With my focus held solely on a brochure for some local festival, she hands me my card and receipt. “I’m sorry for that,” she offers.
I look up at her, finding true sadness pooling in her child-like eyes. “There are other ways of making cash, kid. Don’t sell yourself.”
“With all due respect, sir, sometimes my ‘jobs’ are my only means of making enough cash to eat.”
Without a second thought, I reach for my wallet to my put my card away and pull out a hundred-dollar bill. I place it down on the counter and lean forward. “There are other options. Dinner’s on me tonight, kid.”
Her focus drops to the bill on the counter, and her lips part slightly with surprise. “Thank you,” she mutters quietly. “You’re still one of the good ones.”
“Enjoy.” Still? I take my key and head out the door and up the flight of stairs to the second floor. My room is only a few doors down and I can almost smell the incoming sleep waiting for me.
I unlock the door and press inside, flipping on the light.
Andddd…now I’m flipping off the light.
Seriously? Why does this shit continuously seem to find me?
CHAPTER TWO
SASHA
I CAN’T CONTINUE living here. I shouldn’t be living here anyway. I have a house and this isn’t it. Squeezing my hands firmly over my headphones with the slightest hope that I can block just some of this noise out, I imagine myself by an ocean, and I pretend I’m on a swaying boat, rather than a rocking bed.
With a glance over at the alarm clock once again, I decide that six in the morning is an acceptable time to show up at work. As much as I love Cali, I’m not sure I can sleep in the room beside her for one more night.
I tear open my duffle bag and pull out my work clothes, noticing the intricate wrinkles beautifully covering my blouse. Crap! I poke my head out of the bedroom door and look to see if the coast is clear of anyone. Thank goodness, it is. I tiptoe across the hall to the linen closet, praying for an iron.
Score. At least I will have wrinkle-free clothes to go with the pretty bags under my eyes today.
“Whatcha doin’, Miss Piggy?”
The surprise of hearing Cali’s voice shocks me, and I drop the iron, missing my foot by less than an inch. I clutch at my chest and fall back against the wall. “Shoot, Cali, you scared me half to death. And quit calling me that. It’s been fifteen years now. Enough.”
She laughs at my anger; like she normally does. “I can’t help it! You and all that pink. How can I resist? Furthermore, how is it you look like you just left a salon five minutes after waking up?” she asks me while running her fingers through the snarls lining her head. “Got any tips?”
Maybe stop grinding your head into a pillow over and over? “How is it y’all are having…” I cup my hand around my mouth and spell out, “s-e-x, this early in the morning?”
She scoffs at my question. “The batteries need to be recharged morning, noon, and night. What can I say?” I don’t think I realized anyone could do that so many times in one day.
“Doesn’t that hurt, like aren’t you sore?” I whisper.
“You get used to it, and when you find the one you can’t keep your hands off of, morning, noon, and night just don’t seem like enough some days. You need to find a Tango. Then you’ll see.”
I shake my head, completely disagreeing with her statement. “I highly doubt I would ever become that crazy.”
“If you’re basing all this on that dipshit who totally screwed you over and tried to um…kill you and my family, then you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Clutching the iron tightly against my chest, I look Cali straight in the eyes. “Please don’t mention Landon’s name or anything about him to me…ever again.”
“I knew he was a scumbag from the first moment I met him,” she tells me. That can’t be true, though. Cali is not one to keep thoughts to herself. Surely, if she felt that way, she would have made her distaste known.
“Y’all never said a word to me,” I remind her, loosening my grip on the iron.
“Because you had that whole googly eye thing going on and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was a douche, so I let it ride out, for a little too long I guess. I’m sorry, Sash.”
“I loved him, Cali-girl,” I whisper, trying not to allow another tear for him to fall from my eyes.
“I know,” she says, pulling me in for a hug. “You’re going to be fine without him. You’re better off now, trust me. Plus, you have a place to stay, and you’re surrounded by people who love you. Even Jags.” We both laugh at the last part. Even Jags.
“Jags does not love me,” I tell her. “He doesn’t even know me.”
“I know,” Cali says with a quirk in her brow. “But before he left a few days ago, he was looking at you like you were a pretty flower he’d like to pollinate.” The few nights Jags stayed here, I kept a distance from him and his flirty little looks. He’s a ladies’ man, that’s all he is, surely nothing to take personal.
“Cali!” I scold, with not much to follow it with since she’s right.
Oops. My voice must have gotten a little too loud because Cali’s bedroom door opens wildly, with Tango appearing half dressed, half awake, and a little confused. “Everything okay out here, ladies?”
Oh my goodness, is that a…his…thingy…oh my gosh. “Cali,” I point to Tango’s shorts and cover my eyes, walking backward toward my bedroom.
“It’s called an erection, Sasha. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something to be very proud of, if you’re me,” Cali shouts after me. “Right, babe?” Just before I slam the door, I watch her jump into Tango’s arms, kissing him wildly as if she hasn’t seen him in months. How? Why? Who acts like that after being married for years?
Feeling mortified, hot, flushed, everything that could make me climb under this bed and not come back out today, I pause when I hear Cali’s voice again. “I’m kidding! Kind of. Sash! I’m sor-r-r-rry!!!!” She must be shouting into the crack of my door because I can hear her loud and clear but there’s no way I’m going back out there.
“We gotta toughen that girl up,” I hear Tango say as their bedroom door closes.
When silence fills the air again, my breaths elongate, and I try to relax after that stunning moment of humiliation. How are they not embarrassed to be acting like that? It’s like they don’t care that I can see and hear everything they do. Well, not everything, thank goodness.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and sink my chin to my chest. I need to get my life back together, and sitting here is not going to help that.
Damn you, Landon. You made me love you. You fooled me. Why’d you have to trick me into believing you were a good person? I’m not sure I can even wrap my head around everything that happened between Landon and I. Still. All I know is, he’s dangerous, and I shouldn’t be anywhere near him. Cali always warned me if I was associated with her and her family, men would eventually try to lure me in to get closer to her and the secrets her former-CIA dad has hiding in his head. I don’t know what those secrets are, nor do I want to, but I hadn’t thought Cali could be right about someone using me, of all people, to get closer to her and her father. The thought makes me sick. I’ve been sick about this for the last week, and it’s not getting any easier or better. I’ve lived in this perfect, safe little bubble my whole life and someone just took a big giant pin and popped it. Now I just feel completely out of control and I want to question every person’s motives around me. Who else wants to hurt me?
But I can’t think like that. I must move forward. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.
Shaking off the last five minutes of my life, I realize I don’t have an ironing board to go with this nice little iron, and I am definitely not going back out into that hall. Ducking down below the bed in search of an outlet to plug the iron into, I see one just out of arm’s reach. I squeeze under the bed, reaching blindly toward the outlet.
Come on, you darn thing. With the plug scraping against the wall, it finally runs over the small opening, and I try to maneuver it in, but the wall starts shaking again. Give me a break! Nobody can do that this many times a day. Being this close to the wall, I can, unfortunately, hear the sound effects much clearer than I was able to before.
“Oh yeah, baby, squeeze harder. Harder, Cali, harder!” Tango groans.
“No, me, do that thing, you know, that, right there,” she moans. “Yeah, oh God, yeah, yeah! I love you so much, babe.”
Giving up with the plug, I jerk backward, thwacking my head under the bed. Squealing in pain, I crawl out the rest of the way and fall backward onto my butt in defeat. Except my butt falls onto something hard and it’s not the floor. What now? I look up, finding Jags standing…well, beneath me sort of. What in the world is he doing here?
“That looks like it hurt,” he says. His hand loops around my elbow, and he pulls me up to my feet and off of his.
“You,” is all I can say to him. Somehow the two of us ended up here at this house at the exact same time for two very different reasons over the past week. And now, we’re evidently friends. Or so he thinks. And Cali thinks. And probably Tango too. Is this some kind of setup?
“Do you need your life saved again today? Any more psycho boyfriends I should be aware of? Are you hiding one down there under the bed?” he asks with a sweet smile that makes me feel even more embarrassed. I had never met Jags before the Landon incident. I hadn’t even heard Cali or Tango mention his name. I honestly don’t know where Jags suddenly appeared from. Yet, there he was, helping Tango eliminate Landon from my life when things got messy—messy as in Landon took me against my will out to a field where he was about to either torture me or…I don’t know what else he had in mind, but the thoughts are still haunting me. Who does that? When I heard Landon admit, while fighting with Tango and Jags, to using me for the money he was promised, I realized I was the dumb-butt who thought he was taking me out into the middle of a pretty field to propose. I was a little bit wrong. How did we go from cooking breakfast together and having a baking flour fight to Landon dragging me into a field three hours later? Regardless, I am thankful Tango, and I guess Jags, showed up when they did. Especially right now, since I have a brand new self-proclaimed hero in my life. Ugh.
“Thank you, but I seem to be managing fine on my own today,” I say, pulling myself out of his grip. “Plus, I thought you were leaving. You said you were headed to Boston, and this isn’t Boston,” I mutter.
“I did leave,” he says, taking a step back and folding his large, muscular arms over his very broad chest. Gosh, one of his biceps might be larger than the thickest part of my thigh. Beyond that, he towers over me by at least a foot, maybe even more. And just to top it off, his skin is covered with a collage of inked images, leaving not an ounce of natural flesh up to his collarbone and out to his wrists. The man is a walking tattoo. It would take me a very long time to look at each artistic display etched across his body. Maybe that’s why he did it, so girls would look at him for a long time. I’m not one of those girls though, mister. Nope, I’m…is that a naked woman hanging from a pole? Oh my goodness, no, I’m not looking anymore. “I just decided not to go back to Boston. Is that okay with you?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, kind of staring through him, lost in my own thoughts. About his tattoos and tan muscles.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “You hit your head pretty hard.”
“I’m fine,” I lament. “It’s just that…they…” I point to the wall, the love wall Cali, Tango and I shared last night.
“They fuck like bunnies, I know,” he laughs. “Lucky shits. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“Pardon me?” I snap upright.
“I’m sorry, where are my manners? Ma told me never to swear in front of a Southern belle if I was to ever meet one, and here I am in the presence of one, and I’m swearing like a sailor.”
“Wait,” I interrupt him. “First of all, I’m from Texas, but I’m not a Southern belle. Secondly, Cali told me you were in the Navy, so—”
“Ah, you got me. I do swear like a sailor because,” he cups the back of his hand to the side of his mouth. “I was one.” He leaves that statement behind with a wink and a crooked little grin.
“Wow,” I say with a shocked drawl. “So, like, did you live on a boat for a long time?” I know I sound like a ditz, but I’m going with it. This guy needs to be taken down a notch or two.
“The Navy has ships, not boats. You must have us confused with the Coast Guard. And no, I was a medic for the Marines. I hung around the Devil Dogs while in combat and picked up a lot of broken pieces…we’ll just leave it at that.”
A serious answer to my not so serious question. Darn it. Plus, I’m not sure I understand what he means by that, and I’m guessing I might not want to know. “I see,” I say, but I don’t see.
“Anyway, sorry for barging in here. I lost my phone charger and my phone died on me this morning. You haven’t seen it anywhere, have you?” he asks.
I almost forgot he had been the one occupying this bedroom for the two nights prior to last night. The couch was a far better idea for me and I should have just slept there last night. It would have been more peaceful. Better yet, I should just go home and pray that Landon doesn’t come back for me. “Can’t say that I have. Plus, the only outlet I’ve managed to find is unreachable when the wall is shaking.”
Jags places his hands over my arms and scoots me to the side so he can switch spots with me. He ducks down into a push-up position and glances under the bed. I shouldn’t be looking, but for some reason, the only thing I can focus on are the grooves in his forearms. Granted, they’re covered in ink, but my goodness this man is endowed with a lot of muscle. Makes me wonder where else he has muscles like—what am I thinking? Oh my gosh, I just got out of a six-year relationship with a man who I’m pretty sure wanted to kill me for money. My mind must stay focused on anything but men right now. Especially men like Jags.
But those muscles. He’s been holding himself in that position for way longer than it should take to look for a charger so naturally, my gaze drifts to his head, which I now see is angled toward me and not under the bed. With a slick grin lined against his lips, he mutters, “You like my muscles? They’re kind of cool, right? I got them on sale a few weeks ago. I figured they’d give me that beefy look chicks like.”
“That explains the markdown written all over your arm?” I quip.
Get it? The tattoos are a markdown? Come on that was funny. Why aren’t you laughing? You think you’re the only one who can tell a joke? Arrogant fool.
“They look pretty real, don’t they? Go ahead, touch them, they even feel real.”
He completely ignores my attempt at a bad joke and skips right to the typical dirtbag move. Yet, here I am, trying not to smile, and I feel my dimples tighten on my cheeks. No. I bear my weight to the side and cock my head with a sarcastic grin. “Very funny, Mr. Jags.”
“Did you just call me Mr. Jags?” he asks, laughing loudly as he pulls himself up by the side of the bed.
“Sorry, just a habit,” I reply. A habit that annoys pestering men like him.
“A habit of referring to men your age as a father figure?” Exactly. “Well, Miss Sasha, it looks like I’m shit out of luck with my charger.”
“I have two chargers if you’d like to borrow one,” I offer, extending an olive branch I should just keep to myself.
Jags sits down on the unmade bed, leaning back onto his elbows, making himself comfortable in the same spot where I was sleeping just thirty minutes ago, and for some reason, that thought sends a tingle through me. I wish I were still sleeping right now. “That’s very kind of you to offer, but I probably won’t see you again since I just got my own place, and I don’t like to borrow things without an honest intention of returning them.”
“You got your own place in less than forty-eight hours?�
�� I ask. Jealous.
“Sure did. It’s a pretty sweet setup.”
“Impressive,” considering the housing market in this area currently sucks for buyers and is even worse for renters. I don’t trust this guy. “Well, if you want my extra charger, I can just pick up a new one the next time I’m at the store.”
With a sharp inhale, Jags stands up, bringing himself less than a foot in front of me, making a show of how much he towers above the top of my head. “You’re very sweet, Miss Sasha. I couldn’t take it from you, though,” he says, seductively.
“Well, where is this new place of yours?” I ask. Why am I asking that? Stop, Sasha. This ends here, now. He can keep my charger and not see me again. That’s how it should be, and that is just fine. This isn’t like me. What is like me? Consorting with murdering wannabees?
“It’s a few miles down the road. A nice little place near the water,” he says, straight-faced.
“Um, there is not a body of water anywhere in the surrounding fifteen-mile radius,” I tell him, confused as to why he would lie about something so silly.
“Yeah, it’s actually a pretty nice local water fountain. Down by Chet’s.”
“What?” I laugh. “A water fountain? You like to lie, huh?”
“What comes out of a water fountain?” he asks.
“Well, water?”
“Right and I live near a fountain, which has water, so technically, me saying I live by the water is not a lie now, is it?”
“Okay, Mr. Jags, I get it now.” This guy is just one big joke.
“I was going to suggest we meet up so you can return my charger once you find yours or buy a new one. That way you don’t have to worry about taking it from me.” But that’s an incredibly bad idea, and I should not meet you anywhere, not even here in this bedroom. Especially not here in this bedroom.
“Are you asking me out on a date?” he replies instantly, feigning shock.
Um, absolutely not what I was doing. Was I? No. Gosh, no. “Um,” I laugh. “No, I was simply trying to help you out with your charger situation.”
Spiked Lemonade: A Bad Boy Sailor and a Good Girl Romantic Comedy Standalone Page 3