Finding It (Losing It, #3)
by Cora Carmack
About the Book
Kelsey Summers is looking for love in all the wrong places...
Spending a few months travelling around Europe – with no parents, no responsibilities and a no limit credit card – Kelsey–s having the time of her life.
But when she completely embarrasses herself in front of the hottest guy she’s ever seen, she soon realises there’s more to life than the next party.
What she doesn’t realise is that although she’s on a journey to find herself, she will end up finding The One...
About the Author
Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She has done a multitude of things in her life – boring jobs (like working at Target), fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too!
Cora’s first novel, Losing It debuted on the New York Times bestseller list.
To Kristin, my eerily perceptive travel buddy.
Remember that time we were stuck in a train station overnight?
And taking a cab from Germany to the Netherlands?
And that microwave I ruined in Spain before I almost died?
Thanks for being there for all of that and more.
1
EVERYONE DESERVES ONE grand adventure, that one time in life that we always get to point back to and say, “Then … then I was really living.”
Adventures don’t happen when you’re worried about the future or tied down by the past. They only exist in the now. And they always, always come at the most unexpected time, in the least likely of packages. An adventure is an open window; and an adventurer is the person willing to crawl out on the ledge and leap.
I told my parents I was going to Europe to see the world and grow as a person (not that Dad listened beyond the second or third word, which is when I slipped in that I was also going to spend his money and piss him off as much as possible. He didn’t notice). I told my professors that I was going to collect experiences to make me a better actor. I told my friends I was going to party.
In reality, it was a little of all of those things. Or maybe none of them.
Sometimes, I just got that strange niggling sensation at the back of my mind, like the insistent buzz of a mosquito, that I was missing something.
I wanted to experience something extraordinary, something more. I refused to believe that my best years were all behind me now that I’d graduated from college. And if adventures only existed in the now, that was the only place I wanted to exist, too.
After nearly two weeks of backpacking around Eastern Europe, I was becoming an expert at just that.
I trekked down the dark city street, my stiletto heels sticking in between the cobblestones. I kept a tight hold on the two Hungarian men that I’d met earlier in the evening, and we followed the other two in our group. I guess, technically, I had met them last night, since we were now into the early hours of morning.
For the life of me, I couldn’t keep their names straight. And I wasn’t even drunk yet.
Okay … so maybe I was a little drunk.
I kept calling Tamás, István. Or was that András? Oh well. They were all hot with dark hair and eyes, and they knew four words in English as far as I could tell.
American. Beautiful. Drink. Dance.
As far as I was concerned, those were the only words they needed to know. At least I remembered Katalin’s name. I’d met her a few days ago, and we’d hung out almost every night since. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. She showed me around Budapest, and I charged most of our fun on Daddy’s credit card. Not like he would notice or care. And if he did, he’d always said that if money didn’t buy happiness, then people were spending it wrong.
Thanks for the life lessons, Daddy.
“Kelsey,” Katalin said, her accent thick and exotic. Damn, why couldn’t I have one of those? I’d had a slight Texas twang when I was younger, but my years in theatre had all but beat that out of me. She said, “Welcome to the ruin bars.”
Ruin bars.
I paused in ruffling István’s hair (or the one I called István anyway) to take in where we were. We stood on an empty street filled with dilapidated buildings. I knew the whole don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover thing; but in the dark, this place was straight out of a zombie apocalypse. I wondered how to say brains in Hungarian.
The old Jewish quarter. That’s where Katalin said we were going.
Oy vey.
It sure as hell didn’t look to me like there were any bars around here. I took in the sketchy neighborhood, and thought at least I’d gotten laid last night. If I was going to get chopped into tiny pieces, at least I’d go out with a bang. Literally.
I laughed and almost recounted my thoughts to my companions, but I was pretty sure it would get lost in translation. Especially because I was starting to question even Katalin’s grip on the English language, if this was what “bar” meant to her.
I pointed to a grungy building devoid of any signs or address and said, “Drink?” Then mimed the action just to be safe.