Overexposed

by Amelia Oliver

  Growing up an only child, I want eight kids. When we’d talked about having a family, and I’d mentioned that fact to her, Piper had laughed her arse off. Then she’d kissed me and told me to get the fuck out of her half of our house and find some other sucker to be my baby factory incubator. Truthfully, I don’t care how many we’re blessed with, I’m just over the bloody moon that our first will be arriving in seven and a half months time.

  Our parents are the only ones who know about the baby. I want to tell Rash and Jackie, even though I suspect Jackie already knows given some of Piper’s favourite deli meats and cheeses have suddenly disappeared from our usual fortnightly online grocery cart. Piper says it’s too early to tell anyone else in case something happens. I know she’s right of course. But at the time we’d talked about it, it was my turn to laugh my arse off at her. I’d told her to fucking clue in, she was carrying our kid, hers and mine. Given that stubborn little miracle had decided to circumvent her birth control to come into the world, nothing bad was going to happen.

  Yelling at me for jinxing us by saying that, Piper had then informed me that given I was intent on, and I quote, “dicking her senseless on any day ending with a Y”, that her birth control could only be expected to do so much. She’d had a point, so I’d apologised for unintentionally jinxing us, which I didn’t believe for a minute, and then ‘dicked her senseless’ until she forgave me. Good times.

  Incredibly, my love for Piper has only grown in the past year. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I think because it’s a living thing I feel in my soul everyday, I know that it is.

  I’d asked her to marry me one week and two days after she’d arrived in London, repurposing the night I’d planned dinner at 135 to propose. Three months later, we were married in a small ceremony on the balcony of our new home, surrounded by our family and closest friends. Afterwards we’d had a luau type feast on the beach, something I’d arranged as a surprise for my girl.

  Like her, the day was perfect.

  Clicking the remote to open the front gate to our place, I’m in my Audi A5 convertible and drumming my fingers on the wheel to the demo music Piper nicks from her dad. Waiting for the sodding thing to slide back far enough for me to enter, my phone pings with a new message. Eager to get inside, I wait until I pull up in front of the garage to read it.

  Bubble:

  I can see you, husband.

  I found your note in my diary today. Pervert.

  I suggest if you want me to do that to you tonight, there’d better be a pint of chocolate coconut rough in your hands when you come inside.

  X

  Gazing up at the large bay window that overlooks the driveway, I see my girl standing there. So fucking beautiful, her chestnut hair longer than when we’d first met, it curls softly against her neck, sitting just below her collarbones. Kaleidoscope eyes alight with mischief, her chin is tipped up as though daring me to deny her.

  I doubt the engine had even stopped ticking when I punched the ignition back on and reversed out of that bloody driveway like my arse was on fire.

  I really wanted her to do that tonight.

  And, I had plans for that coconut rough ice cream, too.

  THE END

  Although…if you’d like a glimpse into book three of the Client Liaisons Series, swipe right.

  COMING SOON

  Rebel

  Shoving the last of my hot pocket into my mouth, ok, the last of my second hot pocket into my mouth, I roll it around on my tongue, sucking in cold air at the same time. Those little fuckers are quick and flavorsome when you get home late, but they’re also like chewing lava balls.

  Dropping my plate to the top of the outdoor table on my postage stamp sized balcony, I walk back over to the edge. Pressing my belly firmly against the cold metal railing atop the glass below, I twist out and look up into the sky.

  Damn the L.A. smog, the wind tonight ensuring it’s carried a blanket to mute my normally decent sky view. Decent, but not great. Living in a one-bedroom apartment in Calabasas, if I wanted great, all I needed to do was hop my ass to the Malibu Creek State Park, something I did a few times a month at least. The views from up there were awe-inspiring, but I got home from work too late tonight and I want to be in the office early in the morning.

  And when I say early, I’m talking ass crack of dawn early. Like Piper and Cassie early, and those two nut-jobs think nothing of getting up before five a.m. Respectively, one to ride the waves and the other to ride a horse or some shit, but more likely to ride their tasty men. Not that I can fault them for that, but I’m more of a night owl.

  Unable to get my fix of mother-nature’s finest, the stars, I grab my empty plate and move back into my open plan living room-dining room-kitchen, leaving the sliding glass door open to let some fresh air in. I stick my plate in the dishwasher and make myself a cup of peppermint tea.

  There’s a buzz around me, an unexplainable energy I feel thrumming through me. Ok, maybe not unexplainable, but questionable to me in a way. I’ve recently become rather obsessed with something and in turn that makes me happy, downright giddy if I’m being honest. And if the rumors are true then I feel like it’s my destiny to take the client since this obsession correlated harmoniously with this possible new job.

  I make sure I have my tea and anything else I need before sitting down, because once I dive in I won’t be coming up for air anytime soon, bladder be damned. With my urine tank emptied and tea in hand, I cross the short distance and flop onto my sofa.

  Tucking my legs up next to me, I lean into the oversized arm and reach over it to fish my phone and ear buds out of my purse beside me.

  Why do I need ear buds when I live alone you ask?

  Because that’s how I roll, and it makes what I am about to do so much better. Like, waaaay better.

  I get the attraction of big screens and surround sound and subwoofers and all that shit…if you’re caught up in proving how big your dick is. When I’m home, I like my viewing experience personal, as in my phone screen in my hand and the sound directly in my ears. All the better for one-handed viewing, you feel me?

  Set to go, first things first, I tap through my lockscreen and hit up the usual suspects, but with a single-minded focus, I’m only binging on my fave accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, sending a few particularly clit-twitching morsels to Piper and Ryver.

  By the time I get to YouTube, I’ve finished my tea, turned off my lamps and burrowed further into the sofa, lying sideways as I prepare to indulge on what I’ve been denying myself of all day.

  Ignoring all my subscriptions and my inbox, I go straight to my saved playlist, which contains no less than 1.1k of videos. I told you I was obsessed, don’t judge me, this playlist fits my specific need and is not to be denied. Selecting one of my favorite crack compilations, everything in the world ceases to exist for me but the face, and it has to be said, the body, of the man filling my screen.

  His voice, his laughter, his smile, his pout, his intensity when he dances, his stupidly melodic voice when he sings – all of it sets me alight.

  I’ve had obsessions before; this is not new territory, but not in this way. Never in the way I feel about him. I’m not insane, the cheese hasn’t slid off my cracker, but even though I know that’s how it sounds, I’ll be honest…I don’t really give a fuck.

  Clearly with new uploads daily, not only from the group and their team, but the fans with compilations, news, and gossip, it’s in my face everywhere I go, on every social media platform, all just there waiting for my greedy hands, eyes and brain to absorb. I blame them for my hunger…and him.

  I hold him close to my face, close enough that were he real and not an image of exquisitely formed pixels behind glass, I’d feel his breath against my lips. The compilation switches clips, and it’s a close up of him doing warm up vocals before going on stage. He’s not looking at the camera, so it feels like a private moment, as his voice builds slowly through the notes. He moves his shirt-covered ar
ms around him as he paces, the fat, worm like veins of his forearms and the backs of his hands showing from beneath the rolled sleeves. His fingers are long and thick as they grip handheld mic, dancing around the cylindrical object as his lips tease the ball like cap at the end.

  The lyrics leaving his lips fill my ears, like they are intended for me only, and I’ve never heard anything more beautiful in my life.

  I scream with my mouth closed, the feelings of ‘too much’ and ‘overwhelming girliness’ that come over me are hard to handle, he’s too fucking everything and I can’t deal. The combination of watching and hearing him sends a wave of heat deep into my belly, radiating out into my body, completely sensitising my flesh.

  I close my eyes as his voice peaks, the strength of the note obvious in the softness with which he releases it, like it’s a breath, and a shiver runs the length of my spine.

  Not that there was any doubt, but watching as his eyes lift to the camera, lift to mine, and feeling his smile as he realizes he was being filmed, I know with certainty that what I plan to do in the morning is serendipitous, but also absolutely the right thing.

  Releasing a big breath, I press pause, and with my buds still in my ears, open my Spotify playlist for sleeping. Standing I walk over to my patio to close and lock the door, but a gust of wind hits me, and I see the smog has lifted. Walking out to the edge once more, I move to my telescope, ‘Come say Hello’ by Superhumanoids playing in my ears as I close one eye and look up into magnified space.

  My insides are keyed up from my videos, my thoughts racing about all the points I want to bring up to Sawyer, as I’ll be begging for the account I want in the morning. I’ll have to figure out what to do with my apartment, have dinner with my parents before I leave, get everything settled with my clients. Nothing I can’t handle, and if I get the account I’ll be on cloud nine anyway.

  I’ve never wanted something so badly, the job and well, him. The moment I saw them by randomly stumbling around YouTube, I knew I was meant to find them. I connected to the music instantly, the dancing, the beauty, and yes, specifically to him. It’s so hard to explain what happens, the feeling that takes over when you know you’re meant to meet someone, because it’s so unexplainable.

  I find the constellations one by one, stopping by to give Pluto a hello even though I can just barely see it, and even though it’s not Pluto anymore. Such a tough break and so demeaning, so I like to give her a little love.

  Just as I attempt to focus more, I see something dart across my eye, a shooting star.

  A sense that my decision and my plan is exactly right comes over me, and everything feels to fall in line in that moment. I close my eyes and make a wish, which I’m sure you can guess. With a new sensation of rightness in my soul, I head back inside and lock the door behind me, walking toward my bedroom with a little extra bounce in my step.

  The light from my phone screen hits my chest, catching my eye as it bounces off the holographic glitch font on my oversized tank. The words, ‘Fit to Fuck”, an inside joke from a girls night out, emblazoned across my tits makes me smile.

  It also makes me think about how the catch phrase came about and the advice Cassie gave as she coined the words, that thanks to me placing a group order, every one of us now has on a shirt.

  Walking into my bedroom, I think better of sleeping and decide that if I do get this job and get my way, I will need to be fit to fuck. Changing my playlist from sleepy music to something more suited to working out, I settle on ‘Look Back’ by Betty Who and start doing squats in the middle of the room.

  Fit to Fuck?

  You bet your ass I will be.