Synopsis
“It’s a new show, Quirks and Kinks. We’ve already selected a
male reenactment actor to be your co-host, so you're the last piece of the
puzzle. There’s some seriously f@$%ed up sh*t out there that people are into,
and the two of you are going to be the face of it.”
“I’m going to be the face of people’s freakish fetishes?” I
asked disbelievingly.
Larry shrugged his nonchalance, shoving it directly down the
throat of my panic. “Half of it.”
That conversation was the beginning of more than a show.
It was the beginning of mystery, friendship, and love, and
the outcome of mixing all three together with two unsuspecting victims.
Easie Reynolds and Anderson Evans were drawn to the same,
simple thing—each other.
But, sometimes, undeniable chemistry isn’t enough. After
all, how easy is it to get know someone when they’re constantly pretending to
be someone else?
Purchase Links
Excerpt
“I’m still not even sure what we’re
doing here,” I told Ashley as I glanced around at
the cheap Tex Mex themed decor of El Loco Restaurant.
All around us,
business-suit-clad, young singles chatted and laughed, sinking deeper into
their margaritas and each other. A life untraveled stared me in the face, but
it didn’t
make me feel bitter or regretful. All I felt was stupid for being out and
spending money that we didn’t have.
“You just landed a job,” she cooed before sipping delicately
from the free water.
Giving her my
undivided attention, I narrowed my cat-like blue eyes.
“Granted, it’s
not a job you’re exactly thrilled about, but it
comes with money, and that’s worth celebrating a little.”
“Pff,” I huffed. “So
far, all it’s come with is a bag of muffin mix
and humiliation.” Exaggeratedly, I checked my purse. “Nope,
no money.”
Ashley just
shook her head. “We’re eating one dollar tacos. Peanut
butter and bread are more expensive. Relax.”
My fingers
itched for a cigarette, and astute twenty-three year old lady that she was,
Ashley didn’t miss it.
“Besides, if we’re
going to get on the money discussion you’re going to have to take a closer
look at some of your other expensive habits.”
Ashley had been
trying to talk me into quitting for years, and I knew my lungs would thank me
if I somehow managed to follow through. But for as desirable as it sounded, I
just…couldn’t.
It wasn’t
so much the addiction and the work it would take to kick a years-in-the-making
habit. It was that smoking had become my emotional crutch. My timeout in any
moment of need and my excuse to busy myself with something other than being a
bitch. I was scared of the chasm I’d fall into, the unclimbable hill I’d
create with my auger-like anxiety.
My sister didn’t
know any of that. No one did.
“I smoke for my career.”
Her eyes
practically rolled all the way out of her head. “This ought to
be good.”
“You know this industry is
unbelievably vapid, and vapid means skinny. Smoking keeps me that way.”
She shook her
head in disdain.
“And it’s cheaper than
a gym membership.”
“Global warming, anyone?” she called dramatically. “You’re
argument is balancing on some pretty thin ice.”
“Shut up.”
Suddenly,
warmth wafted up into my face as our waiter shoved the toasty basket of
complimentary chips into the center of our table. My eyes drifted naturally
from the basket to the hand holding it, where a large, oval, heavy metal ring
sat in blazing contrast to the tan expanse of his long ring finger, up the line
of his muscular—deliciously veiny—forearm, to the
cuff of his rolled up black sleeve. On a runaway mission of their own, my eyes
wouldn’t
stop, eating up the expanse of his bicep in an instant, stutter-stepping up the
corded column of his slender throat, and landing on one of the most attractive
male mugs I’ve ever seen.
A mixing bowl
of ethnicity, his naturally tanned skin and dark features stood in stark
contrast with the minty green of his eyes. Directly on me and smirking, they
were mesmerizing.
And mocking.
Ashley spoke,
as I’d
apparently lost all of my normal snarky ability.
“Thanks.”
A small glance
from me to her preceded his polite answer. “You’re welcome.”
She smiled her
prettiest smile, the one that infused her entire being from chest to eyes, and
the corner of his mouth notched higher in response.
A foreign
heaviness settled in my chest as I watched, and its completely unwelcome
presence nearly made me sick.
He turned to
leave slowly, one last lingering look in my direction making my nerves ratchet
up to an eleven.
Fuck. I did not
like to be rattled. Confident words were my modus operandi, but a good
earthquake could wreck even the strongest of routines. My table at El Loco,
tonight—this
guy—was the epicenter.
The man in
question had just earned himself automatic placement on my shit list.
Straight,
white, top teeth just barely teased the plump pillow of his bottom lip. It was
unintentional, completely innocent, and hot as Jesus’ sauna.
Shit list
position confirmed.
“You’re, like,
really attractive,” Ashley noted, evidently drunk on her
water and speaking via a direct link to my brain.
His chuckle was
like a full body vibrator, skating through the nerves on every inch of my skin.
One long-fingered hand shot straight to his neck, rubbing the uneasiness of
Ashley’s
compliment out quickly.
“Thanks.”
“Are you an actor?” she continued. “You’ve
got to be, right?”
LA. Every
attractive person you meet must be in the business.
I would have
laughed at Ashley’s assumption and how ridiculous it
was if I hadn’t been thinking the same thing.
He looked
slightly bashful, but fought straight through the discomfort and answered her
frankly. “Uh, yeah. I mean, I’m
trying anyway. I’m not particularly successful.”
Distracted by
my reaction to him and his honesty, I didn’t run a pre-check on anything coming
out of my mouth. Not that I normally had the best filter. “So
you’re
another one of those actors, waiting tables to pay the bills and pass the time?”
He bristled,
and rightfully so. But he did it with an otherworldly calm, meeting my eyes
directly and speaking in a soft, polite—if only slightly teasing—voice.
“One of those? Oh. No. Waiting tables
is my dream. I just act to fit in.”
My cheeks felt
hot with embarrassment and shame, and the glint in his eyes told me that he saw
it.
Sometimes I
hated that my default setting was bitch. Such a dominant trait was hard to
overturn. “Okay, so maybe that was a little
rude.”
One corner of
his mouth—the smug one—rose
just slightly. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
Silence hung
between us, but while my time was spent avoiding eye contact, his was spent
calculating his next blow.
“I guess you must be something really
impressive then?”
“Huh?” My wandering
eyes shot to his with the focus of a heat-seeking missile.
“Well, you obviously aren’t
on the waiting tables slash acting track that the rest of us losers are.”
“Um—”
“I mean, you must do something that
really matters, right? Educating orphaned kids. Curing Cancer. Coming up with
the way to end all of the world’s unrest.” Attractive arms crossed over an
equally nice chest. “Am I right?”
For as
confident as I usually was, and as many comebacks as I normally had, I couldn’t
think of one single thing to say.
Unfortunately,
my sister wasn’t suffering from a similar problem.
“Hah! She’s
an actor too. But she’s too busy to wait tables.”
“Working?” he asked, one manly eyebrow cocking
in time with his question. If I wasn’t mistaken, he actually looked
impressed for a minute.
I was ready to
leave right then, but Ashley, being the one of us with a conscience, had a
knack for ruining a good thing.
“Oh. No. She’s
just too busy being her. You know, cutting people like you down in her spare
time.” She looked away, bopped to the music
in the background. “But, she doesn’t
do it on purpose. She was born this way. Cold, dead heart and all. I guess that’s
why people like me still love her.”
I tried not to
let her words hurt. After all, if I were describing myself, I probably would
have chosen the exact same words, and because I knew her so well, I knew she
was just trying to make a joke and bail me out of a situation of my own making.
And yet, I
still couldn’t stop the smile from slipping and
sliding its way off of my face.
It only took a
few seconds to recover, but when I looked back up at the waiter, he was looking
at me differently. Assessing.
Uncomfortable was too cushy a word for what I was feeling.
Bombs exploded and sprayed shrapnel, the sharp edges of his scrutiny digging
into the flesh of my muscle and making it twitch just beneath the
not-protective-enough layer of my skin.
About the Author
Laurel Ulen Curtis is a 27 year old mother of one. She lives
with her husband and son (and cat and two fish!) in New Jersey, but grew up all
over the United States. She graduated from Rutgers University in 2009 with a
Bachelor of Science in Meteorology, and puts that to almost no use other than
forecasting for her friends! She has a passion for her family, laughing, and
reading and writing Romance novels.
No comments:
Post a Comment