Page 162 of Almost Ours

I sit there crying with both hands gripping the steering wheel, staring at the house where the boy I love is standing and the girl I think he loves is sleeping in his bed.

Then I start Oscar’s car and leave him there.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thank you so much for reading.

Josh and Ruby’s story isn’t over yet. Read all about them in STILL OURS.

Acknowledgements

First, Eily, Ashleigh and Sam… I would not be here if it wasn’t for you. Not a chance in hell would this book have seen the light of day. Thank you for listening to me talk about these characters like they’re real people, reading far, far, farrrrr too many versions of the same scenes, talking me down when I convinced myself the whole book was utter tripe, and loving Almost Ours long before it was ever finished. This book is yours as much as it is mine. If not more so. YOU made me believe I had the ability to tell it.

To my little community I luckily found on TikTok, to my girls, to my online friends, thank you for being so unbelievably kind to me. For the messages, the comments, the encouragement, the screaming about fictional people with me, and eventually screaming about my fictional people too. You will never know how lucky I feel to have you.

To Amy for always championing my writing, even when I rebuff every compliment and act like every encouragement isn’t

welcome. To Samara for reading the OG over a year ago and helping me deepen the characters for this. To Safia for giving me invaluable feedback whilst being so kind.

And thank YOU, reader, for picking up this book and giving Ruby and Josh a chance. I hope I did not disappoint.

Thank you all for letting them be almost yours too.

(P.S – Bernardo has playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nJOVLkUHODEkM9cEEVUkC - enjoy! Love you)

STILL OURS EXTRACT

Chapter One

Thursday

31st December 2015

Ruby:

I think I might slowly be going mad. Everything feels distorted. Nothing feels real. I can’t tell anyone what happened because I wouldn’t even know what to say. Brooke has known Josh longer, and Cam and Oscar have to play on the same team as him, so I’m keeping it to myself, which probably isn’t helping considering the last time I kept something this big to myself, I was sixteen and standing in a bedroom looking at a girl in a bed she had no business being in while somebody I trusted tried to explain something I couldn’t understand.

Josh isn’t Dad, but he has managed to put me in almost the exact same position and I don’t know how I’m supposed to separate the two when it all feels this familiar.

I hate Bonnie, and I hate Josh even more. Images of her clothes on his floor and her hair spread across his pillow have been tormenting me for days.

Oh, I know he said nothing happened. I know. But I don’t believe him.

Even if they didn’t have sex, he still found out about me and decided I wasn’t even worth a text back because he was too busy with her. I was worried sick for a whole twenty-four hours and he didn’t even spare me a thought.

I haven’t heard from him since. He hasn’t tried to call. He hasn’t texted. He hasn’t turned up. Nothing. It feels like he got what he wanted with her and washed his hands of me.

“Rubes.” Cam drops down beside me, knocking his knee against mine. We’ve come to Dave’s New Year’s Eve party, and I’m wearing the ultimate slutty black dress, sitting in the freezing cold garden, not able to hack the celebrations inside. “You’ve been off all evening. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Cam pulls a packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket, followed by a lighter. He looks good tonight, broad and blonde with a few days’ stubble across his jaw. “You can’t kid a kidder. You know that, right?”

I glance at him. “I’m not kidding anyone.”

“Right.” He sticks a cigarette between his lips but doesn’t light it yet. “And I’m five-foot-four.”

“You’d look cute five-foot-four. Like one of Snow White’s dwarfs.”