I Read Indie: ONE TINY LIE by K.A. Tucker Feature Tour {Excerpt/Giveaway}

Livie has always been the stable one of the two Cleary sisters, handling her parents' tragic death and Kacey's self-destructive phase with strength and maturity. But underneath that exterior is a little girl hanging onto the last words her father ever spoke to her. “Make me proud,” he had said. She promised she would...and she’s done her best over the past seven years with every choice, with every word, with every action.

Livie walks into Princeton with a solid plan, and she’s dead set on delivering on it: Rock her classes, set herself up for medical school, and meet a good, respectable guy that she’s going to someday marry. What isn’t part of her plan are Jell-O shots, a lovable, party animal roommate she can’t say ‘no’ to, and Ashton, the gorgeous captain of the men’s rowing team. Definitely him. He’s an arrogant ass who makes Livie’s usually non-existent temper flare and everything she doesn’t want in a guy. Worse, he’s best friends and roommates with Connor, who happens to fits Livie’s criteria perfectly. So why does she keep thinking about Ashton?

As Livie finds herself facing mediocre grades, career aspirations she no longer thinks she can handle, and feelings for Ashton that she shouldn’t have, she’s forced to let go of her last promise to her father and, with it, the only identity that she knows.

“Look, about Saturday night… Can we just pretend it never happened?” he asks, sliding his hands into his pockets.

My mouth drops for a second as my brain replays those words. The words I’ve been playing over and over in my own head for the last three days. Can I? I’d like to. It would make it easier if I could just press a Delete button on all the images that still blaze in my head, making me suddenly blush and lose focus on…everything. “Sure,” I say with a smile. “Well . . . as long as we can get my sister and Reagan to pretend as well.”

One arm lifts to rub the back of his head, pulling his shirt tighter against his chest, enough that I can see the curves. The ones I had my hands all over. “Yeah, well, I figure your sister can’t cause too much trouble, being from out of town.”

“No, she can’t,” I agree. She can just randomly text me pictures of a chubby bald man holding a tattoo gun to your ass, like she did yesterday. I promptly erased it, but I’m sure that’s not the last of them.

“And Reagan won’t say a word,” I hear Ashton say. Dropping his arm to his side, he looks off in the distance, muttering more to himself, “She’s good like that.”

“Okay, great, well . . .” Maybe I can just put all this behind me and get back to being me. Livie Cleary. Future doctor. Good girl.

Ashton looks back at my face, his eyes dropping to my lips for a second, likely because I’m chewing on the bottom one so much I’m about to gnaw it off. I feel as though I should say something more. “I hardly remember it, so . . .” I let my voice drift off as I deliver that lie with a degree of coolness that surprises me. And impresses me.

His head tilts to the side and he looks off again, as if deep in thought. Then an amused grin touches his lips. “I’ve never had a girl tell me that before.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of my mouth as I look down to study his sneakers, feeling like I’ve finally scored a point. Livie: one. Mortifying conversation: a million. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

His low, throaty laugh pulls my attention back up to see twinkling eyes. He’s shaking his head as if thinking of a private joke.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just . . .” There’s a pause, as though he’s not sure whether he should say it or not. In the end, he decides to, delivering my pinnacle of humiliation with a wide grin. “You had a lot of firsts that night, Irish. You kept pointing each one out.”

I can’t keep the strangled sound from escaping, as if I’m dying. Which I might be, given my heart just stopped beating. I don’t know whether my arms slackened or I actually threw them in the air to cover my gasp, but somehow I’ve lost the death grip I had on my textbooks. They end up scattered all over the grass. Right next to the last shred of my dignity.

I practically collapse to collect my books as I rack my brain. The problem is, I don’t remember talking to Ashton a whole lot. And I certainly don’t remember pointing out all my—

That stupid vault opens up in my brain, just enough to let another explicit memory slip out. A flash of that brick wall against my back and Ashton against my front and my legs wrapped around his waist and him pressing against me. And me, whispering in his ear that I’ve never felt that before and how it’s harder than I thought it would be…

“Ohmigod,” I moan, clutching my stomach. I’m sure I’m going to be sick. I’m going to become an exhibitionist vomiter.

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Born in small-town Ontario, Kathleen published her first book at the age of six with the help of her elementary school librarian and a box of crayons. She is a voracious reader and the farthest thing from a genre-snob, loving everything from High Fantasy to Chick Lit. Kathleen currently resides in a quaint small town outside of Toronto with her husband, two beautiful girls, and an exhausting brood of four-legged creatures.