Rolling over, bright red numbers blared eleven fifteen at me as my stomach started to rumble. After peeling myself from the pillow-topped mattress that felt like a lumpy heaven, I dug through the duffle bag that contained my life until I found my favorite pair of jeans and a yoga top.
I glanced at the bright red smear on the pillow from my favorite lipstick and the black dots from my mascara. Thankfully I was not the one that was going to have to wrestle with those stains.
Within minutes the faucet was pumping steaming water into the tub. A nice long soak felt like a dream for my tired body. The trip hadn’t been emotional until it all crashed onto me as I sunk to the bottom of that porcelain bath. I was free. I was finally freaking free, and I felt bad about it.
The image of my mom figuring out that I was gone broke into my mind and ripped my heart apart. But who was I kidding? If she hadn’t started blowing up my phone yet, she had no idea. She was probably still in a haze of meth and booze from another week-long binge.
Right before I left, I could tell that’s where she was heading anyway. It was the perfect time to escape: I would be so far gone by the time she was halfway conscious that it wouldn’t matter.
“Critter!” Her hollow cry came from the back bedroom.
I rolled my eyes at her dumbass nickname for me. Wasn’t my real name bad enough?
“Yeah Ma?”
“Get me a fucking coke from the fridge.”
I grabbed the last can of soda from the barren wasteland she called a refrigerator.
I hurriedly popped the top and walked it back to her where she was laying in bed, sick as a dog from yet another withdrawal.
“Here. I gotta get to work.”
Her shaking hand wrapped around the can as her sunken, dark eyes begged me for mercy. She didn’t have to ask; I knew what I needed to do.
“Yeah. I think Vinnie is working tonight. I’ll see what I can get.”
“That’s my girl. Thank you, Crit.”
“I’ll be back late though. Try to sleep and don’t let anyone come over with you sick like this. I don’t want this place to get robbed again.”
I snapped out of my daze of strolling down terrible memory lane when the sound of splattering water echoed in the tiny bathroom. Looking over the side of the tub, I realized about half an inch of water was starting to coat the off white tiles.
Shit.
I lunged for the faucet, turned off the water, and sunk back in to relax and let my fingers and toes get pruney. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had time to relax like that. The quiet and the peacefulness were almost disturbing. It was a far cry from the cursing, fighting neighbors and my mom hollering at me or moaning in some john’s ear all the time.
Good riddance to all that bull crap.
Giving in to my roaring stomach, I drained the water and got dressed. I laid towels on the floor of my soaking wet bathroom to lap up the water that had spilled over.
I made my way to the closest Waffle House my phone’s GPS could find. Luckily it was just up the road and I had a hankering for greasy cooking and a pot of coffee. I quickly scarfed down some scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked hashbrowns with two eggs over easy on the side and tried to think about what my next move was going to be.
Not having a plan was both liberating and frustrating. I knew that the money I had was going to go faster than I could admit to myself. I checked the classified section for jobs while I sipped on hours-old coffee. I wasn’t really built to be a stable hand, and I didn’t think there was a strip joint in Vilas.
As I was getting up to pay my check, Holt and the older bartender walked through the front door. Holt ambled over to me with a sweet smile on his face.
“Nice to see you haven’t left our little town yet. Thinkin’ about sticking around?” He spit into a Dixie cup and I could smell the wintergreen chew that was wadded up in his lower lip.
I held up the paper and shrugged. “A girl’s gotta eat and there ain’t any jobs here for me it seems.”
“Hey Bucky, aren’t we still looking for a daytime bartender?”
He nodded. “Yeah, the one Abel hired last week quit on me Monday night.”
“Well there ya have it. I’ll talk to Abel about it. Come by in a few hours and we’ll get ya all set up.”
Just like that I had a freaking job in a town I wasn’t even sure I was going to stay in. At least I knew I was going to be able to keep a roof over my head and hopefully finance another move, if nothing else.
UNACCEPTABLE
An Unacceptables MC Romance
By Kristen Hope Mazzola
Available now to order!
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Moments.
Our lives are a collection of moments. Some utterly painful and full of yesterday's hurts. Some beautifully hopeful and full of tomorrow's promises.
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I was ten years old when I lost my voice. A piece of me was stolen away, and the only person who could truly hear my silence was Brooks Griffin. He was the light during my dark days, the promise of tomorrow, until tragedy found him. Tragedy that eventually drowned him in a sea of memories.
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On the twenty-third day—he hunts, bringing the scum of the earth to justice; his justice. Ending up as a patient on Dr. O’Reilly’s table could either save your life or end it in the most horrific way.
New York City. The infamous city that never sleeps; the place where dreams either shine brightly or shatter into razor sharp pieces of metal. For Dr. Cian O’Reilly, it’s the perfect city to disguise his dark alter ego. As a top surgeon at Lincoln Hospital, he has access to resources far beyond the reach of the average person; the ideal cover for his double life. By day, he’s the epitome of professionalism. By night, the facade is stripped away and his true depraved self is revealed.
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Arianna 'Ari' Williams thought she experienced the depths of true love until the man of her dreams dismissed her with no explanation. Heartbroken and humiliated, she found herself changing the course of her life and picking up the pieces of her shattered heart. Now four years later, she has a successful career, amazing friends, and a young son with crystal blue eyes that reminds her every day of the love she imagined. Emotionally she has moved on but the wounds never healed.
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Deny Me
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Jameson King.
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I was a live-in-the-moment girl flirting with a man who always looked to the future. He was traditional, carrying the weight of his whole family on his broad shoulders, and I had been taught to never fall in love, focusing on my career instead of a future with anyone.
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Releasing at the end of November
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