Just One Look
by
Melanie Shawn
Melanie Shawn © 2019
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.
This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.
Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns
Book Design by BB eBooks
Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing
Rev. 1.0
Dedication
Many of you may know that Melanie Shawn is actually a writing team. We’re two sisters, Melanie and Shawna. We freaking love working together as a strong sister team! It’s so great to be in business with someone you know has your back, 100%.
A few years ago, we had the awesome pleasure of meeting another romance-loving, business-owning pair of sisters—Bea and Leah of The Ripped Bodice! As soon as we got to know them, we knew we’d be naming characters after them. Sister duos, for the win!
You can pick up Bea’s story, Just One Kiss, here.
This isn’t only about us, though, or even just about Bea and Leah. We want to dedicate this book to everybody out there with a kickass sister they love, whether or not you are lucky enough to work with her, and whether or not you are related by blood ties or by love. In whatever form you are lucky enough to find it, celebrate it! We need sisterhood in the world, now more than ever
So, here’s to all the ride-or-die, cradle-to-the-grave, keep-your-secrets, be-there-no-matter-what girls. This book goes out to sisters!
And if you’re in the LA area, make sure to stop by The Ripped Bodice and say HI to Bea and Leah!
If you’re not in the LA area, you can virtually stop by and say HI anytime.
Twitter and Insta:
@therippedbodice
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Just One Touch
A Note From Melanie and Shawna
Other Titles by Melanie Shawn
About the Author
Chapter 1
“I’m giving up men!” Leah announced, staring down at her phone sitting on the counter and contemplating whether to pick it up and throw it against the wall or not. “I’m done!”
“Okay.” Bea, Leah’s identical twin, smiled sweetly as she carefully painted Lady Di’s nails. The standard poodle was a regular customer at Barks, Balls & Bellyrubs, the pet boutique that Leah and Bea owned.
Leah reread the text message that’d just appeared on her phone.
Hi, I’m Becky. You’ve been corresponding with my husband Jagger who you met via Tinder. I just wanted to let you know that despite what might be written on his profile, he is not a divorced dad of two. He is a married father of four. Also besides the FOUR beautiful children he gave me, he also gifted me with chlamydia and herpes. Proceed at your own risk.
Leah wanted to say she was surprised to receive the message or that it was the first of its kind. But unfortunately, neither was true. This was probably the tenth message she’d received from a wife or girlfriend. At this point, she was more shocked when men weren’t lying pieces of shit than she was to find out that they were.
“I’m serious, Bea,” Leah reiterated a little louder before sucking the last drops of her ice coffee up through the straw.
“I made a new pot,” Bea informed her.
Bea loved her sister to death, but her coffee was so weak that when you drank it, you were basically just drinking coffee-flavored water. Like how some people lightly infused their water with kiwi or lemon or strawberry? Like that. It was water, just “lightly infused” with coffee grounds.
“It’s okay, I was going to hit up The Daily Grind for a sandwich anyway.” She’d been stood up for lunch and the coffee shop across the street made decent coffee—not great, but drinkable. Leah set her cup down and squirted mineral oil on her hands. “I’m done with liars. I’m done with flakes. I’m done with assholes. Therefore, I’m done with men.”
“Okay.” Bea nodded, seemingly unfazed by Leah’s bold declaration. “Can you put the towels through the wash when you’re done with Porky?”
Leah spread the mineral oil on the English Bulldog’s nose to prevent it from becoming dry and cracking, which it had a tendency to do. “You would never lie to me, would you Porky?”
Pork Chop grunted in response.
“I knew you wouldn’t.” Leah unhooked the clip that was attached to his collar and ran her hand over his soft fur that’d just been bathed and brushed. She double-checked her work, inspecting all of his wrinkles to make sure that the skin beneath was not inflamed and his toes to make sure that the nail clipping she’d given him was sufficient. After he passed inspection, she scratched him behind the ears. “You’re the most handsome boy!”
Indy, short for Indiana Jones, was the Great Dane the sisters shared. He lifted his head from the tiny dog bed he’d been relegated to by the twin’s other dog, a three-legged Beagle named Bagel, and Leah could’ve sworn he had an indignant air about him.
“You are one of the most handsome boys!” Leah rephrased her statement to appease Indy as she picked up Pork Chop and set him down in the play area at the back of the shop. Today was a slow day, and the only other dog they had there was Lady Di, who was still getting groomed.
A faint but pleasant lemon scent drifted through the air as Leah sprayed the non-toxic disinfectant solution on the back station and a thought struck her. And like she did with most thoughts that struck her, she spoke it aloud.
“Why do people call men dogs as if it’s a bad thing? I’ve never understood that. Dogs are loyal. Dogs give unconditional love. Dogs are always there when you need them. Calling a man a dog is an insult to dogs.”
“Is this about Kirk?” Bea finally showed a modicum of interest in Leah’s frustrated ramblings.
“Kirk? No, I kicked him to the curb two weeks ago. Didn’t you see my Snapchat?” Leah narrowed her eyes. She’d sent her twin a video right after he’d stood her up for the third and final time. Thanks to the notification on the app she knew that her sister had opened it.
“Your Snapchat?” Bea’s brow furrowed for a moment before awareness dawned an
d a faint blush dusted her cheeks. “Oh yeah, I started watching that, but then I got…distracted.”
“Distracted? Really? What, my dear sister, distracted you?” Leah teased, knowing exactly what or who was to blame for her sister not being caught up on her tales of romantic woe.
Bea ignored Leah’s inquiry and continued painting Lady Di’s nails, a dreamy look on her face, basking in her newlywed bliss.
Leah smiled. She couldn’t be happier for her sister, who’d just tied the knot with retired major league baseball player CJ Rossum. The two had met at his sister’s bachelorette weekend in Vegas, and Leah had done everything she could think of to play cupid…short of putting on a diaper and shooting a bow and arrow at the two of them. Hell, she probably would’ve done that, too, if she’d thought it would help!
Thankfully, Leah’s matchmaking schemes and plots had worked. Bea had lost her fiancé five years prior, and it hadn’t been easy—he’d been her first love, and those five years had been brutal. When she met and fell in love with CJ, though, she had finally been able to put the past behind her and started living in the present.
So, yeah. She couldn’t be happier for her twin. This was the first time in years Leah wasn’t worried about her sister. Now, she was ready to focus on herself!
Over the past few months, Leah had taken a fearless inventory of her life, both professionally and personally. And sadly, she’d come up lacking in both areas. The past five years had been about making sure Bea was okay. Now that her mission was accomplished, she realized she’d been seriously neglecting her own growth and well-being during that time.
As of late, besides binge-watching true crime shows, she’d been devouring every self-help book she could get her hands on. It started because Bea had left behind about twenty self-help books she’d been reading before meeting CJ. Her sister had been on her own self-improvement journey and Leah believed the results spoke for themselves.
Then, after she’d read through all of her sister’s picks, she’d moved on to her own selection.
Her latest read was Thirty-Life Crisis: Navigating My Thirties, One Drunk Baby Shower at a Time by Lisa Schwartz. Unlike Lisa, Leah hadn’t quite hit her thirties yet, but she was getting there, and dang, she could seriously relate to ninety percent of what the hilarious author wrote about.
Like Lisa, everyone around Leah was getting married, having babies, and/or had careers that challenged them and they were passionate about. Leah loved owning the pet store with her sister, but that was mainly because she loved animals and her sister. The business part bored her to no end.
Lisa’d had a little more luck in the dating department than Leah had. That was where the stories diverged. In Leah’s case, her personal life consisted of a constant stream of losers.
“What is wrong with these guys?” Leah pondered aloud as she gathered the towels that she’d used for Pork Chop and walked to the station where her sister was working. “I’m not asking for a relationship. I don’t want them to put a ring on it. Damn, I’m not even looking for monogamy! All I’m asking for is someone who has a little honesty and accountability. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, be there. If you say you’re single, then don’t have a girlfriend or a wife. How difficult is that? I just hate liars.”
“Not all men are liars.” Bea, aglow in the halo of new love, played the role of devil’s advocate.
“I know,” Leah conceded, not wanting to burst her twin’s marital love bubble. “But how many frogs am I going to have to kiss before I meet my prince?”
“I thought you liked kissing frogs.”
“I did. I mean, I do.”
“So…what’s the problem?”
Leah understood her twin’s confusion. She and her sister might be identical twins, but they were night and day. Yin and Yang. Polar opposites.
Bea was the quintessential girl-next-door. She was wholesome and loved routine. She’d worn her waist-length, brown hair in the same cut since it had grown to that length when they were teenagers. Her style was understated and classic. She rarely, if ever, wore makeup, and when she did, it was always just enough to highlight her natural beauty. The only piercings she had were in her ears, and she’d gotten those done with Leah on their sixteenth birthday.
Leah, on the other hand, was what people called a free spirit. She was wild and loved adventure. She’d also never met a hair color she didn’t like. Over the past six months her shoulder-length hair had been platinum blonde, blue, and black. Now she was now rocking a cotton candy pink.
She considered her face her canvas and loved to paint it. Her brows were always shaped into perfect arches; she loved a winged eyeliner, and red lipstick was her go-to. She never left the house without her face being contoured and highlighted. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two she’d pierced her eyebrow, lip, nose, and nipples—but the only one she’d kept in was her brow piercing.
And it wasn’t just in appearances where the twins differed. They couldn’t have been more opposite when it came to their love lives.
Bea had been with her middle school sweetheart Jordan until he’d died tragically, only one day before his enlistment was up, and only one month before they were to be married.
The loss had almost destroyed her sister. It’d taken five years before she’d opened her heart again, and now, thankfully, she was madly in love.
Leah, on the other hand, had never had a serious relationship. She had very much enjoyed her fair share of kissing—and other non-PG things—with a plethora of frogs. And she’d had no ulterior-motive-slash-fantasy of them turning into princes.
When she was younger, she’d been boy crazy. Straight up. Then when she’d hit college, she’d found that she got bored easily. She’d never found one single guy that could hold her interest.
Since then, she’d had a steady stream of weeks-long relationships that’d all seemed to fuse together into one super douche.
“There’s no problem. I’m just done with men.” Leah repeated her earlier statement, hoping this time her sister would take it more seriously.
“Maybe you’re just meeting the wrong guys,” Bea suggested sweetly.
“Yeah. Ya think?” Leah agreed sarcastically.
“I’m saying that maybe you should try dating nice guys, and meet them the old fashioned way instead of on your phone.”
“I’d love to meet someone the old-fashioned way!” Leah exclaimed, wishing her sister would understand that not everyone could meet their second soulmate in a Reese Witherspoon rom-com-worthy meet cute—which was exactly what’d happened to Bea when she walked into a hotel room to find the man who would become the new love of her life naked, and with a woman lying in the bed. She’d then proceeded to hit her head in an attempt to leave the room as quickly as possible, and sustained a mild concussion. “But it’s not that easy. I even tried to have a day date today. But BigRod69 stood me up.”
“Big Rod Sixty-nine?” Bea questioned.
“It’s his profile name.”
“That should’ve been your first clue,” her twin stated flatly.
“You’re right. It should’ve been. But instead, all I saw was this.” Leah turned her phone so Bea could see the shirtless picture of BigRod69 standing beside his motorcycle.
Bea squinted as she leaned toward the device. “You can’t even see his face.”
“I know, but look at that hand porn.”
Leah had always had a weakness for big hands. Not because that typically correlated to being big in other places…although that was a nice ancillary benefit. It was because she’d always been a curvy girl with a little extra meat on her bones and she enjoyed feeling delicate and small when she was with a man. The inner feminist in her cringed, but that was the truth.
“Hand porn?” Bea questioned.
“If there can be arm porn, then there can be hand porn,” Leah argued. “And there’s the bike.”
Cue Leah’s second Achilles’ heel. Guys on motorcycles. Be still her beating vagina, er…um h
eart.
She loved motorcycles. She’d even earned her Class M license so she was legally allowed to operate them.
Again, even though it pained every feminist bone in her body to admit, if she were being totally honest—which was what the entire point of this fearless inventory had been—driving a bike was not nearly as fun as being on the back of one with her arms wrapped around a solid, strong man positioned between her thighs. It was the biggest aphrodisiac she’d ever experienced.
But, if she was really going to swear off guys like BigRod69, then maybe she should be swearing off rides on the back of bikes, too.
It was decided, then. In the spirit of getting her shit together, Leah was officially giving up men with tattoos, rides on bikes, and dangerous men with sketchy pasts. No more “bad boy with heart of gold” fantasies for her. Bad boys having hearts of gold were as fictional as frogs turning into princes.
Some men were led by their dicks, and Leah had fallen prey to the same trap. She’d been ruled by her lady boner. But no more! From this moment on, she’d only date men that she was not attracted to. That way she’d see things with a clear mind. No tingles and jingles were going to sway her to put up with bad behavior.
Her sister was right. She was meeting the wrong kind of guys. It was time for her to grow up and be in a real, monogamous, committed relationship with a nice guy.
A chime sounded above the door as Mrs. Polly wheeled her bedazzled dog stroller into the shop. “Do you ladies have time to trim Bruiser’s nails?”
“Of course,” Bea smiled warmly.
Leah moved around the counter to bend down and greet their client, a black teacup poodle who was resting comfortably in his stroller. Mrs. Polly brought Bruiser in for regular grooming, although she’d never asked them to clip his nails.
Mrs. Polly smiled gratefully. “Normally I have Doc Taylor do it, but he’s out of the office today because of Kitty’s fall.”
“Kitty fell?” Leah and Bea chorused together.
The girls didn’t fall into every twin stereotype, but speaking in stereo was a cliché that they most definitely did. They often spoke at the same time, and said the same thing. If they’d ever started playing Jinx, the amount of owed Cokes would’ve been endless.
Just One Look - Leah and Lance (Crossroads Book 15) Page 1