This isn’t me.
The music is some hip-hop song - not what I’d usually listen to, but I like it - and it’s so loud that I can barely hear my thoughts. I’m okay with that, though. The last thing I want is to hear my own thoughts right now.
This isn’t the real me.
I’ve traded in my engagement ring for a fake diamond tiara, and I’m dancing on a table.
A half hour ago, I was still me.
“Alabama Slammer,” the bride-to-be, Ashley had shouted to our waiter over the music. “Shots. Eight.”
Jenny’s eyes shifted to my gaze and then to the waiter. She bit the corner of her lip as a bemused look flashed across her face.
“Eight?” she hissed when as the waiter sauntered away. “But there’s only four of us.”
“That’s two for each of us,” Ashley said.
And that’s part of the story behind why I am dancing on a table in Atlantic City. The shots, plus the few beers I’d had back in the room, plus the utter blinding anger from the knowledge I’d been made a fool of.
I am trying to block it out. I am trying to keep my mind off it. Because the alternative means that I will have to face it - the cancellation of my wedding, the public humiliation, the wounds to my ego, the hit to my pride.
The stupidity of having bought this lingerie to wear for him.
So I’m on a table, shaking my ass, and I hope Eric is happy.
“Hey!” Ashley shouts from below me. “We’re going!”
“Already?” I shout down to her, bending down as she takes my hand and helps me off the table. It’s a low table, only a couple of feet off the floor, but that’s one thing I can cross off my bucket list.
Dance on table. Check.
When I woke up this morning, I didn’t even know I had a bucket list.
“Yes, we’re going,” Ashley says, grabbing my hand. We squeeze our way through the crowd, making our way to the exit. The bar is inside one of the casinos, and we’re staying at the hotel next door.
“Why are we leaving so early?” I whine, pouting my lip, but my girlfriends know I’m just kidding around.
“We have something else in mind,” Jenny says, smirking devilishly, her blonde hair done up in big, bouncy Victoria’s Secret waves around her face.
“Right,” Katie says, “we’re all going to get tattoos!”
Of all the terrible ideas my friends have had, this sounds like the best one.
I am the only girl in our group who doesn’t have a tattoo. And right now, it kind of sounds like a good idea.
“This might work for me,” I say as we step out into the warm air on the boardwalk, “but I’m sorry to say it’s almost midnight. Where are we going to be able to get a tattoo right now?”
The four of us look at each other, our glances slow and steady, and when Ashley cracks a smile, I can tell they’re all messing with me. A chorus of laughter erupts among us and I shake my head.
“So you guys just wanted to get me out of there because I was making an idiot of myself, right?” I say. “You didn’t want me to fall off the table?”
“It’s not that,” Katie says, “it’s just that we wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Okay. That is a very loaded word right now.
I start doing the mental calculations in my head. I met Eric when we were both in law school. I was an L2 and he was an L3; we’d met at law review, where he was the lead student editor. As someone totally green and who completely did not belong, I’d sat in the back of the room when I came in, and I shielded myself from him. I averted his gaze. I didn’t want to look at him too closely because I was afraid he would know I was an imposter.
So it was four years ago that we first met. I am twenty-nine now, and I shudder when I think about what that means.
I will have to find another guy pretty fast if I want to settle down and marry in the near future. That’s what I’ve always wanted - I think. I don’t remember fantasizing about growing up to marry Prince Charming, but every girl does that, and I’m a girl, so ipso facto, I must have grown up fantasizing about marrying Prince Charming.
But I’m okay with not having to marry Eric, I admit to myself in my half-drunken haze.
More than okay. Relieved. Bullet has been dodged.
But I’m also really pissed off.
The lingerie I have on, for example. I could have been having fun at lunch with my friends at work. There was a birthday cake for one of them at the office, and instead I went out and spent too much money on this sexy crap I have on under my dress, and every cent I put toward a little something special instead of paying down my student loan debt is a cent I end up regretting and resenting.
“I’m fine,” I say again. “I’m fine with everything.”
Katie looks at the other girls and then at me.
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic,” she says.
“Sarcastic? No, not at all,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm in every intonation, “I’m not being sarcastic.”
“She’s being sarcastic,” Ashley says wisely, crossing her arms in front of her. “It’s okay if you’re not okay, Amanda.”
I feel my fists clench up and then uncurl, and I shake my head swiftly as blood rushes to it.
“Let me show you just how okay I am,” I say.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I rapidly put my hair up in a ponytail with the elastic around my wrist, slip my heels off and take them in my hands, and absolutely book it across the boardwalk.
And I’m running. I’m running away from my girlfriends. I’m running toward the sand. I take a flying leap off the boardwalk, clearing three steps down to the beach, and my feet sink in with a mild thud that only slows me down a little.
The ground rises to meet me as my hands shoot forward to break my fall. The air around me is thick and heavy and warm, and I wade through it like it’s the ocean.
“I’m going in!” I shout, spinning around see my three best friends chasing after me.
I shimmy out of my little black dress, pulling it over my head and throwing it on the sand. I’m standing on the beach in just my black push-up bra, lace panties, garter belt and stockings.
And the one person who was supposed to see me like this never will. I check my surroundings - and for one slow moment, as my eyes scan the sand and the boardwalk for people ogling me or being grossed out by me or regarding me as a mere curiosity, a drunk crazy chick on the beach in just her skivvies - I realize I don’t give a crap what anyone thinks.
Maybe it’s the shots thinking for me, but I don’t care what anyone thinks as I race toward the water.
Maybe it’s the beers I pre-gamed with, but I don’t care if anyone sees me like this.
Maybe it’s the fact my life has been completely turned upside-down in just one moment, but I don’t care about my new fancy lingerie getting ruined by the saltwater.
And before I know it, as though it happens while my eyes are closed mid-blink, I’m in the water.
A chill runs through me as I feel it rise from my ankles up to my calves. I should turn back now. The water is cold - ice cold - and its temperature is surprising, in stark contrast to the gorgeous, warm evening.
“Hey!” I hear Katie yell behind me, her voice quickly getting closer to me, “get out of there! No lifeguard on duty!”
I feel another chill run through me, and this time I feel woozy, too. Hot and cold all at once. And suddenly, I do care what people think.
“God, what the hell am I doing?” I mutter to myself as I begin splashing back to the shore.
Ashley holds my dress out for me and shakes her head.
“Are you crazy?” she laughs, putting her arm around my shoulder.
“I guess that’s another thing to check off my bucket list,” I reply, swiping my finger through the air as though I’ve completed a cosmic task.
“I didn’t really think you were a bucket list kind of girl,” Jenny says, handing me my shoes.
“I’m not
. This isn’t me,” I say. I feel deflated. Dejected. Chewed up and spit out.
“I almost didn’t recognize you in what you’re wearing,” Jenny says with a gentle laugh in her voice.
“I’ll tell you guys later why the hell I’m wearing this,” I say.
We continue to the boardwalk and I slip back into my dress. Thankfully I didn’t get far enough in to really freeze myself, and the warm air is quickly wicking away any errant seawater still on my stockinged legs.
“The tattoo idea could have been interesting,” I say, mulling over the idea of a bucket list. “Just a little keepsake to remember the night by.”
“We’ll remember,” Ashley says, “because it’s a weekend of new beginnings. They always say when you dream of someone dying, that means someone is pregnant.”
Katie whips her neck and looks at Ashley, big-eyed with concern.
“That’s so morbid,” she says, “who dreamed of someone dying?”
“I’m just saying that as a metaphor,” Ashley explains, “I’m getting married, Amanda is no longer getting married. It’s kinda like a birth and a death, in a way. It’s a new beginning for both of us. And no one had to dream it, because it’s really happening. You know what I mean?”
“I suppose so,” I say, stifling a laugh. Ashley certainly has a way with words, even if she’s a bit difficult to decipher at times.
“Oooh,” Katie says as we find our footing up the few steps to the boardwalk, carrying our shoes, “I think we might be able to get those tattoos after all. Look over there.”
“Where?” I say, scanning my surroundings.
“There,” Jenny says, pointing across the wide boardwalk.
And then I see it. Then I see him.
Leaning against the wall of a small storefront tucked between an outdoor pizza joint and a souvenir shop. One leg bent at the knee, a big combat boot flat against the wall behind him. Dark jeans, white t-shirt. Arms crossed against his broad, strong chest, tattoos dancing and flexing against his arms. Those arms. And then my eyes rise from his body to his face.
His face is painted in shadow, but I see a strong jaw. Thick beard. Beautiful lips. And my mind goes somewhere fast. And I mean fast. Somewhere bad when I see those lips. Because my first through is not him taking me in his arms and gazing into my soul with those beautiful, mysterious, flashing eyes. My first thought when I see those lips is something much dirtier.
I swallow thickly and feel a little flutter deep inside my belly, and my breath hitches inside my chest when I exhale.
“Amanda, you still with us?” one of the girls says, but I don’t know which of my best friends is talking. The man across the boardwalk has me literally losing my senses.
“Hm?” I say as one of them puts a hand on my shoulder, shaking slowly.
The man against the wall shifts his gaze suddenly and his eyes meet mine, and I swear all the air inside my lungs is sucked out. His eyes stay on mine for a split-second too long, and then he looks away, and then back at me again.
He smirks, pushes his hips out ever-so-slightly, and turns to go inside.
“It’s a tattoo shop,” Ashley exclaims brightly. “Oh, let’s go see if he’s open!”
“Right,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “Let’s go cross another item off the bucket list.”
2
Dylan
My name is Dylan, but they call me Big D.
The shore is my life. My tattoo shop is my life. For me, they’re one and the same.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve come across lots of pretty girls. Lots of beautiful women. Strippers, women who are recently divorced, beauty queens.
Bachelorette parties.
I’ve seen it all, but I’ve never seen anything quite like what I’m looking at right now.
Her face looks like she’s been crying. Her heart-shaped face is framed by soft brown waves and she has curves in all the right places.
And she’s taking her clothes off. It’s like a private little strip-tease just for me, and she doesn’t even know I’m watching. Can’t help myself, though. If she didn’t want anyone looking, she wouldn’t be taking her clothes off in public.
Fuck.
Her ass appears first as she takes the dress off over her head. She peels it off like it’s a second skin, pulled tight and taught against her body. It catches a little as it comes up over her tits, showing off her full, curvy figure.
Shit, I am getting hard right this second, even though she is off in the distance and I can’t make out the details. What I wouldn’t do to that ass if I had her on my lap right now.
“Hey Dylan, get back in here. Time to close up shop.”
One of my best artists pops his head outside, where I’m leaning against the shop, watching the creature in the lacy, sexy lingerie lose her mind when her toes hit the cold water. She doesn’t expect it. It’s a warm night, almost fucking perfect, but she doesn’t know the water stays cool throughout the summer.
I know another way to make her lose her mind.
“Just a minute,” I say. I’m not ready to let this girl out of my damn sight.
I watch her, curiously, as she makes her way back onto the boardwalk. Her body is deliciously sinful, and I can’t help but look.
And then her eyes catch mine. She looks almost sad, but her expression changes when our eyes lock. She bites her bottom lip and that makes me hard.
I shift my body and turn to go inside the shop, peeling my eyes off the beauty on the boardwalk. She’s walking right toward the shop.
We aren’t open, but we aren’t closed, either. It’s after-hours. We stay here and have a few beers, shoot the shit after all of the customers have left.
I settle into the chair behind the reception desk, pushing away the blinds on the front window to see the girl. She and her friends are laughing. Looks like they’re discussing the next stage of their crazy adventure.
God, there’s too many girls out here looking for a good time. It’s hard to keep track of them.
But her? She’s the sexiest one I’ve ever seen.
She saunters along the boardwalk, her curves bumping in the air as her hips sway. Her dress is back on now, but that image of her milky, pure skin criss-crossed with those hot-as-sin black straps is burned into my mind. I’ll make sure it stays there, too.
I push away from the window and let the blinds close with a loud snap. It’s time to tip out my staff for the night. They get tips from their clients, but I like to give them extra as an incentive to stay here and work in my shop. I don’t know if they’re still here because they enjoy my company or because they want to stay until late in the night so I’ll get a little tipsy and give them a nice fat bonus for a job well done.
I sigh and punch in the combination for the safe under the reception desk. The code is my uncle’s birthday. One of his birthdays, that is. He was my dad’s adopted brother and he didn’t know when his real birthday was. This was his shop, and he left it to me when he passed, back when I was his apprentice. He, my dad and I celebrated his alternate birthday - a date he and my dad chose at random, so it could be a special thing they shared - every year. Then when I got older, they let me in. They let me be part of their bond. No one knew that date except me, dad and him.
I pull out a stack of cash and my big staff of two men comes over to collect their money.
“Paul,” I say as my pal comes up to the counter. I slap a hundred dollar bill down on the countertop and smile at him. Big, burly guy. Rides a Harley. Chip in his front tooth. Needs to get that shit taken care of, and the way he gets paid, there’s no excuse for that aesthetic imperfection. I think he might like it. Even though he’s big and rough he’s a damn good looking guy. “Good work today. Go out and buy yourself something nice.”
“I’m gonna treat a girl I worked on today to a nice dinner at one of those twenty-four-hour buffets,” he says, flapping his bonus in the air, fanning it like there’s more than just one bill there. “Treat her like a princess.”
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“I don’t know if princesses like buffets. Pretty sure princesses have their food served to them,” I say.
“You can do what you want with your money,” he says, tucking the bill into his wallet, “and I’m gonna do what I want with mine.”
The bells over the door chime as I’m about to peel another hundred off the stack of bills to give one of my other artists, Mike.
“Ladies,” Mike says as he comes over to me to collect his cash, tossing a look over his shoulder as the girls from the boardwalk come in, “we’re closed.”
“Oh no,” a little blonde chick in a gold dress says, draping her arms across her chest with a pout, “we wanted tattoos!”
I peer over at the curvy mermaid dressed in black. She’s hanging back a bit behind her friends, but as she scans the room her eyes finally reach me. I can nearly feel the heat coming off her body from here. She’s here for a good time, I can tell.
“We’re closed, like he said,” I throw over to the girls as I tip my chin to Mike. “Come back in the morning.”
The girl in the back looks around the room again, then at me. She puts a hand on her hip. I put my stack of cash back into the safe and shut it. When I look up again, she’s still looking at me.
“You look like you’re open,” she sasses me, arching an eyebrow.
“I assure you we are very much closed,” I say, getting up. I walk around to the front of the desk and lean back against it, putting my hands on the edge. With my eyes trained on this girl, I can tell what she’s thinking.
First of all, she’s never been in a place like this before. That alone makes me a curiosity. This girl is from the city and she’s thinking she’s here for a good time with a stranger. I’m no freak. I don’t look like a sideshow. I’m just a guy with a tattoo gun. Someone with no damn chance with a good girl like her.
A good girl like her, even though she stripped on the beach. Yeah, she’s a good girl, I can tell. That little stunt out there was an anomaly. She’s wearing a plastic diamond tiara like a damn princess, and all I want to do is wrap her long brown hair around my fist, pull her head back gently, nibble on her ear and tell her to get down on her knees.
Bad Boy's Baby: A Second Chance Secret Baby Romance (Boardwalk Bad Boys Book 1) Page 2
