Iꜰ Aᴄᴇ Rᴇɴsʜᴀᴡ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴀ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ ᴄᴀʀᴅ, ʜᴇ'ᴅ ʙᴇ ᴛʜᴇ Kɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ Hᴇᴀʀᴛs...
|| Writer of the Year Award -- Second Place Winner ||
Ace Renshaw is a teenage gambler. After his sister left for college and his father turned to alcohol, he was left with nothing but bitter jealousy. His motto? "Love does nothing but destroy." He's turned from romance, and instead, lives off the rush he gets from doing things he shouldn't be doing.
Every month, Ace meets up with a group of friends to make a bet. They'll dare him to do something illegal, something dangerous, something they're convinced he cannot do. Then they sit back and watch as Ace proves them wrong.
One bleak February afternoon, Ace is presented with his hardest challenge yet. Never has he tinkered with emotions before -- it was always breaking and entering, or vandalism, or stealing. But this time? This time, Ace has one month to get a girl who firmly believes in rules to fall in love. With him.
The plan was to seduce her, to lure her in with false flattery and artificial emotions... and then, he'd break her heart. Bonus points if she cried.
And yet, as new friendships are forged, secrets are exposed, and previously unknown emotion starts to blossom, Ace starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, falling in love wouldn't be that disastrous after all.
----------------------
AMAZING cover design by @atroXity !
"This was just supposed to be summer fun. That was what we agreed on." I tried to talk to him as he was vigorously shaking his head, tearing his gaze away from me.
"You were never just a summer fun to me." He stared into my eyes and I felt exposed because I might have developed some feelings for him that I've never wanted to face.
Heddy Lopez has just barely graduated and is trying to find the purpose of her life when her friends take her away for the summer before they go on separate ways.
Little did she know that an old crush and complicated relationships would cross her way again making her last high school summer completely different than she'd expected it to be.
Secrets, heartbreaks, and empty promises siege her over and over again. And they never seem to stop.
But how much an already broken heart could take before fully giving up?
Started: July (2022) - Finished: August 18 (2022)
123 000+ words