Meet Cute

by Melanie Shawn

  Meet Cute

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  Copyright © 2019 Melanie Shawn

  Google Play Edition

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns

  Copyedit by CookieLynn Publishing

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  The Someday Series

  Other Series by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Evelyn

  “SO, HOW DO you feel, Superstar?” My roommate Brandy’s words echoed in my mind as we approached the front doors of the Plaza Pub, our usual weekend hangout. Tonight was not the usual weekend, though. Tonight had been opening night of the spring musical at our college. And, yes, I’d been the star.

  As to the main thrust of the question? I wasn’t sure how I felt yet. I was still in a little bit of shock.

  “I’ll let you know after a couple of drinks,” I cracked. “I’ll have a little bit more distance from my feelings then.”

  “This is your big night!” she said. “Everything could change for you tonight.”

  “Yeah,” her twin, Sandy, chimed in. “Maybe you’ll even get some action.”

  That would be a welcome change, I had to admit. I’d been so focused on my studies and theater this year—who was I kidding, make that this life—that I didn’t have nearly as much experience in that area as I would’ve liked.

  In fact, in high school, when people still used the nickname “Evie” for me, some of my friends had even teased me by calling me “Naïve-y.” Yeah. Clever. They were a real bunch of wordsmiths.

  But, yes. It was true that I very much wanted to shake off my inexperience and start having some fun. And Sandy was right. There was no time like the present to start trying to make that happen.

  As we stepped through the doors into the dimly lit interior of the bar, a deafening cheer rose from the patrons, causing me to stumble back a little bit.

  “Step into the limelight, honey, don’t run away from it!” My friend Michelle advised, giving me a light push forward. “You’ve worked hard for this. Enjoy it!”

  “Yeah,” agreed my other roommate Sandy. “You never know how long your adoring fans are going to keep up the whole adoring thing. Best to bask while the basking’s good.”

  Brandy’s twin had always had a way of getting right to the heart of the matter.

  I took a deep breath and stepped in, giving a wave to the room at large.

  I felt a pat on my shoulder. “You should make the rounds,” my third roomie Cat advised.

  I gave a small nod to acknowledge the advice. If anyone would know, she would. Her mom was an actress and Cat had seen her in action, “working a room,” hundreds of times.

  “You guys find us a table or stools at the bar,” I said. “I’ll come join in a bit.”

  “No hurry, doll. Now, go. Your public awaits,” Sandy said, giving me a little shove.

  I took a deep breath before starting to approach groups of people. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d say to them. Probably just thank them for coming to see the show and thank them for any complimentary words they might have for me, striving to be as gracious as possible.

  God, this was all new to me. The theater program in my high school had been tiny, and the productions were not well-attended. The community at large certainly never came to see them. Hell, we were lucky if friends and family made the time.

  When I’d applied to attend Winship University, the small liberal arts school just outside Arcata in California, there had been one reason and one reason only—their theater arts program was intense, demanding, and well-regarded.

  I’d been absolutely dying to dive into my training, and to me, “intense and demanding” sounded like heaven. I salivated at the thought of sacrificing for my craft.

  What I hadn’t known was what a big deal the productions were locally. My new theater department buddies—the “dramies,” as we referred to ourselves—had tried to explain it to me, especially after I’d been cast as the lead in the spring musical. They’d tried to tell me that the performances would be packed, and that I’d get recognized—even gushed over—around town.

  As I made my way around the room, chatting with small groups of people who waved me over, I found I was enjoying myself more and more with every encounter.

  Hell, yeah. I’d always suspected I’d been born for this. This just might be proof that I’d been right.

  “Oh my gosh, we just thought you were excellent,” a middle-aged woman enthused, patting my hand as she shook it. She turned to her husband, who sipped his beer and scanned the bar with a distinctly disinterested air. She nudged him. “Didn’t we, Charles? Didn’t we just think she was excellent?”

  “Excellent,” he parroted.

  She patted my hand again. “Don’t mind him, dear. I drag him to the shows. If it were up to him, the only live theater we’d see would be a bunch of people as the sports players and the whole show would just be them doing a live version of the sports match or whatever.”

  “They have that, Marge,” he intoned. “They’re called games. You can buy tickets to them and everything.”

  She waved his words away as if they were no more consequential than a fly buzzing around her head. “Well, anyway, dear. You were excellent. Just excellent. You’re a very talented young girl. You keep at it now, you hear?”

  “I will, ma’am. I promise.” It was everything I could do to keep a straight face throughout the interaction. I was grateful that her table had been the last one left to stop at. Now, I was free to find my friends and let loose.

  When I plopped myself down on the barstool they’d saved for me, Brandy slung an arm around me. “Are you ready to answer my question yet, or do you still need to get a couple drinks in you?”

  “Nope, I can answer it now. I feel freaking excellent,” I replied, cra
cking myself up.

  They all stared at me, brows raised.

  “You’re the only person I know that has inside jokes with yourself,” Michelle observed.

  “What can I say?” I quipped. “I find my sense of humor to be very compatible with my own.”

  “Hey, sweet thing,” a slick voice sounded in my ear, from very close over my shoulder, sending an oily shudder down my spine. “Everybody in here seems to think you’re a pretty big deal. How about I try you out and see if they’re right?”

  Bile rose in my throat as I turned to see who the voice belonged to.

  As I’d suspected, the guy was in his mid-forties, way too old to be acting or talking that way. He was wearing a shirt made from a fabric that nature’d had nothing to do with, his hair was slicked back with what looked like half a tube of gel.

  I leaned forward and sniffed. “Drakkar Noir?” I inquired, keeping my voice light.

  “You know it, baby,” he preened.

  “I think I’m going to take a pass,” I said, turning back around on my barstool. “Have a nice night.”

  Sandy nudged me with her elbow. “Nicely deflected. Now, what you need is a drink.”

  “Agreed.”

  As the night wore on and more and more drinks made their way down my throat, I surprised myself by getting really wild. I’d never been a particularly raucous partier. I was more of an observer.

  However, tonight was different. I wondered if it was the combination of the adrenaline of opening night and the alcohol, creating an explosive reaction. That seemed plausible.

  Whatever the reason, though, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to enjoy myself and the night, wherever it might take me.

  “You know, you were a real bitch to me.”

  I recognized the guy’s voice from earlier. It held the same oily quality as before, only fueled by a lot more alcohol.

  Damn, if oil and water didn’t mix, I’d bet oil and booze were an even worse pairing.

  Normally in a situation like this one, I’d play it safe. It was never a good idea to rile up a drunk guy, especially not a drunk guy with a personality disorder, who clearly didn’t respect women’s boundaries and had already proven that, at least with his words, he didn’t mind getting hostile and maybe even violent. Guys like that were a powder keg, and throwing a match on one of those didn’t tend to work out well.

  But tonight was not “normally.” Not even close.

  I turned to look at him, the most disdainful expression I could work up plastered on my face. And if the reception I had received from the crowd that had seen my performance tonight, both in the theater and here in the bar, was any indication… Well, putting realistic expressions on my face was a thing I was sort of good at.

  “I beg your pardon?” I said, derision positively dripping from my voice.

  “You should,” he sneered, stepping in closer and grabbing my upper arm.

  All my bravado from just a moment before disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind the minute he laid hands on me. Now, all I wanted to do was diffuse the situation. I glanced around, looking for my roommates, but they weren’t there, and I didn’t know where they were. Dancing, the bathroom, chatting with other people we knew that had shown up tonight—it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t get over here quick enough to help me walk this situation back from the edge.

  “Look,” I said, making my voice conciliatory, “I’ve offended you, apparently. I didn’t mean to. Let’s just go our separate ways.”

  “No,” he insisted. “Let’s dance.”

  “I can’t,” I said, pulling back instinctively.

  “Oh, yeah? Why?”

  At this point in the conversation, I probably should’ve screamed, or kneed him in the balls, or even given him a point by point explanation of the concept, “No Means No.” But I was way too tipsy to consider any of those options, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “I have a boyfriend!”

  “Bullshit. Then where has he been all night?”

  My eyes frantically searched the dim interior of the bar, hoping to glimpse one of my friends so that I could grab their attention and call for reinforcements. However, while I didn’t spot any of them, I did see the answer to my problem.

  Right then, walking through the front doors, was a super-hot guy—way too hot to be my boyfriend in real life, probably, but I wasn’t performing the most accurate mental calculations at the moment. He was tall, and muscular, and had the most drool-worthy five-o’clock shadow covering his jaw.

  Best of all, in addition to being as hot as every sin mentioned in the ten freaking commandments, he was kind of intimidating, owing to the fact that the bulging muscles of his arms were covered with tattoos. Intricate, gorgeous, expertly-crafted tattoos, to be sure—but I didn’t think this drunk asshole would take the time to appreciate their artistic merit. I was hoping he’d just see them and shit his pants.

  “He just got here,” I said triumphantly, pointing at the gorgeous guy by the door, alcohol making me brave. “That’s him. That’s my boyfriend. And if you don’t leave me alone, he’s going to kick your ass.”

  Chapter 2

  Nick

  “COME ON, BOSS. Relax. Olive’s fine with the sitter for just a few hours. Take a night off from your life.”

  As I walked across the plaza that formed the central square of downtown Arcata with my receptionist Belinda, I had to admit her plan sounded pretty good. Actually, any plan that ended with the sentence, “Take a night off from your life,” would’ve sounded pretty good to me right about then.

  Two months ago, I’d opened up a tattoo parlor right off of this very plaza. I was building up my clientele, letting word of mouth and the Instagram following I’d already had do most of the heavy lifting. So far, Belinda was my only employee.

  While that was definitely simpler it also came with its own set of problems—like the fact that if I wasn’t at the shop, the shop wasn’t open.

  Under most circumstances, that wouldn’t be a very big deal. But my situation was different, for one reason—and her name was Olive. My four-year-old daughter was the light of my life. I would sacrifice anything for her, no questions asked. There was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to make her feel happy, safe, and loved.

  The only problem was, the only thing that would do that for her was to have her mother with her, alive again, and as strong as my “dad superpowers” were, there were limits to what I could do. That was beyond them.

  We’d had the perfect life, the three of us. Then Jen had gotten her diagnosis, and no matter what the doctors tried, she just kept wasting away. Olive was too young at the time to understand what was happening, but it affected her in ways that I was still struggling to understand, and to help her with.

  Belinda knew all of that. That was why she’d insisted on this night out. She’d said that one extra night away from Olive wasn’t going to make a huge difference in the long run, but that me buckling under the pressure definitely would. I saw the wisdom in it. But that didn’t make me feel any more comfortable about it.

  We pushed through the doors and I pulled out my wallet to pay the cover. We’d barely been inside the bar for thirty seconds when a gorgeous girl with long, wavy auburn hair came up to me and slid her arm through mine, then stood up on tiptoe and pressed her cheek to mine.

  I was so shocked I didn’t do anything—not speak, or move. I just stood there, stunned.

  A second later, my senses returned to me and the first thing I noticed was the alcohol on her breath. I had to smile. All right, then. That made a lot more sense. In my experience, I’d found that a lot of odd behavior could be explained by the presence of alcohol on someone’s breath.

  She whispered in my ear, and her breath caressed my cheek, hot and sensual. My heart skipped. Fuck, I hadn’t reacted to a woman like that since—

  I cut myself off. I didn’t want to think about it.

  I was so caught up in my reaction to her, though, t
hat it took me a second to register the actual words she’d whispered, which were, “Just play along. I’ll owe you. Big time.”

  She drew back, then, and looked into my eyes, her brows raised in a question. I gave a quick nod and she rewarded me with the most stunning smile.

  Damn, if a fraction of a nod was all I had to give her to get that smile in return, I could walk around like a fucking bobblehead all day. It wouldn’t bother me.

  She slid an arm around my waist and pressed herself snug to my side, nestling her head on my shoulder, then fixed her gaze on a guy who took a couple of steps toward us right then, which put him standing way too close for my liking.

  My protective instincts flared to life. They hadn’t been in use for anyone but Olive in the past two years, but they definitely weren’t rusty at all. They still worked just fucking fine.

  “See, dude? I told you my boyfriend was just running late. Here he is!”

  She turned her head up and gave me another kiss on the cheek. Fuck, her lips were soft. That wasn’t the point right now, though. I shoved down the thought of her lips so I could focus on this asshat.

  “You’re her boyfriend?” He was slurring his words, which made them a little tough to make out.

  “Yep.”

  “How’d you meet, then?”

  It took almost everything in me not to punch that smug fucking smile right off his face. But I held back. With my fist, at least.

  “We were in a class together. It was called How to Mind Your Own Fucking Business 101. I think you were in it, too. You failed.”

  The girl burst out laughing. It was real, too. I could feel the muscles of her belly clenching against my side as the musical sound of her laughter hit my ear. And, oh, God. There was the hot, sensual feel of her breath against my neck again.

  Holy hot damn. I wanted to know everything about this girl. What made her laugh, what made her cry. Her favorite movie, favorite song. Favorite thing to eat for dinner. Go-to ice cream flavor when the world was too shitty and there was no other answer.

  The first thing I wanted to know, of course, was her name. But the situation made it a little awkward to ask that at the moment.