Wannabe: An Against The Odds Novel

by Christa DeClue

  Copyright © 2020 Christa DeClue

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced without the author’s written consent

  Trigger Warning

  This book contains mature themes that some might find triggering. It also contains foul-mouthed characters. There are scenes that depict violence and overdoses that some readers might find distressing. Continue at your own risk.

  Table of Contents

  Amber

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Bonus Chapter

  Bonus Chapter Two

  About the Author

  To everyone who loved Pickpocket. Thanks for continuing this journey with me.

  Mom and Jim, thank you for being the best parents I could ask for.

  Acknowledgments

  These don’t seem to get easier. My second novel, I can hardly believe it. I said it last time and I’ll say it again, it certainly takes a village. My village, however, keeps growing. This process was a lot shorter than the last time, but still a process none-the-less. My main characters are special to me, each book; each glimpse inside my head is like telling all my secrets. I hope that you loved this book as much, if not more, than the first. I hope you continue to come on my writing journey with me.

  Enough about me, let’s get down to all the people who deserve a lot more recognition than I could ever give. Firstly, to my family for always supporting me. I know writing romance sometimes makes me the butt of the jokes, but never with you all. I love you very much for how proud you are of me. Mom, thank you for reading the book, even though the ‘steamy parts’ made you uncomfortable. Jim, thank you for bragging on me every chance you get. I’m so glad to be both of your daughter.

  Amber and Savannah, my beta readers, my true ride or dies, I’m so grateful that you tell me honestly when something is terrible, or when something resonates. My writing wouldn’t go anywhere if I didn’t have you two pushing me and keeping me at it. Amber, I’m sorry there aren’t more vampires for you though, maybe one day.

  Todd and Sabrina, you both have been a continuous support system. I’m so lucky to be your employee, even though it feels more like I’m family. The environment you created when you opened Vin’Tij, is an environment I will never stop being grateful for. I feel creative and loved when I’m there and I owe you so much more than gratitude. Without you two, I know this book would have taken a lot longer than it did.

  Next, my work family, thank you so much for throwing me a release party the first time around. Brooke and Amaris, it was such a welcome surprise. I forget how special I am to people until you all do something like that for me. Thank you for creating a book club, just to read my book. Thank you for marketing it by telling all the customers about it. I am so grateful to call you all my friends. Your support, all of you, means the world to me.

  My street ladies, especially Christi, thank you for helping me before I even knew I needed ‘street ladies’. You all have given me honest feedback and I need more of that in my life.

  Cara and BT, I learned so much from you both. I couldn’t have done this one on my own, without the guidance you showed me the first time around. Seriously, you both are rockstars. I couldn’t say enough good things about you both.

  Golden Czermack, you really are the cover master. Thank you for another kickass cover. I don’t think I’d be able to bring my characters to life without the help of one of your photos.

  Jenn Wood and All About the Edits, another rockstar in this industry. Thank you for letting me pester you with all sorts of questions, and for polishing my second baby.

  Christy and Glenn, I appreciate you letting me call anytime to talk about my books. I am so thankful to have such great friends that lift me up no matter how down I am. Thank you for being so proud of the woman I’m becoming, of the writer I’m becoming. New York is going to be a blast!

  Helene Cuji and all the people at the Iamabookhoarder facebook group, thank you for welcoming me into the fold and for all of the support I have received from you.

  To all of my ARC readers, thank you for taking the time to read and review this one. I hope this one doesn’t disappoint.

  To Theresa Hissong and all of my peeps from IRC, thank you for taking a new author under your wings, I learned so much about this business from you and I’m so excited to go back and learn more. I owe you one!

  Ryan, thank you for putting up with all of my writing days and nights in my hidey hole. Thank you for not really understanding the book world but supporting me anyway. Thank you for giving me space to be creative whenever I need it. I love you.

  Lastly, to my readers, from the bottom of my black heart, thank you for coming on this journey with me, again. Thank you for loving the first book nearly as much as I do. I sincerely hope this book is just as loved. A little secret, is I think it’s better. Amber and Ryan are not better than Zaydra and Collin; they just had more to say. I hope after this book that you want to continue to bet against the odds with me. As long as you do, I do too.

  Love, Me.

  One Year Ago: Amber

  My thighs feel like popsicles. It is surprisingly chilly for springtime. Well, that, or wearing dresses made by Baby Gap just doesn’t provide the warmth I thought they would. My girls are starting to get a wee bit nippily too, which means I’m pretty sure you can see my nipples through this dress. Who knows, maybe that’ll help me get my first customer. That’s what dressing skimpy in weather colder than a well digger’s ass is all about, right? Showing off the goods so these people will buy the cow? Or maybe it was something about chugging milk freely? I can’t remember because my brain feels like it’s as frozen as my poor lady bits.

  From my vantage point leaning against the corner of this building, I can see all the comings and goings on Broadway Street. There are couples, happy and gallivanting hand in hand. There are a multitude of businessmen rushing down the street, talking into their phones, mostly about stocks and cheating on their wives. All the while, everyone is giving me a wide berth. After all, nobody talks to the prostitute on the street corner unless it’s about buying her services. Well, I guess I should say a wannabe prostitute. That’s a better term for what I am, since tonight is my first night. Hence the short purple mesh dress I’m wearing. I have my honey-blonde hair up in a messy ponytail, with heavy eye makeup, and sky-high heels on. I certainly look the part, and I should, since I’ve spent the last three months dancing over at Dark Angels, which everyone tells me is a mere step below prostitution. Those people are just judgmental dildos though.

  I’m scanning the street, ke
eping my eyes peeled for walking dollar signs. After all, a girl’s gotta eat. My eyes clash with Claudia’s and I inwardly cringe. She looks angry—well, as angry as a crackhead with wild eyes can. I start smacking my gum in agitation, not giving away an inch of the corner I’m taking up. Claudia is not a nice person. I met her when she danced at Dark Angels, right when I first started. She looks like a ghost of her former self, and I seemed to have caught her ire tonight. I’m trying to steadily ignore her, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see her make her way towards me. I heave an inward sigh. I’m not trying to get into a cat fight tonight. I just got my nails done, and if she really wants to throw down, this dress is short enough everybody might see my hoo-ha for free, which, as you can imagine, is unacceptable. I continue to casually lean with my arms crossed; that way I can try to warm up the girls for a moment.

  Claudia grabs my arm and whirls me around to face her. “Didn’t I tell you not to come out here? This street isn’t for girls like you. We’re out here trying to make a living and you’re scaring away customers, cuz you look like a cop in a dress. You need to go somewhere else. Now. I ain’t gonna tell you again,” she hisses at me with spit flying towards my face.

  I take in her red, haggard face. Claudia would probably be a pretty girl if she laid off the drugs, but due to her consistent use, her brown hair is limp and stringy around her shoulders, she is deathly skinny with dark circles around her watery blue eyes, and she has too many track marks up and down her arms. She looks closer to fifty than the thirty she once told me she was.

  “Claudia, lovebug, I’m not a cop. Just because I don’t wanna do blow with you doesn’t mean I can’t hustle the same street. Broadway is a big street. Go to the other side if you can’t stand to be around me. I’m trying to earn a living, same as you. You’re being a real Debbie Downer on my first day. We used to share customers at Dark Angels all the time, stop being stingy. If anybody is scaring off customers, it’s you, being all growly. Let’s both make some money tonight, ’kay?” I tell her sweetly, fluttering my false eyelashes at her and blowing her a kiss. Playing up the dumb blonde thing I have going on, I slowly peel her fingers from my arm.

  She shoves me as hard as she can, which doesn’t move me because she’s about as strong as a sick toddler, and she saunters across the street with the other working girls who won’t give me the time of day. I didn’t realize making friends with the seasoned girls would be this hard. It really is making me feel like a wannabe. I just roll my eyes at all the women glaring my way. I really should go home, this night isn’t shaping up to be anything I wanted, but my mama didn’t raise a quitter.

  Feeling a fire burning in my belly to prove to these women I’m one of them, I start throwing flirtatious glances to every half decent male that walks by. I push myself up from the building I’m leaning on to be further in the light of the street, in case any drivers want to see about a date. “Damn, baby, you wanna come home with daddy? I’ll take real good care of your fine ass,” a voice says from behind me, and if I roll my eyes any harder, they might really get stuck like that, like my mama used to say.

  “Fuck off, Ricky, I’m working here. You and I both know you don’t have any money. Go harass Stacy or Claudia; maybe they’ll entertain you or your shrimp dick,” I say with more than a little disgust. My knowledge of the short, fat man in front of me is only from what some of the girls at Dark Angels told me before he got himself banned for coming in his pants while getting a lap dance, and then trying to insist the girl clean him up. With her mouth. Douchenozzle.

  “What’s the matter, Honey? You’re being more of a stuck-up bitch than normal. I’m just trying to show you a good time,” Ricky says, using my stage name, while grabbing his crotch and gesturing lewdly at me. He quickly goes for me again and grabs me by the arm in a bruising grip. I try to break his hold, but his fingers tighten.

  “Let go of me, Ricky, or I’ll rip your nutsack off,” I hiss at him. He just laughs, so I bring my knee up and rack him. He doubles over and groans. Not quite ripping his nutsack off, but it got his hands off me. I straighten my dress and bend to fix my fishnets before I start to march away in the opposite direction of Ricky and his mini dick. While I’m bent over, I feel a breeze coming at me, so I sidestep and his fist misses me by a hair’s breadth. I turn and gape at him. “Were you trying to cooter punch me from behind, Ricky?” I ask him incredulously.

  He mumbles, “Fucking bitch,” so I kick him in the side, hard, and he goes down in a heap. What kind of asshole tries to punch a lady in her girly bits? These guys in St. Louis are unbelievable. It takes everything in me not to spit on him too, but some of us have class, and by some of us, I mean the non-cooter punching people.

  “That was really impressive,” a smooth voice says from right behind me. My whole body pauses, even my breathing, because that voice makes me think of smoke and sex. My poor little kitty perks right up. I slowly turn and take in this sex on a stick in front of me.

  This man is clean-cut and wearing expensive clothes, with jet-black hair and the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s tan and tall, maybe six foot four, because he’s taller than me in my five inch heels and I’m five eight without them. He’s leaning against a light pole, staring at me, and the huddled mess that is Ricky behind me. When I don’t immediately respond to the God of Sex in front of me, he tries again.

  “The way you handled that waste of space was impressive. I was about to intervene when he tried to hit you, but you had it under control,” he says, and I flip my ponytail while looking up at him from under my lashes. My smoldering sexy face—also my constipated face but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Of course I did. I’m a certified badass. I’m Amber, the destroyer of men and protector of kittens,” I say smugly to Eros over here, and he just shakes his head and pushes himself off the light pole with feline grace. I wipe my face with the back of one hand, just in case I’m drooling. He takes in my movement with eyes that miss nothing. He comes closer to me with no sound belying his movement, and it makes my pussy wet. Danger has always been attractive to me, but the sane part of me backs up just a step.

  “Well, Miss Certified Badass, I’m looking for a date tonight. Would you happen to be interested?” he asks lowly with nonchalance that leaves me momentarily stupefied.

  I feel my lips part because getting a customer couldn’t be that easy. Especially someone who looks like this man, and for my first customer. He isn’t the type to ever have to pay for a date. My eyes lower to his jean-clad crotch—he’s probably packing Mighty Mouse in his pants, if he’s resorting to prostitutes to find a date. Or he might cry after sex like one of my exes did.

  I must visibly shudder, because he says, “Or not. I meant no offense if you’re not looking to make some money tonight, or if that’s not what you’re about, I apologize.” He’s staring at me with a strangely intense look on his handsome face.

  “You couldn’t afford me, and you haven’t even told me your name. I’m a classy lady, after all,” I tell him with a wink. He looks at me for a long moment. I feel myself fidget, and I keep crossing and uncrossing my arms because now my nipples are hard for a reason other than the cold.

  “Name your price, classy lady. I guarantee we can reach an arrangement. My name is Ryan, and if you come up with a number, I’ll give you the ride of your life,” he says after a moment with a wink.

  My pulse picks up and I wet my lips. I want this stranger regardless of the money. But my face shows none of this. I just smirk at him and keep him on the hook for a hot minute by pretending to study my new manicure. Finally, I open my mouth.

  “A thousand per hour, sweets,” I say and purse my lips, fully intent on calling his bluff.

  He full-blown grins at me the moment the words are out of my mouth. He then pulls out a wad of hundred-dollar bills, and I watch with growing surprise as he counts out a thousand. I raise my head slightly to see Claudia and the other girls watching me like a hawk, shock evident on their faces. I want
to stick my tongue out at them. Jealous witches. He holds out the bills to me, and I reach out my hand and take them, making sure the girls have a good line of sight to see me do this. After the money hits my hand, my surprise grows as he puts a handcuff on my wrist.

  “I don’t know what you think you just bought, but I’m not really into the Christian Grey shit, and I have no interest in seeing your Red Room of Pain. The hot ones are always freaks, dammit.” I say the last part mostly to myself, when he pulls out a badge. “Ohhhh, is this a role play fantasy? I can get behind a hot cop and criminal fetish. Yessss, boo. That makes me all slip-n-slide in my lady bits.”

  He just looks at me and shakes his head. “Ma’am, you’re under arrest for solicitation. The only place you’re going with me, is to the precinct to be booked,” he tells me with an edge to his tone.

  I must have a bewildered look on my face, trying to figure out if he’s serious, because he’s got a muscle ticking in his jaw, the same jaw I no longer want to lick. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other girls scatter as they cackle, and that’s when I realize I’m being arrested for real. He cuffs my other hand to its partner behind my back. Ryan starts to lead me to a black sedan I didn’t notice before, which has another plain-clothed male with a badge around his neck seated in the passenger seat.

  “When you told me you were taking me for the ride of my life, this is not what I had in mind. I wasn’t soliciting, I was just teasing. This is a big misunderstanding. I’m not a prostitute, I’m a dancer. I can twerk like nobody’s business. If you uncuff me, I’ll show you,” I plead, not aware in the slightest of the crap that is coming out of my mouth. Also, I’m just realizing I slightly propositioned a police officer, twice. Mental face palm.

  “As tempting as that offer is, no. You accepted the money after I asked you specifically for a date. You gave me a price, and I paid you. Hence the solicitation. You’re going to jail,” he tells me coldly.

  His personality flipped a complete one eighty from the charming guy he was moments ago. I bare my teeth at him and his eyes narrow. He jerks open the back door of the sedan and puts a hand on my head to ease me inside.