Just My Type

by Tara Sivec

  TARA SIVEC

  Just My Type

  Copyright © 2019 Tara Sivec

  Kobo 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

  For Madelyn and Drew.

  I love you – pinky swear.

  (Also, this is the only part of the book you

  can read until you’re 30. PINKY SWEAR.)

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Book

  Prologue

  1. I’d Rather Stick My Hand in a Cow’s Ass

  2. Shit Mouth

  3. Fucking Karen

  4. Snort My Way to Happiness

  5. Goddamn Spray Tan

  6. Great Ass

  7. Shut Your Whore Mouth

  8. Huh

  9. Boner Killer

  10. Science

  11. I Don’t Think That Means What You Think it Does

  12. I’m So Sure Whatever

  13. Turtle Chinchilla

  14. The Hatchet House

  15. I. Am. Shook.

  16. Fluffy-Wuffy

  17. Pizza with a Porn Star

  18. It’s Not Me; It’s You

  19. That Motherfucker

  20. Let Him Carry Your Fucking Baggage

  21. For the Love of God, Touch Me Already!

  22. Tiny Dick Nubbin

  23. Can I Use a Spatula?

  24. Assless Chaps and a Cattle Prod

  25. Piss Boner

  26. Chaos

  27. That Motherfucker, Part 2

  28. Skanky Giggler

  29. Just My Type

  Acknowledgements

  Live in the best small town in the world? Check.

  Have the greatest job ever working on my family’s pumpkin farm? Check.

  Marry the town pharmacist, and have a nice, quiet life with our son? Check-check.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say you were happy? LOLOLOLOL!” ~ Life

  Ember Hastings never thought she’d be dragged away from White Timber and everything she loved, thrust in the middle of a big city she hated, or have her husband of nine years say, “I can’t do this anymore,” all within the span of three months, yet here she is.

  She misses her family, she misses the farm, and she misses having a backbone and caring whether or not the stain on her shirt is chocolate or shit. She works from home doing transcription. Does she really need to shower or leave the house?

  Baker Matthews has been bringing everyone down lately with his grouchy attitude. His job is stressful, and sometimes depressing, but he wouldn’t change anything about it. When a glitch with the transcription company he’s using mistakenly sends him notes he wasn’t supposed to see, Baker finds himself laughing out loud for the first time in months.

  He’s never met a woman who says whatever she’s thinking and doesn’t fawn all over him when she finds out what he does for a living. Until Ember Hastings comes barreling into his life, calling him Shit Mouth and asking if he has any balls.

  But she wants to keep this professional. She made him pinky swear, and you don’t mess around with pinky swears. Baker will have to get creative if he wants to prove to Ember that he’s just her type.

  PROLOGUE

  “Fifty bucks says he’ll come downstairs and start whining about how hard it is.”

  I laugh at what my best friend Brooklyn just said, as I balance my cell phone between my cheek and shoulder, so I can finish loading the dishwasher from dinner.

  “I’m not taking that bet, because it’s already a foregone conclusion. I ask him to help out around the house, and he either can’t figure it out, can’t find whatever it is he needs to accomplish said task, or he messes it up so I have to do it anyway. This is the joy of marriage. Repeating the same mistakes over and over again until one of you dies,” I tell her with a sigh, rinsing off a plate before shoving it onto the bottom rack.

  “Men are such pussies. Well, except for your brother. He is the opposite of a pussy. Which would be a dick, but he’s not that either. Although his dick is super impressive.”

  She lets out a low moan of satisfaction through the line that makes me want to throw up the pot roast I made for dinner. My brother Clint and my best friend Brooklyn finally pulled their heads out of their asses and confessed their undying love for each other a few months ago. After being at each other’s throat for our entire childhoods, I never thought I’d see the day when those two not only got along without constantly hurling insults at each other, but fall so deeply in love that everyone around them was slightly jealous. Myself included. I can handle the jealousy on most days, because this is my best friend and my brother we’re talking about, and I couldn’t be happier for them. What I can’t handle is Brooklyn making any mention of my brother’s pieces and parts south of the border.

  I pause with a fork in my hand, wondering how long it’s been since I moaned appreciatively about anything having to do with my husband. It would be nice if I could say our struggles began as soon as he uprooted us from my small hometown of White Timber, Montana and moved us to Chicago three months ago, when he was offered a huge job opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Sadly, I’d be lying to myself if I said that. Our troubles began long before then. Troubles I kept to myself. Troubles I figured would work themselves out eventually, because at the end of the day, I thought we were solid. Troubles I hoped would magically disappear if he took this dream job and was finally content with his life.

  Moving away from White Timber, the people I love, my family’s pumpkin farm, and the only home I’d ever known was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, and I’ve given birth naturally, without drugs. But I did it for Brandon. I did it, because for the first time in years, he was excited about something. For the first time in a long time, I was hopeful about our future together. I figured maybe a move to a big city, something Brandon had always dreamed about, was what we needed. A new start. A change of pace. A place to live where everyone didn’t know your business—or whatever poor choices you made the night before—by 9:00 a.m. the following morning. Unfortunately, all moving did was put a big, flashing, neon sign on our problems, the chasm between us growing bigger and bigger every single day.

  “Speaking of dicks, how was the fancy-ass dinner you hosted last night with all of Brandon’s co-workers? Did he give you an unlimited supply of orgasms after everyone left, for all the work you did to get ready for it?” Brooklyn asks, pulling me out of my depressing thoughts as I put the fork in the dishwasher and continue grabbing more dirty dishes out of the sink.

  I haven’t told
Brooklyn or my brother about what’s been going on since we moved here. Hell, I never told them about mine and Brandon’s problems before we moved here. She knows I haven’t really adjusted well to living in a big city, but that’s it. That might be the only good thing about moving away from White Timber. It’s easier to keep up with the lie that your life is perfect and everything is wonderful, when it’s nothing but a great big dumpster fire. I hate lying to my best friend, and the guilt eats me alive every time she makes a random comment about Brandon and our relationship. I don’t even know why I do it anymore. I think I’ve just been pretending for so long that I’m in too deep. If I tell her now, she will lose her fucking mind on me. I don’t need that added stress in my life. Not right now. When Brandon and I are back on solid ground again, I’ll explain everything to her then. Brandon and I will get there eventually; I know we will. I just need to be strong and have faith.

  “The dinner with his douchebag co-workers went just as you’d imagine it would.” I sigh, grabbing the dishwashing detergent from under the sink. “I made a bunch of expensive, over-the-top food, and they all bragged about what famous chef they hired for the last party they threw before spending the remainder of the evening talking about how much money they make and what new toys they’re going to buy, to prove to everyone how big their dicks are. It would have been much more enjoyable if they’d just whipped out their penises and flopped them down on the table before I served dessert. At least then I would have had something to laugh at.”

  “So, just another Tuesday night with a houseful of pharmaceutical reps,” Brooklyn responds, and I can practically hear her shrugging all the way in White Timber.

  God, I miss home.

  I miss my best friend’s sarcasm and her special way of bringing out my snarky attitude. It’s just not the same talking on the phone with her almost every day instead of seeing her in person. With each moment I spend here in Chicago being miserable with no one to talk to about it, I feel myself slipping away. I’ve had to turn myself from the wife of a small town pharmacist, with an attitude, and opinions, and a life, and a job outside of the home, into the showpiece of a pharmaceutical rep, only brought out for fancy functions to be polite and meek, then left alone the rest of the time to flounder in this foreign city with too much noise and too many people. I’ve lost my voice. I’ve lost who I am as a person, and I hate it. I hate that Brandon doesn’t see it. I hate that he just continues living his life each day like there isn’t something seriously wrong in our marriage, and with me. But I’m to blame too. It’s not like I’ve exactly sat him down and told him how miserable I am trying to be someone I’m not in a strange city where I feel completely alone. Sure, we’ve had discussions here and there about the distance between us and how much I miss home, but they always end with Brandon making promises to spend more time with me so we can work on things, and those promises never resulting in actions. He still works fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, traveling around the state constantly, never taking a break or even one day to relax and enjoy his family. I’ve become complacent, because I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to make things worse, and that’s not who I am.

  Ember Hastings-Hudson is not a doormat, dammit.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  As soon as I hear Brandon’s voice behind me in the kitchen, Brooklyn also hears it through the phone and lets out a loud snort. “I told you the fitted sheet would be asking too much. Tell him to suck your dick and get back upstairs and finish making your bed.”

  Brooklyn’s right. I mean, I won’t tell Brandon to suck my dick… probably, but it’s time I stop keeping my mouth shut. We need to talk. And we need to fix this pronto, before it gets any worse and we can’t repair anything.

  Quickly telling Brooklyn I’ll talk to her tomorrow and ending the call, I set the phone on the counter next to the sink and slowly turn around to face my husband.

  Brandon isn’t exactly what some would call hot. But he’s adorable in a suit-wearing, always-put-together way. He’s a science and math nerd, and he was the exact opposite of every guy I’d ever dated. I was always attracted to hot, muscly jocks who treated me like shit. Brandon was polite, quiet, and shy, and didn’t know the difference between a touchdown or a goal. We were polar opposites, and that’s what drew me to him. Sure, we started drifting apart long before we moved here to Chicago, but I know if we would have stayed in White Timber, we would have been able to fix things. This new job making three times as much as he made in White Timber, surrounded by people who are used to flaunting their money and trying to one-up each other, and the pressure of trying to do better than everyone else at work changed him. But we can fix this. I know we can. I just have to dig deep and find the old Ember. The one who didn’t take anyone’s shit. The one who stood up for herself and her family. The one who wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  “Did you hear me? I said I can’t do this any—”

  “Yes, I heard you the first time,” I cut Brandon off. “It’s a fitted sheet, not brain surgery. It’s one little thing I asked you to help me with while I cleaned up after dinner.”

  I wince a little at the bitchiness in my voice, and then curse myself for feeling bad. Even after three months, I still haven’t gotten the hang of being a stay-at-home mom. In White Timber, I worked for my family’s huge pumpkin farm. I had a job and responsibilities outside the home, and Brandon and I did everything fifty-fifty. Cooking, cleaning, driving our son Lincoln to and from school, laundry, etcetera, etcetera. It was all split down the middle, as it should be.

  Everyone thinks stay-at-home moms have it so easy. That is complete horseshit. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished, even when your son is seven and in school all day. Brandon is never home, so everything is up to me to handle. And when he is home, he’s constantly on his phone or his laptop, and still, everything is up to me to handle. Asking him to help out with one little thing while I clean up the dinner dishes shouldn’t give me this big of a headache.

  “I’m not talking about the sheet,” Brandon admits quietly, while I try and come up with a way to start this conversation we need to have about fixing things between us, without screaming at him about the stupid fitted sheet.

  Brandon clears his throat, pushing his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose with his finger. I stare in annoyance at his dark hair, slicked back away from his face with so much product a hurricane wouldn’t even be able to move it.

  I have an unnatural urge to reach over and rub my hand as fast as possible against the gel-slicked coif, so he doesn’t look so much like a pretentious ass standing in our kitchen.

  “I’m talking about us. I just… I can’t do this anymore. It’s not working. You and me.”

  My eyes slowly move away from his stupid hair and focus on his face to search for any signs he’s joking. But Brandon doesn’t joke. He doesn’t even understand dad jokes. Lincoln once asked him what a fake noodle was called. And when he told Brandon is was an “impasta,” Brandon spent the next ten minutes teaching him how to spell the word imposter.

  “I can’t do this anymore. It’s not working. You and me.” No smile, no smirk, no twinkle in his eye, absolutely no sign of life. This isn’t a badly executed joke.

  This is the moment in movies when the wife will do one of two things: Sob uncontrollably and beg her husband not to go, or pick up something heavy from the counter and lob it at his head, all while screaming profanities at him.

  I do neither of those things. It’s like someone shot my entire body full of Novocain and I can’t move. I can see and hear everything happening around me, but I can’t. Fucking. Move.

  “Are you on drugs?” I finally ask after a few tense, quiet minutes.

  Brandon shakes his head at me, his eyes wide with shock that I would ask such a thing.

  “Am I on drugs?” I wonder aloud.

  “No. Well, unless you count the prescription for fifty micrograms of Vitamin D because you had a s
light deficiency in the—”

  “Stop talking pharmacist to me right now! It’s not cute!” I interrupt, my voice getting slightly louder and a touch more hysterical.

  “I’m sorry,” Brandon quickly replies, without any trace of actual remorse in his voice. “I’ll say goodnight to Lincoln then go stay at a hotel until we figure things out, like where everyone will live and that sort of thing. You know my company only offered to pay for this apartment for the first three months we lived here, and since that contract is up next week, I figured that would make everything easier.”

  No, seriously. Am I on drugs? Did someone secretly shoot me up with meth when I wasn’t looking? Drop some Ecstasy into my glass of wine I had with dinner?

  He’s been dragging his feet every time I showed him something I found online during all my searching for a new place over the last month. Is this why? Has he been planning this shit all this time? Every emotion I can possibly think of flies through me at the speed of light. Anger that he uprooted me and Lincoln and moved us here to this damn city, far away from everything we love. Pissed off that he didn’t even try to make the transition easier by actually spending time with us and helping me find my way around Chicago. Furious that he’s been planning this for at least a month, while I’ve been cooking his meals, picking up his dry cleaning, taking care of our son, cleaning this giant, monochrome apartment I hate, throwing elaborate dinner parties, and washing his goddamn underwear, all while hoping and praying and trying to come up with a way to fix us.

  Okay, fine. So the only emotion I’m feeling right now is pure, white-hot rage. Whatever. It’s better than my legs giving out and me collapsing into a puddle of misery and tears on the kitchen floor.

  “I’m sure we can both agree we want this to be as quick and painless as possible. You know, to make things easier.” Brandon shrugs nonchalantly, like we’re talking about what type of bread I should buy at the grocery store and not about our fucking marriage.