Designs of Destiny (with Bonus Content)

Last Bonus Chapter

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this mini installment. Other than launching this at the same time as my Skillshare class, this also heralds the way for the new story I'm posting in a few days featuring Jake and Tessa and The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield. Hope you tune in for that one too!

***

I sat in a daze throughout dinner.

After reading that first story, I felt the oddest sense that something was incomplete, as if a hole had been carved out of me somewhere and that piece went missing.

I'm not exactly a cheerleader for fated things and all that because I need to believe that our destiny is within our control. The life of someone trapped in an abusive household is a prison sentence with no one to bail them out. From there, it would become so easy to just give up. To resign yourself to it. If that's what fate has in store for me, then I'm done with fate. I'm choosing my own adventure, like in a book, except it's my one and only life with no high-tech features such as time travel and a reset button.

With a stomach full and warm from the beef stew we just had, I went back to the chair I abandoned before dinner and read through the rest of the stories. I couldn't remember most of them a good two hours later because my head was still stuck and spinning from the first one.

Soul mates, fated love, etcetera, etcetera—could they really exist?

And if they did, where was the other half of my heart?

How were we ever going to find each other?

For all I knew, he was in a totally different country, probably a different age, and possibly with a different set of preferences for the kind of girl he was looking for.

Would we recognize the other if we happened to run into each other someday?

"—Oh, sorry—"

"—You okay, miss?"

I barely had time to register the face of the man who hunched down to pick up the book I'd dropped on the floor. I thought I'd walked right into the wall as I went around the corner to the hallway but I knew it couldn't be. Walls didn't feel warm or pull away all of a sudden.

I only saw the gray baseball cap and the dark brown hair that peeked from under it, the navy blue sweatshirt that clung to broad muscular shoulders. Oh, and he smelled extra nice as if he had the best bath money could buy.

He was still crouched down when he turned the book in his hand, scanning the title.

"Designs of Destiny—A Collection of Love Stories That Were Meant To Be."

My cheeks burned a little at the amusement in his voice. It was a cheesy title, no arguments there, but did he really have to point it out?

"Some of us could use a happy ending," I said as I snatched the book the moment he looked up to hand it to me, his face half-obscured by the shadow under the brim of his cap. All I could make out were the sharp angles of his jaw, the day-old dark stubble that covered it and a mouth with a generous bottom lip.

"Even if it's just a fictional one?" he said, this time a little softly.

"Sometimes, it's all you've got," was my own quiet reply before Mrs. Gibson nearly ran over the man when she came around the corner just as he was pulling himself back up to his feet. He was about a foot taller than me.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir!" the older woman said profusely, her hands landing on each side of her mortified face. "I didn't see you—"

I couldn't see the man's face anymore as he was fully turned toward Mrs. Gibson, his hand gently patting her shoulder. "It's alright. My bad too. I shouldn't have stopped right by the doorway."