Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Two (King, #6)
T.M. Frazier
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Samuel Clearwater, A.K.A. ‘Preppy’ finds himself back in a world he once loved, but no longer recognizes. His dim smile can’t hide his inner turmoil and the people he views as family all suddenly feel like polite strangers.
Except for one person. A girl with dark eyes and even darker hair.
A girl who isn’t even an option.
At least, not anymore.
Dre can’t decide who she’s going to listen to. Her heart, her head, or her body. Because two out of those three things have her heading right back to Logan’s Beach. Closure is what she tells herself she’s seeking, but when she unlocks doors that were never meant to be opened she soon discovers that when it comes to Samuel Clearwater, closure might NEVER be an option.
This is book six in the King Series and the second part of Preppy and Dre's three-part story.
Authors Note
Dear fantabulous reader,
Preppy and Dre have a lot of story to tell. That’s why I broke it up into parts. It’s not just a love story between two people, it’s a story about family, loyalty, and the kind of love that goes BEYOND romantic love.
For Preppy it’s also about being thrown back into a world he hasn’t been in for a long time and trying to find what his roll is now that everything has changed.
For Dre it’s also about finding her way on her own and learning who she really is by learning what she really wants out of life.
I’m telling you all of this because not every scene is the two of them together. There is too much I wanted to tell you to just focus on the romance part of the story, and because you love Preppy so much I wanted to give you all of him, not just one side of him.
Don’t worry, there is plenty of romance, but there is also so much more.
I love you all. Thank you so much for your support and for allowing me to live my dream. I hope you love Preppy Part Two as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and I really look forward to bringing you the third part soon.
Love Always,
T.M. Frazier
PROLOGUE
PREPPY
There’s this light in the distance. It’s bright, burning, and blinding as fucking hell. It’s just out of my grasp. A whisper away. I can talk about it. I can think about it, but it’s almost like it’s not real. Like it’s not really fucking there, and it drives me insane because all I can think about is reaching for it.
Reaching for you.
Because as my letter said, YOU are my light when I’m surrounded by nothing but dark.
I try to ignore it, the echoes of my name being called between time and space, because FUCK death.
Fuck anything that tries to keep me from finding my way back to you. If and when I'm liberated from the shackles that keep me tethered to the gates of hell, have no doubt, I’m coming for you, Doc.
Because YOU are what has kept me alive all these months.
Kept me WANTING to be alive.
Which is fucking hard sometimes because when death calls out to me, he sounds like an old friend offering comforts that would be so fucking easy to take. But you know me, probably better than anyone, and I’ve never been a man to take the easy route. Maybe that’s why I’ve chosen instead to take the road back to you.
To the US.
The Reaper came for me, and he demanded that I take his hand and he told me he was my friend, my companion in death.
I couldn’t help myself when I laughed in that fuckers face and told him his sister gives good head. Luckily he sent me right back across the river on my merry fucking way.
Back to LIFE.
Back to POSSIBILITY.
A long time ago, when I was just a skinny little nothing being beaten up by a bully in the school yard, I met someone who defended me when no one else would. We made a plan to be our own bosses that very day. It didn’t matter that we were just kids because we meant it then, and I mean it just as much right fucking now.
Which is why, when faced with the fucking end of my life, I spit in the Reaper’s face.
Because my name is Samuel Clearwater, and I take orders from no one.
Not even death
CHAPTER ONE
DRE
“What does he mean by that?” Ray asked, coming over to stand next to me at Preppy’s bedside. After his sudden outburst he’d passed back out, leaving me more disoriented than when I walked in the door to find him ALIVE. “Why did he call you his wife?”
I shook my head. “I...I’m not really sure,” I answered, not able to focus on her question, still consumed with the fact that Preppy was alive. Battered and looking nothing like his former self.
But ALIVE.
“It was probably just nonsense,” Bear said from the doorway. “He’s been muttering a bit over the past few days. One of the doctors thinks it’s a sign that his body’s healed enough to start fighting his way out of the coma. He said it might still be a few weeks, but it’s a decent sign.”
“Yeah, but those other two quacks think it could be just reflex’s, and it don’t mean shit,” King added, looking every bit skeptical.
“How...how is this...how is this even possible?” I asked, covering my open mouth with my hand. I leaned over his body like I was checking to see if he was real or if my teary eyes were deceiving me. His chest rose and fell, and it sounded like the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.
Ray paused as she was about to answer like she was considering my presence with a new kind of skepticism. She stared hard at where my hand was touching Preppy. Apparently, she was the only one who questioned my intentions, because the other three that were with her had disappeared from the doorway, leaving the two of us in the room alone.
NOT alone.
With PREPPY.
I squeezed his hand and let out a sigh of relief, sending out a few thank you’s into the universe along with a few choked sobs.
“He was...” Ray looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. She crossed her arms over her chest. “He was here the whole time. In Logan’s Beach,” she said, like she still couldn’t believe it herself.
I gasped. “Why? How?”
“We don’t know a lot of the details. Just that he was being held close by and that the guy who was holding him must have had a lot of people in his pocket to make us all believe he was dead.”
“What did the police say?”
It dawned on me how stupid my question must have sounded when Ray cocked her head to the side. “How well did you know Preppy?”