My Best Friend Prince Charming: A Sweet YA Romance (Sweet Mountain High Book 6) Read online

  My Best Friend Prince Charming

  Sweet Mountain High

  Cindy Ray Hale

  To Maylin. This book would not be possible without you! Thank you for snuggling my baby so I could write. You’re the best!

  Contents

  1. Ryker

  2. Shannon

  3. Ryker

  4. Shannon

  5. Ryker

  6. Shannon

  7. Ryker

  8. Shannon

  9. Ryker

  10. Shannon

  11. Ryker

  12. Shannon

  13. Ryker

  14. Shannon

  15. Ryker

  16. Shannon

  17. Ryker

  About the Author

  More from Sweet Heart Books

  1

  Ryker

  I bowed to the cheering audience and followed my fellow cast members off the stage.

  “Boom!” my friend Liam whooped when we got backstage and out of earshot of the crowd. “No more musical for the year. I think I’m going to sleep for a week.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We still have to greet the audience outside the auditorium.”

  When we got to the hall outside the auditorium, I took my place next to Camille, who had been cast as Cinderella.

  “Can you believe this is over?” she asked.

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself after all the hours spent memorizing lines and rehearsing.

  “Ah! The prince,” a man with graying hair and aviator sunglasses perched on his head approached me with a wide grin.

  Camille’s face lit up. “Uncle Stephen!” She jumped between us before he could finish speaking to me and wrapped her arms around him in a gigantic hug.

  “How’s my favorite niece?” he asked her.

  “I’m so glad you came,” she said to him.

  “You know I wouldn’t miss your performance. Especially since I’m in town anyway.”

  He reached out and shook my hand. “It’s, ah, Ryker, right?” he asked, glancing at my name on the playbill. “That was an impressive performance.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  “I’ve been looking for someone like you for a while, actually.”

  “Someone like me?” I echoed. Well, that was cryptic.

  “Would you be interested in auditioning for me next week?”

  “Auditioning?” I asked.

  “I may have a job for you. It’s, ah, paid work. Do you have any film experience?”

  “No, sir,” I said, my heart drumming in my chest. Film? Who was this guy?

  “Have my niece give me your information. I have to get going. I’ll reach out to you later this week with a time and place to meet up. It was nice meeting you.”

  And just like that, the guy disappeared into the crowd.

  I turned to Camille. “What was that all about?”

  “Do you have any idea who my uncle is?”

  “No. He seemed pretty cool, though.”

  “You’ve never heard of a Stephen Christopher film?”

  “Nope.”

  “He’s a big-time Hollywood director. He’s worked on lots of blockbuster movies. I can’t say for sure, but I think he may have just picked you out for his upcoming Cinderella movie. He’s been looking for a Prince Charming for months. The audition is basically a formality.”

  I stared at Camille in shock. There was no way the audition was a formality. He couldn’t tell how talented I was in front of a camera based on my stage performance. “What’s he doing in Sweet Mountain?”

  “He’s my mom’s brother, and he’s driving through on his way to the beach. He wanted to see my performance in Cinderella since it’s on the way. He’ll be back next week for my mom’s birthday. If you accept this role, you would basically become rich and famous overnight.”

  My head began to spin. I couldn’t begin to imagine that I’d be able to land a role like that. “Why would he want me?”

  “You’re a lot better than you realize. And you fit the vision he’s had for a while, I guess,” Camille said with a shrug.

  Then Shannon came up to me with her long, dark-blonde hair tucked behind her ears. She had on a t-shirt with Aiko on it, a character from Katana Warrior, our favorite anime show. We were even writing a Katana Warrior fan fiction together.

  “Hey, you,” I said.

  “You were awesome, Ryker,” she said. “Like, seriously.”

  My heart lifted. Shannon’s opinion mattered most of all. I met her when her family moved in next door when we were in the third grade, and we’d been inseparable ever since.

  “Where are we going to celebrate?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

  “It is now. I just got paid tonight.” Shannon worked after school and on the weekends at Toppings, an ice cream shop in town.

  “You know I’m not going to let you pay for your food, right?” I said.

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “Ok, fine. Burgers and shakes at Skippy’s?”

  “Oh sure, just pick out a place where we eat free anyway, so I won’t be able to pay for your meal,” I said. My aunt owned Skippy’s, the local diner, so we never had to pay for anything when we ate there. My grandpa started the place when my dad and aunt were kids, and now she owned it. When my dad lost his job at the lumber mill, he was desperate, and my aunt hired him to take over the newly opened manager position at Skippy’s. It didn’t pay as well as the lumber mill, and Dad had to work much longer hours, but since I waited tables at Skippy’s, I got to see him more than I would have otherwise.

  I hated letting Shannon pay for anything. She probably would have fought me on it, but she worked herself to the bone, trying to help her mom make ends meet. I didn’t like to see Shannon suffering financially. But that had been the harsh reality of both our lives for as long as either of us could remember.

  We lived on the “wrong side of the tracks,” according to Mom, who ran off when I was ten. To me, it meant that my future was severely limited. I had to miss out on a lot of opportunities that other kids had, like after-school programs and sports that cost extra money. There was never money for stuff like that. We were lucky to get a new pair of shoes for the school year.

  Before Mom left, she spent a lot of time sitting on the couch watching reruns. She got really bad postpartum depression when my younger sister was born, and she never seemed to get over it. One day, eight years ago, she just snapped and left in the middle of the night. We never saw her again.

  That pretty much left me to raise my little brother and sister. It wasn’t too bad. I loved those kids, but it didn’t leave me much time for working a paying job. We didn’t see my dad much. He spent a lot of time working. And when he did come home, he spent a lot of time on his phone trying to unwind. It was like he’d checked out.

  I gathered my stuff backstage and then met Shannon out front. “Want to take my car?” I asked. My aunt Kristen had given me her old car when I turned sixteen. The 1998 Nissan Sentra wasn’t pretty to look at, but it ran and didn’t guzzle too much gas.

  “Sure,” Shannon said. She shouldered her bag and followed me across the parking lot.

  We could have invited other friends, like Camille and a few of the other cast members, but Shannon and I usually liked to hang out alone. We were the nerdy, Katana Warrior-obsessed members of the senior class at Sweet Mountain High.

  Shannon and I had been writing our fan fiction together since freshman
year, and we were still going strong. When we hung out, we usually discussed complicated plot points that none of our other friends would understand. That meant that I got Shannon all to myself most days. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Shannon didn’t know how deep my feelings actually went. The truth was, I’d been in love with her for a long time. I wasn’t sure when it started exactly—it kind of snuck up on me. I’d always thought she was pretty, even in third grade, when girls were supposed to be gross. But Shannon had this gorgeous honey-blonde hair that fell around her shoulders in waves that were so soft they always begged to be touched. And her eyes? They were a piercing blue the color of the ocean in the tropics.

  The problem was, Shannon didn’t feel the same about me. She’d been dating Austin on and off again for the past two years. He was bad news, and no matter how hard I tried to warn Shannon about him, she never seemed to see what I was talking about. Every time he mistreated her, she always made excuses for him. It was infuriating, but there was nothing I could do about it. So I stayed by her side as much as I could to protect her from him and offered her my shoulder to cry on. He never hit her or anything, but sometimes I worried he might, from the stories she told me. Sometimes he flew into an angry rage and yelled at her, but most of the time, he just gave her insults veiled as compliments.

  It was disgusting how often she cried over that idiot guy. He was my number one nemesis. All I could hope was that one day Shannon would see the light and understand who was actually loyal to her. In the meantime, I didn’t mind comforting her too much.

  Shannon and I discussed some of the research we’d recently done for our fanfic while we drove the short trip to Skippy’s. I pulled into the parking lot behind the diner, and we laughed about the irony of our latest chapter. In that moment, everything was perfect. It was almost like I’d forgotten that Shannon had a jerkface boyfriend and that I’d just been offered an audition for a big Hollywood movie.

  “Hey, you two,” Aunt Kristen beamed at us as we walked into the diner. “Booth seven’s open,” she said, pointing to the corner booth, our favorite spot.

  “Burgers and shakes?” she asked once we were settled in the booth.

  “And some onion rings,” I said.

  She shouted our order to Joey back in the kitchen and turned back to us. “How was the musical?”

  “You’ll never believe what happened,” I said. I told them about the big-time film director who wanted me to audition for him.

  “That’s huge, Ryker! If you get this role, it could completely change your life,” Aunt Kristen said.

  Shannon sat quietly, twisting her ring around her finger. It had been her grandmother’s, and Shannon always twisted it around when something was bothering her.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m going.”

  “What?” Aunt Kristen said. “Why would you pass up an opportunity like that?” She knew how much I loved acting, so I understood her surprise at me not wanting to audition. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the part. I’d always dreamed of making it big one day. But that was just a far-off fantasy. Like something one of my fan fiction characters would dream about doing. But that wasn’t reality. Shannon and I used to have big dreams. I was going to be an actor, and she was going to be an author. But we weren’t kids anymore. We were both staring down adulthood. We’d each seen how hard life could be without a stable career. That was why college was so important. It was reliable and practical.

  “We already have our future all planned out,” I told her.

  “Ryker,” Aunt Kristen shook her head. “Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn with better results at the destination. You can’t give up on something amazing just because you’re too attached to the outcome you had in mind.”

  I brushed off her advice. “Shannon just heard back from the University of North Carolina. They’re offering her a full-ride scholarship.” They’d just offered me a full ride as well, and it meant that we’d both be able to go to school together. It was huge news. I knew Shannon had experienced a lot of anxiety about leaving Sweet Mountain and going off to a new school alone. Sometimes I didn’t understand the inner workings of her mind. She always talked about how she wanted to get away from Sweet Mountain so she could see the rest of the world, but she didn’t want to be alone when she left.

  She had been really excited for us to go to school together. I didn’t want to mess that up. Her top school was UCLA, but since UNC offered her the scholarship, that was where she’d decided to attend. It was her second choice, but it wasn’t like she had a rich daddy to pay the out-of-state tuition. Her dad couldn’t even pay child support. Couldn’t . . . or wouldn’t.

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I probably won’t get the role anyway. Just because the director liked my stage performance doesn’t mean he’ll like me in front of a camera. It’s a totally different acting style. No one sees my face up close while I’m on stage.”

  “You should at least go for the experience of auditioning in front of someone that famous,” Aunt Kristen said. “And I’ve seen you on camera. Remember all those silly videos you used to make back in middle school? You were actually really good.”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “This is your ticket out of here. You can see what’s beyond Sweet Mountain.”

  Everything I wanted in life was right here in this little town. And she was sitting right across from me. If I couldn’t be with her romantically, at least I could be in her life every day as her best friend. I would take whatever I could get.

  Our food came, and we sat eating, discussing more of our fan fiction. I loved watching Shannon’s face as she talked about her story ideas. She was so passionate about her writing. She came alive whenever she talked about it. I wanted to see her this happy every day. If I could bring her this kind of joy, then I knew I was living my life the right way.

  2

  Shannon

  “We’re having mac and cheese again tonight,” I told my sixteen-year-old sister, Maddie.

  “Oh joy,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Hey, if you don’t like it, you can make dinner,” I said, pointing at her with a wooden spoon.

  Maddie had her nose buried in a library book—one of those werewolf love stories. It was her fourth one this week. I had no idea how she had time for all that reading and her homework too. I’d spent every moment since coming home from school working on my assignments. I’d only taken a break to make some dinner. As soon as I finished eating, I’d be right back in my room, knocking out the rest of my assignments.

  Mom worked evenings this week, so it fell to me to make dinner. Maddie was perfectly capable of doing it, but if I left it to her, I’d end up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because she wouldn’t remember to cook anything until nine p.m. So I usually did the cooking when Mom was working.

  We rarely saw our dad anymore. He cheated on Mom when I was in third grade. That was when we moved into this house. We’d struggled to make ends meet. It was tough, but with my money from Toppings, the ice cream parlor in town, we were able to make it.

  I met Ryker when we moved into the 1950s home we lived in now. He’d been playing outside, building a fort in his backyard next to the mature oak tree that shaded his backyard. I asked him if I could help, and the rest was history. We ended up turning the fort into our clubhouse. We had official meetings and everything.

  Then his mom left when we were ten, and we grew even closer. I understood what it was like to have divorced parents. I used to joke that our parents should get together, but Ryker didn’t seem to like that, so I dropped it.

  After dinner, I went to my room. I tackled the rest of my homework and then checked on the fan fiction. After writing for about ten minutes, I had a brilliant idea pop into my head for what I could do for Ryker’s birthday. It was coming up in just a few days. I pulled out my sketch pad and began the outline of the original character Ryker had created for the fan fiction. For the next hour, I focused on the dra
wing, putting meticulous detail and emotion into the character’s face.

  A knock sounded on my bedroom door. Before I could answer, it opened a crack, and Austin looked in.

  “What’s the point of knocking if you’re just going to barge in anyway?” I asked, tucking the drawing under a stack of papers on my desk.

  “Hey, you,” he said, smiling because he knew he could get away with anything when it came to me. I was putty in his hands.

  “I could have been naked,” I said.

  “And your point is?” he said, coming up to me and burying his face into my hair.

  I twisted around in my desk chair and smacked him. “That’s not funny.” I frowned. Austin knew I wasn’t interested in taking our relationship that far.

  That didn’t stop him from constantly bringing it up. It was like he thought if he joked about it enough, I’d just wake up one morning and decide I wanted to push my boundaries too far with him.

  “You’re not even supposed to be over here when my mom’s not home.”

  He kissed my ear, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “I thought she was supposed to be home soon.”

  I wriggled out of his embrace and pushed up from my desk.

  He slid into my desk chair. “What are you writing?” He studied the screen. “Is this that Katana Warrior fan fiction you’re writing with Ryker? I thought you guys had moved on to your own ideas instead of stealing someone else's story world.”

  Austin’s words stabbed into my heart like a dagger. I snapped my laptop shut. “It’s private.” I never let Austin read my stuff. Not since he made fun of it when I shared it with him once. He said he was just joking around and that I couldn’t take a joke, but mocking my writing was taking it too far. I’d wanted to be a published author for as long as I could remember. But Austin never seemed to see it as an achievable goal. His words had hurt because I was too scared to branch out on my own with an original story, and he seemed to think writing was just some dumb waste of my time.