Fortunate Son Read online

  Jay Crownover LLC.

  www.jaycrownover.com

  Copyright: Fortunate Son © 2021 by Jay Crownover

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  A letter of copyright has been applied for through the Library of Congress.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Jay Crownover LLC 1670 E. Cheyenne Mnt. Blvd. Box# 152, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover design done by the incomparable Hang Le

  www.byhangle.com

  Editing and Formatting by: Elaine York, Allusion Publishing

  www.allusionpublishing.com

  Copy Editing by: Bethany Salminen, Bethany Edits

  www.bethanyedits.net

  Foreword

  Marked Men Family Tree

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  A Righteous Man

  Goldilocks Prologue

  Goldilocks - Chapter 1

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Your efforts will never betray you. ~ Lee Taeyong

  (And you thought he was my fave just because of his pretty face!)

  Dedicated to my ride-or-die readers. You know who you are. You’ve been here from the beginning and have stayed with me through thick and thin, through all the books others were afraid to read. This return to my roots is for you. You earned these stories through your loyalty and support. I hope with everything I am that the wait and the faith you’ve had in me was worth it.

  Welcome readers, new and old, to the next generation.

  If this is your first Jay book, I want to warn you that it is tied very heavily to the very first series I started writing back in 2012: the Marked Men series. I do my very best to write every single one of my titles to stand on its own. This is a full story revolving around all-new characters, so you don’t have to read the other books before this one to enjoy it. However, for a completely satisfying, full series experience, just know that there are several characters in this book who relate to an existing world. If you are curious about the all-powerful and engaging first generation of characters, you can find them all in the Marked Men and Saints of Denver series. I’ve also included a handy-dandy guide showing who belongs to whom and in which books you can find the original couples’ stories if you need a little road map of where to start.

  If you’re a reader who has been kicking it with me from the very beginning and have been waiting to see some familiar faces again… you will not be disappointed. There are plenty of cameos from old favorites throughout. Keep in mind, this book is not about the parents, but about the kids. So, if you’re looking for a Marked Men or SoD sequel, this ain’t it. It’s something new that hopefully shows how far these characters have come, and how vastly different my writing and storytelling have become (in all the right ways!). I hope you’re willing to give the new generation a try and approach the them with as much enthusiasm and love as you showed their parents.

  I also want to drop a very strong disclaimer about the timeline and setting of this book. It’s set in the theoretical future, some twenty or so years after the final MM/SoD stories. I’m not all-seeing and all-knowing. I’m not a deity or blessed with supernatural powers. I have no clue what the future is going to look like, so if I’m wrong, I refuse to be held accountable. It was already daunting to go back to a set of beloved characters and stories. There is a weight not to disappoint after such a long time. I can’t write a good book with a solid story while obsessing over what cell phones will look like in twenty years, or what style will be back in fashion in the years to come. I kept details around specifics vague for this reason. There are no brand names mentioned, no exact details about schools and businesses that didn’t already exist in the previous books. I typically like to build my literary world with all those nuances, but it wasn’t an option here. So, if you feel the need to contact me personally to say this story doesn’t seem futuristic enough, or you wished the setting looked different than in the original series to show twenty years of growth, I’m going to ignore you. Flat out. I will smash the delete button so fast, it’ll be like you didn’t even send me an email. Same about the nit-picky details of exact ages of the kids. I ballparked where I thought they would be age-wise within the existing continuity. I may have had to take a liberty or two by a few months or even years to make things work. I won’t apologize for it. And honestly, if that kind of thing is a dealbreaker for you a reader, that’s a you thing, not a creator thing. I respect your right to feel that way, but I understand that I can’t write to each and every reader’s preference. There is only one of me and so many of you, so the only person I know I can satisfy with my words and work each and every time is me, myself, and I.

  I wasn’t trying to write science fiction. I was just doing my best to bring a book to life in a place that doesn’t really exist. You may think this disclaimer seems harsh or unnecessary, but I assure anyone taking the time to read this, that after nearly a decade of being a professional author, I know exactly what people will tear apart. Just trying to save them time and effort and save myself a headache.

  I also want to warn that I will not be engaging with comments or concerns about who from the original series makes an appearance, or who does or does not have children in this new series. I released the family tree and already have readers who are upset by this and that. Listen, not every couple wants kids or is able to have kids. Some couples make the conscious decision just to live their best lives together, and some are emotionally destroyed by not being able to grow their families. I’ve always written to reflect real life and will not give any time to criticism for the creative choices I make. I know you love these characters and are invested in them wholeheartedly, but I created them. They came from my imagination. They were given life through my hands and heart. They exist because I gave my creativity and my time to share them with you. So, I respectfully ask you to recognize that, while you may have your wishes for what should happen with your favorites, at the end of the day it is my call, and I know best how everyone would really end up and what their paths in life look like. After all, I pulled bits and pieces of all of them from my own life and the people who have been in and out of it.

  If you’re new, welcome to the circus and this ever-growing family filled with big hearts, bad-asses, brilliant minds, and lots of body modification.

  If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I hope you know I was only willing and brave enough to jump back into a book like this because of
you.

  Welcome back.

  Love & Ink,

  Jay

  “I DON’T THINK we’re a good match.”

  The softly spoken words echoed in my head for hours.

  It wasn’t like the breakup came out of nowhere. The girl I was pretty sure I loved had been acting strange and had become more and more distant for weeks. I’d known her my entire life. We grew up together and had been the best of friends before falling in love. I knew her almost as well as I knew myself and could tell something between us was off, but I refused to believe the end of what we had was near.

  I told myself she was just stressed out and worried about the fact we were soon going to different colleges and spending a lot of time apart from one another. Young love was already unreliable and tricky to navigate. When you added the hurdle of long distance to the mix, it seemed almost destined to fail. I tried to reassure her everything would be fine; after all, I was older than her and had already been in college for a year. Nothing changed between us while I waited not so patiently for her to finish high school. I foolishly thought she would apply and get accepted to my school so we could stay together. It never occurred to me that she was only going to apply to schools out of state. I was unaware that she had her heart set on leaving not only me, but also our hometown, for years. When she finally came clean and let me know she was moving to California in the fall, I was stunned but still optimistic that our relationship would survive. After all, she was my first love. I was willing to sacrifice and suffer whatever it took to keep her in my life.

  Aston, unfortunately, didn’t feel the same.

  I felt blindsided by both the breakup and the revelation that she was always planning to move halfway across the country. Suddenly, the adorable little girl who grew up following my every step and who had effortlessly stolen my heart with her sweet, cheerful, innocent demeanor seemed like a total stranger who never cared about me the way I cared about her.

  It was easy enough to argue with her when she said we weren’t a good match.

  It was impossible to fight against her when she told me she wasn’t happy being with me and needed a change.

  I wanted to tell her we just needed some time apart. I had faith in my ability to change her mind and prove to her that we belonged together. But the look in her eyes when she ended things was definite. This wasn’t a rash decision on her part. It was something she gave a lot of thought to and she had clearly made up her mind.

  She didn’t want to be with me anymore, and I was left adrift and discombobulated.

  Heartbreak wasn’t something I had a lot of experience with.

  I was the kind of guy who typically got what I wanted and excelled at whatever I put my mind to. I graduated at the top of my class in high school, got into my first choice of college, and was in the starting line-up of my first college football game. My parents had a wall full of trophies and accolades I’d earned over the years. They were always proud of what I’d accomplished, even though they had never pushed me to be perfect. All they wanted was for me to be happy, so they supported me regardless of how hard I pushed myself.

  I was popular and well-liked among my peers. As one of the oldest members of my tight-knit inner circle of relatives and longtime family friends, I was often the voice of reason and the most responsible member of the group, even though we were all similar in age and life experience. I never had a problem getting close to members of the opposite sex, but there was only one I wanted to keep and call mine.

  But she no longer wanted me, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself now.

  It was my first time being rejected, and I could admit I wasn’t handling it well… at all.

  I glanced down at my phone, which had been ringing and pinging with messages nonstop for the last several hours. I wanted to turn the damn thing off, but there was a part of me that refused to believe I’d been dumped, so I waited for each call to show my ex’s info. She never popped up on the screen, but my mom called close to twenty times. My dad called no less than ten. And my best friend, who also happened to be my cousin, was sending a text every fifteen minutes like clockwork.

  I avoided them all, but eventually, the one and only person I couldn’t ignore even if I wanted to called, and I finally caved and answered the phone.

  “Ry Archer, where in the hell are you? Mom and Dad are worried sick about you.” My little sister’s voice was shaky and sounded like she’d been crying. She was normally a pretty tough cookie but could be overly dramatic and emotional. Part of that was because she was a teenage girl. But a huge chunk of it was that she took after our father in pretty much every single way except in her appearance. She looked just like our mother, with her white-blond hair and pretty green eyes.

  However, she was reckless and rebellious just like our old man. She was as outspoken and opinionated as he was. She was as bold and as colorful as he was. She was fearless in everything the same way he was. And she felt everything in the same extreme way he did. Both of us grew up knowing without a doubt how much we were loved and cherished by our parents, but especially by our dad. The opposite was also true. Whenever we disappointed him or did something he didn’t approve of, we felt his displeasure down to our bones. It was a lot to take in and balance out, but luckily our quiet and mostly even-keeled mother kept our household and our father in check. I wished I took after her the way Daire took after Dad, but I was kind of the odd man out in our family.

  I’d heard more than once from my grandparents and my uncle that my personality and behavior were almost a mirror image of my dad’s twin brother, who was no longer with us. It was a sore spot with my dad whenever someone made the comparison, but he didn’t deny that there were many times that I reminded him of his twin brother. No matter how much time had gone by since he lost his twin, my dad still very much missed his other half and felt the loss of not having him in his life. Sometimes my mom told me stories about the two of them when they were growing up, and I could sense the similarities in myself and my uncle. For so many reasons, it sucked he died so young, only one of which was I had no one to really to really relate to in my family. I was kind of the darkest sheep in a flock that was already mostly shades of black and gray.

  I sighed and squeezed the steering wheel between my hands.

  I loved my little sister with everything in me. We were extraordinarily close and rarely kept secrets from each other. We were close enough in age that it had often been the two of us against the world, no matter what. She was my favorite person and my most trusted confidant. But she was also my ex’s best friend. They were only a few months apart in age, and where one went, the other often followed. When I first started showing interest in Aston Wheeler, my sister was totally against the idea of us being anything more than good friends. She told me she never wanted to be caught between the two of us. She never wanted to have to pick a side or have to keep something from either one of us. I waved the concerns off because I was sure Aston and I were meant to be. I’d grown up surrounded by true love and examples of young love maturing into happy, healthy, long-lasting marriages. I thought staying with my first love through thick and thin might be the only way I might manage to take after my parents.

  I didn’t want to think that it was possible that Daire knew what would happen to my relationship before I did. Or that she kept something so huge from me. But any way I looked at it, she had to have known things were going south before I did.

  “I’m going for a drive. Tell Mom and Dad not to worry. I’ll be fine.” I would be. Eventually.

  My sister sighed on the other end of the line, and I could hear her pacing around. She was the type who was constantly in motion. She never sat still, and her mind was always going a mile a minute. I knew if I didn’t convince her I was okay, she would venture out aimlessly into the night trying to track me down, even though she had no idea where I was or how long I’d been in my truck.

  “You’ve been driving for the last four hours? Are you even in Colorado anymore?” D
aire’s voice rose sharply.

  I looked at the clock on the dashboard and blinked when I realized how much time had passed. I was still in Colorado, but just barely. I was almost at the southern border. I didn’t have a plan when I climbed in my truck and started to drive. Subconsciously, I started heading toward the one person no one would ever suspect me of turning to when I was hurting.

  “Give me some time, Daire.” I wanted to close my eyes and make the world disappear until I could fully deal with the empty ache in the center of my chest. Since I was driving, that wasn’t an option, so all I could do was shake my head and blink my eyes, which alternately felt like they were wet with hot tears and yet still dry as the desert. “I have to get my head on right before I try to talk to anyone, especially you, about what went down today.”

  She made a distressed sound, and I could clearly imagine her putting her brightly painted nails to her mouth. She always wore a bunch of rings and bracelets that clinked and banged together, making so much noise. My little sister was anything but subtle, and you could always hear her coming. She knew how to make an entrance, but she also knew when it was time to back down and fade into the background. She knew all my buttons and when to push them. I would always answer her when she called me, but I had limits to how much I would let her poke and prod at me when I was hurting.

  “I didn’t know, Ry. I honestly had no idea Aston was going to break up with you. She’s been weird lately, but I thought it was because we were graduating, or maybe because Royce left last year and moved to New York. You know how close she was to her brother. She never mentioned anything about being unhappy with you to me. I promise I would’ve told you.” I could hear that she was starting to cry and it made me feel like shit.

  I should’ve listened to her at the start when she said dating my buddy Royce’s younger half-sister was a terrible idea. We were all too close, our families too connected for it to end any other way than tragically. Aston had taken it hard when he decided to follow his birth mom to New York after she remarried. I knew it was an impossible choice for him to make because he considered Aston’s mom as his own, as well as his actual mom. He always called Poppy his bonus mom and never treated her with anything other than love and respect. He was also incredibly attached to his sister, regardless of them having different moms, so it’d been shocking when he made the call to leave.