5 More Minutes (Timeless Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  5 More Minutes

  Copyright

  Blurb

  Foreword

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Epilogue 2

  Books by Mayra Statham

  Acknowledgements

  About Mayra Statham

  Copyright © 2020 by Mayra Statham

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Image: Deposit Photos

  Editing: Julia Goda of Diamond in the Rough Editing

  Formatting: CP Smith

  Blurb

  We fell in love like stars falling in the sky. Carelessly and quickly. We burned furious and bright despite the different roads life held for us. But we still made promises.

  Promises we didn’t realize were too big to keep.

  Now I’m back. Determined to talk her into giving me another chance. I know better this time. No promise will be too big to keep because life only makes sense when I look into her eyes, and home only exists when she’s in my arms.

  *This is a second-chance romance that will quickly have you holding your breath in the hope that our hero gets the girl while you fall head over heels in swoon with this sexy ex-Marine.*

  Foreword

  A book comes together in many different ways but no matter the start, a book comes to life thanks to the help of so many people.

  From beta readers to editors to formatters and designers, to your friend pm’ing you, reminding you— you got this—, giving you that pep talk that you’re capable of this and more.

  I am seriously thankful to the amazing group of women I have around me. Every day you help and push me. I am better because of you guys. I hope I do half as a good job back. Kelly Tucker, Winter Travers, Julia Goda, CP Smith, Tracie Douglas, Stefanie Kral, I adore each and everyone of you.

  To my amazing readers and Statham’s Sexy Stars, you guys have no idea how honored I am you take a chance on my books.

  A first love is something that lasts forever in your heart.

  It’s something that marks you.

  -Elodie Young

  Prologue

  Brandon Chu

  “FOUR YEARS WILL go by so fucking fast,” I hoarsely remind her as I hold her face with both of my hands, afraid to death of letting go. “We are going to look back and laugh at how silly we’re being right now.”

  “Promise?” she whispered against my lips. I couldn’t answer her. If I did, I would cry like a fucking baby. Both our futures had been outlined and written in the stars before we’d met. We had made those decisions solely for what we had wanted for our lives. We didn’t know the other existed.

  Maybe destiny had thrown some kind of curveball our way. Showing us the possibility of what we could have down the road but knowing the beauty of it saying goodbye was going to be impossible. She was off to college on the East Coast in a couple of days, and I was off to boot camp in Texas.

  Seventy-three days changed my life.

  Seventy-three sunshine-filled days with her made me look at life in a whole new way. I understood love songs that played on the radio and old poems my grandmother used to quote. The idea of being away from her for four days was agony. Four years… Jesus Christ, it was unimaginable. So instead of answering with words, I tersely nodded and kissed the middle of her forehead, her bangs in the way, but I didn’t care. Jesus, how the hell was I going to survive this?

  “Okay,” she whispered so damn strongly but still shutting her milk chocolate eyes away from me, “You should—”

  “Five more minutes.” It had been our thing from the first day we’d met.

  Five more minutes.

  It was what we gave one another when we didn’t want to say goodbye but had to go our separate ways. Why couldn’t this have happened two years down the road? Three?

  “Five more minutes,” she repeated. Her hands around my waist tightened, and I let go of her face so she could rest it on my chest. So she could hear the way my heart beat. For her.

  In those five more minutes our hearts synced. They beat simultaneously. One for the other.

  No matter what the next four years had in store for us, we’d always have the last five minutes and seventy-three days. We had fallen in love in the span of a summer. Not puppy love or hormonal lust most eighteen-year-old newly graduated from high school kids did. Not even close.

  She was mine, and I was hers.

  The kind of love that both contemporary and classic authors wrote about. The kind of love I prayed found its way back to one another.

  Chapter One

  Brandon

  “DUDE, YOU SURE about this?” Sam, my best friend and brother in arms, asked as I was throwing some gel into my hair.

  “Sam,” I warned. I was nervous enough with his stupid-as-fuck questions.

  “You know she might not even recognize you, right?”

  “Shut up.” He wasn’t asking something I hadn’t wondered. Nina and I, well… we had burned bright.

  That first year had been full of letters and video chats. But then, when it was time for us to meet up in Florida the next summer, my deployment got bumped up and she was accepted into some special program that required her to start right away. In hindsight, I could see how my reaction to the situation was where we started to splinter apart. Slowly, the letters started to dwindle. From daily to one every couple of weeks and then months. The video chats were nonexistent with us being in completely different time zones. Then two years ago, I’d been the one to do what we both knew had been inevitable.

  I called it quits even though we both knew it had been long done beforehand.

  “I’m serious, Brandon. I met your scrawny ass in bootcamp.”

  “You sayin’ I’m a stud now?” I joked, and he flipped me the bird.

  “I hate to be the one to say this, but… she could have a man now,” he said gently, and I knew he didn’t mean it in any other way than a brother watching the other’s six.

  “I thought about that,” I admitted even though the thought burned a hole in the center of my gut.

  “Yeah? And you still going? Without giving her a heads up or an easy text of ‘Hey, I’m gonna stop by’? Nothing?”

  “I can’t.” And I wouldn’t.

  I was a stubborn son of a bitch, one of my better qualities, but I couldn’t call her. I wanted to see her more than my next breath. I hadn’t looked her up on social media or anywhere else these last two years. Only heard about her from the handful of mutual friends we shared.

  “What’s your plan here, Bran?” My plan? Stand in the shadows and observe. If she was with anyone, I’d walk away, knowing that at least one of her dreams had come true. The first in her family to graduate. Not just graduate, but graduate from an Ivy League school.

  “I�
�ll figure it out when I get there,” I muttered under my breath.

  “You’re one dumb motherfucker, let me tell you.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that once or twice.”

  “Good thing you have me, or else your ass would get into so much trouble.” He patted my shoulder.

  “Oh yeah, and what are you doing?”

  “I’m going with you. Duh.” I looked over my shoulder. Sam Santino stared back at me, and I noticed he’d dressed up. Soft lavender dress shirt and black dress pants, all pressed neat. Stuck in my nerve-addled brain, I hadn’t noticed any of it. Sam didn’t dress up for shit if he didn’t have to. He lived in cargo shorts, wife beaters, and flip flops, and there he was dressed like a GQ model. For me.

  “Thanks, man.” I nodded. He rolled his eyes, but I knew he understood my gratitude. Brotherhood came in so many forms. The last four years had taught me that.

  Nina Montenegro

  Looking at my reflection in the mirror of my bathroom, I squished my face and stuck out my tongue.

  I looked like an idiot.

  “What’s wrong?” my roommate and best friend, Macie, asked as she popped her head in.

  “Nothing.” My brows narrowed, and I grabbed a Kleenex to wipe away the eyeshadow I had just put on

  “It looked fine.”

  “I looked like a clown,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Okay, talk to me. Why are you so high strung?”

  “I don’t know. Lack of caffeine?”

  “Okay, sure.” She shrugged, staring down at me.

  “I did it.” I looked over at her, her green eyes studying me.

  “You make it sound like it’s something to be stressed about.”

  “Its not. I know its not. I’m just overthinking this.

  “Or you’re thinking about the journey to get here and who isn’t here when they should be.”

  “Don’t say his na—”

  “Brandon,” she quickly said, and I winced. I closed the toilet seat and sat down as she leaned against the doorway. “Why don’t you call him?”

  “And say what exactly, Macie?”

  “Oh, I don’t know? Hi? Or I don’t know, see if he wants to meet up and talk.”

  “Meet up and talk?” I repeated, shaking my head. “Really? I think he did enough talking for the both of us the last time he called.”

  “Babe—”

  “He broke my heart, Mace,” I said without my voice cracking though the jagged edges of my heart were still frayed. Two years later, it still hurt to talk about him.

  “You need to move on.”

  “I have,” I lied, but I was determined to fake it till I made it. “I moved on. I kept going. I’m graduating,” I reminded her. “With honors, for goodness sakes.”

  “Nee, I love you, but you know that’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” I sighed. I didn’t have the time to get into how I felt about Brandon. “I should finish my makeup before I miss graduation,” I said hoping she would drop it. Her green eyes softened, and I knew she was going to let me off the hook. For now.

  “Go natural.” She winked before leaving.

  I stood and grabbed my eyeshadow palette as I looked in the mirror. I traced the line of my nose, my eyes following the freckles over my cheeks.

  “Call him,” I said to myself and shook my head. “As if,” I muttered, choosing a soft beige shadow. Macie wasn’t always right, but when it came to makeup, she knew her shit.

  Chapter Two

  Nina

  “YOU READY?” SHE squealed with way too much joy, and I smiled trying to come up with as much enthusiasm as I could.

  Somewhere in the distance, in the auditorium, my family were probably sitting and watching my every move. This wasn’t just my achievement; it was ours as a group. Without my parents there would have been no way I would have made it to cap and gown day. Without my sister’s calls checking in on her broken-hearted sister, I might not have pulled myself out of bed on the bad days. Without my Ita’s care packages of homemade pan dulces, hot chocolate packets with peppermint sticks taped on them, and old romance novels, I would have felt alone.

  They’d worried.

  Living across the country was hard enough of a concept for them to handle, especially when we were a tightly-knit family. Then they had seen me with Brandon that last summer. As much as my parents had tried, they’d loved him too. My Ita had adored him. They had front row seats to those two years as we had foolishly tried to make it work with millions of miles between us. When life had happened and thrown one obstacle after another and we had held on. Or at least I had tried. He’d given up on us. The letters had dwindled, and calls had all but stopped. Good morning texts had become a thing of the past by the time he’d called that last time.

  The problem was, I had fallen in love with Brandon so deeply, there was no way I knew how to exist and not love him. I hadn’t completely lied. I’d tried to move on.

  Two years, and I’d been on three dates. Two had been set up by friends, and one had been with a teacher’s aide who had asked me out. None had gone further than a first date and a handshake at the end of the night.

  My heart didn’t know how not to love Brandon Chu.

  But this moment was more than the past.

  My row stood, and excitement trickled into my veins. The future was bright, and I was ready for it. To get out into the world, even if I hadn’t exactly decided which direction to take. But I would. Name after name was called, and soon mine was announced as I walked across the stage. Through the cheers and claps I knew my family was out there. I knew, in a way, he was there too. Not literally, but I knew Brandon. Even if he had moved on and was probably married with two kids and a white picket fence, he’d think of me today. Or at least once through graduation season. Walking down the steps with my diploma in my hand, I looked into the crowds, and my eyes teared up as a memory popped into my head as I walked back to my seat.

  _______________

  “Whatever,” I’d scoffed, my face hurting from smiling so much.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You think so?” I asked wistfully as I looked out at the horizon.

  “Hell or high water, I will be there. I promise.”

  “We’ll see.” I’d laughed, leaning my head against his bare chest, his skin warm from the sun beating down on us, the waves crashing mere feet away from us as we sat on the sand. “Four years is a long time.”

  “It will go by in the blink of an eye. I’ll serve my time, and you will get your diploma, and then we will start our life.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Why not? Loving you is easier than breathing, niña linda. We can get through this time. I know it.”

  “In your bones?” I asked. He’d been saying that all summer, and as crazy as it sounded, I loved the confidence in his voice when he said it.

  “In my bones,” he repeated, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll be there. I’ll watch you cross the stage, and I know what I’ll be thinking when I watch you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yup. I’m gonna think the same thing I thought when I first laid eyes on you a month ago,” he said, and I remembered looking up at him, his dark straight hair gleaming under the sunshine.

  “And what’s that?”

  “That’s the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  “You so didn’t think that.” I laughed. God, he was charming.

  “I did. Well, kinda.” He shrugged. “Truth is, I saw you.” His hand stroked my cheek. “Brown hair with bright blue streaks and these denim shorts, and I thought… Mine, she’s mine.” His arms tightened around me, and I laughed.

  “Yours, huh?”

  “Always.”

  “And always,” I had whispered back.

  _______________

  “Nina? Hey, you okay?” Macie asked, snapping me out of the memory that hit like it had just happened. I nodded, wiping the tears away.

  “Always.” I win
ked, knowing she had no idea how much that word meant to me.

  Brandon

  She was fucking beautiful.

  I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off her. Thankfully, the room had been packed and Sam and I had been able to stand off to the sides unnoticed.

  “Thought that was you,” a deep voice spoke, and I turned to it. “How are you, kid?”

  “Mr. Montenegro.” Nina’s dad.

  “Freddie, remember?” He smiled and put his arms up like he wanted to hug me, and that took me by surprise. “Come here, son,” he ordered, giving me a man hug, patting me on the back. “Nice to see you.”

  “You too, sir.”

  “She know you’re here?” he asked, dropping his arms and standing next to me.

  “No, sir.”

  “Quit with this sir shit. Makes me feel old.”

  “I don’t think you could ever be old.” I fought from saying sir again. Four years in the Army ingrained shit like that.

  “You gonna talk to her?”

  “I don’t think she would want that,” I admitted, glancing down at my shoes and then back at him.

  “Now, we both know that’s bull,” he surprised me by saying, and just like that, the stubborn sob inside of me had a flicker of hope.

  “She did great. Honors?” I changed the subject despite the fact I was tempted as fuck to ask what he meant.

  “Yeah.” He studied me for a while. “As a dad, you never want your little girl to meet a guy. I tried not to like you, kid. I made that clear, and I’ve always been a straight shooter with you, and you being here today—”

  “When did you see me?” I cut him off wondering how the hell I hadn’t noticed.

  “When you parked right next to my rental.” He laughed, and I wanted to laugh too. I wasn’t as stealthy as I’d thought.

  “Does she know I’m—”

  “No. Neither do the other women I’m stuck traveling with. Look, if you’re here for her, talk to her. She misses you.”

  “Mr. Monte—“ The look he gave me made me stop and change my words. “Freddie, I’m sure she’s moved on.