Rhymes with Orange [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations)

by Tymber Dalton

  Coop knew the chances were Dani would eventually become nothing more than a friend. If that was the case, hearing her name come up from time to time wouldn’t send Hunter’s mind recklessly spiraling out into the what-if wilderness.

  If on the off-chance something did develop with her, Hunter would be prepared for that, too.

  Although the hurdle any woman had to jump to make it to relationship status with him had just been raised a few more inches. No way he’d give ground, unless Hunter and Todd decided they wanted to back things up.

  Any woman who wanted to be part of Coop’s life would have to accept him the way he was, and that meant they’d have to accept Hunter and Todd’s roles in his life.

  Whatever those roles were or morphed into.

  It’d take an exceptional woman to accept that their guy would have a gay slave and potentially be his lover, too.

  And the lover of his gay slave’s gay boyfriend.

  Yeah, that’s not at allll complicated.

  Coop sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. Last night he’d gone home and rubbed one out while reliving what he’d done that weekend. Truth be told, it’d been the least stressful weekend he’d had in…

  In a year.

  No coincidence that same timeframe covered the time he’d spent dating Bethany, too.

  Dammit. I’m a fucking moron.

  If Dani decided she eventually wanted to be play partners, he’d be happy to discuss that possibility. In all honesty, while he still considered himself straight, he didn’t have the energy to go through carefully vetting another romantic partner. If a perfect one sprouted somewhere in outer space and fell into his lap, maybe he’d rethink that position.

  For now, he was honestly curious to see what might happen with Hunter and Todd. Wasn’t like he was worried about having kids. He’d gotten a vasectomy years ago, while still married to his ex and beginning the divorce process, because he’d decided he did not want kids after that fiasco.

  What he wanted was a low-stress personal life. He didn’t consider Hunter stressful, even with all of Hunter’s emotional baggage. The time he spent with Hunter and Todd was something he looked forward to, cherished.

  Hell, they were in a relationship. Four years in. It’d have to be an exceptional woman who could make him want to shift away from what was starting to look like a pretty definitive course.

  * * * *

  Dani spent Monday morning working, recording two chapters before taking a break. She still had to go through and edit previous chapters. Eventually, she hoped to use an editing service, which would increase her productivity.

  Fortunately for her, this was a case where her OCD worked in her favor. She learned new skills quickly, and editing to assure the quality control for the audio files was something she’d picked up rapidly, even faster than her friend had thought she would.

  Now she could take her mind off of that and let it drift to dinner the night before.

  Ned Cooper.

  She’d be seeing him tomorrow night, and that fact fed a slowly growing bubble of nervous tension in her gut that she recognized all too well.

  One she’d run from while undergoing her physical recovery.

  One she knew from college that, no matter how big it got and how bad it felt, if she’d just trust Mikayla, and fall back to her anchoring exercises, she could breathe her way through it.

  Mikayla had never put her in a position of danger, real or perceived. Mikayla loved her. And she would only introduce Dani to people she trusted.

  I have to start somewhere.

  She’d watched people last night. It was something she was damned good at, no thanks to her coping mechanisms. Other than the people Ned had buffered her against, everyone else, including irascible Tilly on the other side of the table, had genuinely seemed to like the guy.

  She wasn’t interested in jumping into a relationship. Eventually, however, she would like to find a trusted play partner, a very patient person who could understand her triggers both physical and emotional, and who wouldn’t have a problem accommodating them or her reduced mobility.

  If Ned was already used to dealing with someone who had severe anxiety, she’d keep her options open with him for now.

  Meanwhile, she’d get to know the locals, the cliques—because there were always cliques—learn her volunteer duties, and slowly start working herself into to something that, at least on the face, appeared to be a normal life.

  Step by step.

  Tiny steps.

  The club first, where she’d feel comfortable—she hoped—with the members and wouldn’t have to explain this part of herself to anyone. As her network of friends slowly expanded and she learned who she could honestly trust and rely on, and who she had to keep at arm’s length, she could eventually think about maybe figuring out how to expand her vanilla circle of friends.

  Friends she could drop everything to go out with, because the anxiety of missing out on fun time with them would outweigh her anxiety over whatever it was she thought she needed to be doing at home.

  In this case work, but she could work any time now.

  She had a freedom of time she hadn’t had in the better part of a decade. Maybe that had been the whole problem from the start.

  Instead of building her foundation, she’d escaped. Moving to New York with her parents had been traumatic, in a way, and yet opened avenues to her that might not otherwise have been available.

  She wouldn’t trade her time in New York for anything, although if she could have one decision back, she would have faced her anxiety and forced herself to call for an Uber, instead of getting in that damned cab despite her hesitation and gut instincts when she’d flagged him down.

  The sound of the accident, of the man’s screams, still haunted her at night. The ripping and tearing of metal as they flipped and she’d been violently thrown around in the back seat, and how helpless she’d felt as the driver had bled to death, choking on it as he died, and she’d been trapped and injured, unable to help him.

  Closing her eyes, she reached over with her left hand and pinched the inside of her upper right arm, hard, in the sensitive, fleshy part. Hard enough to finally make her gasp.

  I’m home, in my apartment.

  This apartment is my new home.

  They painted it just before I moved in because I can still smell the paint a little.

  Outside is a large pine tree that three squirrels like to chase each other around every morning.

  I can sometimes hear the sirens from the trucks leaving the fire station three blocks away, if the wind is right.

  Deep breath.

  And another.

  Pulse now slowed, she opened her eyes, walked over to the TV in the living room, and turned it on. She switched it to one of the digital music channels, a soothing jazz station. Listening to the music, she slowed her breathing even more, in time with the tempo, until pretty soon she was trying to anticipate every note, every chord.

  The first several days after the accident she’d spent medicated out of her mind. Not just for the pain, but also because she couldn’t stop crying, would awake screaming from nightmares, and they weren’t exactly sure what to do with her after tests for illegal drugs in her system came back negative.

  Until she’d finally come around enough during day five or six and begged to speak to Dr. Ramirez.

  Doctor who?

  Once that mess was straightened out, he’d immediately ordered she get put back on her meds, of which she was going through withdrawals because of the sudden stoppage.

  She’d been damn lucky to not be having convulsions.

  Dani didn’t want to get into it with her mother and father standing right there, but when she’d later laid into Clayton about it, about how could he not have told someone there about her doctor and her medications, he’d looked clueless.

  Some damn Dom.

  He wasn’t a Dom. He was barely a boyfriend.

  She’d asked him to leave her alo
ne that night. After phone calls to a couple of friends, and handing her keys to them, she’d begged them to go over while he was at work and move all of her stuff out of the apartment and take it to her parents’ house. Every last bit of it.

  Of course Clayton had shown up at the hospital again after that, acting distraught.

  She’d ordered him out.

  Dr. Ramirez had left orders with the staff that they were to call him, day or night, if she needed him.

  She’d needed him.

  He’d shown up and interceded for her with her parents, talking to them about her anxiety, her OCD, and that it was vital to her recovery to have their love and support about this.

  He’d been able to get through to them that any boyfriend who couldn’t even be bothered to think about mentioning that she was on medications, and that she had a psychologist, wasn’t someone she could rely on or trust.

  And what she’d needed was stability, reliability, people she could trust, especially during her recovery process.

  Then Mikayla had flown up and they cried together and Dani promised her she’d think about moving back to Florida.

  There was no way, even could she physically recover enough to resume her grueling schedule, that Dani could make herself get back on that stage. Every day. Deal with new directors and choreographers and chorus members every time a production ended.

  Go through the emotionally draining process of auditions while juggling another job to pay the bills.

  At least with the audiobooks and voiceover work, she didn’t have to look people in the face and drive herself crazy trying to interpret their reactions. They listened to her samples, and either they asked for more, or they didn’t. Most of the time, she never even knew if they’d considered her or not, unless someone specifically asked for a particular audition piece to see if she was a fit or not for their project. Even when she actively chose a project to audition for, she didn’t know if they’d even listened to her clips or not. Taking the personal aspect out of it helped her better deal with it in her head.

  That was…a blessed relief, honestly.

  She’d had fun with her job before. She’d never had any false illusions that she’d be a headliner in a production. Especially not at her age. Her eventual goal had been to become a director, a producer, maybe even a playwright or choreographer. Who knew? The technical side of theatre had fascinated her as much as the performance side of it. But it was all an act. All of it, even the technical side of it. No one expected people to not be acting in some way to get through life. That meant she could fake her way through her days from when she walked out her front door until she returned home again.

  All of that, all of those coping mechanisms…gone.

  She’d faked her way through her whole life with a lot of tricks that had required a monumental amount of energy on her part. Energy she no longer had due to pain and trying to get through everything else.

  Mikayla called her that evening. “Do I need to send Carson over tomorrow to bring you?”

  “No. I won’t cancel.”

  “That’s not why, but okay.”

  “If I’m hurting too bad to drive, I’ll shoot you a text tomorrow so he can plan to come get me.”

  “Wow. No arguing or bantering? That sounds—”

  “Like college?”

  “Yeah.” Dani knew if she waited Mikayla out that her friend would get to her point. She always did. “It’s not just the accident that changed you, is it?”

  Mikayla was probably the one person in the world she could talk to like this, who would get it and her.

  “I think I need to re-enroll in Miss Miky’s School of Social Coping Skills for Fucked-Up Coeds for an immersive refresher course.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She let out a sigh. “When we saw you last year, I could tell something was really wrong, but I knew you wouldn’t tell me unless you were ready to.”

  Carson and Mikayla flew up for a vacation in the Big Apple and had come to see her in the show she’d been in at the time. They’d spent several early afternoons together having lunch and Dani showing them around her adopted hometown. The women tried to get together at least once a year, in addition to frequent texts, phone calls, and social media.

  And it had happened just at the start of Clayton’s latest round of bullshit. A couple of months before the accident.

  “I wasn’t ready to admit it yet,” Dani said. “I wanted to make sure he was really being a tool and not just going through a phase.”

  “Because some changes are easier for you to deal with than others. Gradual versus sudden.”

  “Yeah,” Dani said. “Just a frog in a pot.” It was an old axiom, and definitely one Dani knew applied to her life.

  “A degree at a time. Pretty soon, you’re swimming in boiling water.”

  “I know.”

  Mikayla knew how hard some changes were for Dani to make. How it took psyching herself up to the point that she couldn’t not go through with the change.

  Like trying to leave Clayton.

  It took an even bigger change she had no control over to make her mind up for her.

  The accident had been the pot of boiling water Dani had been dropped into and immediately jumped out of.

  Metaphorically speaking.

  Her personal situation with Clayton had been a slowly simmering soup for several months prior to the accident.

  “So I received a message on Facebook today,” Mikayla said.

  Dani didn’t even hide her groan. “Do I want to know?”

  “Oh, he misses you and would love to know where you are and how you’re doing. And for me to tell you he misses you.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “I sent him an animated gif of Beyoncé from her Formation video. You know, the one where she’s flipping a double bird.”

  Dani snorted. That was totally something Mikayla would do. “How’d he take that?”

  “I don’t know. Once I saw that he’d seen it, I blocked his ass so he couldn’t reply.”

  “Ah.”

  “Carson’s already blocked him.” She sighed. “You know, he was doomed from the start.”

  “Who?”

  “Clayton. Not just because he was a tool, either.”

  “Okay, then why?” Dani wanted to hear this one. It had to be good.

  “Because his name was too close to Carson’s. It’d get confusing. You need a guy with a nice, short, one-syllable name.”

  “Like…oh…Ned?”

  “Exactly. Hey, there are worse names than Ned. Or Coop.”

  Aaaannnd there we go. “Please don’t start pushing in that direction.”

  “I’m not pushing. I’m cautiously guiding.”

  “I kind of got the impression he’s sort of involved with his slave.”

  “I’m not saying you have to date him or even play with him. Let him become a friend. Don’t push him away just because you’re scared.”

  “I promise I won’t do that. Push away, I mean. I know I need friends.”

  “Wow. You’re not arguing with me? You sure you’re okay?”

  “I think I’m actually more okay now than I’ve been in years.”

  “Do you have an appointment with Ted?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Mikayla laughed. “Sorry, but you know me.”

  “I’m going on Friday morning to talk to him for an initial consult. I already coordinated with Dr. Ramirez, who is going to talk to him on the phone before then. Plus I sent him the pdf of my records to review.”

  “Excellent. At least OCD makes you an excellent self-advocate for your care.”

  “That’s one point in my favor, I guess.”

  “Stop. Hey, so, dinner Friday before we hit the club. Carson said he’ll pick you up on his way home, we can eat here, and then we’ll drop you off on the way back.”

  “That’s not out of your way?”

  “Nope.”

  “You don’t want me able to escape, do you?”

&
nbsp; Mikayla let out a laugh. “Welcome to the Dark Side, baby girl. We have awesome cookies.”

  Chapter Nine

  Late Tuesday, Dani soaked in a tub filled with hot water and rosemary-mint Epsom salts. She had to leave in an hour to go to Mikayla’s, and her whole body felt like a throbbing toothache. Not to mention her heart had been periodically racing throughout day, likely from the stress over that night’s dinner.

  This has to be more than just the accident.

  She’d had injuries before. It was part and parcel of being a dancer, duh. She’d soldiered on through pain and exhaustion and crampy periods and blisters on her feet and swollen, aching joints.

  All with a smile on her face, staying on tempo, hitting her marks, and singing on-key.

  This felt…different.

  I need to get a new GP.

  Yes, she’d pushed herself hard the past several weeks. The ride in the moving van down from New York, not that she’d had a whole heck of a lot of stuff, but her mom had insisted on giving her some pieces from their house, stuff she’d grown up with and hadn’t taken when she’d moved out the first time.

  Getting the apartment set up.

  The stress of settling in and settling down somewhere new.

  The munch.

  If the pain was limited to her back, neck, and pelvis, she’d agree it was from the accident.

  This was more. Even her hands and feet hurt when they shouldn’t. It was something she’d noticed more and more over the past couple of months. At first she’d attributed it to the accident, but her gut was telling her this was different.

  The last thing she wanted to do was go on heavy painkillers, either. Yes, pain made her anxiety worse, exhausted her, and exhaustion increased her anxiety, and anxiety caused pain. A hellishly ironic cycle, chicken and egg.

  She needed to get back into doing yoga or something. There were positions she wouldn’t be able to do now, but at least stretching. She wasn’t used to this. Her apartment complex had a nice workout room on-site, and she’d already made use of the treadmill and a recumbent stationary cycle to keep herself in shape. It wasn’t her weight so much as her muscle tone. She wasn’t used to feeling weak, soft.