Finding Home (Breaking Free Series Book 1)

by Becca Taylor

  “Are we ready, girls? The limo is on its way. Before I forget to say it, thanks for the flowers, ladies. You girls are the best.”

  Lexi looks at everyone confused. “It wasn’t us. We all chipped in and got a bottle of good champagne for the limo. Maybe you have a secret admirer. Ooh, maybe it was the hottie from Elements?”

  “No, I highly doubt that. I didn’t give him my number, let alone my address. It was probably from my new boss. Whatever, let’s go.” I brush it off without another thought.

  We eat dinner, and on the way to the club, we pop open the champagne. Aly toasts, “To the lucky bitch whose life is finally coming together. May your work be satisfying, your cup never be empty, the new men in your life be hot, and the sex be even hotter.”

  “Cheers, bitches.” We all say in unison.

  After dinner, we head to Redemptions, and the place is booming. At one time, the club was a church. The outside of the building still looks the same, but the inside has been completely refurbished. Black light and strobes, with house music blasting through the speakers. The men are sexy, and the ladies are even sexier. This place screamed orgasm on steroids. We scout around, checking to see the merchandise. “Drinks, ladies?” It’s Tyler. He is one fine piece of ass. “We’re up in the VIP section. The owner of the club is one of my clients at the gym. I called in a favor. Drinks are on the house all night.” Hell yeah, could this night get any better? We follow him up the glass stairs to a sweet set up. There are people everywhere getting crazy, dancing on every available surface. The place smells like alcohol, sweat, and sex. I love it.

  Tyler introduces his friends. I can officially conclude that hot men travel in packs. These guys are smokin’! I found myself eyeing up one in hottie in particular, Logan. His shaggy blond hair hits the top of his shoulders, bright blue eyes, and a short goatee. Lexi introduces all the girls, then we get ready to have some fun.

  We start the night with a few shots. After we all get a little loose, we start to dance on the tables and furniture like everyone else. Logan is walking towards me, and we start dancing. The man has some moves. All the girls are bumpin’ on the guys. Dani and Jade are grinding sandwich style with one of Tyler’s friends, while Lexi is totally making out with Tyler. Everyone is letting loose and having a good time.

  I am dancing so hard, my body is drenched. All the girls are ready for our next shot line up. As I lean on the bar about to order shots for everyone, I feel hands on my hips. Turning my head, I see someone I really don’t want to see now or ever. Travis the Douche. Aly chimes in, “Hey douche, get your fucking hands off her.”

  Scoffing at her, Travis says, “Nice to see you too, Alyssa.”

  I add my two cents. “What are you doing here, Travis? And like Aly said, get your hands off me.”

  His hands are still on me, so I twist out of his grip. “I was just out with the guys tonight. I saw you head to the bar and wanted to say hi.” As far as I know, he never would come downtown, let alone to a club like this.

  Dani leaves and comes back with Logan. She must have said something to him. Seeing my discomfort, he pulls me to his side. “Is this guy bothering you, honey?” He kisses my temple for show.

  “He was just leaving.” I grab the shots and get ready to head back when Travis stops me.

  “You get my flowers? I heard about your new job. You’re changing your life pretty fast, huh?”

  “Are you stalking me now?”

  “No, I was at your store and the manager told me you got promoted. That you aren’t working there anymore. I was just trying to be nice. Thinking, maybe, we could be friends. I can see you are making new friends though.” He points his fingers at Logan.

  “No Travis, we aren’t going to be friends that hang out. What’s it to you if I make new friends? You lost the right to know anything about my life when you left. So excuse me, I want to get back to my friends. We are done here.”

  “Whatever, Katerina. You’ll come crawling back soon enough.”

  I flip him the bird as I walk away. Aly is on my tail. “Are you alright?”

  My breath is coming faster from the encounter. Logan grabs the other shots from my hands. “I’m fine. Let’s forget it, I already have. Who wants a shot?” All hands go up.

  Logan stays close to me now, acting like my protector. We continue dancing through the night, knowing we drank too much, and will be feeling it in the morning. The limo picks us up at three in the morning. Everyone passes out in various rooms at Lexi’s house. Her house is that massive.

  I wake around noon feeling like complete crap. First stop, the kitchen to fetch some coffee. Lexi’s house has the best kitchen. It’s always stocked full of food. Even better is the espresso maker. Making quick work of the machine, I get my latte then head to the lanai. The rumble of the Gulf does wonders for a headache. From behind me, I hear a groan. One by one, my girls come outside with their beverage of choice. Lexi has in hand a bottle of hangover medicine. “Thank God I restocked this.” She passes it out to everyone.

  “So, Lex, what time are the boys coming?” Dani asks.

  “Oh shit, I totally forgot. They will be here in less than an hour.” Just like that, everyone scrambles to the many bathrooms to shower. Nothing like cute boys to get a girl moving. I walk downstairs in my favorite tankini as the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it.” Tyler, Logan, and the other guys, whose names I don’t remember, are looking completely hang over free. Jerks. Logan is carrying two surfboards while the other guys bring in food and drink. “Head up the stairs. You’ll see the kitchen.”

  Logan asks, “Where should I put these?”

  I raise my one eyebrow at him in question. “Straight ahead, the door leads to the beach walkway. Why two boards?”

  “Because last night you said you wanted to learn to surf.” He says this with a wicked grin on his face.

  “I did, when?” How much did I drink that I don’t remember that conversation?

  “After your fifth or sixth shot.” Yep, that sounds about right to me.

  “I did, really?”

  “Yes, and I’m going to teach you.”

  “Well, ok, but first can I have another coffee?” I think I needed more than coffee to survive this. Did I mention I have a little fear of the ocean? I love the beach, but the water is totally different. Who knows what is swimming around in there? Mentally, I make another check on my list: Learn to surf.

  Leading the way to the kitchen, I make coffee, lots of coffee. Then we head to the beach. I lay my towel down wanting to take a nap. “No, no little lady. Up and at ’em. We are going in the water.” God help me.

  Logan first shows me on dry land how to paddle out. Next, he shows me how to balance on the surfboard. Once my beach lesson was over, we make our way out to the water. The paddling was the easy part. When it comes to standing up on the board on the water, I look like a fool. Logan, on the other hand, makes it look so easy. Showoff. After an hour, I manage to stand once without falling, for about twenty seconds. Since I feel like I accomplished enough with that, lesson over. “I’m heading back.” I said to Logan.

  We spend the rest of the afternoon into the evening lazing it up. The guys grilled food, while the girls worked on getting a tan. Logan sits on a blanket next to me. “Do you go to the gym a lot?”

  “I try to go three times a week, why?” Not really sure of where this conversation was heading.

  “I’m working on becoming a personal trainer. I was wondering if you’d be interested in training with me.”

  “Um, is my ass that bad?” I say as I crane my neck to check out my butt.

  He laughs. “No, your ass is just fine, more than fine. Tyler just mentioned you going to the gym. I thought I could practice on you. Build up some business.”

  “How much are you going to charge me for this training?” Because that definitely is not in my budget.

  “Nothing, it will be on my free time. If you like your results, all I want is for you to spread the word. Put some positiv
e feed on my social media pages.”

  “Deal. Sounds good to me. You better not break me though. I will be able to kick your ass after a few more of Tyler’s kickboxing classes.” And just like that a friendship was born.

  He smiles his adorable smile, “I’ll try to be gentle. We can start Tuesday if you want. I’m free after four.”

  “I work till four so how about around five? How about I cook us a healthy dinner afterwards? Maybe you can give me some diet tips too.”

  “Works for me.”

  Around seven, the party breaks up. After packing my stuff, I head home. I give myself a mental pat on the back for another successful weekend.

  Katerina

  AS I DRIVE TO the gym, I begin cursing to myself. What did I get myself into? I am terrified of training with Logan. I may work out, but an actual trainer? Also, there is a seventy-five percent chance I will drop on the floor dead, fast.

  When I walk inside, I see Logan warming up on the treadmill. The man is fine. Lean yet muscular. His hair is pulled back from his face in one of those buns every guy seems to be sporting. He pulls off this look too. Noticing me standing close by, he slows the treadmill. “Hey, ready to warm up?”

  I jump on the treadmill next to him starting my jog. “I’ll follow your lead on this. Please take it easy on me though.”

  “Why would I do that? Let’s get started, shall we?” After a ten minute warm up, he stops his machine. He grabs his towel wiping off his face first then wraps it around his neck. I follow him and for the next forty-five minutes, he works me hard. Pushing me, but not breaking me. We do some yoga stretches as our cool down.

  “How do you feel after that?” He asks as we head to my place.

  “Honestly, really good. You’re good at what you do.”

  “Thanks. I hope you want to continue. I really enjoyed training you today.”

  “Definitely. Now let’s go eat some food. I’m starved.”

  He follows me to my place. Trying to be healthy, I marinated some chicken in a low fat dressing to grill. For a side, I made a broccoli, quinoa and feta salad. Check mark, try new healthy recipes. We sit down at the porch to eat.

  “This is really good Kat. How come a man hasn’t scooped you up yet?” Logan asks me.

  “Thanks, I wanted to try to impress you with my cooking skills. And I’m not really interested right now in finding a man. I just got out of a long-term relationship that was less than satisfying. The jerk you saw at the club was the douche I dated. Why are you single? Ladies must be swarming you.”

  “I figured that much when I saw him. I guess I’m in the same boat as you. My high school sweetheart and I just grew apart. Ended about six months ago. Now, I just want to focus on starting my career. Occasionally enjoy the company of a beautiful lady. Not have to worry about the whole dating thing for a while.”

  “Sounds good to me! Friends then?”

  “Friends. As long as you invite me over and feed me again.”

  “Tell you what, it’s your payment for training. You fix my body up, I feed your face.”

  “Deal.” So, now it’s official. Starting today, I will have three non-dates a week at the gym with Logan. There are no sparks between us, and I am ok with that. Checkmark, get more male friends.

  Caleb

  THE ALARM GOES off at 4 am. I get up and start my daily routine which begins with my morning run on the beach. Then I get ready to start my work day. It’s been a long week. Hell, it’s been a long few months. Butter My Bread has been open for close to six months and getting busier every day. My boys and I ran a food truck for years, but we expanded to a storefront downtown. We specialize in hot deli sandwiches. It took five long years of blood, sweat and beers to get us here, but it feels good. Hard work, good friends and even better food. This is the life.

  I run the front of the house and the books with Bentley, while Josh and Hunter man the grill. Tristan helps out wherever we need him to, but we all know how to cook every item on the menu. Hunter, who created the menu, made sure of that. Bent and I rented the space about nine months ago. It took us three months to renovate, then we opened shop. We handled all the remodeling ourselves. Growing up, we did construction jobs together on weekends. Although Bentley and I are co-owners, we all had a hand in making this happen success.

  Our lunch regulars kept asking why we didn’t open earlier. With business nice and steady, we decided to give breakfast a go. Ask and you shall receive. I run the morning shift mostly, since I get up early. Bent runs the afternoon and closes up shop. We alternate weekends.

  It’s been a long time since I took a weekend off. As a co-owner, I thought it is my responsibility to be there every day. But, you know what they say about all work and no play. I sure as hell wasn’t a dull boy, but the natives were getting restless. It couldn’t have been more perfect. I was just lookin’ to kick back with my boys and have a few beers, check out some women. I wasn’t expecting to hook up with anyone special. Katerina was too tempting, swinging those luscious hips. She is definitely repeat worthy, if I were to see her again. Which I knew there was not a chance in hell that would happen.

  I’m at the deli, ready to start setting up. Josh pulls his bike beside mine. “Yo, man. Getting up this early is for the birds.” He yells as he parks next to me.

  Today was the perfect kind of morning, specially created for motorcycles. I remove my helmet before answering him. “Better get used to it, man. It’s your new lifestyle.”

  “Not everyone enjoys waking up at the butt crack of dawn, like you. I need my beauty sleep.” To add to the affect, he runs his hands through his long hair.

  “Then why did you say you wanted the morning shifts, pretty boy?” I say as I step off my bike.

  “Easy. Come the weekend, I want to start the fun early, not have to work till closing.”

  “More like you want to leave clean up to Hunter. Quit your complaining. Let’s get shit going.” I open the front door and turn on the lights.

  “Speaking of the weekend. . . . We never talked about what went down last weekend at the club. You left pretty quickly. One minute you were dancing with a fine piece of ass, next you two were heading out the door. You hit that?”

  “Shit, man. You know I did.” I’m trying to play it cool, but Kat was the first girl to get to me. Thoughts of her have been running through my mind, every day since that night. The way her hands were in my hair, her lips on mine, and her body beneath mine. I shake my head to remove these thoughts, but for some reason they creep inside at the wrong times. Like if I see a brunette with hair like hers, or someone walks by that uses the same shampoo as she did. Yeah, I didn’t think I’d notice shit like that, but on Kat, I did. Apparently, now I notice it on the entire female population.

  “You going to see her again?”

  “No man, didn’t get her number. You know my rule, no repeats.” That’s not the truth though. I would definitely make an exception for Kat.

  “So if we were out some night and bumped into her again, you wouldn’t mind if I went for it? She was stacked, bro. Exactly my type.”

  “Every woman is your type. And do you really want what my dick has been in?” If I ever did get to see her again, he would never get the chance to get near her. Kat would be mine, until I worked her out of my system.

  “Shit, when you put it like that, no way man! She had to be good though, the chick could move.”

  “Let’s just say her moves off the dance floor were better than on.”

  Josh fist bumps me then starts the grill, setting up for the breakfast crowd we hope is coming. I ready the front of the house. Thankfully, the morning moves fast with a steady breakfast run. Lunch gets busier every day. By two o’clock, I’m beat. Bentley comes in to handle the rest of the day so I can get ready to head out. Normally, I stay later to finish some bookkeeping, but I have plans this afternoon. I’ve been waiting for to get my ink for a while. I had my friend, Rich, design the story of my life for my sleeve. I’m stoked to see how he put
it all together.

  Bent says, “Today’s the big day. You getting your virgin ass inked?”

  “I’ll be poppin’ that cherry in about thirty minutes. I’m out. Don’t burn the place down while I’m gone.” I jump on my bike, making the short ride to “Pierce It, Brand It, Tramp Stamp It” tattoo shop.

  It looks more like an art gallery rather than a tattoo shop. The floors are covered dark wood. The walls are deep red, displaying framed pictures of tattoos done by each artist. There are three open areas for tattooing and two private rooms in the back. Black leather couches line the front corner. I make my way to the reception desk. The chick behind the desk is twirling a pen in her mouth, but looks up when the bell over the door rings. She blends right in with the décor. Black hair, her lips match the wall color, and tattoos cover the skin that she’s showing. “Can I help you?” She stares me up and down.

  “Hey sweetheart. Caleb here to see Rich.” She points to the front couch.

  “Have a seat. I’ll go let him know you’re here. Help yourself to a drink in the cooler.” I check out her ass as she walks to the back. It’s nice, but doesn’t hold a candle to Kat’s. Shit, I need to stop comparing other women to Katerina. It’s done.

  Rich comes out, giving me a one armed hug, “Hey bro, I can’t wait to get started. Come back and I’ll show you what I came up with. I hope you are happy because I fucking love it.”

  “Let’s get going man. I’ve been waiting for four months for you to have an opening.” He leads me to his workstation. I see the drawing laid out on his desk area. “Holy fuck, man. This shit is amazing.” The bottom of the sleeve displays the neck of my bass guitar, hands playing the first note to my favorite Muse song. Where the headstock would be, it morphs into a tree with the branches that cover my bicep shoulder and back. To anyone far away it will just look like a tree until you get close. In the trunk of the tree is a carving of our old food truck. One branch will be laced with a pink ribbon for my mom, a breast cancer survivor. Other branches display carvings of moments that are important to me. Moments that carved me into the man I am today. I don’t know how Rich fit it all, not only that, he made sense of it all. I can’t wait to get started.