THE NAUGHTY ONES: The Complete 5-Books Series

by Kristina Weaver

  My parents are what you would call assholes, and though being here at all makes my stomach ache I still do the obligatory once-a-month visit because it cuts out the crap I know will follow.

  You’ve heard me say that I don’t like my parents and that Gruffy’s been my grandmother and mother rolled into one. It’s all true.

  I was born on a rainy night. Mom and Dad were both so convinced they were having a son that Dad filled in the birth papers when they hit the hospital and was basically ready and rearing to go to have me named. Twenty hours of labor later, I popped out, vagina and all, and I swear I remember the disappointment.

  Not that I would need to. I mean I’ve heard this story a million times and they never fail to emphasize just how disappointed they were. Anyway, I was born and Dad, being the evil little ass he is, was so stumped and annoyed he just handed in the papers and called it all good, considering himself done when he failed to get the boy he wanted.

  That little tantrum cost me a decent name. He put Percival Reginald on the papers, so that’s what I got, along with parents who just failed to care after that.

  I spent the first eighteen years of my life surviving these buttholes while Gruffy did everything from feeding me to clothing me when they just didn’t seem all that interested in anything but pursuing their own lives.

  Not that I’m complaining all that much, I got the better deal in Gruffy and that’s just the hard truth I have to live with. What I can’t quite handle is that in the past three years Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to get to know me and take credit for shit that isn’t theirs to claim.

  So now I have negotiated one Saturday a month with these assholes just so that I can hear Dad tear apart my life and see Mom’s looks of sympathy when I tell her that no, indeed, I am not married or with child so that they can have a grandchild.

  “It’s not a hobby. Delights is a business. We cater big events and even supply some of the cookies Indie makes to big outfits around the city. We’re getting bigger by the day and we’re doing so well we’ve even hired on more staff,” I mutter, looking out of the window at the grey winter sky outside.

  Yeah, I feel you, day. I feel just what you’re showing, I think as a cloud of gloom settles in and refuses to leave me.

  I always feel like this when faced with these two.

  “A business? You cook and serve food to the rich! How is that a business? Now just look at Percival.”

  Have I mentioned Mom and Dad got their little heir and pride of joy and went so far as to steal the only thing they gave me because it was Dad’s dream? Yeah. They named him Percival Reginald Leighton too. How messed up is that?

  Not that I’m too raw about that, mind you. I sometimes get his porn mags by mistake and I and Thursday enjoy the hell out of those.

  “I know. He’s like Mr. Business, huh? What’s he doing now? Robbing little old ladies of their money by slinging those ‘good investment’ packages everyone knows are trash?” I ask sweetly.

  Bad move and I know it. Insulting their little precious is like pouring gas on an open flame. I think just that look he’s giving me singed off one of my eyebrows.

  “He’s manager of his department at the bank! That is a respectable career and one to be proud of. At least he’s not a housewife pretending to be more.”

  Oh yeah. More. Give me more reason not to want to come here again.

  “He’s an idiot. I should know. You know he put in an application at a friend’s company and part of his resume highlighted his ability to make anything seem like a good idea. Now call me stupid but as far as I’m concerned, anyone who takes that much delight out of making shit seem like gold is not a good person.”

  “He’s doing his job.”

  “He’s an ass. I may cook and serve food for a living, but at least I’ve made it a successful business that I’m part owner of,” I grate, ignoring Mom when she comes into the living room and rolls her eyes.

  According to her, women have one role. Wife. Out of that comes the whole mother, nurturer crap she keeps trying to shove up my ass, but like I told her just last month, she never mothered me. If Percival II is anything to go by she should have eaten her young at birth and called it good.

  “Why must you always make things difficult? Is this the attitude you’re going to have for all time, Percival? We’re your family and yet you insist on always putting us down in favor of those people.”

  Count to fifty. Remember. Stay a few hours and you’re free for the next month.

  “Yeah okay, whatever, so what’s up with you then?” I ask, changing tack even though it rubs me freaking raw.

  Dad smirks, obviously seeing his victory and “putting me in my place” as the win it most certainly isn’t, but whatever. I can get through this without too much pain.

  “We’re throwing together a collection for the elderly at church and Daphne Sayers is helping me put together some of those lap throws for the old age home downtown. Why, we’re positively swamped!”

  My mother has been this church-going, God-fearing woman for the last ten years since she stopped making her tomato juice dirty with vodka…at eight in the morning!

  Not that I’m thinking I’m all that great. I was banned from church after a few failed attempts to lure the new priest to the dark side. He reminds me of Ricky Martin. I like that type of face, and the man is a dead ringer.

  I guess he’s also all pure and shit, but whatever.

  “That’s nice.”

  “Oh! And we have new parishioners. These two ladies and a son just moved into the neighbourhood.”

  Dad snorts at that and finally abandons pretending to read his paper.

  “They’re rich bitches, Mari, they’re not in this neighborhood. They live up on the hill and come down to rub elbows with us common folk on Sundays.”

  “Oh you! They’re lovely, although God knows about their morals. Why, I got it from Linda who got it from Gertie that they’re a mixed family. Apparently the one is the wife of a man who not only had a mistress for years but also had a bastard by the woman. When he died and the mistress showed up on her doorstep with her illegitimate get, well…I can’t believe any self-respecting woman would look at the tramp, never mind invite them into her home!”

  Red alert!

  I feel my palms go wet at the mention of this setup and it takes me a good few minutes not to freak the hell out as they keep arguing about people they don’t even know.

  It does not escape me that Mom doesn’t seem all that tolerant of their living situation, though she’s all right with the money they donate to the church that has now become her crutch to the alcohol she used to swill.

  The next hour is absolute torture as we sit down to lunch that makes me long for Gruffy and her love of butter. Honestly, who doesn’t use butter to flavor food?

  “So, anything new, Percival? You should really consider getting out there and meeting men, dear. You’re hitting that age where women are just going to go downhill, and you know I read an article the other day that says men don’t go older than late twenties anymore.”

  Oh brother. I can chew off a finger, right? I basically only need a thumb and index finger on each hand, so losing one shouldn’t be too bad.

  “Mom, I already told you I’m not into the whole marriage and babies thing.”

  “But, Percival, you’ll be alone—”

  “Give it a rest, Mari. The girl is obviously a lesbian.”

  I’d choke on the dry chicken I’m trying to force down but Dad’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before. According to him I’m in the closet, hence my lack of a good man in my life.

  Whatever. All’s I’m saying is I’d rather hit the seafood buffet than have any one of these two set me up with what they consider a good man. The last time I buckled and went on a date Mom set up, I ended up buying my date’s dinner and assuring my vagina that Mr. Thin Hair was not hitting it.

  Another hour and I’m basically running down the street in my four-inch heels as if Sat
an’s on my tail. By the time I do make it home to an empty apartment, my stomach revolting with its need for real food, I’m in a killer of a mood, my head is pounding, and I’d gladly take one of Indie’s medicinal fags.

  She’s not here though, and trust me, I’d rather peel one of my hands than raid her stash without permission, so all I have an hour later is a migraine, a gallon of brownie mix that’s great off the spoon, and Top Gun as my get-well cure.

  When the door rattles halfway through the movie I just figure it’s Indie trying to get in—it’s happened before that she’s been so drunk she couldn’t key the lock if someone held her hand—and stalk over to swing the door open with a laugh.

  Big mistake.

  “Hey.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I am not in a good mood, even Tom can’t cheer me up, and I’m still tripping off the lesbian comments. As if I need them sneering at me even more.

  And now here is Marks, my all-time nemesis, the one person lower on the totem pole than my own parents.

  He looks so good though. He must have showered recently because his hair is still damp and a messy ruffle on top of his head, and man, whatever soap he’s using must be called Panty Melter because he smells damn good.

  “I told you I wouldn’t just walk away,” he drawls, pushing past me to enter the apartment.

  “Hey! I didn’t invite you in.”

  “I know, but I figured I’d save us both the headache and just cut past the shit. Sooo, you all alone on a Saturday night?” he asks, flopping down on the sofa and grabbing my stash.

  I will not be turned on by the fact that he just licked my spoon and groaned as if having my spit layering it is ambrosia. It’s flattering, though. Boy is it flattering when he fills the spoon again and holds it out to me.

  “Babe?”

  That snaps me right out of my salacious daydream of what he could do with me and the sweets and I find myself scowling down at him, arms crossed beneath my braless boobs.

  “I’m not your babe, and yes, I am alone, as I am every Saturday when we’re not working because it’s one of my only free days. Hint, hint.”

  His smile, that stupidly boyish smile, lights up his whole face and I see myself walking forward and sitting against the opposite corner of the sofa. Shit, Indie was right, my brain does live in my panties. If the freaking thing is even here at all right now.

  “Why? It’s weird to see you alone when I distinctly remember Saturday being the night when the Naughties wanted to play.”

  I can’t watch him eat, licking and sucking at the spoon, so I look at the television instead.

  “Yeah. Well, I guess it started out after college. I keep my weekdays pretty packed what with work and the Weekdays, so I just need the weekend to recharge and do all the things I don’t usually have time for.”

  “Weekdays? At first I thought it was just you saying it in a weird way but this is the third time I’ve heard you use it like a title,” he points out, demolishing the rest of the brownies beneath my twitching gaze.

  Should I tell him what I’ve become? Do I even want him to know that the innocent girl he once loved and broke has been reduced to meaningless hook-ups and years of nothingness?

  Nah. But that doesn’t mean I can’t look at Mr. Designer Jeans and not stretch the truth a little.

  “The Weekdays. My hook-ups? I have one for every day of the week. Monday through Friday,” I say, enjoying the transformation when he gets the point and seems to fall prey to what I like to call the Percy effect.

  Yeah buddy, eat that why don’t ya?

  I can’t say I like the way his eyes seem to travel over me and see me in a new light, because yes, he’s thinking what everyone else does. I must be a slut, right?

  Monday and I watch Animal Planet and eat stinky beef chips while he gives me foot rubs. Tuesday uses my bed to crash and catch up on sleep that I suspect he doesn’t get much of seeing as he’s some underground fighter by night and a suit by day. Wednesday is gay, though God knows you wouldn’t know it looking at him. He’s a makeover king but the guy still manages to look like he trolls for vagina. Thursday is a sex guy, but I can’t exactly complain since the man does give me the occasional orgasm while he cries and does me.

  Friday is my favorite, though. Him and me, we’re entwined in our apathy towards life. We’re basically just two people who’ve had a raw and shitty deal in the love department and we understand that. Most Fridays we spoon and do the whole petting each other bit, unless he’s had a really bad week, in which case I help him feel better.

  Last night was not one of those nights. We ended up lying side by side just talking about inconsequential stuff till he left.

  I adore every Weekday and wouldn’t judge them for a minute of their weirdness, so I won’t ever allow anyone else to either.

  “You fuck five different men?”

  “Whoa there, Marks, don’t go slinging mud. You have no place.”

  Because you don’t understand, I think silently, watching his jaw clench as he leans forward and shoves the empty container onto the coffee table, turning to look at me like I just betrayed him, something, shit, I don’t know.

  “Why?”

  “Why? What do you mean why? I like my Weekdays. They’re my people,” I say simply, omitting the parts I don’t need him to know.

  It’s petty and mean but I want him to think that I don’t give a damn, that this is me, living without a thought to what I lost.

  I bet Marks has screwed his way through half of the state by now what with the man being as highly sexed as I remember, so yeah…

  “Why go that far, Percy? You’re a beautiful, smart, funny woman who any man would be honored to be with. Why spread yourself round like that when you could have—”

  “Something meaningful and deep?” I snort, shaking my head. “Give me a break, Marks. I tried that drivel once and it turned me into a fucking loser who cries over voicemail and doesn’t shower for weeks. No thanks. I have everything I need now. My family loves me, I have a great job and a home I like, and I have my Days to keep me company when I feel like a roll in the hay.”

  And that’s definitely all I need. No love or entanglements. If one of the Days decides he’s moving on—which has happened before when my previous Wednesday fell in love and got married—I just find a new one and move the heck on.

  Simple. Easy. No pain because while I adore them, I never invest myself to the point of no return. That’s me now and I like me. Most days. I won’t change that for just anyone, and I most certainly will not sit here and feel cheap because this man seems to think he has a right to judge me.

  “You’re worth more than that Goddammit! Christ, Percy, don’t tell me you’ve become this person when I remember so clearly how you’d dream of more. Where are those kids you wanted? Where’s the man who’d praise your cooking and like the way you fold clothes? Your jewelry business…?”

  “I don’t need that shit to be happy, Marks. Damn, I thought you grew up or something.” I laugh derisively, rising with a shake of my head and a sigh. “All that crap we spoke of? It was just air, noise to fill the silence after we had sex. I woke up and smelled the manure, and I gotta say I am grateful for that or who knows. I could have been fat, married, and a drudge by now.”

  His eyes go hard and I hold my breath as he seems to compose himself before talking again.

  “Fine. Pencil me in, Percy.”

  Did he just…?

  “Dude, my calendar is full and you are not exactly what I would call weekday material anyway. Why don’t you get it? We are done. We were done years ago and no matter how good you were or how good you may be now, that ship has freaking sailed. It’s hit open waters, banged into the iceberg, and sunk. You get it?” I ask, at a loss as to what else to say or do when his eyes narrow.

  “So give me the weekend.”

  “Uh no.” I laugh, somehow enjoying his audacity.

  The man screwed me over big time and crushed my
little girl heart and he thinks I’m giving up what little free time I have? The freaking nerve. It’s sexy, don’t get me wrong, but so audacious I want to choke on my laughter.

  “Come on, Percy. Just give me a chance here.”

  “To do what exactly, Marks? Have an on-call booty call while you’re in the city? Dude, that’s like worse than one of the Days calling me to reschedule and about as likely to freaking happen.”

  I should kick his butt out of here and say good riddance but the truth is, I haven’t felt this amused or alive in a long, long time. For whatever reason-again, I’m seriously taken with this whole thing.

  Could I have lived without ever seeing him again? Yes, but I can’t, in all honesty, stand here and tell myself that I want to kick his ass out and never see him again.

  “Would you shut the hell up about those assholes and just listen to me? I left you a note explaining why I had to leave. I know that’s shitty, and yes, I fucking understand how shitty that is because I listened to every single voicemail and read every text. Just let me get to know you again and at least let me make this up to you.”

  No matter how hot he looks in a tight black V-neck sweater and jeans that look painted on, I won’t allow myself to keep looking into the sun when I know it’ll just blind me to what’s happening around me.

  “Get out of my house and take your bullcrap with you, Marks. I don’t care about your explanation. I stopped wanting explanations a long time ago, and the truth is they’d mean less than nothing now. I’m happy you’re good or okay or whatever it is you are now, and I’m glad you obviously got what you wanted out of life. I just don’t care to be any part of it now. Not a friend, not a bed buddy. Nothing. You understand that?”

  I can see the refusal to accept this even as he rises and walks past me, his jaw tight.

  “You can’t ignore what’s between us any more than you could a week ago and we both know it. I’m not that boy you remember, Percy. Think about that when you’re with one of your boys. I want you, that hasn’t changed since the day you looked at me across the knoll in college and licked your lips, and it won’t change anytime in this lifetime. I’ll be back and you’d better be sure I don’t see one of your boys hanging around, or I can guarantee you won’t like it.”