Eternal Flame (Eternal Flame #1)

By

Sofia Giselle

Eternal Flame

By

Sofia Giselle

Copyright © 2016 Sofia Giselle

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties.

Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

Photo Copyright: subbotina

Table of Contents

May 20
th
, 2016
…
Boston, MA

Joy Austin rode silently in the front passenger seat, while her mother stiffly drove in the seat next to her. Not a word was said between either of them. They rode the Boston freeway in stony silence.

“How long ‘til we get to Roman’s house?” asked Joy’s best friend Kristen from the back-seat.

Kristen too had been quiet for her own reflective reasons. She was upset because two months before, exactly one month before her 18
th
birthday, her boyfriend Carlos had returned home to his native Colombia, two months shy of their high school graduation. He had hoped he could stay until then and that had been the original plan, but his funding had run out prematurely and the family that hosted him couldn’t afford to let him stay there freely.

It had broken Kristen’s heart terribly and she still wasn’t over it. This was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. The opportunity of a lifetime. A dream come true. Kristen and Joy were in Boston, the city that had birthed the members of their favorite group of all time, Next Level. Next Level was an internationally successful boy band group that had barreled onto the scene of the music industry in the year 2010. Their rise to the top had seemingly been overnight but they had been working towards it since the early 2000s. The members were Roman Dean, Damian Foster, Nick Collins, Will Beckham, and Diego Braxton. The group had come out with one failed album before releasing their second best-selling album that took off like a rocket based off of their number 1 ballad, “Why Did You Leave?” That was when Kristen and Joy discovered Next Level and fell in love with them, along with millions of other fans.

Upon the release of “Why Did You Leave?” the group went multi-platinum which in turn led to twelve subsequent number 1 singles, endless merchandising that turned them into high-end millionaires, and they toured the country relentlessly for years, while growing a solid, loyal, and die-hard fan base. Sometimes they were in the same city twice a year.

Since 2010, the guys had released two additional albums that also were multi-platinum successes but took a long extended three-year break due to life on the road burn-out and overexposure. Now, they were working on a brand new album and were using the contest as a way of reintroducing themselves to the public and rewarding two lucky fans with the chance to enjoy them up close and personal. Both girls had attended two concerts over the years but had never had the chance to meet them in person. This trip was affording them that.

Joy had thought inviting Kristen along on the trip would help but it hadn’t so far. Kristen was having a hard time grasping her new reality. Even though she was going to meet the man of her dreams, primary lead singer Roman Dean, and Joy had entered her name in a contest to win a private date with him and she had surprisingly won, she couldn’t get excited about it. Her heart wasn’t in it. Right now all she cared about was Carlos. Roman didn’t matter.

Joy, however, was very ecstatic when she left Charlotte, NC and she still was but not as much. Her mother had pissed her off. She told Joy and Kristen that aside from the contest outings they had won (Joy had won an intimate dinner date with newly single and the “bad boy” of the group, Damian Foster), they were not allowed to go anywhere without her, because they weren’t old enough. Joy thought that was bullshit. She was 19 and Kristen was 18. They weren’t “legal” but they were both of age as far as she was concerned. But that didn’t matter to her mother. They still had to take her wherever they went. Joy and her mother had a big argument about it. In the end, her mother had won the argument. After all, what else could they do? They had zero transportation to get around a city they knew little about and Joy was on her mother’s car insurance. Kristen still didn’t even have a license. So they were stuck.

Joy thought the whole debacle was much ado about nothing and she pleaded her case to her mother, but she wasn’t budging. Her mother had won the fight. Now she and Joy weren’t speaking. Joy didn’t want to talk to her mother. She thought her mother was being very unfair.

“My whole trip is going to be ruined because you won’t let us be by ourselves,” Joy tersely grumbled. “This whole thing is just stupid and ridiculous.”

“Joy, be quiet,” her mother sing-songed through gritted teeth. She was trying her best not to embarrass her daughter in front of her friend but Joy was making it hard.

“It’s not fair!” Joy loudly whined. “You should let us be alone. We won this trip, not you! This isn’t even about you! You’re ruining my life!”

“Shut your mouth Joy!”

Joy tightly folded her arms across her chest, threw her long brown curls over her shoulder and pouted. She couldn’t believe how unreasonable her mother was behaving. In two years Joy would be 21 years old; she was practically an adult. For the most part, she was a well-behaved and responsible young adult. What was her mother’s damn problem?

So how had they gotten to this point? All by a sheer stroke of unimaginable luck. A little over a month before, in the May issue of the music magazine Idol , they’d run a contest for ardent Next Level fans to win a trip to Boston for three days and two nights to celebrate Roman Dean’s 24
th
birthday. The winner would not only get to celebrate Roman’s birthday with his friends and family; they would also win an exclusive one on one date with him that Saturday night. Alone. All the fans had to do was a pen a letter explaining why they deserved to win the contest. They were also running a contest for a fan to spend an evening with Damian doing activities of their choice. Unbeknownst to Kristen, Joy had penned a letter using Kristen’s name to enter the contest for the date with Roman and then in turn used her own name to win the date with Damian. She was beyond shocked, surprised, and thrilled when she won both contests. The trip was a steal! The entire trip was free, including airfare, hotel, and transportation.

Course, they weren’t going to get to use the transportation because her dumb mother wouldn’t let them take advantage of it. Upon arriving in Boston, they’d immediately entered the address for the Dean’s compound in the GPS system of the rental SUV and were now on their way to meet Roman and family. Per the trip’s itinerary, Joy wasn’t meeting up with Damian until later that evening before the party started. She could not wait. She had been fantasizing about Damian Foster for years and now she was finally going to get the chance to meet him and spend time with him. Now that he was single, she also hoped she’d get to hook up with him. In more ways than one.

She expected Kristen to be over the moon excited when she told her but Kristen had shown little to no interest in the whole thing because of her stupid boyfriend. Joy had hoped by the time they got to Boston Kristen’s icy heart would melt and they could have fun and enjoy their trip and dates together. It hadn’t happened yet. The drive from Boston to Andover where Roman’s family residence located took about forty-five minutes or more and Kristen’s irritation grew with each passing minute. Although they were now less than fifteen minutes from Roman’s house, Joy still had her fingers crossed.

“I’m so excited!” Joy squealed for the tenth time that day. “Even if I have to be treated like a child the whole time I’m here.” She pointed her eyes at her mother and secretly stuck her middle finger up at her with her hidden right hand.

“Don’t start with me Joy,” her mother warned her again.

“Kristen aren’t you excited?” Joy asked, craning her neck to look at her friend in the backseat.

Kristen stared silently out the window as tears slowly cascaded down her cheeks.

Joy blew through her lips in frustration. “Look Kristen, the boy is gone! Why don’t you forget it?”

“I can’t,” Kristen whimpered through her tears.

“I’m not taking you to Roman’s house all depressed. Cheer up!”

“I can’t Joy; my boyfriend is gone!”

“So what?! If he’s gone he’s just gone! There’s nothing you can do about it! There’s nothing you can do to bring him back!”

“I’m going to go visit him. Maybe I can convince my parents to let me stay there for a year before I go to college.” Kristen knew that was a long shot but it was worth a try. Maybe if she bawled hard enough they would say yes.

“Kristen you’re being ridiculous! What the two of you had was a casual, high-school fling. You didn’t even love that boy!”

Kristen’s heated brown eyes flared at Joy. “I did so!”

“You did not! And even if you did, who cares? You knew when you met him it couldn’t last. Look, you are on your way to meet the man you’ve been fantasizing about for the past five years…”

“Six years…”

“Whatever! And you aren’t even excited! I won this trip for you! The least you can do is show a little appreciation!”

“Nobody asked you to.”

“That’s what friends do. I wanted to cheer you up. I knew you were having a tough time getting over that boy.”

“So I’m going to go visit Roman,” Kristen said with a bored yawn. “So it’s his birthday. So I’m going on a date with him. Big deal. He’s too old for me anyway.”

“I can’t believe you’re acting like this. That boy is not coming back. You have a chance to spend an intimate evening with a sexy man you’ve been dreaming about for years and you’re too stuck on stupid to even enjoy it.”

“Joy, leave her alone,” Joy’s mother chastised her. “She’s going through a tough time. Let her deal with things in her own way and her own time.”

“Thank you Miss Austin. Joy, listen to your mother.”

“My mother doesn’t even know what she’s talking about.”

“Save your breath Kristen, Joy is not going to listen to me. She never listens to me.”

“Yeah I do. I listen to you run your mouth all day!”

“Joyce Ann, I am warning you, if you do not shut your mouth, I’m going to reach across this car and smack the stir-fried shit out of you without breaking one damn fingernail. Now I’m warning you, shut the hell up!”

Knowing she had pushed her mother too far and having enough sense not to make things worse, Joy immediately quieted and sulked against her seat, muttering under her breath as she looked out the window.

For the first time that day, Kristen started laughing. She started laughing and couldn’t stop. Before long, she was doubled over in the backseat, holding her stomach and gasping for air.

Joy’s pecan brown face reddened with embarrassment. “That’s not funny Kristen!” Kristen continued to laugh. “Shut up Kristen!”

“Leave her alone Joy,” her mother told her. “You should be glad she’s laughing instead of crying.”

“Oh, right. That’s a relief. At least it made her stop crying over Carlos.” Joy stopped and closed her eyes, realizing what she had just done. “Oh-oh.”

Joy threw her hands up in the air and shook her head as Kristen started to cry again. “Oh brother,” she sighed.

“See what running your mouth will do?” her mother said.

“Mama please be quiet!”

“Carlosssssssss,” Kristen whined, hiccupping through her tears.

“Oh my God, I wish you’d shut the fuck up.”

“I wish you would leave me the hell alone.”

“You know what? If you’re so miserable, why don’t you just open the door and jump out? Do us all a favor.”

“Why don’t I bring you with me and do your mom a favor?”

“You are such an asshole. I hate I even asked you to come with me.”

“You know what, just open the door and let me out; I can walk my ass back to the airport right now.”

Joy’s mother pulled the car over to the side of the road and hit the brakes hard, jerking both girls against their seats. “Both of you shut the fuck up before I slap the stir-fried shit out of both of ya’ll. And I promise you if I hear another word from either of you on the way to this house or if I have to stop this car again, the only name Roman or Damian will know will be mine, because I’ll be the one going out on the town with both of them. And I can promise you you won’t see me until we’re on the way back to Charlotte, because neither one of them will be able to turn all of this…”- she gestured towards her lumpy, middle-aged body- “down.”

“Oh my God,” Joy marveled in wonder as she eyed the Dean’s massive compound, complete with an endless amount of land, two guest houses, a barn, and a stately main house that had two musical fountains at the front.

“This place is amazing,” Joy’s mother said, her eyes wide as she took everything in.

“Amazing is an understatement. Kristen, isn’t this the most amazing house you have ever seen?”

“It’s okay,” Kristen replied with another bored yawn. “It’s just a house.”

Joy held in an aggravated sigh. Her friend was really beginning to get on her last damn nerve. “Kristen, it’s not just anyone’s house. It’s Roman’s house!”

“So he has a house. I’m happy for him.”

Joy turned to her friend and stuck a bony, manicured finger in her face. “You know you are really being an asshole right now…”

Joy stopped talking and stared in wonder at the image coming from the back of the car. It was Cameron Dean. And walking right beside her with an unpleasant frown on his face was her brother Roman.