The Cruel and Beautiful Series Boxset

by A. M. Hargrove

  “Don’t bring home just a piece of ass to meet your mother.” I open my mouth, but his words fill the space before I can. “You’re a grown man. I can’t punish you like I did when you were a kid. But fair is fair. Every woman you bring home, your mother sees as a possible wife. Keep that in mind because I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout. She’s going to give me hell as it is. And I know what’s she’s going to suggest. Monday night we have a business dinner with potential clients. Your attendance is required. Your mom is going to come as our clients need to know we have the same values. You need to bring a date to keep the balance. And I’m sure your mother would love for you to bring Karen.”

  I don’t bother answering. I finish changing the lock and head to my bedroom where I toss clean clothes in a bag. With gym clothes on, I head back to the living room. I hand my father one of the keys that came in the set continuing to ignore his suggestion about Karen.

  “Lock the door when you leave.”

  At the gym, I punch the heavy bag until my knuckles are bruised and sore despite being taped up. With the aggression I feel, I could kill a man. So I use my time to burn that off. The shower runs hot and when I step out of the locker room, one of my former drunken moments stands there with hands across tits that look great under her shirt. Too bad they feel as fake as they are.

  “Ben,” she announces my name as if it were a curse.

  “Britney,” I drawl.

  Seeing her makes my dick shrivel. She likes it rough in the sack. And when I say rough, I mean clawing and fighting like wrestling a dude. I should have picked up on the signs. Guys snickered when I agreed to take her out. She’d bragged she could outdrink me and all my frat buddies. I’d taken the bait and lost.

  “Don’t ‘Britney’ me. You don’t call, text, or fucking acknowledge my presence.”

  Because I want to forget I ever fucked you. I shrug, keeping my words to myself.

  She points a finger in my direction and it fucking sucks to know I’m about to get bitch-slapped and can’t do shit about it. The girl can outbench half the guys here, but if I lay a finger on her, I’m an abuser.

  “Hey,” comes from my beautiful savior. “Are you ready for lunch?”

  Jackie, a friend who refuses to date any guy at the gym, sidles up to me, taking my arm. She smoothly diffuses the situation.

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Jackie’s hot. And her tits are nice, even if on the smaller side. She’s not who I normally go for, but maybe she’s my answer for tomorrow night.

  When we get to her car, I take a chance.

  “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

  She grins at me in that we’re just friends kind of way.

  “You are too smooth for words.”

  “Then agree to go out with me. You’ll be doing me a huge favor.”

  Before I can explain, she shakes her head. “I’m dating someone now.”

  I sigh, because having her on my arm on Monday could totally make the evening go far better. I feign shock. “Who is this guy? I have to beat his ass.”

  She laughs and I can see why guys go for her other than the fact that she’s the only holdout from the gym bunnies.

  “Yeah, right. Even if I weren’t, I so wouldn’t go out with you.”

  Now my shock is real. I’m not conceited, but I don’t typically have trouble getting a girl to go out with me.

  “You are super cute.” I arch a brow, waiting to hear what she says next. “Okay, too cute. And that’s why I could never go there. You would completely break my heart. But thanks for asking. You’ve totally given my ego a boost.”

  “And now your boyfriend will reap the rewards.”

  She grins and gets in her car. I watch her pull out before heading to my own. My thoughts switch to the woman I met in the produce section of all places. I’d asked her out for Monday night, not wanting to wait to see her. But I can’t take her to a business meeting.

  I glance back at the gym. There are a couple of girls there I’ve hooked up with a few times. They are options, but then again, I don’t want to go there. Britney stands in front of the picture window glaring at me. I decide it’s time to put in a home gym and let my membership lapse.

  Jenna’s place isn’t far and I head straight there. A sleepy Cate answers the door in flannel pajamas as if it were winter.

  “Sexy, Cate,” I whisper in her ear as I give her a bear hug. She playfully slaps at my shoulder, so I decide to make her laugh because I know she needs it. “Marry me, Cate, in your minion PJs.”

  She laughs and it’s so good to hear. Jenna’s been in my ear about how Cate isn’t fairing as well as Drew wanted.

  “I can’t marry you.” I couldn’t marry her either. “You’re like my brother.” Too true, still, I can’t help but tease her.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It could be like Blue Lagoon.”

  It’s the story of two kids marooned on an island and with no one else to fulfill their growing hormones, they eventually turn to one another. For a boy who hadn’t seen a naked girl when Drew and I snuck and watched it, we laughed until we were mesmerized by a young and bare-chested Brooke Shields.

  She stares at me and I realize she has no idea of the movie I’m talking about. I shouldn’t be surprised. The movie is older than us both. My dad had an old VHS player and that was one of the movies there for the watching.

  Drew and I eventually watched it again for old times’ sake late one night after Cate had fallen asleep and we were both higher than the sky. He’d died a few short days later. The memory shakes me. I pull back from Cate all of a sudden, overcome by Drew’s loss again. I see him in that fucking hospital bed near death worrying about everyone but himself. I scrub my face hoping she can’t see the wetness from the burn I feel in the back of my eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Is Jenna around?”

  It’s a weak attempt to change the subject. Cate isn’t buying it. She shakes her head slowly and the room fills with pain and loss.

  “Maybe I should go.”

  She grabs my arm. “No, please.”

  In her eyes, my grief shines back at me. Then she has me in a bear hug. “It’s okay, Ben. I miss him too.”

  I pull her in trying to hold back the emotion. I miss the fucker like I’d miss both of my kidneys.

  We stand there for a period of time that doesn’t seem to matter. How can it when we both can’t move past the loss? Finally, she steps back and with a soft touch, wipes the tears I hadn’t known left my eyes. We don’t talk. We find that quiet place between us no one else can possibly understand. She gives me a tight smile and steps into the kitchen. Food. It’s what we did a lot of in the end. Mostly, we ate trying to encourage Drew to do so as he wasted away while the cancer slowly ravaged his body.

  She fixes us lunch and we sit huddled together watching TV. I hold her hand and she leans into me. And I wonder if Drew is watching us shaking his head. He would so disapprove because we aren’t doing what he wanted, and that was to live.

  Silently, she turns her head up until I meet her eyes. I can tell she’s pondering a question.

  “Go ahead and spit it out.”

  She blushes and I have a feeling what she wants to talk about.

  “Jenna tells me you broke up with Karen. I haven’t gotten all the details yet.”

  I roll my eyes begging for patience I don’t have. “We were never together.”

  Cate gets me, unlike my sister. She doesn’t press. “Okay, fine. Are you ever going to give someone a chance? Drew would want that.”

  She has no idea what she’s asking. I tried my hand at love twice and failed both times. There is no way I’m doing that again.

  Instead, I toss the question back to her. “I could say the same.”

  “I’m not ready.” It’s a mantra I’ve heard from her a thousand times. “I know about the girl from college, although Drew never told me the details.”

  I close my eyes remembering. The st
ab in my chest still feels fresh, and I have to squash this idea she has that I’ll ever get some sort of fairytale ending.

  “That girl shouldn’t have happened.” That’s an understatement. The humiliation I suffered in high school hadn’t been lesson enough. “I let my guard down, you know.” She had been a stunner, like fresh-off-the-farm beautiful and innocent. “I should have been smarter than to let someone in. But she wouldn’t go for my fuck-a-friend rules.” I suck in air because I need it for the bullshit part of my life I’m sharing.

  “Drew.”

  I shake my head because Cate knows firsthand what I’m about to say. “He never believed love was synonymous with fucking and convinced me to give it a shot. I liked her more than most I’d been with at the time. I took a chance and followed Drew’s playbook.”

  I grind my teeth together remembering what a fool I’d been. Even after all these years, it still punches at my heart.

  “Eventually, she said she loved me and let me ...” I wave a hand.

  “Take her virginity.”

  “God, I love you, Cate.”

  She grins because even though she is my best friend, it’s hard to talk about some of that shit with a woman.

  “But yeah. Anyway, we were together for the rest of the semester. I thought I could see myself with this girl in a forever sense. Not right away or anything, but I could picture the white picket fence off in the future.”

  I swallow. This is the hard part. “A couple weeks after winter break, she wanted to talk, but all she did was cry. I didn’t know what to do. The tears shit.”

  The embarrassment of being dumped burns like a dagger in my chest, even with Cate who knows just about everything about me. I pause, bracing myself to force the next words out.

  “She eventually told me she was pregnant.” I remember the fear I felt when the words first left her lips. “Despite being scared shitless, I was ready to do the chivalrous thing and walk her down the aisle if I had to. When I told her so, the sad smile she gave me only confused me until she enlightened me of something very important.”

  I didn’t know I’d stopped talking until Cate spoke up.

  “What did she say?”

  My tongue feels thick. But I finish the story. “She reminded me that I couldn’t be the father because we’d always used protection, even though that’s not foolproof. It was her way of telling me she’d hooked up with someone else.” All my lame moves to be different and better sent her into the hands of another dude, smashing my heart in the process. It had been proof enough that women didn’t want the nice guy. “And now you know the rest of my pathetic past.”

  “Oh Benny. That’s terrible.”

  “It is what it is. And that love shit isn’t for me.”

  She wraps her arms around me, right when Jenna walks in. She gives both of us a harsh glare. A lecture is surely nanoseconds behind.

  “What am I going to do with the both of you? Someone has to be the voice of reason. This is not how you honor Drew. He’s probably rolling over in his grave. Snap out of it. He wouldn’t want this for either of you.”

  Cate and I look at each other, but don’t say a thing.

  No one understands Jenna’s words better than me, but it doesn’t close the open space in my chest that I can’t seem to fill.

  “You,” she points at Cate, “need to take Louise out of hibernation and get with Dr. Mercer.”

  I try not to react having met the good doctor that Cate says is just a friend.

  “Who’s Louise? I know Mercer’s a good guy, but why do you want to fix him up with this Louise?”

  Jenna looks at Cate and they both bust out laughing. Cate doubles over and Jenna snorts.

  “What the hell is so funny?” I ask.

  Jenna answers, still half-snorting. “Never mind about Louise. But you,” gone is the laughter in an instant as her gaze pinpoints me, “need to keep it in your pants. I’m tired of every time women realize I’m your sister they give me that Your brother is a jackass comment.”

  “Would you rather it be like back when I used to come home from college and all the girls would talk about how dreamy I was?” I smirk.

  “Dreamy, skeevy.” She shudders while shaking her head.

  “That doesn’t rhyme,” I add.

  “Doesn’t matter. Thinking about you and all your shenanigans creeps me out. You can’t imagine the earful I got from Karen.”

  Cate perks up. “Oh, do tell.”

  “You wouldn’t believe.” Jenna tells her a story that could only come from Karen’s deluded ideas about us. I listen as she leaves out the cancer part which only makes me sound like a bigger ass. However, I allow my sister to make jokes at my expense because it makes Cate laugh. And I feel like I’m doing right by Drew when she smiles.

  “The Money Man is a Man Whore. Ben, you really need to settle down,” Cate says, patting my arm.

  Jenna, on the Ben’s-a-bad-boy train, continues on. “Maybe we should shorten that to Money Man Whore. It’s got a ring to it.”

  The girls continue on in a fit of laughter.

  By the time I get home, Dad’s gone. I pour myself a drink while glancing at my phone, considering making a call so I can lose myself in pussy. But as I scroll, Samantha’s name glares at me.

  My finger hovers over the screen. I have a way with words, or so I’ve been told. I could possibly get her over to my house. Who knows, I could even get her out of her clothes and see what she’s rocking underneath, which is exactly what I need.

  But there is something about her. And it’s clear she isn’t one-night stand material. That should scare me off, especially since I just pissed off Karen enough that she thought she was the one leaving me.

  Fuck, I mutter, mentally swiping left over the pictures of the women I could call. Only Samantha’s face continues to pop in my head and my dick jerks. Fuck me.

  I pour myself another three fingers. It’s Saturday night and I can’t remember the last time I spent one alone. Normally, I would be balls deep in a willing woman. Instead, I’m suddenly not interested in any pussy that doesn’t have Samantha’s name on it, which feels like some middle school shit.

  By the next day, I decide I need to get her out of my head. I have my regular Sunday dinner plans later with the family, but I have nothing going on until then. And I find myself pulling out my phone hoping I’m not making a mistake.

  When she answers, my dick leaps to life.

  “Hey Samantha, it’s Ben.”

  “Oh, hey, Ben. How are you?”

  I want to ride you like a bull doesn’t seem like the perfect response.

  “I wondered what you were doing for lunch?”

  She’s quiet and I hope to hell she doesn’t tell me she’s got plans with some other guy.

  “Um—”

  “I’m headed to Husk and maybe you’ll have pity on me and not let me eat alone. I know we said tomorrow night, but why wait?”

  The well-known restaurant is centrally located downtown in a historic building. Her pause is long and I feel thirteen again, desperate to see a girl. Monday is a bust since I was going to break our date, and besides, I want to see her sooner.

  “Sure, that sounds great. When should I meet you?”

  “Is one o’clock good? I can pick you up if you like.”

  “No, it’s not far from me. I can meet you.”

  “Great, I’ll see you there.”

  After I hang up the phone, I realize something about this woman throws me off my game. I want her in my bed, yes. But she’s different. I have a feeling my winning smile and usual lines won’t work with her.

  I find myself at a shop literally smelling the roses and have no idea what possessed me to come here. I’ve only ever bought flowers for my mother except when I was in high school and thought I was in love with a girl who led me around by my balls. After that failed relationship, I learned not to be a pussy if I wanted pussy. That girl chose a fucktard over me, some guy who treated her like dirt. That was my first l
esson I needed in Nice Guys Always Lose. Case in point as my phone buzzes again with another incoming text from Karen. I hit ignore when a sales clerk comes over.

  “Can I help you?”

  I explain my dilemma to the cute woman who makes sure I get a view of her cleavage. I have to give it to her for figuring out my weakness. Too bad the only tits I have on my brain belong to Samantha. Eventually, I walk out empty-handed. The flirty clerk said that most girls would be put off by flowers on a first date. My head circles back to girls wanting a jackass over a good guy. And the sales woman has just confirmed it.

  My wait isn’t long before Samantha walks up prettier than a picture and I have to swallow. There is just something about her. She’s blissfully unaware that every guy she passes, young or old, checks her out. I want to tie her to my bedpost and have my way with her. But I hesitate because she carries herself like a lady. All of a sudden, I have this urge to open doors for her and drape my coat over a puddle so she doesn’t have to step in it. And what the hell? Am I pussy whipped before I even dip my stick in her?

  “Ben,” she says, as a beautiful blossom of roses covers her cheeks.

  I’ll be damned. I should walk away right now because I’m not that guy who deserves a woman like her.

  “Samantha,” I say, taking her hand and needing a reason for touching her. I kiss her delicate knuckles enjoying her subtle scent.

  “Aren’t you the picture of charm? Hmm, that makes two times you’ve kissed my hand.”

  “I try,” I say, not letting go of her as we walk inside.

  I give the hostess my name and we are led into a narrow dining room to a table for four. The extra place settings are removed while I hold out Samantha’s chair. My mother would kill me if I didn’t use etiquette at all times.

  I sit by the window and stare too long at the vision before me.

  “What?” she asks shyly.

  Images of her naked on my bed play through my mind like a video on repeat.

  “I wonder if the food is safe with you here,” I say instead.

  She laughs and her whole face lights up. But it’s her mouth I zero in on. Her lips are a perfect shade of pink only hinting that she wears makeup. I want to kiss that mouth before I fuck it. An image of her on her knees with my hands all in her hair headlines in my brain.