Not Your Average Joe (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 2) Read online

  Not Your

  Average

  Joe

  By:

  Brooke St. James

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2017

  Brooke St. James

  All rights reserved.

  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

  epilogue

  Other titles available from Brooke St. James:

  Another Shot:

  A Modern-Day Ruth and Boaz Story

  When Lightning Strikes

  Something of a Storm (All in Good Time #1)

  Someone Someday (All in Good Time #2)

  Finally My Forever (Meant for Me #1)

  Finally My Heart's Desire (Meant for Me #2)

  Finally My Happy Ending (Meant for Me #3)

  Shot by Cupid's Arrow

  Dreams of Us

  Meet Me in Myrtle Beach (Hunt Family #1)

  Kiss Me in Carolina (Hunt Family #2)

  California's Calling (Hunt Family #3)

  Back to the Beach (Hunt Family #4)

  It's About Time (Hunt Family #5)

  Loved Bayou (Martin Family #1)

  Dear California (Martin Family #2)

  My One Regret (Martin Family #3)

  Broken and Beautiful (Martin Family #4)

  Back to the Bayou (Martin Family #5)

  Almost Christmas

  JFK to Dublin (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective #1)

  Chapter 1

  "The lady just passed with drinks and peanuts," Emily whispered from the seat next to me.

  I peered at her through my barely open eyelids, and watched sleepily as she ate a few peanuts from her hand, facing me again with a smile as she chewed.

  "I thought about getting you something, but I didn't know what you wanted."

  "It's fine," I said. I straightened up as I took in my surroundings, remembering I was on an airplane on my way to Ireland to attend my best friend's spur of the moment wedding.

  One glance to my right revealed Drake, who was out cold with his head against the closed window shade. Drake was a good friend of ours, but he was also coming along as the paid photographer—a job at which he was very gifted.

  It was my first time meeting Emily, but she was a childhood friend of Sarah's, and I had found it easy to sit next to her and make conversation during our flight. Emily grew up in New York, but was currently living in Georgia where she had a career in finance. She flew from Atlanta to JFK where she met the rest of us, and we boarded this flight headed to Dublin. It was all for Sarah who had gone to Ireland on vacation with her boyfriend, Collin, and decided to get married while they were there.

  So, there I was, on an impromptu trip to Ireland to watch my friend tie the knot. Sarah's relationship with Collin had developed so quickly that this whole situation seemed a little dreamlike. One minute, I'm home, and the next, I'm on a plane, over the ocean, headed to Ireland. It all felt a little surreal. I was distracted and distant, which was nothing new because I currently had a lot of personal stuff going on. I was at a time in my life when lots of changes were about to take place, and quite frankly, I was terrified of all of them, hence the reason I was melancholy. But the feelings I had been dealing with in recent days and weeks had nothing to do with the bride to be or her newfound happiness. I loved Sarah and was truly happy that she had found Collin.

  Emily, however, was the exact opposite of melancholy. Emily oozed happiness. She smiled even when nobody was looking at her. She seemed relieved that I had woken up so that she finally had someone to talk to, but I was still groggy from my nap and wasn't quite ready to make conversation. I returned her smile with a sleepy one of my own before grabbing a magazine out of the seatback pocket in front of me.

  "I can't believe Joe's still single," Emily whispered after only a few seconds of silence.

  I glanced up just after Sarah's brother, Joe, passed us, headed up the aisle toward his seat. I was hit by a waft of air he left in his wake that smelled like glorious, clean masculinity. There was no mistaking it was Joe. I had a crush on him since the very moment I laid eyes on him. Look at him. Who wouldn't?

  "I used to have the biggest crush on him when we were younger," Emily whispered, confirming my thoughts and causing me to let out a humorless laugh. I almost told her that I had a super-bad crush on him for the last four years, which was the truth. But Emily had just stated her own feelings for him, and we all know it's girl code not to crush on the same guy—especially since she technically knew him first.

  I figured when it came down to it, none of it really mattered, anyway, since neither of us would ever have a shot at Joe. Emily and I were both decent looking human beings. Both of us put a little effort into our appearance, and brushed our teeth and everything, but Joe dated a different sort of women. Joe dated the likes of models. He had the face of an angel, and his father was one of the most successful television producers of all time, so there was never a shortage of beautiful actresses interested in getting to know Joe.

  To top it off, he had the charm to handle and deserve their attention. He was a man's man with the smoothness and confidence of a crooner. He had such charisma that I could imagine him grabbing a partner and randomly doing a highly choreographed dance in the middle of normal life just because he was happy and felt like it. Honestly, it was more like I had imagined him doing that with me. Either way, he could get away with that type of thing—he was cool enough. Everyone loved Joe.

  I stared at his smiling profile as he leaned against the overhead bins waiting for whoever was in the seat to get adjusted. His smile, even from the side, was devastatingly handsome, and I wished I was the person sitting in that seat so I could see it more closely.

  "He was always so sweet," Emily said.

  I glanced at her to find that she was staring at Joe shamelessly, same as I had been.

  "Even if he broke my heart when I was in the eighth grade."

  My gut clinched at the fact that she was stating her feelings toward Joe. I had no right to be jealous, but I was. I didn't say anything, though. I just smiled at her and nodded, hoping she wouldn't say anything else.

  "He was sweet about it, but he totally broke my heart. It took me a year, but I worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt." She paused and smiled, shaking her head as she remembered something. "He smiled at me and said 'he wasn't allowed to date'," she said, cringing a little. "He was trying to be nice, and I respect that, but I was heartbroken. I had my heart set on riding off into the sunset with him, you know?"

  "Doesn't every girl," I said, after a brief pause.

  Emily glanced at me as if considering for the first time that I might have a crush on Joe myself.

  "We used to call him Joe-Joe," she said. "Everyone called him that for the longest. He didn't switch over to Joe until he made it with that app, and that was when he was a senior in high school." She giggled. "Everyone just sort of started calling him Joe once he made a million bucks."

  I smiled and watched absentmindedly
as Joe got settled into his seat, which was about five or six rows ahead of us. "His family still calls him Joe-Joe sometimes," I said. "I heard his mom call him that recently."

  "Did you know that app was his last-ditch effort to get out of going to medical school?"

  "I think so," I said. "I heard something about Mr. Spicer wanting him to go to medical school."

  I knew a little more than I was letting on, but I was curious to see what Emily was talking about. She glanced in front of us, just to make sure we weren't being overheard.

  "Mr. Saul was so obsessed with it," she said. "He got the boys medical equipment and science stuff for Christmas and birthdays when we were kids. They had this professional microscope that could probably cure cancer or something. Sarah mostly got out of it since she was a girl, but he was dead-set on those boys being doctors."

  "I knew he liked the medical field," I said. "That's what made him think of Bad Medicine."

  (Bad Medicine was Saul Spicer's biggest television hit. The nighttime drama had been going strong for over ten seasons, and was a monumental success.)

  "Mr. Saul loves doctors," Emily confirmed, nodding. "He said he wanted to be one himself, but he wasn't smart enough—not in a scientific way, at least. He had this friend growing up whose dad was a doctor. Apparently, he really loved that family. They made quite the impression on him. I think once he even watched the dad give CPR to someone and save their life. Anyway, he really tried to steer his boys in that direction."

  "Obviously Eli listened," I said, since Sarah's oldest brother, Eli, was a pediatrician.

  "Eli was already on the straight and narrow to medical school when Joe went into his senior year of high school. The plan was for them to open a practice together, and Mr. Spicer couldn’t have been more thrilled. Joe felt trapped. He figured the only way he could avoid medical school was to make a success of himself some other way, so that's what he did."

  I already knew all about Joe's app. It was a widely used app where you could rate and locate medical professionals in your area. He created it eight years ago, which put him at the forefront of apps like that, and it was a complete success. It still is to this day. Millions of people use it, and they've now branched into pharmacy services. MedWeb was a staple in the first few basic apps people download when they got a phone. In fact, it may have even come pre-installed on mine.

  "Mr. Saul didn't push for medical school once Joe started making real money," Emily said, pulling me from my thoughts. She chuckled and shook her head in amazement. "Basically, Joe's genius idea was hatched from sheer desperation of not wanting to go to medical school. I don't even think he has a fondness for medicine," she added. "I think he just made the app what it is for his dad's sake."

  "To get him off of his back about becoming a doctor?" I asked.

  She shrugged and nodded. "Probably."

  "Starting MedWeb is a pretty crazy thing to do just to get someone off your back," I said.

  I stared at the magazine in my lap with a sigh as if to signal the end of our conversation. I smiled, but it was fairly forced. I was already feeling a little downhearted, and I didn't really want to hear about how wonderful this girl thought Joe was. She may not have said those words—that she thought he was wonderful—but she thought it, I could tell. He was wonderful, so I chose to look at it as if she and I were just agreeing on it.

  "I can't believe he didn't bring a date," she said. She glanced at me, and I just gave her a little smile, but she continued to stare at me like she expected me to comment.

  "It was a quickly planned trip," I said, stating the obvious.

  "Is he dating anyone?" she asked. "He never posts anything on social media."

  "I don't know," I said, even though I was relatively sure Joe was almost always "dating" someone.

  "I'm not trying to get into a relationship right away," she said.

  She had already told me about her recent break-up, so I knew why she was saying that. I smiled. "That's a good idea," I said, being cordial even though I was in a quiet mood.

  "I'd totally scrap that idea if Joe asked me out, though," she said.

  She said it in a sweet, longing way that honestly made me want to do something crazy like stomp my foot onto hers to make her stop looking at him and talking about him. As an artist, I was a lover not a fighter, so I refrained from such drastic measures.

  "I'd scrap whatever I was doing to hang out with Joe, too," I said, my voice coming out a little shaky. It wasn't that big of a deal, but I still sort of felt like I was confronting her a little, so my face started to blush. I was thankful when Drake began to stir, giving me an excuse to turn the other way and discontinue the conversation.

  Chapter 2

  Sarah's parents knew a lot of rich, powerful people, and they happened to have a friend in Ireland who owned an estate the likes of which I had never seen. It was the place where the wedding would be held, and many of the guests were staying there. I had been friends with Sarah for a long time and had been to some pretty fancy places with her, but none of them compared to this.

  Dublin was beautiful to begin with, but the Steiner's home (which everyone referred to as the Banks estate) was one of the most breathtaking places I had ever seen. It was so grand and immaculate that I had a hard time believing that I was at a private residence. The estate had fourteen bedrooms, and the Steiners were hosting nearly all of the wedding guests who had flown in from the U.S.

  It was a quickly planned trip, so when Sarah's parents purchased the tickets, they made them all the same without asking anyone's opinions about travel dates or times. Had I been the one to choose, I would have made my stay a little longer and done some cheap or free sightseeing, staying in hostels or backpacking for an extra night or two. But, hey, it was a trip to Ireland that I wasn't paying for, so I'd have to take what I could get. As it stood, we were staying two nights—the evening before the wedding, and the evening of the wedding.

  ***

  Everything leading up to the wedding seemed to happen in a blur, and before I knew it, the all-too-short stay in Ireland was more than halfway over.

  Mrs. Steiner had planned the wedding, which was an afternoon-long affair followed by a formal dinner.

  It was almost time for that dinner to begin when I did something extremely regrettable.

  I'll just go ahead and say it...

  Out of sheer spite, I kissed one man when I really wanted to kiss another.

  I did it, and it was over.

  There was nothing I could do to take it back.

  Of course, there were worse things I could do, but that didn't change the fact that I felt uncomfortable and full of regret afterward.

  Let me back up a little and explain a few things that led up to this.

  First off, the Steiner's home was so beautiful that it was almost magical. It seemed like not having some romantic encounter while I was there would be total a waste of such a wonderful atmosphere. I told myself I just had to have a romantic encounter, or Ireland was a complete bust.

  OK, let's face it, I only told myself that because I wanted to have one. And I only wanted to have one because Joe was on the trip. The last twenty-four hours had only caused me to become more keenly aware of his presence—his charm. I wished I was the one by his side during all the festivities. Instead, I was trying not to get caught stealing glances at him.

  As the afternoon of the wedding celebration passed, I got more and more ashamed of myself for wasting my time pining over the only man I couldn't have.

  I had already been dealing with other feelings before I ever came on this trip—emotions that were tied into life choices—stuff about feeling selfish for studying art when I could have chosen something more lucrative. I felt like my decision to be an artist might have been one big mistake. I needed something where I could make some real money and maybe even be able to help my parents eventually or pay them back for all they sacrificed for me to go to college.

  If someone else would look at my life from
the outside, they'd probably think I had it all together. I was a fairly recent graduate with a degree in Fine Art from Columbia. I had recently been selected for a coveted spot at the Shower & Shelter Artist Collective, where for the next two years, I would enjoy free rent while being surrounded by thirty of New York's finest up-and-coming artists.

  On top of being selected to live at S&S, I had more exciting news. My spot would become available in four months' time, which happened to be August. And, since August was the month that producers were coming in to do a six-part Netflix documentary on the place, I happened to be the new kid at the exact right time.

  So, not only was I selected to live rent-free at New York's most coveted artist community, it was looking like I was, by default, going to be one of the few artists showcased in a documentary. From the outside, it might seem like I had direction or was making real progress as an artist, but that's not what I felt like on the inside. Lately, I had been unsure of my abilities and questioned if I even deserved the spot in the house—let alone the documentary. I tried to act like I was excited about everything, because I knew that's how it should be, but I was nervous, brutally nervous—crippled with nerves.

  I mean, really. What if they gave me the spot in the house and on the series, and all of a sudden, couldn't create art anymore? What if I just forgot how to draw one day? What if I did my best, and I didn't live up to their standards?

  It didn't help matters that I wasn't really making any money yet, which was obvious by the fact that I even needed to apply for free housing in the first place. My parents weren't rich. They scraped by to pay for my college, and I definitely had some guilt for choosing to study art instead of something that could have guaranteed more income.

  All of these insecurities and doubts, however, were carefully kept on the inside—as far as everyone was concerned, I was happy with my path and excited to be moving forward at S&S. And really, all things considered, I was. I was intelligent enough to know that my life was in a good place in spite of the uncontrollable, hopeless feelings that nagged at me, insisting the opposite.