Because I choose the ones like me, you see. They’re just as jaded and in need of an escape every now and then. Monday, I like him a lot. He likes Animal Planet and beef potato chips.
Tuesday is a napper. If we have sex he goes home immediately after. If we don’t he spends a few hours sleeping with me wrapped around him and then leaves in the morning with what he came for.
Wednesday is a closet gay man. He gives me makeovers and experiments with me to see if he can stay in that closet or if he needs to come out one of these days. Love that guy, he’s magic with a nail buffer.
Thursday is my crier. We do have sex but it’s not like I’m that into it since he weeps all the way through it and goes mental when he comes. Poor lamb. I keep him because if not me, who else?
Friday is my end of the week buddy. Most Fridays we just hang out and pet each other a little, except for those days he’s had a really bad week. Then I give him stress relief he can’t get anywhere else.
They’re my therapy and my “fuck you” to the world at large, because I just know they’re judging me anyway so why not go big?
My weekends are all me. I spend that time pretending I don’t care and smoke and drink with Indie while she laments a love she won’t tell me about.
I get that, too. I mean, we’re two peas in a pod.
If not for Gruff and Callie we’d have ended up in juvie a long time ago, and my color would be orange as we speak.
That’s my life. That’s me in a nutshell.
All I know is that a part of me got lost all those years ago and the only thing short of running out to find Marks that I can do is just ignore it and keep going.
So why then am I sitting here worrying about something I absolutely cannot control?
“What a fucking ass,” I mutter, shaking it all off and rising to go steal a kiss from Dot.
I kiss her every chance I can now because Paul goes nuts and all caveman when I do. What? You haven’t kissed Dot. It was an epiphany for me, and while I am not into chicks, that woman has the softest lips I’ve ever smooched.
“No!”
I ignore her and lay one on her, stopping just shy of tongue and laugh myself sick when Paul comes barrelling over and hoists her into him for a tongue kiss that makes even me blush.
“Animal,” he mutters, smiling a little when I wink.
“You know it, cowboy. You modeled those chaps yet?”
His blush and narrowed eyes serve as the distraction I need so badly and I spend the next hour dancing and just enjoying the loons that surround me as the past shakes loose and sets me free again.
It won’t be for long but it’s enough that I can have my moments without wanting to rip at my hair.
“Hey, ugly.” Indie laughs, shaking it over my way with a bottle in her hand and a glint in her eye.
“Hey, crone. What’s up with you? I thought you were tongue-bathing that little cowboy”
“Nah. Campbell’s too into the bad girl image. I like my men unbiased.”
“Then maybe you should cut some of the black and kill the new tattoos,” I suggest, taking a drink and passing the bottle back as she spins around me and shrugs.
“Nah. This is me, ya know. Just wish they wouldn’t see the ink and just assume.”
I feel saddened for her because I know how she feels.
People look at me too and see a cold bitch when actually that is so far from the truth it makes me gag. Not that I’m not completely that way, it’s just I got layers too.
“I get that, but I have got to tell you, babe, you sort of push it a little far sometimes. I get why you do but not everyone is like them, Indie. You should give people a chance before you write them off completely.”
“What about you? It’s been months since Cleo had you running scared and you have yet to tell me what that’s about. Plus, I’ve seen that panicked look you get when we go to parties and you see a dark head.”
Damn I wish I wasn’t so easy to read for Indie, but I guess that’s what I get for letting the ass know me so well.
“That’s old history, babe. Old, old history,” I mutter, dancing my way over to a table and falling down with a sigh.
Indie follows and I join her in a toast before glugging a bottle of water and pulling a plate of cake my way.
“I think you’re lying. Come on, tell the love guru what ails you and we’ll fix it together.”
“No. You know I hate emotional talks and you know that I’m more of a slugger than a hugger. I’ve got shit under control, that’s all you need to know,” I mutter, groaning when Luci’s chocolate cake bursts against my tongue.
Damn. Woman can bake a cake.
“You sure? Everyone needs a little help sometimes, Perce, ain’t no shame in it.”
Oh, but there is because then I would have to confess my lies and outright foolishness and I can’t do that. They’d be pissed and I’d feel like hell and then things would just spiral. I prefer my little boxes closed and I’m not about to open them for anyone.
At least that’s what I think until I look up, smiling at Dot and Paul where they’re greeting someone. I lose the smile on a dime when he turns and I think I may shriek a little in fright when those eyes land on me and the past shoots right out of its little box.
“Oh shit,” I whisper as the years fall away and that same feeling I’d had in that dorm room hits me.
It’s like having my ribs cracked open and letting someone stick their filthy fingers straight into my beating heart. It hurts and I can’t breathe, but most of all it feels like I’m that same broken girl who cried for something I never truly had.
I’m angry too because he’s just as shocked before he starts smiling at me in that way I used to love.
“What? Oh man! That is one fine ass man. Shit.”
I concur as my worst nightmare comes sidling my way.
~~~
PERCY
Chapter One
Dirty Little Secret
Percy
The sound of Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt fades away beneath the ringing in my ears as I look up and see Marks. The man I once loved. The man who left me without so much as a word all those years ago.
My past walks towards me in all his masculine glory, but all I see is an image in my mind of me crying in the months after he left.
That picture is so clear in my mind, and why wouldn’t it be? I’ve kept it for years as a reminder, as my talisman every time I even once thought of looking at a guy as anything other than a quick lay, or maybe a friendship that everyone else assumes is a lay but really isn’t.
The truth about me is that I’m smarter than I was back in college. Tougher. Harder. Closed off to any emotional ties that do not include my ragtag friends or their husbands.
No, all I have space in me for now is Gruffy—my adopted grandmother and mother in one—and Callie, Luci, Indie, and Dot.
And the babies, five so far thanks to Luci and Freddie going the super mile and having quads, and little Jack who is Callie and Jack’s girl. And now the new little one Callie is brewing as we speak.
That’s my family.
I can’t really let myself go any more than that because it’s dangerous. I might get too lovey dovey and start seeing marshmallows in the sky and unicorns crapping fairy dust or something if I’m not careful, so I’ve definitely decided that I’m stopping there just to be safe.
See, love is this thing I don’t really want. You probably think I’m just hiding or fooling myself and that’s fine. Chances are I probably am, but like I told Indie once when I was drunk, I’d rather fool myself and be content than let others fool me and feel like crap.
Jaded? Most definitely, but I think I have a reason.
When I was in college I was part of my crew better known as the Naughties. Now to understand why we were so well known, even in the great and wonderfully full world of college, I’ll have to hint at the fact that we were wild when we were in high school.
Wild. I’m talking bribing a hobo to
buy us booze and getting so shitfaced we crank called the cops, waited for the idiot to get out of his cruiser and go check out the warehouse we lured him to, and then went joyriding in said vehicle.
The only reason our seventeen-year-old butts stayed out of juvie was that Gruffy and Gramps were pals with one of the detectives who caught us in the act.
That being said, I went on to college. I may be bad but this bad seed has brains too. We had a blast, all five of us. We were free, young, and living the perfect life as far as I was concerned. I was out from under my parents and just enjoying myself for once, tiny dorm room I shared with Indie, the pig, and all.
And then I met Marks, Mr. College Quarterback with his amazing face, ready smile, and a body that made me go molten in the shorts. I resisted, of course. Who wouldn’t?
I was the bad girl party animal while he was the popular jock and nerd who lived to achieve and never slowed down with the successes only an ass like him could have.
I fell hard and fast and completely. So completely in fact that I started having all these pathetically squishy visions of me and Marks getting married and producing three rug rats with his messed-up hair and my penchant for mischief.
I even named the Goddamn dog—that’s how deep I got into that bubble of stupidity.
I had no reason not to, you see. Marks was my one, something Callie keeps bragging about since she found Jack and started living in her perfect world of love and commitment.
We made love, spent all of our time together, and made all these plans that the idiot kept making bigger and bigger. I’d start this little homegrown rustic bake shop out in the boonies, while he did the whole rugged outdoors man spiel, and we’d live a life of complete peace with all the kids and sparkly family bullshit I never had at home.
He painted that picture in such incredible detail that the day I went over to his dorm to invite him to finally meet the Naughties, I was flying so high I crashed in monumental splendor when his roommate told me he was gone.
Gone. His side of the room was empty, his bed was stripped of the dark blue duvet I’d wrapped myself in many times to sneak to the bathroom in.
Everything was gone, and so was he.
I tried calling him. I laugh about my stupid neediness and failure to take a hint now—mostly in a resentful, bitter way. I called him for weeks, leaving these teary voicemails and worse texts messages when he didn’t answer his phone.
I begged. Pleaded. Cried so much that by the time I finally got the hint I was dried up and empty.
Then I got depressed. I stopped bathing and would lay in bed for days just staring at the wall. I didn’t eat, hardly slept, and was a complete and utter mess by the time the girls lost their tempers and dragged me into life again kicking and screaming.
They never knew why. I never once told them that I’d been lying to them for months and was dating Mr. Popular, but they knew enough to know that I was toast inside.
It took a long while for me to recover from Marks but I did. The day I looked up and saw color in the world again and realized that he’d fooled me, made me a laughingstock if only to myself, I vowed never again.
And I have never gone there again. I keep the memories fresh because I use them to keep myself in line, but the love stuff? Done. I’m Percival Reginald Leighton. Miss Days, as the girls sometimes call me.
I have a regular for every day of the week and I keep them on a tight leash, too. They’re more buddies than actual sex partners now since we’ve all been together for so long, but that’s as far as I go with emotional entanglements.
Monday through Friday I have a guy to warm my bed if only for a few hours and then I move the hell on. My weekends are mine. I have a Britney Spears obsession and a yoga class that only I know about.
I use that time to be me and do all the things I’ve never shared with another soul.
That’s me.
That’s why as I shake myself and come back to reality with Marks walking my way, his smile goading me, I know that I’m going to be okay.
Well not okay, but I certainly will not notice the way his dressy jeans seem to encase thighs that are bigger than I remember, or the fact that his blue eyes seem to sparkle in that same way that used to make my panties melt.
“Percy, who the fuck is that?” Indie hisses from beside me, her brown eyes going wide when all I do is sniff and curl my lips.
“No one I want to remember, baby doll.”
“Shut up! Is he..? Oh shit no. Jesus, Percy, is that Markus Marks from college?” she rasps at me, her eyes wide and somehow knowing as she glares at me.
What can I say? Indie has always known me better than any of the other girls, and I think since we’re the same in temperament, at least in our toughness, she’s somewhat entitled to some form of truth from me.
No doubt she’s already seen my agitation and I’m not exactly hiding my anger as I glare at the ass.
“You got it, slugger. Markus ‘The Bullet’ Marks in the flesh.”
The man could throw so hard, so fast, and with such accuracy that I thought the coach would die of sorrow when he left the team and college.
“Noooo. Oh shit, Perc, please tell me that is not the reason you almost turned into a bag lady in college.”
“I can’t tell you that, babe. Unfortunately I was once young, stupid, and too sober to recognize the pitfalls he represented. You tell a soul and I will cut you deep while you sleep,” I warn, schooling my expression when he finally reaches us and stops right at my elbow.
I need a drink. And possibly a lobotomy when I look up and feel a tingle streak through me.
“Percy.”
“Marks.”
Indie’s in her element as she looks between us both, an evil glint in her eye when she sees him start at the coolness of my voice and cock his head.
“Would you do me the honor of a dance?”
On your grave?
Somehow I know that’s not what he’s going for, but a girl can definitely dream, right?
“Uh, negative, buddy, this girl’s all danced out and done with the bullcrap. Ask Indie, she’s been lamenting the lack of decent meat around here, though God knows she’s gonna have to lower her standards even with you,” I mutter, turning away to grab her beer as I dismiss him.
“Dance. Now.”
Indie chokes at that growled command and I see her eyes spark with glee when my face blanks as I turn back to him.
“Fuck. Off,” I snarl, swigging the beer with a sniff when he just closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Too bad. Why are you here anyway? I didn’t know Paul was acquainted with washed-up jocks who drop out of college.”
Low blow but I can’t help myself. I tend to be a vile-tongued harpy when angered. He should count himself lucky I’m being this nice, considering.
“Percy, dammit, I haven’t seen you in years and I would like to talk to you about something. Yes, Paul and I are old friends, and yes, it’s not a coincidence I’m here even though I should be at home working right now.”
I knew it! Thanks a lot for that family shot on your invites, Dot. Just thanks a lot. And here I was thinking I hated that she attached that photo to the invites because she made me wear a pink dress and curled my hair like some preppy wannabe.
Just goes to show you when you think one thing is terrible, there’ll always be something worse around the corner.
“Oh! Are you saying you saw all this hotness on that invite and just had to mosey on down here to see our Percy? Why, do tell, Long Arm. Does your heart pitter patter seeing this hot fox all these years later?”
“Indie, stop fishing,” I snarl, throwing her a glare, not even bothering to acknowledge the man seething beside me.
I get that he’s probably not used to people giving him the brush off. I don’t care. I got way more than a brush off with him, so he should be counting his blessings as far as I am concerned.
“What? Be fair, Percy. I watched yo
u near cry yourself to death for months at one time and I have the answer to that mystery after years of wondering. So tell me, Marks, how does it feel seeing her after all these years? Resparking that long ago flame?” she muses.
Here’s definitely where I have to roll my eyes and try to hide the blush that’s worked its way up my neck. Great, tell him all about my patheticness. Just what I’ve always prayed for, letting this asshat know how badly he hurt me. As if the phone calls weren’t enough.
“I need to talk to her about that and some other things that she has a right to hear straight from my lips.”
“Yeah? Like what? ‘Sorry I screwed you over and left your heart all shattered on the sidewalk?’ I may not know exactly what happened between you two, but I’m no dummy, Marks. One day you were walking tall, all big man on campus, and the next you were gone.”
I can’t see his face because I’m not strong enough to look directly at him, but I feel the tension radiating off of him as she keeps ribbing him and throwing fuel onto the fire that’s blazing.
Honestly, I have no idea how my life can be this messed up, and I’m definitely sending Luci’s psychic, Cleo, a screw-you letter and a bag of dog crap as a thank you, but right now…
I just want to drink, ignore the fact that my life is an effed-up ironic twist, and get over this thing I’ve been dragging around like baggage.
“Come on, Marks. You have ten minutes and then I’m out. Indie, stop it. You want me dragging your dirty laundry out in front of a certain somebody tonight?”
“Hey! I’m being supportive here.”
“Nice try. Go get us a few shots and one of those cocktails Luci’s been slinging, and for God’s sake, untuck Gruffy’s dress from her drawers. It’s been ten minutes already, you sadistic freak. Give her old ass a break.”
Marks seems satisfied by this development and follows me, throwing Indie a teasing wink over his shoulder as I trudge towards the house and try convincing myself that I am not terrified to be alone with this man again.
I guess Cleo was right. My past is back, and the secret is so much worse now than it would have been had I let it out years ago.
THE NAUGHTY ONES: The Complete 5-Books Series Page 36
