Make Me Stay is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2017 by Sidney Halston
Excerpt from Kiss Me Back by Sidney Halston copyright © 2017 by Sidney Halston
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Kiss Me Back by Sidney Halston. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
Ebook ISBN 9780399593901
Cover design: Eileen Carey
Cover photographs: Studio10Artur/Shutterstock (couple), fotomak/Shutterstock (background)
randomhousebooks.com
v4.1
ep
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Part 1
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Sidney Halston
About the Author
Excerpt from Kiss Me Back
Part 1
It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.
—John Updike
Prologue
After a two-hour jog, I head to Café Havana on Lincoln Road for my café con leche fix, just like I’ve been doing every day for nearly a year. My daily routine is what’s been keeping me focused after all the shit that went down. Wiping my face with the shirt that is dangling from my shoulder, I walk the last block in order to cool down.
It’s a relatively small and unknown establishment—one that caters more to the locals, which is precisely why I love it.
“The usual, Matt?” the familiar server asks from the walk-up window.
“Extra strong, por favor.”
“You got it.” She turns and begins to work on the espresso machine as other guests walk to the window and throw out their coffee orders. The two servers work in tandem making espresso, café con leche, and cortaditos, all while chatting with the regulars and taking payments; it’s like an orchestrated dance they’ve perfected. She places my coffee and a basket containing a guava pastelito down and slides them to me. I drop a five-dollar bill on the counter and take my order.
Normally I sit outside and people-watch, what with all the weirdos walking down the famous Miami Beach street. But it’s just too hot today, so instead I take my order inside, where it’s a little bit cooler.
Luckily, they’re relaxed on the dress code, since most of their customers come in from the beach, so I fit right in without my shirt. The two old table fans working tirelessly side by side are pointing toward the scattered tables, and I see the servers pat the sweat on their foreheads with napkins every once in a while. I’m sitting back, enjoying my order, when I hear a familiar voice.
A voice I haven’t heard in a year.
It’s the kind of voice that should belong to a sultry phone sex operator. It’s raspy and thick, and it reverberates through my entire body. It’s one of the things that drew me to her over a year ago. The second thing was that short straight black hair, and the third those blue eyes. Blue eyes like I’ve never seen before. So blue they are almost transparent, contrasting severely with the dark hair and pale, almost white skin.
June Simpson.
The woman I was in love with.
The woman who disappeared off the face of the earth.
I sit up and look around, trying to find where the voice is coming from. The coffee shop is mostly empty except for the few employees behind the counter.
“I said I was sorry.” I hear her voice again, almost at a yell. I stand up abruptly. I have to find her. She vanished—literally—a year ago during the worst time of my life. I searched everywhere for her, and there were days I thought I had imagined her.
The five months we were together were the most intense months of my life. Then she was gone. Poof! When I Googled her name, it came up empty. I even went as far as hiring a PI, worried something had happened to her, but the PI found nothing. Her phone number disconnected, all her clothes gone, and her furnished apartment empty. All a big fucking mystery.
“Fine. I’ll see you tonight,” she says, her back to me as I’m walking out of the café, and I see her pull her arm away from a man and walk briskly away. The man chuckles before he goes in the opposite direction. He’s about as tall as me, six foot one, but his skin tone is lighter. He’s wearing board shorts, a tank top, and flip flops. I can’t be bothered with him because that voice—that voice has to be June’s. I need to see her face.
I run toward her, but as I get closer, I stop. This can’t be June. This woman has wavy red hair that falls to the middle of her back. But I guess she could’ve grown it and dyed it…?
Plus my June didn’t dress this way. My June wore formfitting clothes, mostly dresses, and high heels. Always high heels. Always put together. Always elegant. The lady I’m following is wearing a long, flowing, almost hippie-looking skirt, flip-flops, half an armful of bracelets that clink as she walks, and a T-shirt. She looks messy and unkempt.
“June!” I call out, and her steps falter for a second, but she doesn’t turn around; instead, she keeps walking, moving faster now. “Miss, excuse me. Please stop,” I say when I finally catch up to her. My hand goes to her forearm to halt her. “Miss, please, can you wait a second?”
Slowly, with closed eyes, the woman turns, and I gasp, shocked.
“June?” I whisper, and when she opens her eyes, her blue eyes, I know for a fact it’s her. My eyebrows furrow and I step back to take in her features. I’m completely shell-shocked. She is thinner, her cheeks are hollow, and she doesn’t have any makeup on. But it’s still June.
Anxiously she looks over my shoulder, her eyes narrowing.
“June? Holy shit. What the fuck happened? I’ve been looking—”
She shakes her head slightly. “I’m not—you have the wrong person.” Her voice raspy, just like I remember it.
“What? No. It’s you.”
“I’m Zara. You have the wrong—”
“June?”
She looks over my shoulder again. I follow her gaze back to the man she was speaking with moments ago, who is watching our interaction “Shit. Are you…Is everything okay?” My protective instinct surges up, and I want to help her.
“Zara. My name is Zara,” she repeats, then, a little more quietly, says, “You have the wrong person,” before turning around and running off. I consider running after her, but there are alarm bells ringing in my head. I turn around again, and the man is still watching me. Is she in trouble? She must be. And this man, he has something to do with it.
I’m left speechless and confused as I watch the woman I once loved run off.
Chapter 1
Matt
The acrid smell of weed permeates the east bar, where I’m bartending tonight. No matter how many times we kick people out for lighting up inside the club, someone always flagrantly pulls out a joint and smokes in the middle of the mass of people swaying to the beat. Strobing light makes it hard to see clearly, and the thumping bass makes it hard to hear anything. But weed? We all smell it.
And this has become my normal.
I’m not complaining.
How can I? I’m not a hypocrite. I took a hit of the coke I have stashed in the drawer of my office before starting out on the long night of work. So who am I to judge? But that’s my secret—I’m not pulling it out and spreading it out on the bar for everyone to see. I’m not even proud of it, unlike the assholes smoking weed out in the open at my club. Shaking my head, I duck under the bar looking for the culprits. When I find them, a group of guys in their early twenties laughing in the middle of the dance floor, I find the guy who’s smoking and pull the joint out of his mouth.
“Hey, man!” I hear him exclaim, surprised.
“Next time go to the bathroom or the alley to do this, morons.” I roll my eyes and walk away.
Before any of them has a chance to get stupid, one of the bouncers comes to the floor and herds the idiots out of the club. I duck back to the bar, extinguish the joint, and toss it in the garbage can.
And that’s basically how I spend most of my weekends these days.
Again, I’m not complaining.
Agreeing to come help my twin brother, Nick, and my dad, Victor, run Panic definitely has its perks. I have a lucrative career in a law firm and I’m not ready to let all that go yet, so I come down from Fort Lauderdale on Fridays and stick around until Sunday. The busiest days at Panic are Thursday through Saturday nights, and sometimes we have parties on Sundays, but that’s rare. Thursdays Nick and Dad handle things, and on the weekends it’s mostly me and Nick, with Dad sticking his nose in everything we do. The travel and workload are exhausting, and sometimes I need a little boost to keep up with the grueling schedule. I’ve only been juggling the two jobs for about three months, but all in all it’s not terrible.
Not since I was in my early twenties have I had so much available pussy. It’s everywhere. When I look around it’s all tits and ass and ass and tits. Life is fucking sweet. I might not be getting laid as often as one would think, but I definitely can’t complain about the copious amounts of pussy tempting me every day. It’s nice to have options at my disposal.
But my motto is: Look but don’t touch.
Though sometimes temptation is just too much and my motto gets a little skewed: Touch but don’t taste.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint. I’ve gotten some shit from Nick—the serious twin—who doesn’t appreciate me sneaking off to the office for a blow job or finding me fucking two women in the DJ booth after hours. Because, damn, I’m just a man, after all. And the times I touch occasionally lead to tasting and, well, fucking. Rarely, however, does it lead to feelings. But the truth of the matter is, my reputation is bigger than the reality. Most of my little rendezvous happened before, when I would come down to Panic for fun. Not a lot of them have happened since I’ve been working. Honestly, I just don’t have the time. Running a busy nightclub and sneaking off to fuck? I don’t have that kind of multitasking skill.
I’m sliding Cosmos to three women dressed in short tight dresses, all trying to conjure up their Sex and the City personas. I’ve seen it before; that’s the MO of most of the tourists who come to Panic. The Samantha of the group winks and licks her lips, her fingers lingering on mine as I hand her the drink. I’ve met this woman before. Well, not her per se, but someone just like her. They all look, sound, and even feel the same. I smile and wink back, but then turn around to help another customer. We’re all playing a game at Panic. I’m the boy-toy bartender one-night-stand fantasy. And she’s probably a bored-outta-her-fucking-skull housewife looking for some fun. However, from years of experience, I’ve learned that most women just want attention. They want to be the one winked at. Flirted with. Stared at. Looked at but not touched. They don’t all necessarily want to cheat on their significant other with the bartender in the storage closet. Some do—but not all. So I play the part, give them the fantasy, and make a shit ton of money for the club.
Tonight, like most nights, the club is packed, which is why I’m down here helping instead of upstairs dealing with all the administrative bullshit. There are people squishing between other people with money in their hands, shouting orders at me and the other three bartenders. “We’ve got this, boss,” Yessi says while serving a drink.
“You sure?” I ask, smiling my signature everything-is-great smile.
“Positive,” she yells over the music, and I duck out of the bar.
I walk down the long and winding hall that leads to my office on the second floor of the club. The music below beats so loudly that I can feel the walls shake.
Having grown up at Panic, I’ve gotten used to it, but tonight I just want quiet. My head throbs in tempo with the music, and I push my thumbs against my temples to ease some of the pain.
I shut the door behind me as I pull on the Windsor knot around my neck to loosen up the tie that feels like it’s suffocating me. I slump down on the chair behind my glass-and-chrome desk and close my eyes, trying to will the tension headache away. My phone’s been buzzing in my pocket all night; it’s one of the associates who’s working on one of my motions that’s due Monday morning. I left it to the guy because it was easy, but the dude keeps calling. I might as well have done it myself.
Leaving the firm high and dry is not something I’d ever do, even if working at the club exclusively doesn’t feel like the worst idea.
Being a lawyer was never something I wanted, but when I landed a job at one of the most respectable law firms in South Florida, I finally accepted my fate. Then a call from my father telling me how stressed out Nick was, followed by a call from Nick telling me how ill my dad had become lately, made it impossible for me not to do what I can to help my family. Truth be told, I’m not miserable. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and a lot tired, but being here, running Panic, was always something I wanted to do. Something I always expected to do at some point. A dream that was pushed aside when my father shoved law school down my throat. Which is why I was so bitter for so long. Not that anyone knows this. I tend to keep my emotions locked down.
I reach into the bottom drawer of my desk, moving aside some folders, and find my in-case-of-emergency cure-all. My dirty little secret—the small baggie, the white powder calling my name. During law school and then during the long hours of work at the firm, cocaine became a staple in my life. It’s what I used to tolerate the long boring hours of my life. But then I felt myself spinning out of control, and seeing firsthand how many people in Panic have problems with the stuff, I know how easily one can spiral. So it’s been months since I used, but tonight my energy level has bottomed out and no amount of energy drink is helping. The trial last week left me exhausted and the music thumping around in my head makes me want to scream. The earlier hit has worn off, and right now I need the high, that burst of energy that makes me feel like I can take on the world. Opening the bag, I tap some powder onto the back of my hand and inhale with a snort.
The coke hits me hard, burning along my nasal cavity even as everything around me goes from black and white to Technicolor in a matter of seconds. Quickly closing the bag, I hide it back in the drawer. No one knows about my habit, and I intend to keep it that way.
It’s Saturday night, our busiest night. I should be downstairs making sure things are running smoothly, but instead I’m avoiding the three missed work calls and the big fuck-up that happened in one of the club’s VIP areas tonight. A fuck-up that set us back at least two grand. My brother’s going to have a fucking aneurysm when he finds out. I can practically see the vein in his forehead exploding.
Spinning my chair around,
I look through the window down at my club. Bodies swaying sensually. Laughter, alcohol, music…Panic is all about numbness. The illusion of being worry-free, alcohol making you brave and forgetful, lust motivating you to be wicked. The hot, tight bodies of the women our bouncers specifically pull from the line outside and allow in, bringing throngs of men inside to fill my father’s hefty bank account.
Tonight, both bars are packed, people standing two deep trying to catch the bartenders’ attention. I make a mental note to see about hiring another bartender, or maybe it’s time we consider building a third bar elsewhere in the club.
A flash of red from the corner of my eye brings my attention to the entrance. Leaning closer to the window, I see a group of people walking in. Two men and a woman whose shiny jet-black hair is haloed by the glare from the strobe lights. From up here, I can’t make out her features clearly, but I can see her lean body, her toned arms, and the swell of her breasts under her tight-fitting red dress. She’s fidgeting with her hands nervously. One of the men she’s with whispers something in her ear, and she stills, then looks around and smiles.
Wow.
Talk about a punch to the gut.
I’ve never seen such a brilliant and sincere smile. Even from this far away, it’s infectious.
Suddenly I want to run down and buy her a drink.
Behind me, the door to my office slams shut, and I spin my chair back around, even though the last thing I want to do is lose sight of this girl. Nick is stalking toward my desk, the stupid man-bun thing he has on his head a disheveled mess. His eyes look murderous. “What can I do you for, Nicky?” I say, pasting my biggest smile on my face.
“Something’s up with Naomi. She never came over last night. You seen her around tonight?” Nick’s been in a relationship with Naomi for months now. I don’t like to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, but this is my brother and I don’t like seeing him tormented over a chick. A chick who, in my opinion, is nothing but bad news.
Make Me Stay: The Panic Series Page 1
