Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Grappling with a storm in his heart and feeling like a general failure, Carl Birch flees his problems at home and swaps lives with his ‘successful’ twin brother. Stepping into the shoes of an accomplished professional pianist adored by the locals feels like a breath of fresh air: he’s revered, admired, and described as ‘talented’ for the first time ever.
It feels good, but it’s also complicated. He can’t actually play the piano to save himself, and everyone he meets wants him to play, and teach, and tune, and give motivational speeches at school assembly . . .
If that’s not enough, the local heartbreaker has his dark, judgy eyes on him—eyes that seem to know. But also to understand. And, vexingly, to suspect Carl has joined the hordes of groupies swooning after him!
To get out of this spiraling mess, Carl will have to face things—both at home, and in his heart.
Buckle up, Capricorn. You’re about to undertake a journey of heart, mind, and courageous spirit.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Carl had never thought of himself as a Dead-End Dude, but he’d heard it from an out-of-town customer upset that his selection of magazines ‘lacked journalistic integrity’, and now he couldn’t quite forget it.
Dead-End Dude. He ran his own convenience store, thankyouverymuch. It had regularly replenished refrigerated drinks and a dairy section, there was a bread and cereal aisle, junk food for on the go, all your bathroom and kitchen whatever, and everything a pet owner would ever need, from anti-flea drips to oversize dog kennels.
Dead-End Dude.
He was practically a lifesaver in his curtain-twitching hometown. How many cakes had he saved with his fresh-from-the-farm eggs? And how much more miserable would the keen-eyed, hardworking policemen of Earnest Point be without his cream donuts? That really benefited everyone. Especially those like himself, who might leave their bike a little too close to a fire hydrant every so often. Or ride too fast on the footpath. Or forget their helmet. Or draw a picture of a yawning cat on a lamppost—which should totally be excusable if it makes a crying girl with pigtails laugh again.
Dead End . . .
Carl shook his head and flipped the pages of the mag he was browsing through till he reached the horoscopes. See! Capricorn was the least Dead-End-Dude of the entire zodiac. Practical. Determined. Hardworking. Protective.
Jobs most suitable for a Capricorn: Accountant. He absolutely kept his own books. And updated them every month with his trusty four-colour biro and a highlighter.
Lawyer—he might as well be one considering the times he’d weaselled his way out of fines at the local precinct.
School Hall Monitor—oh, he had to keep an eye on the kids all right. They loved trying to get away with potbellies made of lollies, or attempting to buy beer with straggly moustaches.
Sisyphus—haha, totally him. He’d run this store day in, day out since he was eighteen. That was eight whole years, and there’d be another eighty.
Nothing about that screamed Dead-End Dude.
‘Journalist integrity’. Honestly, who wanted to keep dosing themselves into depression? It was to everyone’s benefit that his magazines focused on practical matters—farming, horsing, gardening, food, fashion, fun. This was him protecting—top Capricorn trait—his fellow Earnest Pointers.
Also, not only did he have job stability and was his own boss, he had friends and family. He drank occasionally with beer buddies, regularly visited his aunt who posed as his mum, and bonded with his mum who pretended to be his cousin. Wasn’t that some crazy-sounding roundabout? Dead-End Dude. “Absolute rubbish.”
“What’s rubbish?”
Carl lifted his head to his cousin (his real mum who didn’t know he knew that and wouldn’t ever as far as he was concerned) rushing towards him in a whirl of colour and lipstick. The smooch smacked the dimple of his grin, and she snatched the mag out of his hands.
“Ohh, this part sounds promising. ‘Single Capricorns might have an increased desire for a permanent, fully committed relationship’.” She dropped the mag on the counter and her gaze veered left. A sparkle hit her eye. “What’s with the doghouse next to the counter here? Why does it have a big, floppy bow on it?”
Carl smirked. That was another thing. He not only had this store, friends and family, he had a boyfriend.
He moved to the kennel, patted the top of the fake-ceramic-tiled roof, and pointed inside. “My future.”
“Is in the doghouse?”
“Yeah.” He grinned and waved her in to see how awesome it all looked.
She came back out bouncing on her heels and gave him their special high-five-flick. “That’s way cooler than a velvet box.”
Carl threaded his fingers through his hair. “I want to surprise Pete when he finally gets back from uni this afternoon. It’s been too long, this distance schtick. I’m ready for settling. He mentioned not being sure about where he’d stay last week—this solves that. He can move in with me.”