Cocktales

by The Cocky Collective

  The moment Ace’s instructor leaves and she lifts a board, my attention veers solely to her. I don’t even recall making the decision to move, and yet as she slides the board forward to make her first cut, I’m there beside her. I place my hand on top of her gloved one that’s preparing to squeeze the saw to life. She gasps with surprise, and instantly releases the saw before looking up. Recognition has her smiling. I know this expression well—hell, I’ve memorized it. The tiny dimple, the straight rows of her teeth, how her chin dips when it’s genuine and rises when it’s not. I know the curve of her lips, and how she closes her eyes when her smile turns into a laugh. I know it all.

  Weeks ago, it was easier not to return the same smile, but it continues to be more difficult. Currently, it’s not. I saw her boyfriend over just yesterday, and being here was my opportunity to do something that would get me out of the house and away from my persistent thoughts of her. “You can’t cross your arms while using this thing. You’ll cut your arm off.” My voice is gruff and unforgiving.

  Her smile falls and her big brown eyes grow wide. “But he said I need to anchor it so the shorter piece doesn’t hit me.”

  “Use your left hand to guide the saw.”

  “But I’m right-handed.”

  I stare at her blankly.

  Ace drops her chin and rolls her eyes. “I see your dark and broody side is back.” She raises her eyebrows, and repositions her hands on the saw and piece of wood she’s holding. “You can go. I’ve got this. Tom’s already shown me how to do this.”

  “Clearly he hadn’t shown you very well. You were about to—”

  “Cut off my arm. I know. You already mentioned it.” She moves her gaze to the saw, dismissing me.

  I should take this opportunity and go. Get the tour from the volunteer who checked me in, and find a task that will have me working on the opposite side of the yard. But Ace has become an itch I need to scratch. Have to scratch. I circle the table so I’m standing beside her. The scent of her coconut shampoo fills my nose, then I get the sweetness of her perfume, and I take a step closer to her. Ace turns her head, glancing at me. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. I can tell by the way her body gently sways closer to me, and how her shoulders round that she’s affected by my presence.

  I’m so tempted to reach my hand down and cup her ass—to pull her toward me and kiss her until logic and reason are silenced by how badly I want her. However, the landmines associated with her practically glow on her forehead, reminding me of all the reasons doing so would only cause things to blow up in my face.

  I need contact with her. Something. Anything. I reach forward and rest my hand on her lower back. “I’ll hold it. That way it will be more comfortable for you.”

  She looks at me, her familiar smile absent. Perhaps she’s working just as hard as I am to understand my motives. “You really don’t have to babysit me.”

  “I thought we decided we were friends. Friends help each other, right?” I was the moron who’d slapped that label on us. I’ve never had any interest in being her friend. I spent eight years living beside her and dutifully ignoring her as an endless train of guys from school worked to impress her and vied for her time. I swore I wouldn’t be one of them. Wouldn’t jump through hoops in an attempt to gain her attention. Yet, since I’ve been back it seems like she’s everywhere.

  Skepticism is apparent in her slanted eyes, but Ace shakes her head, and the edges of her lips tease into a smile that’s even more distracting than the last. Then she leans into me even further, and my hand on her back constricts. We’re silent and still for a moment, and though it’s too warm to be standing this close while dressed as we are, neither of us attempts to move.

  “Why don’t you cut this piece? It makes me more nervous to have you holding it.”

  “You can use your right hand this way.”

  “I realize that, but I’m worried I’ll accidentally hurt you.”

  I stare at her, listening to her words play on repeat in my head as they slowly sink past comprehension.

  What if I accidentally hurt her?

  What if I mess this up and she hates me?

  I shake my head. “You won’t hurt me. Grip the saw with your right hand, and just slowly lower the blade. If you bring it down too fast, the wood will splinter and it won’t be a clean cut.”

  Ace pulls in a deep breath and reaches for the saw again, creating a small cushion of space between us that I close by stepping closer to her, my chest against her shoulder as I hold the end piece she’ll be slicing off. She purses her lips with determination, and grips the handle of the saw. When it comes to life, she glances at me once, then focuses on lowering the blade directly over the pencil line. She should be wearing safety goggles and ear protection, but those details are far in the recesses of my mind as I watch her complete her first cut and slowly raise the blade back up and turn it off.

  Ace doesn’t smile with triumph or completion, instead, she inspects the edge like the perfectionist she is, running her gloved-thumb over the clean edge.

  “Like a pro,” I tell her.

  Before she begins any practice cuts, we go in search of goggles and ear protection, and then we find some scraps. She’s a quick study and within no time, looks like she’s skilled at using the power tool. I enjoy the time, not ready to tell her she’s more than ready to begin, because I’m enjoying the excuse to remain so close to her.

  “Want to help me with a couple of these?” she asks. I doubt she realizes that when she lowers her lashes and looks up at me like she is, that it’s nearly impossible for me to focus on what she’s saying.

  Ace reaches for my waist, and for a second I consider what would happen if she were the one to make the first move. If she kissed me right now, would it deactivate all the risks associated with her?

  She unclips my measuring tape from my tool belt and smirks, like she knows I’d stopped breathing. She makes quick work of measuring a piece of wood, and then proceeds to cut it.

  The volunteer wearing plaid approaches us as Ace is measuring another piece of wood. I’m fairly certain I’m only standing here for my own sanity at this point—she hasn’t asked me for help or even direction since we went over the steps together and she repeated them back to me for clarification.

  “You ready to get started?” he asks.

  I’m reluctant to leave, but realize this is one of many instances where this isn’t my place. As her neighbor and friend, I should have walked away a while ago. Slowly, I nod, and turn to go.

  “Max?” Ace calls my name. I stop, and immediately head back to where she’s finished another cut. I’m surveying the space, ensuring all ten of her fingers are there, that there isn’t any blood, that the saw is turning off. “Thanks for helping me. I really appreciate it.” She presses her lips together and glances past me, exposing her shyness. I had never considered Ace shy. Though I hadn’t known her well, she always had friends and boys hanging around her. It wasn’t until this summer when I began spending time with her, that I realized she strayed more toward being an introvert and preferred being around her closest friends and family.

  “You’re a natural,” I tell her.

  “I’ll come find you for lunch.” Her tone rises, making her statement sound more like a question.

  “Yeah, and if you get done here, come by and find me.”

  Once again, she smiles, and once again I forget all the reasons I should be avoiding her.

  * * *

  If distraction were a noun, it would be Ace.

  I haven’t managed to accomplish nearly the amount of work I should this morning, because my attention continues navigating to where she’s currently using a nail gun to secure the base of the floor.

  After she’d completed her task with the miter saw, the plaid-wearing volunteer had led her over to the house, opposite of where I was helping to complete the framing. She had the same overwhelmed look on her face when someone presented her with a nail gun, but this time, she
asked more questions.

  My phone buzzes for a third time as a guy secures the side I’ve been holding into place. I wipe my brow before reaching for it. It’s hotter than hell today, and there isn’t a single inch of shade on this piece of property.

  Jameson: …Kendall says Ace is volunteering at the building site, too.

  Me: Yeah, no need to tell her where I’m at.

  Jameson: Now’s your chance to impress her.

  Jameson: This is the perfect setting. You can even turn up your cockiness without looking like a bastard ;)

  I don’t bother replying to him. Instead, I pocket my phone and follow two others who have been working with me to get this side of the frame up, to take a water break.

  “Things are looking really good!” A woman with bright red nails and a clean, white T-shirt smiles as she hands us each a water bottle. “This place is going to be done in no time.” Her sentiment reminds me of the crap Jameson’s been spewing from the college brochures: promises that often sound far easier and faster to accomplish than they really are.

  “Hungry?” Ace appears beside me, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

  It’s too hot to be hungry, but I nod.

  “Great idea!” The man in the plaid shirt appears as well, standing too close to Ace. “We’ll all take a break for lunch. Cool down.”

  Ace grips the crook of my arm, and reason and logic transform. No longer am I considering all the reasons I shouldn’t be with her, but every reason that I should.

  Continue the journey with Ace and Max, and begin Becoming His, today: myBook.to/BecomingHis1

  About the Author

  Mariah Dietz lives with her husband and three sons, who are the axis of her crazy and wonderful world in North Carolina.

  Mariah grew up in a tiny town outside of Portland, Oregon, where she spent most of her time immersed in the pages of books that she both read and created.

  She has a love for all things that include her family, good coffee, books, traveling, and dark chocolate. She’s also obsessed with Christmas ornaments and all things Disney.

  Website

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  Facebook

  Bookbub

  Goodreads

  Also by Mariah Dietz

  Becoming His: myBook.to/BecomingHis1

  Losing Her: myBook.to/LosingHer2

  Finding Me: myBook.to/FindingMe3

  * * *

  The Weight of Rain: myBook.to/WeightofRain

  The Effects of Falling: myBook.to/TheEffectsofFalling

  * * *

  CURVEBALL: myBook.to/Curveballebook2

  EXCEPTION: myBook.to/Exception

  * * *

  Add A Thousand Reasons, a new novel releasing June 21st to your TBR: https://bit.ly/2GUKkYE

  Cocky BB: Two Boys, One Prom

  BB Easton

  Cocky BB: Two Boys, One Prom is a work of creative nonfiction based on characters introduced in BB Easton’s bestselling memoir, 44 Chapters About 4 Men. While the settings and most of the situations portrayed in this book are true to life, the names and identifying characteristics of all characters have been altered to protect the identities of everyone involved.

  Copyright © 2018 by BB Easton

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Author’s Note

  For those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I write stories about my own life. About the actual, questionable, choices I made and the actual, regrettable men I dated.1 These stories are usually funny, definitely self-deprecating, shockingly sexy, and for some reason, oddly unifying.

  I’ve been moved by the unity our little indie romance community has demonstrated as of late, so I’d like to contribute to this movement with one of my most sacred stories. One I have never told any of you. One that will live on in infamy. It is the story of the time I took my two ex-boyfriends—sworn mortal enemies—to the same prom. I call it…Cocky BB.

  Enjoy!

  * * *

  1Dated (verb, past tense)—to risk contracting venereal diseases, tetanus, and jail time with a man in exchange for attention, free piercings and the occasional meal at Waffle House.

  Introduction

  Let me set the scene for you. It was April of 1998. I was a junior at Peach State High School—a huge, working-class public school in the suburbs of Atlanta. On paper, I looked like the model student: four-point-oh grade point average, on track to graduate early with honors, no disciplinary file, aside from a few tardiness-related detentions. However, in person, I looked like a drug-addicted gutter punk. My once-shaved head had grown into an inch-long helmet of hair that I’d bleached platinum blonde and tried to tame with hair gel and bobby pins. I wore too much black liquid eyeliner and not enough of anything else. And my steel-toe combat boots practically weighed as much as my emaciated ninety-five-pound body.

  You’ve probably heard the term “high-functioning alcoholic” used to describe someone who suffers from an addiction yet manages to excel in at least one area of their life. That was me. I was a high-functioning bad-boy-aholic. At any given moment you could find me chilling on the Dean’s List while some sexy, broken, tattooed, miscreant with washboard abs and a killer smile was completely ravaging the rest of my life.

  Or in this case, two.

  Ronald “Knight” McKnight had been my first love, if you could call it that. A professional would have called it Stockholm Syndrome. Knight was a friendless, joyless, vicious sadist whom everyone at Peach State High School had learned to steer clear of. He looked like a skinhead, lifted weights with the football players, and physically assaulted anyone who so much as spoke to me. By tenth grade, Knight had completely isolated me from my friends and made himself my only option for rides home, for friendship, for everything.

  Naturally, like the dumb attention-starved fifteen-year-old that I was, I grew to love the psycho. But when his violent tendencies became more than he could control, Knight joined the Marines and shipped off to Iraq. He exited my life the same way that he’d entered it: before I was ready and without my permission.

  Leaving the door wide open for Harley James to waltz through.

  I had just turned sixteen. I had just gotten my first car. And I had just gone through my first real break up. What better time to hook up with a sexy, carefree, blue-eyed, blond-pompadoured, tattooed mechanic? Harley was fun and flirty and bad to the bone. He organized illegal street races, sold illegal street drugs, had a cache of illegal firearms, and had been in and out of jail more times than Lindsay Lohan.

  To a girl with a bad boy problem, Harley was perfect.

  His tattoos, on the other hand…not so much.

  Harley had the worst tattoos I’ve ever seen on a real person. Sure, we’ve all seen bad tattoos on the internet. We’ve even shared them with our friends and had a good laugh. Well, some of those tattoos are Harley’s. I know because I’m the one who submitted them to badtattoos.com in the first place.

  I was able to overlook a lot when it came to Harley James—his lack of intellect and formal education, his criminal record, his trunk full of sawed-off shotguns—but the one thing I was never able to see past were those horrible fucking tattoos. In fact, they were the cause of our first breakup.

  Or maybe our third? I can’t remember. We broke up a lot.

  Harley had been telling me for weeks that he wanted to get a huge tattoo of me, right on his bicep. He had me draw dozens of mock-ups for him: sad clown BB, sugar skull BB, Bettie Paige BB, bionic angel BB, anime BB, hell, even pirate wench BB. So, when I got the call that Harley was at the tattoo shop and needed a ride home, my heart and my Mustang practically defied gravity as I sped over to see which design he’d chosen.

  I lurched my car into
the first parking space I could find and bounced through the front door, ready to see myself immortalized in ink. Harley gave me a smug, sleepy-eyed grin from his tattoo chair, where a hulking beast of a man was putting the finishing touches on his upper arm. With a skip and a hop, I landed right next to Harley, where I stared in horror at a gray cartoon donkey with a pink bow on its ass.

  Eeyore.

  My boyfriend had gotten Eeyore, the depressed jackass from Winnie the Pooh, tattooed on his arm. Forever.

  Make that my ex-boyfriend. I high-tailed it out of there and vowed to never be caught in the same room as that fucking tattoo ever again. I was done. I had dignity, goddamn it. I…

  Still needed a prom date.

  Shit.

  After pouting and screening Harley’s calls for a week, I finally answered and told him that if he scrounged up a tuxedo and took me to prom I’d consider taking him back.

  Harley wasn’t real excited about my proposition, considering the fact that he was a) a grown-ass man, and b) had been expelled from Peach State High School, but he said he’d see what he could do. Which I knew was code for, I’m going to get high and forget we had this conversation in five…four…three…

  One

  “Eeyore?” Juliet’s cackles flooded out of the dressing room she was thrashing around in, causing everyone in the quiet dress shop to turn and scowl in our direction.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Goth Girl deadpanned from the purple tufted ottoman she had commandeered in the seating area. Of course, she’d already found her dress. She’d simply walked in, grabbed the first floor-length black thing in her size, and parked her Wednesday Addams-looking ass down to wait in annoyance while Juliet tried on every other dress in the building.