Deceit in Bloom (The Love Unauthorized Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Michael

  Drip.

  Braelyn’s face transforms. She goes from elated to furious in the blink of an eye. Her anger is never a good thing, especially if it’s directed at me. She set fire to one of the places we were sleeping because we had a disagreement about whether staying there was safe or not. She’s unpredictable on her good days, but unstable on the bad. “I can, and I will do this again. Over and over again, if necessary. You’re being a prude. Don’t expect me to share any of the money I make if you won’t help us. I won’t support you. You need to pull your weight too. Figure it out, Paisley, and fast.”

  Drip. The hair on the top of my head dampens.

  Braelyn left that night. She didn’t return for three days. After day two, I wondered if she was even coming back, but she did. Things shifted between us, though. Braelyn was overjoyed with her discovery of prostitution. I was scared and repulsed. We couldn’t just put a Band-Aid over our differences this time.

  I crack my eyes open and squint at the offensive drip. Moisture leaks down my cheek when I’m attacked again. This time the pesky annoyance hits me right in the eye. I called the landlord weeks ago about this stupid leak in the roof. I shift on the couch to avoid any more unwanted assaults as hard, quick knocks against the door startle me.

  Brae hasn’t spoken to me in a week, and it’s made for a lot of time getting lost in my own head, ruminating on how we even got here. I rise from the couch and, for the millionth time, notice the lamp still lies in pieces on the floor. Both of us are too stubborn to clean it up. As I walk to the door, my mind again wanders to all the stuff Brae said to me last week about not living my life.

  Is she right? I always looked at it as doing what I have to do to get to where I want to be eventually, but am I wasting precious time? I don’t know, but her words are stuck in my head. The broken pieces of the lamp on the floor act as a taunting reminder of her jabs.

  A tall man stands outside my doorway. My overactive imagination immediately thinks that he’s here to break the funk I’ve been in. He’s a few inches taller than six foot, with dark sandy blond hair, which is buzzed short. His emerald-green eyes are playful, and his pearly whites almost blind me as he gives me a sexy smirk. He’s probably trying to suppress a laugh at my expense for the X-Men pajama shorts I’m currently sporting.

  He, however, is well put together. He wears dark jeans that fit him perfectly and hang low, but not too low, on his waist, and a fitted gray tee. He’s extremely good-looking and confident. Shaking myself out of my appraisal of him, I realize I may have opened the door but I still haven’t said anything. I’ve stood here ogling him like I’ve lost my ability to speak or think. “Can I help you?”

  The guy takes his turn to drink me in, slowly looking me over from my bare feet to my ruffled bed head. His grin still showing boyish amusement. “Is Stassi around?” My fantasy instantly disappears.

  Nope, he’s not at the wrong house, and he’s not here for me. The woman he’s looking for is here. Stassi is Brae’s working girl name. He’s a john. Her client. Since he’s coming to the apartment, it means they’ve slept together enough times for him to be a regular. Shit. There goes that colorful delusion. What did I expect? Getting out of my rut would be as easy as the start of a cheesy porno? No such luck. My face tenses, and the guy immediately takes notice. My change in demeanor alone has erased his playful smile. I move back to allow him in and point toward the bedroom door. “Through there.” He doesn’t show one ounce of shame in what he’s here for. He moves past me and to where he’ll find Brae.

  I head for the shower, deciding I need to get out of the house for a little bit today. Despite the pressure of the water and the layer of drywall and tiling between the rooms, Braelyn’s moans are easily heard through the shower wall. Only, this time, it doesn’t sound like she’s acting. Easy enough to see why—that guy is really hot. He’s a tad bulkier than I prefer, but there’s no denying he takes great care of himself.

  I have to wonder why a guy like that needs to pay for sex. I mean, if he were here to have sex with Brae, I’d totally get it. She’s probably better-looking than he is, from the opposite spectrum anyway. She has long, dark red hair and flawless creamy skin. Her blue eyes always shine bright, especially when she’s up to something wicked, which is often. She’s tall, with legs for days, and boobs any woman would be jealous of and every man wants to get lost between. She looks more like a cover model than a hooker.

  I go through the motions of my shower quickly, wanting nothing more than to escape the clamor penetrating my ears. Once I’m relatively dry, I realize I’m fucked, and not in the way my roommate is currently enjoying in the next room. My clothes are all in the bedroom. I’m stuck in the bathroom trying to remember if I’ve left anything wearable out in the living room. Venturing out of the bathroom is really my only option. I wrap a soft towel around myself before working a brush through my hair. Soon, the hair on my head is completely snarl free and there’s nothing else to stall me, so I tiptoe out of the steam-filled bathroom.

  I’m examining the living room when I hear from behind, “That tattoo is fucking awful. I know someone who could fix it up for you.” I startle, lose my footing, and trip. As I try to stop my face from meeting the floor, I forget to hold on to my towel. I’m lying facedown on the floor, my backside completely exposed, with an extremely good-looking john laughing at me in my own living room. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of my embarrassment, I rise with all the confidence I can muster, and keep my back to him—I don’t want to put my vagina on display if I don’t have to. His eyes are on my back as I take my time re-securing the towel in hopes that he believes I’m not completely mortified by what happened. Once I’m no longer exposed, I turn around to face him.

  “Doesn’t seem like you got your money’s worth, Johnny. You paid for sex and blew your load in about ten minutes. Sucks for Stassi if you’re paying by the minute.”

  The guy is still bent over laughing at me, clutching his stomach with one hand and trying to muffle his laughter with the other. I’m red in the face, blowing my confident act. Brae is standing in the bedroom doorway, wearing only her bed sheet and a puzzled look. I want out of this living room, but my feet seem to be planted to the floor. Finally, he straightens and composes himself.

  “I like you, Lunar. You’re sassy. Thanks for your concern for my libido, but I stepped out to deal with my nagging phone. I’m nowhere near done. I like to get my full money’s worth when I’m shelling out cash for sex, as you say. What’s your name?” I brush past him on my way toward the bedroom without giving him an answer. Braelyn moves inside the room and out of my way.

  “What happened, Lee-lee? Are you okay?” She only uses that nickname for me in her rare tender moments. She probably feels bad for the week of ignoring me.

  “It’s fine. I gave him a second peep show for the price of one. I just need to get out of the house for a bit.” Without modesty, since it’s clearly already lost, I pull on clothes from my closet—an old pair of ripped jeans and an even older black band tee. As I rush to leave the house, Johnny hums a tune from the kitchen. He sings some words while staring at my ass, a smirk plastered on his face.

  “Bye, Lunar.”

  I can’t get out of here fast enough.

  Paisley

  Sweat clings to my neck as I walk back to the apartment. We’ve been off the streets for a few weeks and there is nothing like having running water back in my life. We share the place with more than a few roaches, but I’ll take the bugs over the constant moving and unpredictability of life on the street any day.

  My job sucks, but at least I have one. I have to cling to the hope that, “Do you want fries with that?” won’t be my life’s permanent refrain. I smell like grease, and the uncomfortable uniform I’m wearing chafes during my journey home. A shower is at the top of my list as I walk through my front door.

  Braelyn is sleeping on her twin bed. It’s identical to mine, and they take up most of the room in the small studio where we live. I
head straight for the bathroom and am taken by surprise when the door doesn’t open. It’s locked. That’s weird. I jiggle the handle a few times, in case it’s stuck, but the door doesn’t budge. Braelyn appears behind me looking groggy. I must have woken her from her nap while trying to break into my own bathroom.

  “The door’s locked.”

  Braelyn seems annoyed. She bangs on the door, and I’m clued in that there is someone else in our apartment. “Open the fucking door. What are you still doing here? You should have left hours ago.” Who the hell is in there? No one responds from the other side, and the door remains closed. Braelyn pulls a pin from her hair and kneels. Within seconds, the lock clicks. It’s silent as Braelyn stands and pushes the door open. A man sits on the closed lid of the toilet. There’s a needle in his arm, and his body’s slumped over in an awkward position. Fuck. I hope he’s in a nod because if not . . . Fuck. I don’t even want to think about it. Braelyn steps up to the man and picks up his wrist. I can’t take my eyes off her movements or the man’s lack thereof. She drops his arm and starts searching his pockets. I speak up while she goes through his wallet.

  “Braelyn, what are you doing?”

  “He’s dead. Dumb motherfucker overdosed in our bathroom. We might as well see what he has on him before we move the body.”

  “M-m-m-move the body? What the hell, Braelyn? We need to call the fucking cops.”

  Braelyn pulls a few bills out before shoving the wallet back into his pocket. She moves in my direction, but I can’t take my eyes off the dead man in our bathroom. The sting against my cheek pulls me from my fixation. She just slapped me. Open palmed, right across my face. “Pull it the fuck together, Paisley, and use your fucking brain. We can’t call the cops. We’re under-aged runaways living illegally in this shithole. He’s got drugs on him. He was here paying me for sex. What do you think happens if we call the cops? Nothing good, that’s what. Think about it.”

  Braelyn lifts his shirt, revealing the butt of a gun. She pulls it out and inspects it before carefully placing it under the sink. “Great. The extra hundred bucks in his wallet is hardly worth the effort it will take to move him. This stupid motherfucker ruined my whole night. You are helping me. Be ready tonight to help me move his sorry ass. Don’t you fucking disappear. I’m going back to my nap.”

  Her words are so heartless. She seems to have zero respect for human life.

  I do help her move the body. I cry the entire time I’m holding on to the dead man’s legs. Braelyn taunts me about my emotion, and another crack forms in our relationship.

  We don’t move him far. It wouldn’t be out of the norm for a junkie to overdose in any of the nooks and crannies of this neighborhood. His temporary resting place is next to a dumpster in some dark alley. Someone will find him and do what we should have—call the police.

  A chair screeches. A couple leaves a table behind me and heads for the exit. All this quiet time lately has been messing with my head. Currently, I’m holed up on a stool of a hotel bar sipping a vodka and soda. I used some of my savings to get a room for the night and decided to treat myself to one of the nicer hotels in the area. One with room service, high ceilings, and marble throughout the lobby. My day has been like a game of pretend. For all they know, I’m a traveler with money to throw around living a lavish lifestyle. I’m going with the fantasy. It isn’t the type of traveling I’ve dreamed about, but it’s still nice.

  My skin is sun-kissed from the time I spent lounging by the Olympic-sized pool in the bright Florida sun sipping margaritas—not my typical drink, but it felt appropriate in the tropical atmosphere. People brought drinks to my chair and catered to me. I acted unaffected to keep up the ruse, but I was kind of giddy inside.

  I batted my eyelashes at men with wandering eyes and relished in the power I felt from their reactions. I flirted with strangers who approached me and let loose. The liquid courage found inside my margarita glass probably aided in that, but I had fun. It took harsh words from Braelyn and getting out of my bubble to see I needed this. I’ve felt more alive today than I have in years, maybe ever.

  Tired from my day out by the pool, I returned to my room for a nap, a luxuriously long shower, and some room service. I ate steak in my underwear, and it was delicious. I savored every bite and even indulged in a chocolaty dessert. Later, I made myself up and headed down to the bar. My mood has vastly improved, even though my mind’s still fixated on darker times. I’m not ready for my fantasy to end.

  It’s been rather quiet since I arrived. A couple was here for a short drink earlier, but besides them, I’ve been the lone customer. The bartender is a middle-aged woman who is too distracted by her phone to pay me much attention. I understand her disinterest; however, it doesn’t help in my quest for a little adventure tonight. As that thought comes to mind, a man sits down on a stool, leaving only one empty seat between us. I saw him earlier at the pool and batted my lashes his way, but he never approached. The bartender seems a lot happier when she approaches him.

  I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him before today, but something about him is familiar. The bartender lingers in front of him, but he pays her no mind beyond an exchange to order a drink. His attention turns toward me. Everything about him, from his stare to his clothes, is intense. I don’t know much about these things, but his suit looks expensive. It’s a three-piece number and charcoal gray. He wears a dark blue tie with it, and even his shoes scream power and money. He looks so vastly different now than he did earlier in board shorts. I’m feeling bold, and since he’s only looking and not speaking, I decide to change that.

  “Don’t you clean up nicely? A much different look from your pool attire, but it works for you just the same.” The guy looks proud. I stroked his ego either by remembering him from earlier or giving him the compliment. Probably both. My day has helped me understand Brae a little better too. While I won’t be heading into her line of work, there is an appeal to having an effect on men. It makes me a little drunk with power when I witness their reactions to my words or flirtation.

  “I’m glad you enjoy me in two of my many disguises. There are many more. You look great as well, but I much prefer you in the skimpy two-piece by the pool. What’s your name?”

  I don’t know what comes over me, but when I speak I hear myself say, “Bryn.” I don’t know if it’s from playing a role all day or from my earlier thoughts of sympathizing with Brae, but it’s what pops out of my mouth.

  “Bryn, huh? What brings you here?” The way he says my supposed name is like he doesn’t believe me. Is this guy a mind reader?

  “I’m here for a spa getaway. Some quiet time I’ve been needing.” The lie flies out of my mouth more easily than expected. “What about you? What’s your name? Your story?” The guy scoots closer, taking the seat that separates us. Miss Bartender has gone back to her phone, but she’s shooting me nasty looks. Her stares don’t affect me in the slightest.

  “I’m Jacoby. I just moved here. I had some business tonight in the restaurant, family business that called for some extravagant persuasions. How long are you staying?”

  “I leave in the morning.”

  “Well, then, I guess we’ll have to make tonight count then, won’t we?”

  I’m really enjoying flirting with this guy. In my head, I even contemplate the pros and cons of having a one-night stand. I’m not a saint when it comes to sex, but it’s been a while for me. My role-playing excursion could be exactly what I need to break out of the funk Brae’s rant put me in. Maybe I should enjoy life more while I’m waiting for it to officially start. As I’m contemplating my sexual awakening, Jacoby’s phone dings with a message. His face contorts and frustration appears in the lines around his eyes. Before he speaks, his demeanor is already changing.

  “Something has come up, and I’m really, really not happy about it. I have to take care of it, though. I’m sorry we won’t get to enjoy our night. It was great meeting you, Bryn.” If I was a ball player, my batting average would have
absolutely plummeted today. I couldn’t hit one out of the park to save my life. That’s two sexual fantasies out the window in a span of eight hours—the playful john who I embarrassed myself in front of and this distinguished man beside me. I say some polite farewell and watch his well-fitted, suit-covered backside leave.

  I feel a little silly as I go back to my drink. The control I felt while reeling these guys in was magnificent, but it stung when the other shoe dropped. The bar’s customer head count is back to being a lone party of one, plus my mean-mugging bartender friend, so I decide to call it a night and head up to my room. It doesn’t seem as if anything adventurous is going to happen anyway.

  I have the best night’s sleep of my life, sprawled out in the big king-sized bed with soft white sheets under me and a cozy comforter wrapped around me. It doesn’t even compare to the twin-sized, lumpy mattress I have at home or the couch where I spend most nights. It’s the first night in a long time I don’t have my normal nightmares. Usually they are constant and always the same. The mind is a funny thing, and sometimes mine is more like a built-in torture device.

  I wake up feeling better than I think I ever have. I’m refreshed and ready to shake things up in my life. I hate to admit it, but Brae’s right about me wasting my life. This staycation is more fun than I’ve had in a long time, which honestly is a little sad.

  On my way home, I decide Brae and I are going out tonight. I’ve hidden myself away for too long. My personal life is non-existent. I’ve chosen to close myself off. That ends today.

  Immediately, I notice Brae has ended our stalemate by cleaning up the shattered lamp in the living room. She sits on her bed in our shared room, furiously texting. I find it odd, she never really texts clients. It leaves a digital trail, and like me, she doesn’t really have anyone else to correspond with. She doesn’t even notice me when I enter the room. It isn’t until I stand next to her that she realizes I’m there. Putting the phone away, she looks up and smiles, seeming genuinely happy to see me. Maybe the time apart has done us some good, too.