One... The Collection: Three fun, flirty novellas, page 1
One…
The Collection
Portia MacIntosh
Copyright © Portia MacIntosh 2024
Portia MacIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. These novellas are entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters and events portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
This collection contains three novellas:
One of the Boys
(extended, and twice as long)
One Wild Night
One Night Only
One of the Boys
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
One Wild Night
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
One Night Only
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
One of the Boys
Portia MacIntosh
It’s going to be a summer to remember – or maybe one to forget…
Moving back home is the last thing Leah wants to do but, sadly, it’s the only option left on the list.
She had a great life in London – at least she thought she did, until it all went wrong – so now she’s back home, in the seaside town where she grew up, living with her parents again. Yey!
It's amazing how quickly (albeit reluctantly) she slips back into old ways, going out with her old friends, drinking in the local pub, and it’s just all so boring… until she gets locked in a pub toilet with a handsome yet mysterious man. But then he disappears, leaving Leah wondering who he was, where he went, and if she’ll ever see him again.
It's only a small town, so he’s bound to turn up eventually, right? The only problem is, other familiar faces might turn up too…
Chapter One
‘Leah, time to rise and shine, sweetheart,’ Mum practically sings.
I groan.
‘What was that?’ she asks.
‘Do I have to get up?’ I mumble, pulling my pillow over my head in an attempt to either drown out her piercing morning wake-up call or, if I'm lucky, smother myself into peaceful unconsciousness.
‘Come on, darling,’ my mum insists. ‘I’ve got all your favourite cereals. I thought you could mix them together, to cheer yourself up.’
‘Mum,’ I practically whine. ‘I’m too old for that.’
Sadly my pillow is doing nothing to either block out her voice or smother me back to sleep. I hear my door open. My mum, obviously sick of screaming at me from behind my closed bedroom door, marches inside and gasps dramatically. Wonderful – she’s seen what a mess my bedroom is.
‘I really wish you would keep your room tidy,’ she complains.
Oh, as if I don’t have enough going on at the moment.
‘Your brother keeps his room neat and he's already up and ready for school. Now, come on,’ she demands, yanking the covers from on top of me. ‘Your cereal is going cold.’
Oh, lovely, a joke – and one of Dad’s, no less.
I reluctantly remove the pillow from my face and lie flat on my back, only to be temporarily blinded by the sunlight as Mum whips open my curtains. My mum, subtle as a hurricane, which is why me, my brother, and my dad all call her Hurricane Helen.
‘Mum,’ I say, practically whining the word out. ‘I'm too to be mixing kids’ cereals together.’
‘Oh, come on, you're never too old for—'
‘Mum!’ I interrupt her, sitting up straight in bed. ‘I'm thirty-two years old.’
My mother stares at me for a moment, most likely taking in the sight of her adult daughter in her teenage bedroom after arriving home last night with her tail between her legs.
‘Ah, but you’re still my baby,’ she replies.
She laughs – probably at my bird’s nest hair. My mum’s hair looks salon-perfect, as usual. When I was a kid I used to think she was visited in the night, by fairies, who worked on her hair while she was sleeping, because I could never quite get over how sleek it was.
I didn’t inherit my mum’s silky smooth, always perfect brown hair, nor did I inherit my dad’s bald head, so I can only assume he was blonde, back when he was a kid – that or my mum has a lot of explaining to do.
My hair only needs to hear that there is a chance of rain for it to start frizzing, and you could be forgiven for thinking that I sleep on a balloon, instead of a pillow.
‘After what you’ve been through, a bit of cereal will do you good,’ she says – although it absolutely won’t. ‘Come down.’
My mum tosses my dressing gown at me before heading back downstairs – without closing my bedroom door behind her, of course.
As I drag myself out of bed I can’t help but notice that she tidied up a little while she was in here, but my bedroom is still a tip. When I came home last night, I dumped everything on the floor – I was in no mood for putting away my things, that would be way too much like moving back in and I’m not ready for that yet. I am moving back in though, whether I like it or not, it’s happening. Still, I deserve a little denial, so all my worldly goods are scattered across the floor, blending in seamlessly amongst all the teenage crap I left here before I went to uni – which feels like a million years ago. I was just about to make a comment about how weird it is that mum hasn’t changed my room into something useful, almost like she has never quite accepted the fact that I’m not coming home. However, we’re beyond irony at this point, given that I’m, well, back home. I suppose I should count myself lucky that she has kept it, although I would much rather be sleeping in a lovely guest room, than a room that has remained largely untouched since I was a teenager (and even when I was a teenager, I wasn’t exactly big on updating it as I got older).
As if things weren’t bad enough, now I’ve got to go downstairs so my mother can force-feed me Coco Pops.
I know she means well, and she’s just worried about me, but I kept hearing her last night, popping her head inside the doorway, to make sure I was okay. What I really need right now is privacy but, let’s be honest, I’ve come to the wrong place.
Ah well, time to put on a brave face – and the bright pink dressing gown that my gran bought me for Christmas when I was seventeen – and head downstairs so that my mum can start feeding me better.
Somehow, I don’t think there’s going to be enough food in the fridge.
Chapter Two
Even washing my face and brushing my teeth feels like quite a grand gesture, given how I’m feeling, and the fact that I’m only going as far as the breakfast table. Then again, this is probably an intervention disguised as a breakfast, so let’s push the boat out – I’ll twist my long blonde hair into a messy bun, best I can do.
In the kitchen I’m greeted by my mum, my dad and my brother, Rory.
‘You look how you feel, I’m guessing,’ my brother teases.
‘Mum said you were up for school, but I didn’t realise you would be here,’ I point out.
‘You don’t want to be late,’ Mum reminds him.
Rory grabs a slice of toast, holding it between his teeth as he wrestles his jacket on.
‘He’s a teacher,’ Helen, my dad, Ken, reminds her.
‘Oh thank God,’ Rory jokes. ‘I was dreading PE.’
I roll my eyes.
Despite being my older brother – and ten years older than me – it neve r quite feels like Rory flew the nest, because he and his wife bought the house next door. He’s got two kids – well, almost. His wife, Sally, is eight months pregnant. Jack, his two-year-old, is very much here.
‘Anyway, see you guys later,’ he announces as he heads for the door. ‘Sally will be around with Jack when he’s dressed.’
I remember Rory saying that he was buying the house next door because he wanted his kids to have the same upbringing he did – what I didn’t realise was by that he meant that his parents would be doing most of the hard work. Mum looks after Jack, while Rory is at work, and while Sally is enjoying time to herself. She’s heavily pregnant now, sure, but she hasn’t been for the last two and a half years.
‘Come on, Leah, I got all of your favourites,’ Mum prompts me. ‘Well, the ones that survived Jamie Oliver.’
I laugh as I grab the box of Coco Pops, pouring myself a bowl.
Crunching aside, the silence is pure awkward. Dad offers a half-smile as Mum watches me like a hawk.
‘Come on, eat up, it’s the best cure,’ Mum insists.
‘She doesn’t need to eat cereal, she needs to get to the job centre,’ Dad ever so helpfully adds.
‘I was talking about her broken heart, not the fact that she’s unemployed,’ Mum replies.
Yikes, that one stings.
‘Sorry, love,’ she quickly adds. ‘I didn’t mean to bring that up.’
I bat my hand.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reply. ‘What I really need is fifteen porn star martinis, enough ice cream to cause a shortage, and a horror movie marathon.’
‘I thought it was romcom movies for a broken heart?’ Mum says.
‘Not the way I do it,’ I reply as I pour myself a cup of tea.
‘You really think eating, drinking and screaming will help?’ Dad asks – and it’s like he can’t even hear his own words.
‘Er, yeah,’ I say, as though it were obvious.
‘She has to eat, Ken, do you want to add dying to her list of problems?’ Mum claps back.
I’m pretty sure I have options, before it comes to that. My God, being home is driving me crazy already.
‘So things went south with her boyfriend,’ Dad says casually as he butters his toast. He may as well have stabbed me with the knife. ‘She’s not the first adult to move back home, and she won’t be the last.’
Trust my dad to sum up the total collapse of my life in so few words.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family so much it hurts, it’s just that sometimes it quite literally hurts.
I thought I had everything, living in London, working for a company that managed tours for bands and organised music festivals, and I thought I was in a loving relationship with my boss too (I know, what a cliché) but it turned out that he was also in a loving relationship with his boss, so when it all came out I got sacked and dumped on the same day. Yep, it’s a tale as old as time. What’s also obvious in the aftermath – not that you overthink it as your life is falling apart in real-time – is that it’s impossible to afford to live in London when you don’t have a job. I styled it out for as long as I could, while I looked for work, and I'm sure you can guess how well that went, given that I’m back living in the seaside town where I grew up.
‘Listen, can we not mention to anyone that I’m here,’ I ask.
‘Who are we even going to tell?’ Dad replies, as though that were a stupid thing to say.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mum adds.
‘Great, thanks,’ I reply.
‘Just a small thing really,’ Mum continues. ‘I did tell Mel.’
‘Oh,’ is about all I can say.
‘She was your best friend, I knew she would be so pleased that you were back,’ Mum continues. ‘And I thought it might cheer you up.’
Having to explain my situation to my childhood best friend – who I haven’t really kept in touch with – is the last thing I want to do.
I arrived home late last night under the cover of darkness, avoiding everyone except my family, and I had really wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could.
‘She said that she would love to meet you for lunch today,’ Mum tells me. ‘So I told her you would meet her at the deli, in town.’
‘Right, okay, so that’s a plan, is it?’ I check.
‘Yes,’ Mum replies. ‘You might like to think about getting ready soon. You don’t want to see her for the first time in years with your hair looking like that.’
‘Oh, none taken,’ I say sarcastically because it’s tradition to tag ‘no offence’ on to the end of an attack like that. ‘I suppose I’ll go get ready then.’
Now that I’m fully awake, I can see what a mess my bedroom is. Until I dumped all my stuff here last night, it was exactly as I abandoned it before I went to uni all those years ago. When I occasionally came home for Christmas or birthdays, it was a novelty. Like a themed hotel room, decorated with things that would make me nostalgic. Of course, things like that are fun for a while, but the novelty inevitably wears off, and nice to get back to reality.
The weirdest part of my room, without a doubt, are the posters are all over my walls. Yep, when I was a teenage girl I wore my heart on my sleeve, and my heart clearly belonged to Leonardo DiCaprio, because ninety per cent of the posters are of him – back when he was still practically a baby, and dated women who were older than me. Gosh, it was all to play for back then, not like now. Nothing will make you feel old quite like realising you’re probably too old for the celebrity you had a crush on when you were a kid – she says, as though my age would be the only thing that would make me unappealing to an actual movie star.
The remaining ten per cent of my posters, if you’re interested, are of Josh Hartnett, who I must have liked, just not as much as I liked Leo. These days, come on, there would be no contest. In the battle for my heart, Josh would win easy (again, though, bold of me to assume movie stars would fight over me).
I suppose I could take them down, seeing as though I’ll be staying here for the foreseeable, but it might be kind of nice, to feel like a kid again (and I clearly haven’t grown out of fantasising about marrying one of them).
Right, time to get myself into the shower, and get ready to meet Mel – oh, and to get my story straight, because I’m not sure how much I want to tell her about my situation just yet.
Chapter Three
The deli bell jingles above me as I walk through the door.
Oh, this place is cute. It must be a relatively new addition to the town, because it wasn’t here on the main street when I was growing up.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee alone is enough to comfort me – well, it was coffee shops that kept me going back when I was in London, so it makes me feel weirdly at home. Also, I can see the pastries from here, and I just know that they’re going to turn my day around.
I spot Mel immediately, sitting at a table opposite the counter. She looks great – not just happy but fancy with it, with long eyelashes, perfectly manicured nails, and make-up that could have been done by a professional.
‘Leah!’ Mel calls out, jumping up to greet me with a hug. ‘Oh my God, it’s been forever.’
‘Hi,’ I say, squeezing her back. ‘I know, it feels like a million years.’
‘Well, I got you a milkshake and a muffin – just like old times,’ she tells me, pointing at the items on the table. Oh, they look good.
‘Wow, you look amazing, Mel,’ I say, genuinely impressed.
‘Thanks, Leah. It takes an army,’ she insists with a casual bat of her hand. ‘How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ I reply, trying to muster a smile. I’m going to have to do better than that. ‘I mean, great, yeah.’
Mel takes her seat and gestures for me to join her.
‘I've got so much to tell you!’ she says excitedly. ‘I have a boyfriend now – Eric. He owns The Hopeful Ghost, and he thinks it’s hilarious that we used to under-age drink there, because honestly, he’s such a baby about ID-ing people these days. I worked there, for a bit, but I quit recently because I'm started my own business.’
‘Really? What are you doing?’ I ask, genuinely curious.
‘I'm opening a beauty treatment place,’ she replies. ‘I figured, I spend a fortune on all this shit, so if I open my own place then not only will I be making that money, but I can get all of my stuff done for free. I'll be offering everything from eyebrow waxing to pedicures – and everything in between – and I’m even planning on offering Botox, if you’re interested.’
