by Kim Karr
Keen’s grin is wider than I have ever seen. “Presley is perfect.”
And as my eyes shift from the baby to Keen and back to the baby, I think some fairy godmother somewhere had a plan for me, and it couldn’t have ended any more perfectly.
Hours later when I awake, my eyes flutter open and closed, and within seconds Keen’s soft lips are on mine. Although he is barely skimming his mouth across mine, I can feel the heat that sears me every time he touches me.
Floating back from that place his kisses always take me, my eyes lift to find Presley safe and secure in Keen’s arms.
Seeing them together, observing the state of bliss on Keen’s face, I know a thousand times over that Keen was wrong when he said he didn’t know what love is.
And more than that, I know I was dead wrong when I said I didn’t believe in love . . . because I’m looking at it right now.
And Keen & Maggie live happily ever after.
The End
Thank you for purchasing and reading this book. If you enjoyed it, please leave a short review on the site where you purchased it, or on any other book-related sites such as Goodreads or your favorite review forum. Readers rely on reviews, as do authors.
Read on for a Sneak Peek of No Pants Required.
All of the chapter titles are named after Taylor Swift songs. I did my best to match the title to the feel of the chapter. I spent a lot of time listening to her music for inspiration, and I found Maggie in this amazing artist.
The way Maggie loves men especially, and the way she finally found the one she needed without even knowing she was looking.
Everyone has a favorite TS song, I’m sure. Nina, Jody, and Serena went on this journey with me and we all have our TS favorites. My very favorite song by Taylor Swift is “I Knew You Were Trouble.” And Nina Grinstead’s is “Red,” which comes in a total second for me. Jody’s is “Fearless.” And Serena’s is “Blank Space.”
What’s yours?
Please note: If you enjoyed meeting Makayla and Cam, you can read more about their relationship and how they met in No Pants Required . . .
And look for Keen in the opening scene.
Makayla
JUST THE MERE SUGGESTION OF karaoke gets everyone’s heart pounding. Whether it’s out of excitement or pure, blind panic depends on the individual and that person’s frame of mind at the time.
The truth is that most people sing karaoke for the same reasons they go bowling—it’s a fun activity and they can drink while doing it.
With that being said, perhaps some of the people that are here can get up and confidently belt out their most favorite song in the world with no concern for the eardrums they are perforating or the notes they are destroying. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.
To be honest, I can’t believe I even agreed to do this.
Then again, Bar On is not where I thought I’d find myself tonight. This Chinatown lounge may be packed full of eager-to-sing regulars, but my friends and I are not those people. We are here on a whim after a few too many drinks at a restaurant down the street.
Shuffling through the crowd, I stop when someone taps me on the shoulder. Thinking it’s one of my friends, I turn around to see a tall, leggy brunette with the most vibrant green eyes staring at me. Her face is stunning. She looks like Megan Fox. For a second, I wonder if she is.
She steps closer and right away I can see this woman is a bit younger, though—my age, I’d say. “Do you mind if I get by?” she asks with one of those affluent tones I know all too well from my days in private school.
Definitely not Megan Fox.
Without waiting for me to answer, she pushes past, and in her rush, steps on my open-toed pump.
Ouch!
I glare as her red Louboutin soles make their way to the front of the lounge.
“Come on,” my coworker tosses over her shoulder, not at all bothered by the woman who brushed past her, too. “Sandra found us a table.”
India leads the way, and I follow, making sure not to step on any toes in the crowd. Finally, she stops at the only available table large enough for our group, which just so happens to be right in front of the stage.
Fantastic.
The white leather banquette is awash in the neon light emanating from the human-sized letters that spell the establishment’s name across the back wall. The light is nearly blinding. I look at Sandra. “Are you sure you want to sit this close?”
She hands me a menu of songs. “Yes, this is going to be great.”
“Pour Some Sugar on Me” is coming to an end and once I’ve slid all the way across the bench, I look up to see a group of very pleased guys jumping off the stage in unison. The Def Leppard wannabes are staring at us.
This must have been their spot.
All clean-cut, all fuck-hot, all about my age. Immediately, I can tell by their walk that they are definitely Upper East Siders. Prep school, riot club types turned Wall Street wolves would be my guess. You know—the kind of guy your mother warns you about.
The type I should have stayed away from.
The guy closest to me is wearing a red tie and has his black jacket slung over his shoulder. The others are dressed in dark suits too. Hmmm . . . either dressed up for an occasion or still dressed up after the occasion. Not a wedding, since it’s a Thursday night. An office party maybe? Or perhaps this group of drunken men is here for a going-away party like mine. Who knows? Anyway, the guy with the red tie gives the eight of us girls a quick glance and a smile but doesn’t stop.
He’s cute. Really cute.
At least he doesn’t seem to mind that we took their table. Then again, he’s too focused on the guy without a jacket farthest away from me. “Cam,” he calls out. “Don’t bother with her.” His warning is too late, though, because this Cam, whose white, rumpled shirt and dark hair are all I can see, is already allowing himself to be dragged away from his group by that Megan Fox look-alike who practically ran me over minutes ago.
Fascinated by her assertiveness, I watch the two of them. I have to crane my neck to catch sight of them, and soon, too soon, they disappear into the crowd. Squinting my eyes, wishing I’d changed my dirty contact lenses, I search for them.
In a matter of seconds, though, it’s not my poor eyesight but Sandra who prevents me from locating them. She stands in front of me with a huge-ass smile on her face. “What song did you decide on?”
Giving a cursory glance at my choices, the perfect one is the first I see. “‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’” I blurt out and point excitedly at the same time. This song I know, and know it all too well.
Sandra is my neighbor and is more than aware of all my woes. That sad smile she gives me borders on pity.
Not wanting to be that girl anymore, the one who got her heart broken, I grab Sandra’s arm before she heads toward the karaoke booth. “You know what, forget that song. Why don’t you pick one that represents the change coming in my life?”
At that her eyes light up.
Minutes later I’m being dragged up onstage by my friends and coworkers, and according to the screen, I’m about to sing a group rendition of “New York, New York.”
Okay, I can do this.
I know this song. Not as well as “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” but at least I know it. Besides, how hard can it be? I’ve sung it a million times—although admittedly mostly when I’ve been drunk.
Then again, I have had a lot to drink tonight.
The pressure is on. The eight of us gather around the microphone. The audience lights dim and a spotlight shines on us. I kind of feel like a star. No, I feel like Frank Sinatra himself without those penetrating blue eyes. But when the karaoke jockey asks, “Are you ready?” suddenly, I’m petrified. There is no way on God’s green earth I am going to be able to hit the high notes.
The music starts. It’s too late to back out. First, it’s just the piano, but then the trumpet and clarinet join in. It’s odd, but the familiarity of the sound eases my nerve
s. When the lyrics flash in front of me, all my worries are gone and I don’t care anymore.
I let all of my hang-ups go and sing.
This, what I’m doing right now, is a glimpse into the old me. Somewhere between college and the real world, I lost that fun-loving girl, and I hope I can find her again.
Don’t worry. I have a plan to do just that. Not only am I leaving the city I have loved for so long, but I’m also going to be moving far, far away, with no idea if I will ever be coming back.
It’s how I hope to find myself.
My friends squeeze my shoulders, and we continue to sing the lyrics. Unexpectedly, they alter the words, and instead of talking about making it in New York, they tell the story of making it anywhere—in my case, California.
More than moved by this kind gesture, I gulp down the sorrow and move with them in a way that doesn’t match the tempo at all. It doesn’t matter, though, because they’re right: “If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.”
God, I hope that’s true.
There’s a pause in the chorus and the piano melody quiets us all down. We’re now standing in a straight line onstage and swaying back and forth.
Breathing for the first time in three months, regret isn’t a word I am going to allow myself to say . . . out loud, anyway.
Yes, I admit it—I have a type A personality, which makes me hard to get to know and even harder to be friends with. Crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s will always be important to me. As is staying on a schedule. Making lists. And being organized. But none of that means I’m boring.
The sting of the word still hurts.
Sebastian was wrong. Is wrong—I am not boring, and even though he is out of my life I am going to prove him wrong. No, scratch that—I am going to prove to myself that I can live my life wild and free, because truth be told, I may not be boring, but I am bored.
I need a change.
To find myself.
The chorus starts up again and although we sing about coming to New York, we all do so knowing that I’m leaving.
I still can’t believe I’m doing it.
When my best friend, Maggie, suggested on the phone, “Why don’t you quit your job and move out here with me?” I nearly broke out in hives.
I thought, why would I do that?
My life was settled. I had a good job, an apartment, and a fiancé. Then I remembered that my boss was an ass, my apartment was a sublet, and my fiancé, well, he wasn’t mine anymore.
Once I let the idea of moving sink in, I thought, why not make a new start? At twenty-four and a half, I can afford to make a change. I’ll get a new job. Give myself a year. Who knows, maybe even find myself.
I have nothing to lose.
If Laguna Beach isn’t the place for me, then I’ll come back to New York. And if I have to, I’ll grovel to get back my old job at the fashion house. My soon-to-be-former boss might be an ass, but he knows my value to the company as a designer.
Completely oblivious to how this song ends, I mumble through it, laughing the entire time. When it’s over, I’m the first to stumble off the stage. Soon after, my friends follow, and we all huddle together. The group of boys our mothers warned us about have reoccupied their seats, leaving us homeless.
“Let’s sing another one,” India suggests, practically jumping at the idea. India is—no, as of today, was—my coworker at Kate von Frantzenberg. We’ve been friends since we both started there right out of college. She’s married to a great guy named Elvis—yes, Elvis. And she, like Sandra, saw me through the dark times following my breakup with Sebastian.
Another song does seem like fun. Karaoke is addicting. However, my bladder is about to burst. “You guys go for it,” I tell her. “I’m going to use the bathroom and I’ll hop in when I’m done.”
“Stay out of trouble,” she calls to me.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be good,” I tell her and weave my way through the crowd toward the restrooms.
Trouble.
That’s a laugh.
Even if I went looking for it, it would never find me.
Boring.
My life is that boring.
Wonder of wonders, there is only a very short line. Gleeful and relieved when I finally push through the bathroom door, I hurry to find an empty stall. The hard part comes next. My dress is tight, too tight to shimmy over my hips. With its large silver zipper running up the entire back, I have to use both hands to get it down. Getting it back up is just as much of a bother.
An episode of Sex and the City comes to mind. One in which Carrie Bradshaw finally accepts being alone and figures out how to zip her own dress.
If she could do it, so can I.
Channeling my inner Carrie, it still takes me a few minutes. And when I come out of the stall, the bathroom is jam-packed. I wait my turn for a sink behind two women whispering loudly about the tragedy of it all and how they don’t blame him for leaving the city. Him. I don’t know who they are talking about, but by the time the two women leave, even I feel sorry for this him.
After I wash my hands and dry them, I follow the surge of people down the dimly lit hallway. There are rooms reserved for private parties and with my feet killing me, I slip into an empty one to check my messages.
Strips of neon-pink bulbs along the perimeter cast an almost strobe-like effect in the room. Ignoring the fact that it’s messing with my vision, I pick a booth out of sight of the door. My screen saver lights up when I pull my phone from my purse. It’s of the Statue of Liberty. A photo I took last summer when Sebastian and I were goofing off one Saturday instead of looking for wedding locations.
I should have taken it as a sign.
Resolved to stop thinking about Sebastian, I thumb across the picture and go directly to Google. Once there, I search for a picture of something that will have meaning in my new life.
Bingo!
More than satisfied with my choice, I save it as my new screen saver and start singing the song that the bright photo reminds of: “If you like piña coladas . . .”
With a smile on my face, I finish that verse and flip to my message. When I do, I see that I have a text.
Maggie: Are you still out?
Feeling on top of the world that yes, I am, I look at the time and smile. It’s 12:35 a.m. And I’m still out. Having fun.
See, I’m so not boring.
Excited about this, I have to retype my reply three times to get the one word correct. Just as I go to hit send, my phone slides out of my grip.
Crap.
Camouflaged beneath the black tablecloth, I lie on the seat and reach onto the carpeted floor. The smoothness of the vinyl bench and soft material of my dress don’t exactly see eye-to-eye, and somehow I end up falling to the ground. It’s more than a little grimy and I’m more than a little grossed out. With my fingers curled around my phone, I’m about to get off this disgustingness when I hear the sound of voices and the door closing to the private room.
I freeze right where I am.
From under the table I can see two silhouettes. A man. And a woman. I can’t see their faces from this angle, only their bodies. Just as I’m about to announce my presence, my eyes drift down to a perfectly shined pair of men’s shoes and a very familiar pair of high heels. I know by the Louboutins that the woman is the Megan Fox look-alike.
Like a cat, my curiosity is back.
And when she shoves the man against the door, I feel my heart start to pound. The man is likely Cam—the dark-haired guy she trampled over me to get to and then dragged away from his friends. Getting a better look at him, I can see that his body is taut with tension. A live wire, I think. Definitely an uptight suit.
Trust me—I know the type well.
Right now is when I should announce myself. Yet I don’t. Instead, I cover the screen of my phone to shield its glare and watch for what she’s going to do next. Maybe yell at him. Cry. Or even break up with him. She’s a woman on a mission, and I feel an odd kinship with her becaus
e I’ve been there before.
As if releasing her rage, she rips his shirt apart, and I panic as the buttons jump across the carpeted floor and land very close to my table. The couple doesn’t even seem to notice, though, because the woman is already running her palms up his smooth, muscled skin. When she bends, I think for a moment she might bite him or pinch him, and then tell him to go to hell, but instead she starts licking him.
Wait!
She was mad at him.
Wasn’t she?
Had I gotten her body language all wrong?
From my downtown view, I can tell she’s working his one nipple hard. His hands claw at the door behind him as if he needs the support, but his satisfied groans tell me he likes what’s going on. When Megan moves to the other side of his chest, my gaze lands on a tattoo of a scrolling letter B right over his heart, and I think Megan must be B.
Brittney?
Breanna?
Bailey?
Bethany, I bet. She looks like one.
Megan with a B traces the scrolling letter. For some reason, I can’t call her Bethany. To me she’s Megan. I’ll stick with that. “I’m sorry, Cam. I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“Just shut up,” he hisses, and I wish I could see his face so I could tell if he’s angry or if he likes to be rough.
My thoughts are soon left in the dust because red soles are all I can see when she drops to her knees. Shocked, I have to use my hand to cover my gasp. This is not what I expected. Either way, it’s too late for me to say a word.
Slowly, she unzips the fine fabric of his trousers, and I want to die.
I can’t watch this.
Yet, I do.
The pink lights flicker over and around me, and if either of them looks toward the corner, they might catch a glimpse of my extremely bold, large silver zipper. Remind me why I suggested this change to the designer? Inching my way farther back, I make sure to blend in with my all-black attire.
“I want you,” she moans with a harsh breath.