by Monroe, Max
Equally manic in its quest, the Kiss Cam moved around the crowd, and both Allie and I watched in amusement.
The first victims? An older couple with matching Yankees T-shirts and ball caps. They grinned at one another and offered a little PDA-peck. The woman giggled and blushed as her husband proudly waved to the camera.
Next up, a mother and father with their blond-pigtailed daughter sitting in between. They made theirs a family affair, and each kissed their daughter’s chubby cheeks.
“They are so cute, I could vomit,” I said, and Allie laughed.
The camera changed directions, moving toward the opposite side of the stadium, and I grabbed my bottle of water and took another drink.
It stopped on a gorgeous, early twentysomething brunette woman in a tank top that revealed enough cleavage she could have been advertising for a breastfeeding gig. She smiled flirtatiously and winked at the camera before moving her eyes toward the man sitting beside her.
The camera followed her lead until both she and her seatmate were on the screen.
“What in the bloody hell?” Allie muttered. “Is that Tiago?”
[sighs and then laughs softly]
Yep. You guessed it. This is the point in the story where things really go to hell…
Convinced I was seeing things—that even Allie was seeing things—I took a closer inventory of the man on the giant screen.
Dark, mischievous eyes.
Sexy, messy hair.
Strong jaw.
Brunette effectively attached to said jaw, working valiantly to swallow his face whole.
Tiago.
My next breath came at the expense of the bald gentleman in front of me. As it turns out, humans are not amphibious and cannot both drink water and inhale oxygen at the same time.
Now, this is one of those times where the necessary f-bombs I mentioned earlier come in, and I don’t really think I have to explain why.
The bald man was dropping them. I was dropping them. Hell, even Allie was scooping littered fucks off the ground and tossing them back up in a resourceful use of recycling.
The crowd oohed and ahhed at the salacious display, and I choked down unsolicited vomit from its spot in my mouth. All I could do was watch as Tiago kissed the brunette woman like her mouth was the only way for his lungs to get oxygen.
Two days prior, I’d driven him to the airport, and he’d acted like it was the hardest thing he’d ever done when we’d said goodbye.
Hell, it’d been less than twenty-four hours since he’d called me to let me know he’d made it safely to Brazil.
I wasn’t conscious enough to recognize the whole sordid lie immediately, but I sure as hell had my suspicions.
I mean, there’s something about seeing your ex-boyfriend who you thought was in another country with his tongue down another woman’s throat in the middle of a Yankees game that kind of clues you in to the fact that everything is not what it seems.
“I’m going to bloody kill him,” Allie shouted and jumped up from her seat.
“Did you seriously just spit fucking water all over me?” the bald guy angrily questioned with a pointed index finger in my direction.
In a matter of seconds, everything had gone tits up, and I might as well have been comatose.
Tiago wasn’t in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Allie was in full attack, yelling a mouthful of Aussie-accented profanity back at my drenched and now very irate victim in my honor, and with the Yankees up to bat, the crowd around us was starting to get restless with frustration at not being able to enjoy the game.
State of consciousness in question or not, I had to do something, and I had to do it fast, or else Allie might end up leaving the Yankees’ stadium in handcuffs.
I stood up from my seat, grabbed our shit, and with my hand firmly wrapped around my best friend’s wrist, I quickly started to guide us toward the aisle.
I yelled an apology to Baldy over my shoulder, and he responded with I love you in a thick New York accent.
To the untrained ear, it sounds just like fuck you, but I know better.
I forced Allie into the aisle and all but pushed her up the steps and toward the inside of the stadium before she had the opportunity to turn the Yankees game into her own personal version of Fight Club.
When we made it to the shaded security of the passage in front of the concession stand, all of my adrenaline flushed out of my system, and my careful composure started to deteriorate. I leaned my back up against a cement wall, out of the way of the crowd, and tried to regain control.
My hands were shaking. My knees felt like they would buckle any second, and my heart raced. Apparently, when you see your ex-boyfriend—who is supposed to be in Brazil—kissing another girl on a giant baseball stadium screen that is, in fact, located in the fucking United States of America, even your body’s most basic instincts start to break down.
“What the hell, Lucky?” Allie questioned as she paced in front of me. “What in the hell just happened?”
I didn’t know the answer to her question, but I certainly wanted to find out.
“I’m fucking calling him,” I muttered and rummaged through my purse to find my phone.
“Do it!” Allie cheered me on. “Bloody call that bastard!”
Looking back on this now, I don’t know that Allie was the best person to have by my side in that scenario, but by God, she cheered me on like my own personal Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.
With my heart pounding and Allie’s overzealous encouragement, I didn’t stop to think, I didn’t hesitate, I acted. I tapped Tiago’s name in my contacts and called the bastard.
He answered on the second ring, the prompt asshole.
“Luciana, how are you?” he asked, his stupid sexy Brazilian voice a muffled whisper into my ear.
I imagined him covering the receiver with his hand in an attempt to hide the sounds of the Yankees crowd in the background. Apparently, he wasn’t quick enough to think to use his companion’s giant breasts as a soundproof barrier.
Even though Allie was bouncing around beside me, urging me to rip Tiago’s balls off, which, let’s face it, wasn’t exactly doable in my current telephonic situation, I took a deep breath and attempted to play it cool.
“I’m good,” I said, my voice a combination of sugary-sweet and phony as fuck. “How’s Brazil treating you?”
“It’s definitely good to be back home—” his voice dropped even lower “—but I do miss you.”
I nearly gagged at his words.
Apparently, I’m horribly averse to the rich sweetness of a goddamn liar.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I smarted, really laying on the faux charm. “I have a few weeks of vacation stored up. How about I come visit you?”
“Uh…visit me?” he asked and paused for a long moment. “Like, visit me in Brazil?”
“Of course in Brazil, silly.” I faked a giggle. “I mean, where else would I go to visit you?”
The phone went silent, so I took it upon myself to continue the line of conversation.
“I could book a flight right now,” I said. “It looks like I can be there as early as Saturday.”
“Saturday?” he questioned. “Wait…are you looking this up right now?”
Clearly, I wasn’t actively looking up flights on my phone, but he didn’t know that.
I ignored his question. “Oh, wait! There’s a flight Friday.”
“That’s in two days,” he said, and I didn’t miss the nervous lilt of his voice.
“I know,” I purred. “Only two days and then you won’t have to miss me.”
“Lucky…I…” He paused, and like I was a lioness hunting her prey, his hesitation only urged me further.
“Or I could just meet you by the concession stand right now?”
Boom! You lying motherfucker! Take that!
He paused for a good ten seconds before quietly asking, “The concession stand?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “At the Yankees
game. You could introduce me to your new girlfriend and maybe, you know, explain why I saw you on the fucking Kiss Cam in the middle of Yankee Stadium, when just two days ago I took you to the airport for your flight to Brazil.”
The phone went quiet. My anger did not.
“You’re an asshole,” I finished, pulling the device from my ear and winding up to smash the end button so hard Tiago would feel it in “Brazil.”
Allie, not yet satisfied with the licks she’d gotten in, snagged the phone from my hand before I could make contact and yelled one last insult. “If I ever see you in the streets, I will rip your fucking balls off!”
And, with her finger pointed toward the end call button, she added, “This is Allie, by the way!” before hanging up.
Even now, I feel compelled to tell you, Allie…that was probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever heard you say.
I can still picture you turning your finger-formed-gun to the side, real gangster style, as you yelled it.
More than that, though, I’ll never forget the way you pulled me into a tight hug and told me the things I needed to hear.
You really are the best friend a girl could ever have, and I’m so lucky—Ha!—that I’m the one who has you.
I’m still not sure how you convinced Vanessa to move that meeting to the next day, but I am sure you did it.
Because you’re always looking out for me, even when I’m not looking out for myself.
Which is clearly pretty often.
[laughs]
If Allie hadn’t forced me to go out that night, I probably would have wallowed in my apartment, clinging to the pathetically apologetic text messages Tiago insisted on sending.
Really, they were winners.
I’m so sorry, Lucky.
I didn’t want to hurt you.
Please don’t hate me.
I want to explain.
[sighs]
Luckily, the mix of alcohol and Allie’s colorfully creative suggestions for where Tiago should take his penis and shove it took the night in a different direction.
No more Tiago. No more bullshit.
And while he isn’t the main focus of this story, he was an important catalyst.
I needed to make some serious changes when it came to men. My name might be Lucky, but when it comes to love, I am anything but.
And jerks? Well, they were the first thing that needed to get the fuck out of Dodge.
[laughs]
Oh, guys…
Too bad I was just days away from meeting the biggest jerk of all.
Keep reading The Day I Stopped Falling for Jerks! Trust us, you don’t want to miss Lucky meeting the biggest jerk of all… ;)
First of all, THANK YOU for reading. That goes for anyone who’s bought a copy, read an ARC, helped us beta, edited, or found time in their busy schedule just to make sure we didn’t mess everything up. LOL! Thank you for supporting us, for talking about our books, and for just being so unbelievably loving and supportive of our characters. You’ve made this our MOST favorite adventure thus far.
THANK YOU to each other. Monroe is thanking Max. Max is thanking Monroe. This shouldn’t surprise you since we’ve done this in every book we’ve published together so far. Or maybe it does surprise you because you don’t ever read these acknowledgments. If that’s the case, joke’s on you. We happen to be hilarious, even in our acknowledgments. But you’ll still have a chance to find out next time because we’ll probably do this forever. *Edited to add: Still doing it. Getting close to forever. *Edited again to add: Still going strong. After twenty-sevvem books, forever is probably getting close…
THANK YOU, Lisa, for being our rock—not to be confused with The Rock.
In no way do we think you look like Dwayne Johnson. You are beautiful. We know this because we frequently stalk your Instagram so we can see all of your pretty travel pictures and have serious FOMO while we’re locked in the writing cave, deadline-crunching like MOFOs. Also, it should be noted that The Rock would be jealous of your editing muscle…otherwise known as your brain. Yes. He’d be jealous of your brain. His muscly biceps just can’t compete. Anyway, now that this has officially gotten weird, we just want to say thank you. We love you. Never leave us.
THANK YOU, Stacey, for being the best formatter in all the land! We’d trek to the ends of the earth just to find you if you disappeared…if we had any aerobic/physical ability whatsoever. As it is, we’d, like, take out an ad on the internet. We love you!
THANK YOU, JoAnna & Sandra, for being superior Counselor Feathers. You ladies amaze us on a daily basis, and you are the reason Camp Love Yourself is the coolest place to be. Seriously, you do a better job of running it than we do. We don’t know what we’d do without you, but we’re pretty sure the group would crumble into a giant steaming pile of garbage. And nobody wants to hang out in garbage.
THANK YOU, Banana, for rocking our covers. And for spending lots of time covering nipples and enhancing crotches when we ask you to. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. And it’s a whole lot of fun that you’re that somebody.
THANK YOU, Social Butterfly PR, for doing So. Many. Things. We were totally going to pitch you guys to, like, Kelly Clarkson, and a whole list of celebrities you could represent, but…uh…we don’t know them. Plus, we need you to stay with us. Not go on some ego trip about the next big name in show biz. Too bad.
THANK YOU to every blogger who has read, reviewed, posted, shared, and supported us. Your enthusiasm, support, and hard work do not go unnoticed. Some might even say it’s a thankless job, but here we are…thanking you. So, we guess that’s not quite right.
THANK YOU to the people who love us—our family. They support us, motivate us, and most importantly, tolerate us. Sometimes we’re not the easiest people to live with, especially when there is a deadline looming. We honestly don’t know what we’d do without you guys.
P.S. You don’t know what you’d do without us either, so suck it.
THANK YOU to our Camp members! You guys are always SO much fun. And thank God you remember our books better than we do. If we’re ever unsure, we know you guys will know the answer that we should most definitely know but never do. Thanks for ignoring how horrible our memories are and loving us anyway. We love you long time.
As always, all our love.
XOXO,
Max Monroe
Max Monroe’s Billionaire Rom Com Titles and Suggested Reading Order
Want to make sure you’ve snagged all of Max Monroe’s fun and sexy Billionaire titles?
*All books, besides the novellas in the Billionaire Bad Boys Series, can be read as standalones.
Billionaire Bad Boys Series:
#1 Tapping the Billionaire: Kline & Georgia
#1.5 Tapping Her (novella)
#2 Banking the Billionaire: Thatch & Cassie
#2.5 Banking Her (novella)
#3 Scoring the Billionaire: Wes & Winnie
#3.5 Scoring Her (novella)
#3.6 Motherfluffer: Mother’s Day Themed Novella
#3.7 Sleighed It: Christmas Themed Novella
Click here to snag all the titles!
Billionaire Collection
#1 The Billionaire Boss Next Door: Trent & Greer
#2 My Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend: Milo & Maybe
#3 The Billionaire Book Club: Cap & Ruby
#4 The Billionaire’s Forbidden Little Sister: Theo & Lena
