Dashing Through the No

by Sivec, Tara

  Dashing Through the No

  Copyright © 2020 Tara Sivec

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notice

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of adult fiction. The author does not endorse or condone any of the behavior enclosed within. The subject matter may not be appropriate for minors. All trademarks and copyrighted items mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

  Edits by KD Robichaux

  www.facebook.com/AuthorKDRobichaux

  Interior Design by Paul Salvette, BB eBooks

  bbebooksthailand.com

  Cover Design by Michelle Preast Illustration and Design

  www.michelle-preast.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  ’Twas the week before Christmas and all through Summersweet,

  Tess Powell was annoyed and wanted to retreat.

  With a BIC in her hand and a frown on her face,

  everyone knew she needed a break from this place.

  Wanting the holiday to be nothing but the best,

  Bodhi took his girlfriend to the mountains to rest.

  While visions of fire happily danced in Tess’s head,

  soon she would see she had everything to dread.

  Crying kids, singing hippos, and a stalker with a van,

  definitely wasn’t part of Bodhi’s evacuation plan.

  But all he wanted for Christmas was for her to say yes,

  to the question he kept asking with zero finesse.

  With some help from new friends and their holiday cheer,

  Tess and Bodhi get much more

  than they asked Santa for this year.

  For everyone who asked for a Tess and Bodhi story.

  You’re seriously going to regret asking LOLOLOLOL!

  PROLOGUE

  Bodhi Preston Armbruster III

  “Happy Holidaze.”

  Christmas Eve, 12 years ago

  Malibu, California

  “Smoked salmon mousse canapé for you, sir?”

  As I look down at the antique pink tray a server holds out for me, my nose wrinkles in disgust. I’m not quite sure if it’s because of the neat little piles of pink baby shit that are being offered to me, or because this poor guy who looks like he’s around the same age as I am has to call me sir. And he’s being forced to wear a designer pink sweatsuit onesie all night long, serving food to rich and overprivileged assholes, instead of being at home with his family to celebrate the holiday.

  “What’s a guy gotta do to get some eggnog and Christmas cookies around here?” I joke, like a rich, overprivileged asshole.

  “I don’t know,” the server replies in a bored voice. “Maybe try the flamingo petting zoo out on the east lawn, or the ballroom where Katy Perry is getting ready to perform.”

  Seriously, who throws a party on Christmas Eve where everything from the floor to the walls, and the staff uniforms and the décor, is nothing but Pepto Bismol pink, without a tree or an ornament in sight? Every inch of the walls is covered in real pink roses. Thousands of strands of pink roses attached to fishing line are hanging down from the ceiling of every room. There are pink tablecloths, pink dinnerware, pink food, and pink bubbles from bubble machines floating around the sprawling mansion.

  It’s bad enough I’m twenty-two years old and I’m still being forced to attend functions like this because my daddy told me to. There isn’t one Santa in a red suit, one strand of multicolored twinkle lights, one Christmas carol being sung, or one red-and-green-wrapped package. Not that I have any personal knowledge of what a real Christmas Eve should look like, but I’ve seen it plenty of times in movies and on TV, and this is not it. They sit around a table eating roast beast, followed by everyone putting on matching pajamas and curling up in front of the tree, with snow falling gently outside their rustic cabin in the woods. And I’m pretty sure there’s a yule log somewhere in there—although no one really knows what a yule log is, but I want one. They do not eat tiny piles of baby shit, followed by flamingo petting on the east lawn, while Katy Perry sings about kissing a girl, in a mansion on the beach in Malibu.

  Is this really what my life is going to be like? Forever?

  “Yo, Bodhi! There’s so much tail at this party all I’ll have to do is trip and my dick will fall right into a ready and willing female. Merry fucking Christmas to me!”

  A hand is clapped against my back, and I don’t even bother giving one of my oldest friends a smile in greeting as he grabs a pile of baby shit from the tray and shovels it in his mouth. I shrug away from Brandon’s hand on my back and give the server in front of me still holding the pink tray a small smile of apology for my friend, because I know this is only just the beginning of what’s going to come out of his mouth.

  “Hey, didn’t I ask you to get me a Jack and Coke like, fifteen minutes ago, slacker?” Brandon asks the server right on cue, grabbing another pink hors d’oeuvre from the tray and popping it into his mouth. “You’d think the Parker family would be able to spring for better help. You’re a lazy fuck.”

  “Jesus, Brandon, shut up,” I mutter, unable to keep quiet any longer, giving the guy in the ridiculous onesie a quick verbal apology for Brandon, before he just rolls his eyes and walks away to offer some other offensive asshole a pile of pink baby shit.

  I don’t know if my friends have gotten worse lately with their atrocious behavior, or if I’ve just become less tolerant of it. Whatever it is, I’m tired of shrugging it off all the time. I’m tired of being embarrassed by half the things they say and all of the things they do. I’m ashamed of myself that I’ve acted like them on more than one occasion over the years, trying to fit in and appease my father, and I’m tired of pretending like any of this makes me happy.

  Happiness would be wearing matching Christmas pajamas, sitting in front of a tree in a cabin in the woods with people who let me be me… whoever that is. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever know who I am or what I really want to do with my life. I’ve never been given a choice about anything, and it’s never been more glaringly obvious how weak and pathetic I’ve become than right now, being stuck at a party I don’t want to be at on Christmas Eve, surrounded by people I can’t stand.

  “What’s your problem?” Brandon scoffs, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at a group of our friends a few feet away, who are most likely sexually harassing the female server in a pink onesie trying to offer them a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “The guys said you’ve been in a pissy mood all night. We got an invite to the Parker Christmas Eve party, man; get in a good mood already. I heard this is going to be a yearly thing, and it’s going to be bigger and better ever
y year. Thank God Richard Parker kicked the bucket and his wife decided to have a little fun in his honor, am I right?”

  Brandon nudges his elbow into my side and laughs, and I suddenly have the urge to flip a table. Anyone who’s anyone in Hollywood knows who Richard Parker is. Or was, I should say, since he just passed away a few months ago. I met him a couple of times over the years when I was out with my dad, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Owning one of the biggest real estate companies in California, Mr. Parker’s firm only caters to the very wealthy, and the majority of his clients are celebrities. I guess since his passing, his wife took over the real estate business, and she decided to throw this pink nightmare of a Christmas Eve party at the request of her YouTube-famous twin daughters. And since my father is one of the most widely known celebrity attorneys in California, I’m forced to attend this thing, just like the other couple hundred people here, not doing anything Christmassy on Christmas Eve.

  “I heard Tori and Zoey are getting ready to sign a deal for a reality show. Have you seen the asses on those two? I can be patient until they’re legal,” our friend Trent adds with a wink when he walks over to us, referring to Richard Parker’s twin daughters. Richard Parker’s twelve-year-old twin daughters.

  “You’re disgusting,” I tell him, which just makes Trent snort, and the rage continues to build.

  Technically, this feeling like my world is spinning out of control has been building for a while now. Ever since I started taking surfing lessons a few months ago on a whim, when I saw a flyer for them on the bulletin board at the Kappa Sigma house. For the first time in my life, I did something I wanted to do, that my father and my friends still know nothing about. Something just for me because it made me happy. Being out there alone on my board with nothing but miles and miles of ocean stretched out in front of me, with nothing but possibilities stretched out in front of me, it makes me forget who I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do, and it makes me feel… free. Not tied down and not strapped into a future I didn’t sign up for. The closer I get to graduating from Stanford in May, and the closer I get to securing a future I haven’t wanted since the day it was decided for me, the more I crave that freedom. And the closer I get to tipping over the edge and losing my shit.

  When I hear a loud, boisterous laugh from the other side of the room, I turn my head to see my father squeeze the ass of a woman. A woman who is not my mother and is closer to my age than his own. It takes everything in me not to actually flip the small pink bar table next to me with a four-foot-tall pink flower arrangement on it. Not for my mother. She wouldn’t even care or notice that my dad is fondling another woman in public. She left an hour ago so she’d have plenty of time to fuck her driver before my father comes home.

  I’m about ready to rip this constricting tux off my body and climb out of my skin because this is my future. All of this. I’m friends with these assholes because my father is friends with their fathers. They are the sons of politicians, celebrities, and the wealthy and elite, who have never had to work hard for anything they have. These are the people my father has deemed as the “right” people to associate with to further my career and make him look good. I’m graduating from Stanford in the spring, just like my father. I’ve been accepted to Harvard Law, just like my father. I already have an internship at my father’s firm waiting for me, as well as a job when I graduate law school, and I’m well on my way to becoming a card-carrying member of the Douchebag Frat Boy Club, just like my father.

  By the time my mother wakes up from her Xanax and red wine coma, and my dad leaves the bed of whatever woman he goes home with from the party, Christmas will be over, and I will have already opened up the same present I’ve gotten from them every year, all by myself, just like every year—a coffee-mug-stained envelope filled with cash left on the kitchen counter. This is my future. Cold and empty Christmases, attending parties with people I can’t stand, waking up alone, without anyone who really cares about me. My life will be filled with kissing asses, taking bribes, covering up bad shit my clients do, chipping away at pieces of my soul until I’m a narcissistic asshole just like my father, or a drunk with a pill problem just like my mother.

  What the hell am I even doing? Is this really who I want to be?

  “Looks like Santa just delivered my present.” Trent’s voice interrupts my pity party as he nudges my arm and then grabs his crotch. “Hey, Millie, I’ve got a package for you to open that will be very satisfying.”

  Millie Chamberlin, whose father is one of Hollywood’s favorite leading men and mother is one of the highest paid and most well-known supermodels, and who is four years younger than us and attended the same prep school we all did, pauses next to our small group and looks Trent up and down. Bringing a straw up to her mouth from a McDonald’s cup she’s holding in one hand, she takes a loud, slurping sip, making me chuckle for the first time in months. Only Millie Chamberlin could walk into one of the fanciest Hollywood parties of the year, wearing a sparkly gown that costs more than most people make in a year, with her elbow bent and wrist cocked, holding a paper bag of fast food daintily in her fingers like she’s holding an expensive Birkin bag, while sipping from a fast food cup like it’s a glass of Dom Perignon.

  “You couldn’t satisfy me if Dr. Ruth was in the bedroom with us coaching you along every step of the way. What are you even wearing?”

  I chuckle again as Millie looks at Trent’s tuxedo with disgust like he’s standing here wearing dirty rags he pulled out of the trash.

  “It’s Armani.” Trent scoffs, soundings less confident than a few minutes ago as he adjusts his tie.

  “You look homeless,” Millie mutters, taking another loud slurp of her drink. “Go away.”

  Turning to face me, a bright smile lights up Millie’s face as she leans in and air kisses both of my cheeks before pulling back.

  “Bodhi Armbruster, the only bright light in a sea of douchebags,” she greets me.

  “Heeey,” Trent and Brandon both complain at the same time.

  “Oh my God, why are you still here?” Millie asks my friends with a roll of her eyes, waving her cup in their direction. “Run along now. The adults need to speak.”

  I have to bite down on my bottom lip so I don’t laugh out loud when Brandon and Trent immediately scurry away with their sexual harassment tails tucked between their legs. They’re too afraid to piss Millie off and land themselves on a Hollywood blacklist, never to be invited to another party again. Born with the same silver spoon in her mouth as the rest of us, Millie—more than most—literally has no idea there are people out there who don’t have so much money it’s nauseating. She’s not an outright asshole like my friends. She’s just… Millie. But she knows who she is and makes no apologies for it, even at eighteen years old. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her; she just lives her life and does what makes her happy, no matter how insane it is. And her parents support her as long as she’s content. That’s what’s most mind-boggling of all. There isn’t one person in my life who would support me if I decided not to go to law school.

  “What’s with the McDonald’s?” I ask Millie, nodding in the direction of the bag she’s still holding like an expensive purse as I reach up and loosen my tie, suddenly feeling like I’m having a hard time breathing.

  “I made a new friend!” Millie gushes with a big smile. “I found the twins’ older sister hiding in a guest bathroom upstairs. She’s a sad, pale little thing with no fashion sense who hates people, but I’m sure she’ll warm up to me in no time, especially since I procured her some nuggs.”

  “The twins have an older sister?” I ask in shock, forgetting about my breathing trouble for a minute. Everyone knows who Tori and Zoey Parker are, seeing as they’ve had the number one YouTube channel since the day they posted their first video. It’s pretty crazy that I never even knew there was another sister in the Parker family.

  “Yes. Her name is Allie Parker, she’s the same age as me, and we’re going to be best
friends forever.” Millie takes another sip of her McDonald’s drink and then points the straw at me, changing the subject. “You should let your hair grow out. That blond, closely shaved on the sides, slicked back on top look isn’t good with your bone structure. I see you with more of a shaggy, surfer look.”

  I start coughing and choking on my own spit so hard when Millie says “surfer” that she has to set her drink down on a table and reach over and pat me on the back a few times while she continues talking.

  “Do you even own a T-shirt? I’d like to see you in something of the soft cotton variety, like an old concert tee. Dare I say, you could even pull off cargo shorts? You just… don’t look right in a tuxedo, my sweet friend. Handsome as hell, don’t get me wrong. But you look like that time I was out with Britney and we ran into Justin. A little pukey and very uncomfortable.”

  My closet is filled with nothing but designer suits, polo shirts, button-downs, and dress pants. I don’t own cargo shorts. Or any concert T-shirts, because I’ve spent my entire life studying, and always being good, and always making the right choices so I don’t end up in the tabloids and mess up my father’s career. It doesn’t matter that all the people he thinks I should be friends with are literally the scum of the earth who make all the wrong choices. And I’ve had a standing appointment with my father’s stylist for a haircut every six weeks since I was ten years old. I don’t even know if my hair can grow out any longer, but now I have the sudden urge to never cut it again.

  “FYI, valet has the good weed tonight.”

  “I don’t do drugs,” I reply, panting as I speak, wondering why it suddenly feels like it’s a hundred degrees in here and I’m sweating my ass off.

  Millie laughs and shakes her head at me, grabbing her drink from the table and taking another sip.

  “Oh, sweetie, you’re so cute and innocent.” She sighs, talking to me like she’s the adult and not four years my junior, cocking her head to the side as she watches me fan my face while my chest feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter. “But seriously, go to the valet for the good weed. Stay away from the coat check room. There’s so much coke being snorted in there it looks like the inside of a snow globe.”