“What do you think?” she asked the small dog curled up on the bed among the jeans and miscellaneous shirts. The confused pooch just tucked its head and remained quiet. “I see you’re not going to help me. Way to be supportive, Penelope.” After searching in the drawer, she found a light pink tank and put it on. A couple more turns in the mirror. “If I wear the sweater, it’ll cover my fat ass and tits. I can make this work…I think.”
The ordeal she called her hair wasn’t any easier. She’d been complimented more times than she could count on the thickness and color, but it never seemed to change the image she saw in the mirror. She was a blonde under it all, but with a new life came a new hair color. All her siblings were blonde; got that from their mother. Now the dilemma was to go straight or curly. She dragged the brush through her hair again. “Well, shit. Ponytail? No. God, Ron! Why did you invite me out?” She tugged the brush over the back of her head. “I never do this. I can’t even get ready to have drinks.” The effort to smash the waves of auburn hair was in vain. “Fine, pony it is!
“Okay, Penelope,” she said down to the brown and white Welsh Corgi sitting at her feet, “you’re in charge of the fort. No boys and no parties.” The small dog perked up her big ears and gave a yelp.
She tossed a treat onto the refinished hardwood floor, and the dog scrambled to retrieve the crunchy bone. “Where’s my purse?” She could hear an Adam Lambert ringtone blaring from her bedroom. “Ron!”
Almost tripping over her flip-flops, she ran to the back bedroom to grab her phone. “Yes! Ron?”
“What in the hell are you doing? It’s after nine. I told you eight.”
“Jeez, you’re such a diva, a big, muscular, brawny diva!” She huffed when she looked down to find the hot pink nail polish on her big toe had been smudged. “Darn it.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m on my way. Sorry, I’m hurrying.”
“Abs, I’m not kidding. Get your ass over here. Eric wants to see you.”
“Riiight…Eric. He wants to see
your
ass bent over the pool table, that’s what he wants to see.”
Ron snickered. “True, but we want you to come out with us. I’ll buy you a mai tai. Come on, Abs, you never go out. You stay stuck in your apartment with that mutt.”
“Hey! She’s my best friend besides you, and she’s not a mutt. She’s registered, thank you. I promised you I’d come, and I am. I’m just running late.”
“Okay, you got ten minutes to get over here. Oh, don’t forget to grab that new box of vibrators and put them in your office. I forgot when I left. You can finish up my work.”
“Right, just save me a seat. I’m on my way. Give me fifteen.”
“Will do; see you in a minute.”
As she passed through the small living room, she bent to give Penelope a scratch behind the ear. She glanced over at the coffee table. She’d been working on Sean’s profile for two days. His head shot was looking back at her. The man was ruggedly handsome. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and the shadow of a beard was enough to make her cream in her panties. The thought of those rough whiskers scraping the insides of her thighs was enough to make her knees buckle. She readjusted the hem of the tank top and ran her palm down the front of her sweater. God, even his picture made her nervous. She was going to have to leave now, or she’d end up in her bed, vibrator humming.
The metal stairway leading from her apartment to the studios downstairs gave a slight
creak
under her weight. The familiar sound was welcoming. This was her place, the warehouse, the studios. All hers. Her dad had worked, pro bono, of course, to get her a nice settlement in the divorce. The award helped with a new start; however, the price was steep in other ways.
With each step, her thoughts tried to force the dark images of that day, after they’d signed the papers, into the back recesses of her brain. The crippling nightmares of that night were easing up, at least they had been until the weird e-mails started coming.
She wasn’t too surprised by the cards, really. Someone in the business had told her she might encounter some strange fans. “
People can get kind of crazy and obsessive in this business
,” the man had said. Yeah, he had no idea! But once she e-mailed the sender back to ask him to stop sending the cards, they kept coming. That was when she knew Justin had to be the one behind the cryptic e-cards.
Ron had left the lights on, thank God. There would’ve been no way she would’ve walked through the huge ground floor without it being well lit. It was a Friday night, and everyone had taken the night off. They usually began filming first thing Saturday morning, so she gave the staff Friday nights off. Even though she’d walked through the warehouse a million times, when it was empty it still made her uneasy.
“Stop it, Abigail. He doesn’t know where you are. Just grab the box and go.” With her pep talk urging her on, she grabbed the box of toys and made her way down the corridor to her office. She set the box on the chair by the door and walked back out into the main part of the warehouse. She flipped all the switches but one, plunging the gaping space of metal and concrete into shadows.
With shaky hands, she opened the door and took a deep breath. “I can do this. I can do this. I deserve to have a life.”
* * * *
“You’re up, Sean.” Eric, Ron’s boyfriend, leaned the pool stick against the booth. “He won.”
Ron was racking the colorful balls into the plastic triangle. “That’s right; now you have to pay up.”
Sean was sliding out of the booth when Ron walked over and grabbed Eric. Ron cornered the guy against the table and stuck his tongue down Eric’s throat. Sean didn’t know whether to scoot further into the booth or run completely out of the damn bar. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the guys kissing each other, but he didn’t want to be in the middle of it.
“That’s right, big guy. My dick, your mouth, twenty minutes—and you get to swallow. Now isn’t that a treat?”
Eric’s glazed expression said it all. Hell yeah, it sounded good to Sean too, minus the dude. He could see his pretty little boss on her knees, skin red from the concrete on the warehouse floor, slurping his dick. The imagined sound of her gagging and pulling back was enough to make his balls bluer than they already were. Damn, he had to get her out of his brain. Every time he stepped into the shower, his hand was on his cock, and the image of her tits bounced in his head.
“Mmmm,” Eric murmured as he nipped at Ron’s ear.
“I’m going to go grab another drink before we start.” Sean slid out of the booth and hightailed it to the bar. He glanced over his shoulder. There was a big crowd for being such a hole-in-the-wall bar.
“What can I get ya?” The perky voice behind the bar was backed up by a pair of even perkier fake tits.
“Root beer.” The drink had become his favorite, seeing as he wasn’t a big drinker.
“Haven’t seen you in here before.” The blonde bartender popped the cap on an amber-colored bottle. “I can promise I would’ve noticed you.”
Sean tried to smile. Same old story, same old line. “I’m from the other end of town.”
The one on the other side of the tracks. Literally.
“Here ya go, pretty.”
Pretty? What the fuck?
He took a swig.
“Oh, like you don’t know you’re hot,” she said. “What are you doing after this?”
“After this?”
“Yeah.” She leaned down to emphasize the fake round cleavage popping out of the V-neck T-shirt. His dick didn’t even twitch. “Like, after you’re done with the porn-show hunks over there.”
“Hunks?” Sean scanned the room. What in the hell was this ditz going on about?
“Yeah, your hunky partners. Are you swinging with them too?”
Oh! Right
. “Um, yeah, we’re here together like that. We fuck like rabbits.”
“I get it. You’re not interested in women. We could’ve burnt the sheets up, pretty. Too bad.”
Yeah, too bad. Sean slid a few bills on the worn bar surface. “They’re my boos. Got to get back.”
God, did I just say that? Fucking funny.
Sean set the bottle on the table and grabbed the pool stick. Eric was sitting in the booth, talking on his phone.
“You ready, man?” Ron tapped Sean on the shoulder. “The bastards won’t leave him alone, even on his night off. He’s in a partnership that owns the emergency room over at Mercy, and they call him for everything.”
“That’s got to be stressful.”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here. I can be a great distraction.” Eric looked up and winked at Ron. “See, the bastard loves me.”
Sean smiled. The guy really did light up when he looked at Ron. What would that feel like? He wasn’t jealous. Never had been, not when Christmas came around and he got the toys from the Marines while his foster siblings dug in their personalized stockings, or on his birthday that no one remembered while the brats got remote-control cars and video games. He had plenty of Legos now. Matter of fact, the Death Star on his coffee table was half done. That made his smile grow wider. He probably shouldn’t have splurged on the expensive set, but he couldn’t resist the cool design.
The fact that Ron moved closer to hold Eric’s hand while he argued on the phone… Well, maybe a bit jealous. Sean looked away to give the guys a piece of privacy in the crowded bar. As he slung back another drink, he almost choked on it.
Holy fuck, I’m in trouble.
The nervous little minx who just walked into the Drunken Pirate looked so out of place standing among the bleach-blondes and half-sloshed assholes.
Abigail
. Jesus Christ, what had she put on that luscious body? The dark jeans hugging her thighs and calves were tight. Skinny jeans—he’d heard women talk about them. Goddamn, they’d been created for the woman hovering next to the bar. Snug pink cotton stretched across the front of the most perfect pair of tits he’d ever seen. That was all natural, baby. Bet if he unsnapped the back of that bra, they’d bounce into a perfect teardrop.
A big fucking teardrop
. They sure as hell made him want to get on his knees and weep a damn river.
When her searching gaze met his stare, he could see her chest rise and fall. She didn’t smile. Fuck, he didn’t either. They were both in shock.
Damn it, Ron
. She was the first to look away. She turned around to say something to the bartender. He wasn’t as strong as she was. His eyes stayed glued to the gray sweater that had risen to rest above the two plump globes of her ass. The jeans lovingly hugged the precious flesh. His hands itched to grab it, massage it as she rode his dick.
“You ready?” Ron walked past him to the pool table they’d reserved. “I’m going to kick your ass, Drennan.”
Sean set his bottle next to Eric.
It’s already been kicked.
Ron’s shot made a loud
crack
, sending balls scattering over the green felt. When he leaned over to take his shot, he was distracted by the pink top that jiggled as Abigail shimmied into the booth across from Eric. It’d have been easier to hit the fucking ball with his dick. It felt harder than the cue between his fingers.
“Stop staring at her tits, man, and take the shot.”
Sean looked up. “What? I wasn’t staring at her tits.”
Ron nudged Sean’s shoulder. “Yes, you were. It’s okay. She likes you.”
“Whatever.” Sean dismissed the words to Ron and planted them straight in his brain.
She likes you
. No one had ever
liked
him. They wanted to fuck him, kick his ass, yes…but like him? No. Sean pulled the stick back and took the shot. The red-striped ball landed in the corner pocket. “You were going to kick whose ass?”
They both laughed. “The game just started, dude.”
Sean hadn’t let the guys know he’d played pool years ago. It was to hustle for money, but they didn’t need to know that either. When they’d asked him out for a beer, he figured Ron was cool, and it wouldn’t hurt to start trying to socialize. He’d never really done that before and thought if he was going to be working on his MBA and have any shot at getting a real job, he should start making contacts. This was a good place to start learning how to do that.
Sean made it through the rounds. Ron wasn’t a bad player. A hustler would have a challenge taking him for his cash; at least a novice one would. Sean wasn’t a novice. “See, man!” Ron called out as he rounded the table. “I told you! Pay up, stud!” Sean grinned. He’d never lost a fight and never lost a game unintentionally.
“You got me, man. That last one was tricky.” Sean dug in his back pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Here.” He slapped the paper in Ron’s open hand. It felt good to pay the other guy for a change, to have the money to be humble for once.
“I’ll go get Abigail another mai tai,” Ron said as he leaned the stick against the wall.
“Is that what she’s drinking?” He looked over at the table where her pretty, gloss-covered lips hovered over a straw. The fruity drink was down to the pieces of fruit in the bottom of the glass. “I’ll get it.”
Ron gave him a knowing glance.
“Shut up.”
Ron stuffed the money in his pocket. “I didn’t say a word.”
“I know, so shut up.”
Sean went back to the bar and ordered Abigail her fruity drink, all the while telling his dick to calm down.
She’s sucking on a straw, and that’s it. Down, boy.
* * * *
“Are you guys heading out already?” Sean asked, a little nervous at the thought of being left alone with the sexy creature sitting across from him.
“Come on, Ron,” Eric said. “I still owe you that reward.”
That perked up Ron’s ears. “All right, baby. Let’s go. Abs? Abs? Listen to me, you drunk ass.”
Sean wanted to tell Ron to just let her be but thought better of it when she hiccupped. He tried to hide his smile as Abigail sucked on the fourth piece of pineapple. Four pineapple slices meant four mai tais, which meant one sloshed Abigail.
“Huh? Shush, Ronnie. I like this song. Did you play this song for me? Did you take my quarters?” She opened the gym bag she called a purse and fumbled for her wallet. “If you stole all my quarters, I’m going to smack your ass.” Her glossy eyes looked up. “I mean it, Ronald McDonald! I will smack that little ass of yours like your mama used to do. Did your mom smack your ass? My mom would line us up and tell my dad to ground us. I don’t ever remember her smacking my ass, but I do remember that time at the lake house when I fell in the water. Oh boy, she was so—”