Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3
Read Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 Online
Authors: Isabelle Peterson
Tags: #Romance, #Erotica
by Isabelle Peterson
Copyright © 2014 Isabelle Peterson
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient Please note, this book is only distributed by the following vendors: Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Noble/Nook or Kobo, as are all Dream Series books. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DISCLAIMER:
This book is a work of fiction.
fiction
|fikSHen|
noun
literature in the form of prose, esp. short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people.
The characters are not based on anyone I know in real life, nor are the events described.
WARNING:
This is an EROTIC ROMANCE. That means that there is sex. There are
explicit
descriptions of sex. BECAUSE of this, I advise that only those 18 & over read it.
Cover by Kari Ayasha of Cover to Cover Designs
Formatting by Paul Salvette of BB eBooks
Other titles by Isabelle Peterson
THE DREAM SERIES
Ditching the Dream
Not in My Wildest Dreams
Chasing The Dream
Planned Titles in the Series
Unexpected Dreams
Living the Dream
Other Titles by Isabelle Peterson
This book is dedicated to everyone trying to stand on their own two feet and be strong, and those never afraid to chase their dreams.
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
—Napoleon Hill
A
t first she was embarrassed. Then angry. Then she cried, hiding in her dorm room for three days surviving on crackers, pudding cups, and Diet Coke. Her friends all came knocking and tried to cheer her up, but were largely unsuccessful. Mostly because she knew that all her friends were still maintaining their friendship with the lying, cheating, man-whore known to his friends and family as Danny Fitzsimmons. To Phoebe Fairchild, the fucking bastard would forever be known as “Dickwad Danny.”
The worst part was she was going to be missing the Spring Break trip to Florida with her friends. She was absolutely
not
going if he was going. That said, of course he was going because it was his parent’s place in Daytona that everyone was staying. Drowning her misery in her bad diet and country music, a new song came on. Sarah Darling’s new release,
Little Umbrellas,
flowed through her iPod. Phoebe let the lyrics soak in.
I
could
go,
she thought with a touch of malice,
and flirt with the cabana boys and see how
he
likes it
. But it was more than that. Danny wasn’t only flirting with girls in front of Phoebe. He had been fucking them behind her back.
No, a summer hot spot with her friends was not in Phoebe’s future for spring break. She looked around her dorm room and considered staying there for the week-long break, but after the past three days, she was sick of the white, cement block walls, and her turquoise bedding with hot pink accents sprinkled throughout the room, and her roommate, Lucy’s, animal print and PETA posters. The university was nice enough, but the town it was in wasn’t really her cup of tea. She picked up the phone and called home.
“Hi, Dad. Is Mom home?” she asked when her dad picked up the phone. She almost thought she had the wrong number because her dad never answered the phone. It wasn’t that she didn’t
want
to talk to her dad, but she wasn’t exactly close to him. If he asked why she was suddenly not going to Daytona, she didn’t feel like telling him that it was because her boyfriend wasn’t her boyfriend any longer. Frankly, she’d kept quiet about Dickwad all year long, especially when it came to her dad. He didn’t want her involved with anyone, especially in her freshman year away.
“No, she’s in New York,” he said flatly.
“New York? What’s there? Cool! When’s she coming home?” Phoebe asked, thrown for a loop.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know,” Greg Fairchild replied. He sounded dejected. Lost.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
He sighed heavily into the phone. “I don’t know. You’re better off calling your mom on her cell. Maybe she’ll answer
your
calls.” And with that, he hung up.
Phoebe looked at her phone wondering what was up with her dad, and why her mom was in New York. But then she got to thinking… She wasn’t going to Daytona, but maybe New York was just the place to get over Dickwad Danny.
And maybe I’ll look at transferring schools while I’m in New York,
she thought. She was a physics major and chose to minor in dance. Her dad was ‘amused’ with her passion for dance, but he was dead set against Phoebe getting a degree in it. He would only pay tuition for a degree that could get her a job. She loved physics in high school, but in college it wasn’t as much fun. Bottom line, her current C+ average even made her upset. She loved to dance, but wasn’t anywhere near as good, or as thin, as the other girls in the program for dance minors. To dance professionally, you’d need to major in dance, and not at a traditional type of college. She’d have to be at Juilliard or UC Berkley or Oberlin. Ultimately, the whole dance thing didn’t hold her interest the way it had when she was younger. New York could be exciting. And offer more choices.
Phoebe had been sitting in on seminars and classes with Dickwad Danny, who was a communications major. She started to think about how much she loved performing. Maybe she should consider a communications degree. What better place to do that than in New York City? All the major networks were there. Maybe one day she could be an anchor for a news program. Or even better, she could be the Access Hollywood reporter for the happenings in New York. It was a zillion miles from Dickwad.
Yes,
Phoebe decided.
That’s the plan.
Phoebe pulled up her mother’s cell phone number and placed the call to her mom. Her mom didn’t answer, but Phoebe got her voice mail, so she left a message:
“Hi Mom. It’s Phoebe. Dad says you’re in New York? How cool! Can I come visit? I’m thinking of changing my major and a visit to New York could help me a lot with making my decision. I have spring break next week. The girls and I had planned to go to Daytona, but Stephanie didn’t make the reservations in time so we’re stuck without plans now. Would I fly into JFK airport? I’m looking at airfares now. Call me.”
A small fib about Stephanie not making the reservation, but she didn’t want her mother to know about Dickwad either, and was grateful that the voicemail meant no questions.
Some might say that she was chasing a dream, but Phoebe viewed it as fate.
One month later… Thursday, May 16, 2013
M
y roommate Lucy and I hugged a teary goodbye, and promised to keep in touch, even though she would be leaving for Africa in a few weeks for some Peace Corps mission bringing water to a remote town. As she headed off to her sunrise yoga group, I climbed into the rented minivan with my mom, dad and all my worldly possession that were in my dorm, to settle in for the long drive from Ohio to New York.
“I’m so excited for you, honey. You’re going to love actually
living
in Manhattan. Visiting is one thing, but the day-to-day is really something,” my mom gushed. “And your internship really sounds really exciting. Have you been in touch much with your mentor? What is her name again?”
“Valerie Cocozza,” I said. “We’ve had a few emails, but I’m looking forward to meeting her on Tuesday.” I sat back and hoped my mom wouldn’t be talking the whole time. I was exhausted from the previous week of studying for final exams, my friends from school giving me a farewell party, and the excitement over moving to New York. I tossed and turned the whole four hours I was in bed.
It was early in the morning, just before seven, and my parents had flown into Ohio last night. I’d spent all day yesterday boxing up my dorm before the party, and now they were going to drive me to New York. My dad had been curiously quiet. I don’t think it was the ungodly hour at which we were loading the car. The super early start was his idea so we didn’t arrive in New York after dark. Clearly he was not very happy about something, probably my move. I, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more excited to move to New York, where I had landed an internship and was transferring to NYU; a little thanks to a friend of my mom’s. I couldn’t exactly read how Dad felt about my leaving the small private college in the tiny Ohio town to go to a huge university in the largest city in America. He was always a small town kind of guy, and, I don’t know, I was more of a big city kind of personality. I knew that for sure when I visited my mom in New York last month. He said he was fine with the transfer and the internship, that it was other stuff on his mind preoccupying his thoughts. That’s my dad, I thought, and shrugged it off. Bad Mood Dad was never fun. He usually got this way when he had a big project at work. If he had a big project going on, he shouldn’t have come.
Moving to New York City—excuse me,
Manhattan—
was the coolest thing I’ve done in my entire life. To go to school, a new school, a
huge
school, and with an internship at a major network in the Public Relations division, was a dream come true. After the last exam of my freshman year, (a year I’d like to forget), I had only five days to get to New York, settle in, and start my summer internship. With so little time, instead of me flying home to California and then flying out to New York, my parents flew to Ohio, rented a minivan which we had loaded up with my stuff, and were planning to drive twelve straight hours to the city that never sleeps.