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    Leather and Lace
    Leather and Lace
    Leather and Lace
    Ebook83 pages1 hour

    Leather and Lace

    By Lydia Westing

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Grace was kicked out of her extremely religious family when she decided to flee her loveless engagement to go to college. Isolated from her large family by her parent’s anger, she found herself drawn into a new sisterhood: The Ruby City Rollers, a small Midwestern roller derby team previously ranked 250 in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. On the day she officially makes the team, she also finds herself drawn closer to the cute ref she’s had a crush on forever.

    Leather and Lace is a collection of romance stories featuring the members of The Ruby City Rollers. With a new coach and a fresh batch of players, will the small team achieve big things this season? Or will they get too distracted by all of the fun, flings, and real romances they experience along the way?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateMay 30, 2020
    ISBN9781094410791
    Author

    Lydia Westing

    Lydia Westing is usually a comedy and pop-culture writer for websites like Reductress, Bunny Ears, Cracked, and The Modern Rogue. She has a small dog and a large husband, and they all live together in Nashville, Tennessee. She played roller derby for several different teams on and off for over five years. She’s much better at writing than she ever was at roller derby.

    Read more from Lydia Westing

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    Reviews for Leather and Lace

    4/5

    19 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A cute little collection of love stories of different members of the team. A quick and sweet read that did exactly what I wanted it to. I liked some stories better than others - due to personal preferences for tropes and their relatability to me - but I thought that they were all entertaining and fun to read. I would recommend to those looking for a quick collection of romantic stories!
    • 5/5
      For such a great story, a lot of audience must read your book. You can publish your work on NovelStar Mobile App

    Book preview

    Leather and Lace - Lydia Westing

    Part 1: The New Girl

    Grace was so sick of tangling with her hair, pun fully intended. Putting it up for practice was the worst part of her day. Twisting it, and twisting it, then rolling it into a bun and securing it with two hair ties and as many bobby pins as she could scavenge. She thought once again about cutting it, but that would just be another thing further separating her from the rest of her family. She imagined that they might invite her over for dinner some night to talk and if she showed up still looking how they wanted her to look, dressing how they wanted her to dress, well, then maybe everything would be OK again.

    Not that she wanted things to be OK exactly, at least not their version of OK. The only OK life for Grace, according to her parents, was one where she married a man that her father approved of and spent the rest of her life popping out baby after baby. She hadn’t wanted that for herself, so she’d chosen a different path.

    She’d gotten a full scholarship to Illinois State University and worked in the school cafeteria to afford rent. Her parents had kicked her out with absolutely nothing, but her sister Hymn had smuggled her a suitcase of clothing and a few books to start her new life. Now, three years later, she was gearing up for her final semester of college, and she was getting ready to do something that would make her family shun her forever if they knew about it. She was trying out for a roller-derby team.

    Her roommate, Kandice, burst into the bathroom with a bottle of cheap champagne in her hand. I got the job at the cell-phone store! she squealed. Kandice had been her roommate since freshman year. She too was a scholarship kid with no family, but for different reasons. They rented a small apartment together in a town close to the university where rent was super cheap.

    It’s ten a.m., Kandice, Grace chided.

    Kandice rolled her eyes and shoved the champagne bottle toward Grace. Come on, you need to calm your nerves before the tryouts. Will that cute ref be there?

    We’re scrimmaging, so, yes, I imagine Berto will be there.

    Rrrrroberto, Kandice replied, rolling the R dramatically and shaking her hips. Don’t call him Berto, that doesn’t sound nearly as romantic.

    I usually call him Birdo like everyone else. That’s his derby name.

    You mean like the pink dinosaur from Mario?

    Grace shrugged. Most of pop culture was lost on her. Her parents had even banned VeggieTales because they didn’t want the girls getting any ideas about Larry the Cucumber.

    Don’t make me nervous about Berto today, OK? I’m already nervous about joining the team.

    You’re nervous about tryouts? Why? I thought they said you were one of the best jammers they’d ever seen?

    I’m very good, Grace replied with a shy smile. Her entire life, she’d been taught to be humble above all else, but that was friggin’ lame, so she didn’t mind when Kandice demanded that she learn to take a compliment. I’m not nervous about making the team. I’m nervous about… what if my family finds out? They’ll never let me come home.

    Kandice softened and put the champagne bottle down. Grace, it’s been almost four years now. I know it’s hard, sweetie, but if they haven’t reached out by this point, I think you need to start preparing yourself for the possibility that they never will. Today is a big day. Today you decide if you’re going to keep one foot in the past or skate into a new life. If your family did want you back, I don’t think it would be on your terms, sweetie. They would want you to go back to how you were before, and do you think you can really do that now?

    Grace thought about giving up all of the little joys she’d found at college: drinking Coca-Cola, swearing, wearing yoga pants, masturbating. Her unruly hair popped the hair tie she’d been trying to wrap around it and snapped hard against her arm.

    Gosh-dang it, I’m so sick of this hair! she yelled.

    Hey, isn’t Rrrrrroberto a barber? Maybe he could cut it for you?

    He cuts boy hair, not girl hair, Kandice, and he has tattoos, and he dated Tess LaCoil, the prettiest, most popular, punk-rockest girl on the team, so even if I could get up the courage to talk to him there’s no way he would be interested in a girl like me, OK? So will you please just drop it?

    Kandice held her hand up in surrender. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. She pulled Grace into a quick hug from behind. Good luck today. I know you’ll make whatever decision is right for you.

    This was the magic of Kandice. She pushed her boundaries but never disrespected her when she was uncomfortable, or made her feel stupid about how sheltered she was. She let Grace grow at her own speed, and now Grace was going to grow into the newest member of the Ruby City Rollers.

    Section Break

    The warehouse where Ruby City practiced always smelled like soybeans from a nearby processing plant. It was hot and humid, but Grace loved it like a second home.

    Grace aced the beginning of the tryout, jumping the apex, skating thirty laps in five minutes, swerving and juking around cones with ease, skating backward, sideways, on one foot. Skating came naturally to her. She’d always had great balance. On occasion, her family had visited a local skating rink together as a treat. She hadn’t been allowed to skate too fast or do any fancy tricks back then, but coming in with a basic knowledge of skating had helped.

    Now it was scrimmage time, and she was kicking ass. A power blocker tried to sweep into her from the outside of the track, and she deftly hopped out of the way, sending the girl careening into a ref.

    She passed two girls from the opposing team, gaining two points for hers, and looked to the bench. CALL IT! Cheese Whiz, her bench coach, screamed. She motioned to end the jam,

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