer.”
Trina had noticed the pause, but had been willing to dismiss it. Some people preferred to think before they spoke. But when she had spoken… “She was a little too politically correct, wasn’t she?”
“Hell, yes.” Jeremy said emphatically. “She might have said she’d love to hear from you, but she won’t be answering if you call.”
Trina couldn’t help herself, she had to test his theory. Taking her phone out of her purse, she quickly located and dialled the woman’s number. It rang twice, then cut off before going to voicemail. Without a word, she put her phone down on the table, took the pen from Jeremy’s hand, and crossed the woman’s name off the list. It was official, this entire process had been a complete waste of time and she would have to eat noodles for a month in order to pay the rent.
“Why did you ask about homosexuality specifically? Are you gay?” He asked the question in a blunt, matter-of-fact way that seemed a natural part of his personality.
“No.” She gave a distracted shake of her head. “My brother has two life partners and one of them is a man. I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable when they come over to visit.”
“Fair enough. You won’t have a problem with me there.”
“I know I won’t,” she groused. “I haven’t offered you the room.”
“Not yet.” He lifted his eyebrows at her, as if their living together was a forgone conclusion and her resistance was futile. “What happened to your last flatmate?”
“She’s in love with my cousin and they’ve moved in together.” Trina had been best friends with Kelly since they met in university and she was ecstatic Kelly and Jake had finally worked out they were made for each other after a decade of on-again-off-again mess. Unfortunately, their happiness had left her with an empty second bedroom she couldn’t afford. Kelly had offered to continue paying half the rent until someone else moved in, but Trina had refused. Honestly, she hadn’t thought it would be so difficult to find someone suitable. She’d never had any problems in the past.
“What about you?” she asked, shunting her problems off to a far corner of her mind. “Why are you homeless?”
Jeremy cleared his throat as he sat back in his chair. “I just went through a breakup. I’m currently in residence on my sister’s couch so, I need somewhere to live—pronto.”
“That sucks.” It had been some time since she’d gotten close enough to anyone to have her heart broken, but not so long she didn’t remember how it felt. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time coming.” He play
ed it off well, but Trina saw the shadows in his eyes before he glanced away.
“I’m sure your better off without him.”
Jeremy’s gaze snapped back to hers. “How do you know it was a him?”
“The eyeliner was my first clue,” she said. “Other than that, it was an educated guess. I have a well-developed gaydar.”
He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. A moment later several locks fell forward in defiance. “The liner, the clothes, they’re a work thing mostly,” he said, his smile edging its way back into place. “People don’t want to buy their TARDIS teapot from some dickhead in a polo shirt. They want a character, someone fun.” He spread his arms in a dramatic flourish and she giggled. He was right. His presence alone would probably have her buying more than she’d intended.
“This is a good thing,” he added, gesturing between the two of them. “Neither of us are in need because we’re hard to live with. It’s just life that got in the way. And I think we’re getting along famously.”
“That’s not the point. I’ve never had a male flatmate before.” He might be fun and easy to talk to, but there was a big difference between hanging out in a coffee shop and sharing a bathroom. “And look at you, with your gorgeous eyes and biceps. If I’m not careful, I could find myself gazing at you with lustful eyes.”
He seemed unconvinced. “I’m gay, Trina. I doubt you’re going to mistake me for boyfriend material.”
She pressed her lips together, wondering if he had an answer for everything. “You have the energy of a rebellious puppy. You may get on my nerves if you bounce too much.”
Jeremy threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Don’t mind the zing,” he said once the guffaws had past. “I’m just excited. I like you.” He leaned in closer, a conspiratorial tone in his voice. “But don’t listen to me. What do your instincts tell you?”
“They tell me flatting with a man is a bad idea.”
His face fell momentarily, but then he made a dismissive sound. “Ignore your instincts. What the hell do they know?”
Trina opened her mouth to assure him she’d been following her instincts her whole life and they had yet to let her down. The words, habitual though they were, refused to come. She was almost broke, working in a dead end job she hated, and she slept alone every night. This was the place her instincts had led her to, and it wasn’t even close to where she wanted to be.