What Happens with Vegas...

By Heather Mar-Gerrison

My name is Vegas McKenzie and I am officially a screw-up. It should be tattooed on my forehead, no seriously...
Everyone (Tyler especially) thinks I have the most amazing girlfriend in the whole world – Daisy Oldham. And you know – if you don’t scratch the surface too much, it’s kind of true – she is pretty incredible – she’s beautiful and smart and funny and sexy. So what’s the problem? Weren’t you paying attention? I am.
I did it again. I got drunk at a party – she wasn’t there. I must have got all needy and lonely – and ended up in bed with a random girl. Guess she must have felt the same way I did – horny. I’m not too sure – like I said – I got drunk. I really had to stop doing that...
I had to stop doing things like this, full stop. Daisy didn’t deserve a boyfriend like me. And if Tyler Barton got wind of it for a second time – I wouldn’t have a girlfriend anymore – hell, I probably wouldn’t have a dick to get me into trouble with anymore either – yes – he was that protective of her...
Tyler is – or rather, was, following the previous night’s disaster, my best mate. We’ve grown up together and until we both decided that Daisy Oldham was ‘the one’ we got on like a house on fire.
Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that Tyler was secretly in love with her until it was too late – and she was already mine...
That was a while ago now – we’d only been fifteen at the time and now we were all seventeen. Tyler still thought she was the one for him – and most of the time I still thought she was the one for me – but I can’t deny that I’d been having more than a few doubts since the best night of my life ever – with another girl... Lydia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heather Mar-Gerrison
• Release date: Feb 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311632944

Heather Mar-Gerrison

I love to write M/M romance and as a sucker for a HEA, you're guaranteed one in my books. #happyheatherafters

Book preview

Prologue

Vegas

My name is Vegas McKenzie and I am officially a screw-up. It should be tattooed on my forehead, no seriously…

Everyone (Tyler especially) thinks I have the most amazing girlfriend in the whole world – Daisy Oldham. And you know, if you don’t scratch the surface too much, it’s kind of true. She is pretty incredible – she’s beautiful and smart and funny and sexy. So, what’s the problem? Weren’t you paying attention? I am.

I did it again. I got drunk at a party. She wasn’t there. I must have got all needy and lonely – and ended up in bed with a random girl. Guess she must have felt the same way I did – horny. I’m not too sure, like I said, I got drunk. I really had to stop doing that…

I had to stop doing things like this, full stop. Daisy didn’t deserve a boyfriend like me. And if Tyler Barton got wind of it for a second time. I wouldn’t have a girlfriend anymore. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have a dick to get me into trouble with anymore either – yes – he was that protective of her…

Tyler is – or rather, was, following the previous night’s disaster, my best mate. We’ve grown up together and until we both decided that Daisy Oldham was ‘the one’ we got on like a house on fire.

Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that Tyler was secretly in love with her until it was too late – and she was already mine…

That was a while ago now. We’d only been fifteen at the time and now we were all seventeen. Tyler still thought she was the one for him and most of the time I still thought she was the one for me – but I can’t deny that I’d been having more than a few doubts since the best night of my life ever with another girl… Lydia.

Chapter 1 – When we were fifteen…

Vegas

There was a buzz of excitement in the classroom. Someone came dashing into our form room. I think it was Pippa Sefton – all excited that there was a new girl starting. She’s really pretty, she gushed, She looks just like Beyoncé and she’s gonna be in our class!

Well, that made all the guys in the room sit up and take notice. Beyoncé? Fucking brilliant! I grinned at Tyler, Wow, I said, she sounds hot. I commented.

He nodded, shrugging, Yeah, I guess… he replied.

She walked in the room. I can honestly say that I’d never seen such a stunning girl in all my life. She wasn’t as beautiful as Daisy – quite the most exquisitely gorgeous girl I’d ever laid eyes on but she had a quality about her somehow. She looked about eighteen for a start and, well, there was no denying it – she was hot. My first thought was that she was totally perfect for Tyler. She looked sort of exotic – just like he did – and he most certainly didn’t look his age either. Tyler had looked about eighteen since he was twelve…

Tyler was quarter-Jamaican, which made him about the best-looking boy in the whole school. He was tall, buff and quite the most attractive guy you could imagine. But oddly, he’d never had a real girlfriend – and he’d never shown any real interest in any of the girls that fancied him either.

Maybe he was shy or just waiting for the right one. Well, hello – she’d just arrive. Perfection on a plate didn’t quite cover it. The new girl – Savannah Jones…

It took him a long time to work out that she was the one for him but when he did – boom. It was sudden. It hit him like a bolt of lightning and it was almost as if no one else existed. He broke my nose – but it was all a bit of a misunderstanding really…

He’d inadvertently told me how he felt about her over a couple of beers one night down at the park a few weeks into her being his tutor – but for one reason or another it all went pear shaped until his older brother’s wedding. Still, that’s their story – and this is mine…

The two stories do cross over, however, hence the reason for me mentioning it, Savannah absolutely refused to tutor him again after a disastrous first date (I know – can you imagine screwing it up over one date?) and that’s where the two stories begin to merge…

Mr Drummond, the head of sixth form – took the opportunity to ask Savannah to tutor Lydia Frazer, since she wasn’t tutoring Tyler any more. Lydia had come back home after being away for a while and that’s where our story begins – well, sort of… Let me backtrack a little and get you up to speed...

I guess I should explain that Lydia and I had a bit of a thing going before her family relocated to Bournemouth. We got on really well in the one shared class we took – but we’d always got on pretty well before then too. Both of us swam for the local swimming club at the ancient leisure centre down on the park and we’d trained together for years. I didn’t fully realise quite how much I really liked Lydia until it was too late. I was pretty devastated when she left, even though I knew I shouldn’t have been, since I was going steady with Daisy. But you see, I’d really fallen for Lydia. I honestly thought I loved her – so when she left, I didn’t know what to do and I kind of fell back on what was comfortable and easy and that was Daisy…

When I realised Lydia was finally back for good, it was like my life had been kick-started again. I was desperate to see her but she clearly didn’t feel the same way about me anymore and she absolutely refused.

I was pretty cut up about it but you know, I guess I could see her point – after all, I was still kind of seeing Daisy – in between our arguments and breaking up and getting back together and breaking it off again. Maybe it was just to ease my own conscience but I swear Daisy was seeing some guy out of town. I just didn’t think it was feasible to study all of the time even if she was planning on going to Cambridge…

So, I kept up my swimming practice and my studies, hung out with Tyler as and when he could find the time for me and generally tried to get on with my life…

Chapter 2 – One Perfect Night…

Approximately one year earlier…

Vegas

I really shouldn’t have been there and I really shouldn’t have been feeling the way I was either. I had a girlfriend – and I guess I loved her – well, sometimes I did anyway…

And that was the problem – I kind of I loved her but I knew that what I felt for Lydia went much deeper than that. I was in love with her. She was so different to Daisy – quieter somehow, although, at the same time not… It was complicated.

Daisy was quiet but then away from school she was full of fun and quietly determined to do what she wanted. She’d got everything mapped out. She’d got her heart set on Cambridge and I was quite sure she’d get there too. She was out of my league academically and always had been. The only thing I was really good at was French. Still, she was happy to hang out with me for now, which was at once convenient for the both of us but slightly insulting at the same time. I knew she was just biding her time with me before she went off to get on with the rest of her life without me – and I doubted I’d see her again. I was quite sure she didn’t plan on me being in her future.

I’d known this for some time and maybe that was why I was the way I was. I’d go to parties without her and end up with other girls – and that was what happened one night with Lydia. although it wasn’t planned and it was so much more than just a one-night thing…

*

Hi Vegas, She bounced into the classroom, her hair swinging around her shoulder in this glorious glossy mane and I suppressed a sigh of desire as I gazed back at her.

I was busy unloading my bag of ingredients. I absolutely loved to cook and I was one of only three guys in my year group to have taken Food Technology. The other two were great guys too. They were Benjamin Spencer and Kade Deeley. Kade was a bit of a chav but he was cool most of the time. Benjamin was hilarious – totally clueless with most of his cooking but he seemed to manage to get by all the same.

I hurriedly rearranged my face from the lustful look I was sure I was wearing into what I hoped was a friendly grin, Oh, hi Lydia, I said, what are you cooking today?

She rolled her eyes and grinned, I’m having a go at chocolate soufflé. I’ve been practicing all weekend. Dad said he’d leave home if I made any more! She giggled and my heart started to beat a little faster at the sound. It wasn’t the only thing that responded and I was rather glad for my apron… Benjamin ambled by and grinned at the pair of us, Forgot my eggs, he chuckled, Do you think Miss will give me some?

Lydia snorted, No doubt about it, she said with a giggle, she loves you.

I chuckled and shook my head, Every week, I muttered, He’s useless!

Lydia nodded, I know, she agreed, giving me a dazzling smile that made my knees feel a bit weak, It’s funny.

I smiled back at her. I’d noticed how pretty Lydia was back in September when we started the class together. It was funny how I’d never really noticed her that way before. I’d known her for years. She was a really good swimmer… It occurred to me that I couldn’t actually remember what she’d looked like in a swimsuit and it also occurred to me that I really wished I could…

Because now, I’m not gonna lie, she was stunning – like, wow… She’d got this glorious dark, brown hair that for whatever reason seemed to shine red in the sun. It came halfway down her back in the most amazingly lustrous waves and I just wanted to touch it. Just to see if it really was as soft as it looked.

Her eyes were really beautiful too. They were such a dark brown, it was difficult to see where the pupils ended and the irises began and her eyelashes were really long too. She wore barely any makeup; she was just naturally beautiful. Daisy hated her. Well, of course she did. She hated anyone that outshone her. Everyone that was, apart from Savannah, who pretty much outshone everyone – but Daisy absolutely adored her.

Anyway, Lydia and I worked together in Food Tech and we got on really well. We liked the same music, the same TV programs – both of us loved watching YouTube and we laughed at all the same silly antics that were posted. In short, we totally clicked – and we both really loved food, something Daisy just didn’t seem to understand. Daisy ate – well of course she did – but she didn’t have the same appreciation of it somehow and she was always on a fucking diet, too. It was so annoying hearing her always going on about needing to lose a few pounds. She was as thin as a rake. What the fuck did she need to diet for?

Lydia didn’t have any such issues. She was curvaceous and beautiful and she actually enthused along with me about meat dishes and good pastry and gooey cakes – she was totally my kind of woman... She wasn’t mine, though. She’d been going out with Haydn for months and he’d be waiting outside for her with his big beaming smile, like he was every week and my chest was going to feel the same way it did every week – like it was going to burst with all the pent-up jealousy of watching them leave together, hand-in-hand…

It was wrong of me to feel this way. I should have felt the same way about Daisy as Haydn did about Lydia. He might have been the campest guy in our year but he adored her, it was obvious to anyone.

I know it sounds like I was making excuses for my behaviour and believe me, I’d be saying exactly the same as you – nothing but a cheating git – but it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to finish things with Daisy. I really had. She just had this way of making sure things stayed as they were – it was all on her terms and that made me feel weak and out of control.

It was November and the dark nights were well underway. It was starting to get a little colder and a couple of mornings had dawned frosty and bright. I’ve always loved spring and summer and this time of year really wasn’t my favourite. I hated getting up in the dark – it just seemed so unnatural. I was so not a winter person… that’s more Tyler than me. He was comfortable whatever the weather but give him the snow to play in and he was absolutely made up...

Are you going to Deanna’s party? I’d just put my lemon soufflé in the oven and set the time and I was watching Lydia preparing her chocolate ones hungrily. They looked a damn sight better than mine.

She carefully arranged her four mini soufflés on a tray and placed them in the oven. Closing the door far more gently than I had, she turned with a smile and a nod, Definitely, she grinned, Since she’s my best friend. She paused, biting her lip. And you might want to warn your mate, Tyler – Pippa’s going too.

I nodded, Cool, thanks for the heads up. No doubt Pippa was going to be hunting him down again – she’d been sniffing around him for weeks and it was obvious to everyone – well, maybe not to Tyler, since he generally didn’t notice girls – that he was her next victim…

She giggled, I love her to bits but she’s such a man-eater!

I grinned. I was really looking forward to the party but then a couple of things happened that would change things forever. Daisy was the first to drop her bombshell. She wasn’t going to be able to make it. Well wasn’t that just great? It was the only time we got any real time together for some serious making out and I kind of lived for those moments. It was the only time it really felt like we had any sort of relationship. What the hell was I supposed to do, then? It looked like it was going to be more of a lads’ night out...

Tyler was a moody git with me most of time these days. He’d discovered a new group of mates who liked to smoke weed. It wasn’t my bag and I left him to it – but he’d drifted away from me which was depressing to say the least. I loved that guy and I felt as though I was losing him.

Anyway, he said he’d come but things kind of went pear shaped during the week before preventing him from coming, too…

I’m fighting some guy on Monday night.

We were in Art together and I frowned up at him, shaking my head. I really didn’t like his new mates. They were nothing but a bunch of idiots and yet somehow or other, Tyler had decided they were cool and he loved hanging out with them. They’d created this ridiculous Fight Club and Tyler was their fighter. He was pitched against all sorts of dodgy guys trying their luck at beating him and alarming amounts of cash were traded in bets against who would win. Well, be careful, dude, I warned him, "you’ve got the party on Saturday. You don’t want to rock