by Jo Raven
OCEAN
(Damage Control #5)
By Jo Raven
OCEAN (Damage Control, 5)
Jo Raven
Copyright Jo Raven 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book 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 permission in writing from the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover art: Jo Raven
Photographer: Paul Henry Serres
Model: Marc-André Laparé
I thought I was a normal kid once. Do normal kids have to beg door to door for food? Not sure. It wasn’t always that bad, I guess—and then it was. Really fucking bad.
I tried to protect my younger brother from the fallout. Lied to him about how bad things were.
But it wasn’t enough. And when the accident happened, he blamed me, like everyone else.
I’m guilty of many things. He’s right about that, at least. So damn guilty I’m sure everyone knows and will call me out on it.
Except they don’t. Nobody does, except my brother.
Not even Kayla, sexy and sweet and coolest girl ever, who keeps buying me coffee and trying to read my future. But my future isn’t in the goddamn cards, or even in my hands. I don’t see a future. I deny fate, but fate has me pinned like a moth and won’t let me walk away.
Won’t let me escape.
And yeah… you know you’re losing grip when the girl you want reads your palm, and you’re scared to hell of what she’ll see and of the pain you can tell is coming.
**WARNING** 18+ for sexual content, language, and violence.
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Table of Contents
Front Page
PART I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
PART II
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
PART III
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgments
AUTHOR BIO
PART I
Chapter One
Kayla
“Kay, are you listening to me? This is a matter of life or death!”
“Uh-huh, Allie,” I murmur as I spread my newest deck of Tarot cards on the carpet. I’m trying a Celtic Cross spread, and frankly, I’m lost. Too many cards.
“You’re not listening,” my older sister grumbles.
“Sure I am.”
With Allie, it’s always a matter of life or death, especially when it comes to her boyfriend, Brad—or rather, her fiancé. The one and only since high school, her one teenage love—since then grown to a full asshole—and her one big mistake.
According to me, so who cares, right?
“He said he spent the night with his buddies, but his friend Josh told me he didn’t show up, and what am I supposed to think? And I can’t call him out on it, because he’ll get mad and—”
“Seriously, Allie…” I stare at my cards, frowning. Are there more person cards or more symbols? Is it important? “How can you be with someone you can’t even confront about that?”
“Because! I’ll seem clingy and paranoid and he hates that, and with the wedding around the corner, it’s the last thing I want. If we put it off again, Mom and Dad will have twin fits.”
And so what? I want to say but force myself to keep quiet. How she can even consider marrying that idiot is beyond me. I met him a few times, and he made my skin crawl.
Yeah, I know Mom and Dad think the two have to marry after being together for three years and that they want grandkids ASAP.
But hey, what about Allie’s life? Her happiness?
And why doesn’t she care about it, either? Am I the only one here asking that question? I mean, she’s studying medicine because my parents want it, and will marry her asshole boyfriend because my parents want it, have two point five kids and buy a house with a white picket fence, and then what?
“Think, Allie.” I rearrange the cards into groups. “Think about what you really want in your life.”
“What are you talking about? This is what I want.”
Moving from Chicago to Milwaukee to be with a loser because he stared at her tits long enough in high school it counted as a date?
“Whatever,” I mutter.
“Like you know any better, Kay?”
Not really. My experience with boys is definitely limited. Not that I’m about to admit it to Allie.
I stare at the card smack in the center of my spread. The Fool. Of course. He keeps popping up in my attempts to read the future in the cards.
Then again, Tarot isn’t meant for reading the future, is it? It’s for reading oneself. Which makes me the fool.
Only apparently the Fool signifies the spark that sets everything into motion, and coupled with the card right next to it… The Moon. A veiled path, a hard path that you must tread to reach the light, a path—
“And Wyatt has been acting up again,” Allie cuts through my attempt at concentration, “and Mom is pissed.”
“You mean our little brother insists on hanging out with a girl Mom doesn’t approve of just because she isn’t the right color and the right religion?”
“Kayla,” Allie mutters, “she’s a foreigner, she’s—”
“No, she’s not. She was born here. Not that it matters, especially since, you know, she’s not what our parents want her to be.”
“It doesn’t matter, you’re right, because Wyatt is too young to know—”
“He’s seventeen. He’s not a kid anymore.”
Silence spreads over the phone line, chilly like a winter wind.
Then Allie says, “Why do you always have to be so contrary?”
“I’m not being contrary. It’s the truth.”
“The truth is you don’t want to ever back down from your ideas.”
I sit back on my heels, re-situate the phone at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. “Right. Question is, why should the family origins of his girlfriend bother you, or anyone, for that matter?”
“Dating someone is more serious than hanging out with a friend, Kay.”
“How would you even know? You got engaged to Brad the moment he got in your pants.”
“Why are you being so mean?” Allie whispers.
“Wait, Allie…”
Too late. She’s hung up already.
I sigh as I put down the wireless phone on the carpet and blink. This always happens when I talk to my sister. She means well, but she gets me riled up. We’re just too different. I am too different—from the rest of my family. From the world I grew up in. I never fit in their molds and boxes. Leaving the nest for college felt like breathing fresh air for the first time in my life.
But a call from a member of my family is enough to throw me back through time, to when I felt out of place and so depressed I d
idn’t know what to do with myself.
I mean, who Wyatt wants to date is his own business, and if we need to talk about it, then we should be able to do so like civilized people.
Talking about otherness in our society without getting caught up in prejudice should be possible. It should be the norm. I mean, hell, this is part of this country, of who we are. And it’s rich that a family like mine with a half-Italian, half-Estonian background should act like this.
Surging to my feet, I pad to the kitchen to grab a glass of juice. It’s Thursday night, and I’ve had a full day at college and then sewing clothes to sell, and I can’t sleep.
While there, I caress in passing the plants lining the sill of the small window, stroking the frilly leaves of a parsley sprout and the long, silky stalks of the onions. I planted them along with tons of other plants when I first moved here. I love watching things grow.
Back home we had a big garden, and my parents had trees and trellises and herbs growing. I loved it as a child. Still love it.
And it’s still there. I’m the one who left.
Opening the fridge, I pour myself a glass of OJ, trying not to think about that—about the things I miss about my family. They piss me off so much sometimes, but I had a happy childhood. Before the doubts hit, and I started feeling like a weed in their rose garden, everything had been perfect.
Even now I sometimes wish I could go back. Back in time, I guess.
The sounds drifting from Amber’s bedroom reach a high pitch. I almost choke on my juice when a very loud moan reaches my ears. Heat climbs up my neck.
I tug the turtleneck of my sweater higher and lean back against the counter. I wiggle my toes in my pink monster slippers and pretend I can’t hear them.
Amber and Jesse Lee. Going at it like bunnies on acid. Not uncommon in our little apartment, and despite having left behind my conservative upbringing, the noise they make always gets me all flustered.
Hey, a girl can’t help herself, okay? Especially since Jesse Lee is kinda hot. Kinda lots of hot. Five chilies.
Okay, not five, if I want to be honest. No, that number is reserved for another boy who works at the same tattoo shop, Damage Control, one with messy blue hair and laughing blue eyes, and a body that looks like it was chiseled from stone and polished to perfection…
But let’s not go there, okay? Because said blue-haired boy isn’t interested in me.
And hey, it’s okay. Even if he was, he is totally not my type. A funny boy, all sunshine and laughter, easy-going and confident. He’s too perfect. Too beautiful. Untouchable. I’m more into broody, tragic types, like the ones in the romance novels I read on my phone on nights I can’t sleep—like tonight.
Besides, I need to figure out my life, and I don’t need more complications.
We could have some fun, though. If he were interested. I’d love to be introduced to his muscular body, do some hands-on mapping of his chest and shoulders, with optional excursions to the areas below his waist.
But he isn’t interested, as I mentioned before. I put my glass in the sink and check my hot pink nails, wiggling my fingers. He hasn’t even let me read his palm yet. Or the cards. And he’s been avoiding me ever since I asked him about it.
I get it, okay? Not everyone is obsessed with palmistry and card reading like I am. I don’t even know why I am so hell-bent on finding out what the future holds. It’s as if knowing will allow me to shape it, and it doesn’t work that way. I think.
Dreaming of the future and living it are two different things, and I know that. I know the cards won’t magically show me what I need, what I feel is missing from my life. But I am hunting for clues, okay? Trying to figure myself out, and the fact he refuses flat-out to let me do the same with him… it bothers me.
It’s like a black spot on the sun. It doesn’t fit with who Ocean is. I want to grab Windex and clean it off.
I slide down on the carpet and turn on the TV—loud, to drown out the banging of a headboard against the wall and Amber moaning. It’s the middle of a movie, and there is a group of friends dancing in a night club.
Dancing. Music. That would be nice. I bend over my spread of tarot cards and flip another. The Chariot. What did this one symbolize?
Something about control over one’s emotions. Taking control.
I glance back at the TV, at the people dancing, then lift the card from the carpet. It looks like a sign.
Tomorrow I’ll call Ev and go out, and forget for a while about my family, about my irrational fear of the future and about Ocean.
***
Evangeline, Ev, meets me at a café near campus for lunch. I haven’t seen her in almost a week, which feels like a year, and I’m excited about Damage Control gossip. That tattoo shop is like a hub of cosmic energy, the epicenter of karmic rays.
Okay, actually it’s a heart-throb hotspot. Even if most guys working there are taken, and Ocean’s not interested, there is Ev’s hot brother, and Dakota’s millions of cousins, and Jesse’s sexy roommates and God knows who else, all of them passing through the shop from time to time and leaving the female population drooling in the aftermath.
Plus, I get to hear stories about the boys of the shop, first-hand, and I really want to know the details about Shane and Cassie. After all, I feel a bit responsible. At Zane’s wedding, I did tell them things that may have forced things a little.
What was I to do? Their feelings for each other were clear to see. I didn’t think it might hurt to tell them about it. Knowing they ended up together is not a big surprise, but I want to know Shane is okay. He went through a lot, and his story tugs on my heartstrings.
Even if Ocean is hotter.
Okay, seriously? I shake my head at myself as I enter the coffee shop, scanning the tables for Ev and pulling out my phone to call her. Dark spot or not, muscular chest or not, I should forget about Ocean. Stop obsessing. It’s not healthy. So those boys are hot. So what?
You didn’t obsess like this about Jesse, a traitorous little voice in the back of my mind quips as I spot Ev and shove my phone back into my purse. Or Shane. Or anyone else but Ocean.
It’s the name, I tell myself firmly. And the blue hair. The colors. So many colors, from the blue of his hair and eyes to the caramel freckles on his nose to the red coloring his cheekbones when he gets excited about something.
I don’t think there was enough color in my life growing up. Not enough craziness. It’s what I missed back at home. Maybe that’s why I feel so drawn to Ocean, with his crazy hair and easy laughter. Another rebel, like me. Another person trying to break loose of conventions and be his own self.
A very handsome self, too. Yeah, that doesn’t hurt at all.
“Hey, Kay!” Ev gets up from her seat to hug me, and I inhale the familiar sweet scent of her shampoo and the floral softener of her sweater. “I got you the burger you like.”
“Chipotle barbecue sauce? You didn’t.”
She pulls back and waggles her brows. “Sure did! I know you like it hot.”
“You little minx, you.” I laugh as I settle in my chair and hang my purse on the backrest. “You like it hot, too, admit it.”
“Maybe.” She bats her lashes at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
A brief flash of her with Micah hits me, kissing against a wall like I have seen them do many times, and another flash follows on its heels, of Ocean pressing his tall, muscular body against me, brushing his mouth over mine—
“I’m famished.” I duck my head to hide the color rising to my face and grab a fry from my plate. “Mm, these are good.”
“You’re blushing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You absolutely are. What’s going on here? Who’s the lucky guy?”
“No fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“The guy you had hot sex with.”
“You mean the hero in the latest novel I read? He’s tall, dark, sexy—and very imaginary.”
She lifts a brow as she gathers up her
burger and eyes it, as if trying to decide the best angle from which to dive in. “Is that so? Then why are you uncomfortable?”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
“Yes, you are. You were never uncomfortable when talking about sex before.”
“We aren’t talking about sex. We’re talking about food.”
“Yeah, whatevs.” She makes a face at me with her mouth full. “Wawawa fla—”
“English, please.” I stuff a fry into my mouth and chew thoughtfully, trying to suppress a laugh.
She swallows, crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out. “Whatever floats your boat, baby girl.”
“So what’s up?”
“I thought you didn’t want any details about my sex life.”
“Very funny.” Sighing dramatically, I take a bite from my burger. Mmm. “I regret to inform you that your sex life isn’t among my top interests right now. I do get a live show every night with Amber and Jesse, after all. Too much of the same can get boring.”
She shakes her head. “Gotcha. Too much virtual sex.”
Right. ‘Virtual’ being the operative word here. “How’s your brother?”
Her brows shoot up to her hairline. “You have the hots for my brother?”
“You make it sound like a disease. Let’s just say he’s not bad-looking. Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not the first time I asked you about him.”
“Joel is… sort of taken.”
“Is that the same as sort of pregnant?”
Ev giggles. “No, but he’s been in love with this girl for ages, and she just never seems to notice. Poor guy.”
“Hm. So I’ll strike Joel off my list, then.”
“What list is that?”
“The list of guys whose fortune I want to read.”
“Is that a code word for sex?”
“No.” I poke at a fry. Yes? Maybe? “What about Ocean’s brother?”
“What about him?”
“Has he ever been around? I bet he’s hot, too.”
“I don’t think he’s been around, no—and a good thing, too, because the few times Ocean mentioned his name, he sounded upset with him.”