Author: melissatoppen

Alec Murray. He was the one. From the first moment I saw him, I knew. I had never been more certain of anything in my sixteen years on this earth. But Alec didn’t notice me. At least not in the way that I wanted him to. He noticed my best friend instead. I stood by and watched their relationship blossom. An outsider looking in, wishing things were different. Torn between my loyalty to my best … different. Torn between my loyalty to my best friend and the boy who had unknowingly stolen my heart. Weighted by feelings I could never…

I used to believe in fairy tales. But then I grew up and I realized that life isn’t like the books I once loved so much. There are no princes riding in on their white horses. No magic wands or fairy god mothers. And no happily ever afters. Ryland Thorpe taught me the hard way that good doesn’t always win and sometimes the people we trust the most are the ones that can hurt us the deepest. At … can hurt us the deepest. At fifteen, my world began and ended with him. He was my older brother’s best friend.…

Roses are red.Violets are blue.Forget everything good you’ve been told about love, because none of it’s true.You don’t agree?Spend a day in my shoes and you’d curse love too.My name’s Blue.Yes, you read that right. Blue Daniels.And I hate love.I despise every single thing about it.In my thirty-two years on this earth it has brought me nothing but heartbreak and disappointment.Love is a void. … earth it has brought me nothing but heartbreak and disappointment.Love is a void. Something we’re taught we need if we want to live a happy and fulfilled life.Well I disagree.Some say I’m a cynic. Other’s…

It only takes one night—one moment, one small snippet of time—to change everything. At sixteen-years-old, Sebastian Baxter taught me that. He taught me a lot of things.He never had to work for my heart. In some unexplainable way I think it had always belonged to him anyway.We spent years loving each other, hurting each other, trying to forget each other, but no matter how hard I tried, I could … tried, I could never erase the memory of him. His eyes, his smile, his touch—these are all things that are embedded in my brain, tattooed on my skin, and etched…

Life is full of many things.Love.Loss.Heartbreak.Laughter.No matter how small, each moment has value.Then there are the big moments.The moments that define us.And the people who shape our very existence.Abel Collins is that person for me. From the very first time our eyes locked, I knew there was something about him. That he was the person that would change everything.And he did.But Abel isn’t … was the person that would change everything.And he did.But Abel isn’t just any man…His past is his prison.His guilt keeps him chained.His grief defines him.And now it’s up to me to set him free.To make him see…

Ten hours… minutes.More hours.More him.Ten hours…Such a small, insignificant amount of time.Yet those ten hours changed everything.more

You never get over your first love. It’s something I’ve heard countless times. Like someone has to point out that your pain will never go away. That your shattered heart will never mend.Because that’s exactly what my heart did the day I watched Asher Evans board that train- it shattered, splintering into a million tiny fragments that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to piece back together. He was … together. He was the boy I had loved since I understood what loving someone meant. The one who knew me inside and out. The one who swore he’d never…

They say everything happens for a reason- that there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. For the longest time I didn’t think that was true. I had stumbled around in the dark for so many years that I didn’t think I would ever find my way out. But when I finally did, it came in the most unexpected way.Miles Hollins had been my brother’s best friend for as long as I could remember. We didn’t … We didn’t like each other much growing up. Or rather, we couldn’t stand each other. But after ten years of being…

I met Thad Mitchell for the first time when I was just a child. I didn’t remember much about him- except that he pushed me off a swing set when I was four years old and broke my arm. Not the best thing to remember about a person but there it is.He moved away a couple years later and soon became a distant memory. That is until I walked into my parent’s house after being gone for four years to find … years to find him sitting at the kitchen table with my family like he’d been there all along.The…

Hudson and Lennon’s story continues in the gripping conclusion to The Tequila Duet. It was destiny– the night I met Hudson Demasi. I remember how effortlessly he stole my heart- his dark eyes and quick smile forever etched into my mind. We spent one incredible night together under a haze of tequila- a perfect night. And when I woke the next day, he was gone… never expected to see him again– especially not five years later standing on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans as none other than hot, new, country artist Hudson James. The moment our eyes…