Breakaway Heart (Skates and Sparks #2)

Chapter 1 Escape

ESCAPE

“Are you watching this?”

“I literally can’t look away!”

It was true. Watching Randall Jackson’s sub-human antics on Celebrity Love Villa was like hot buttered popcorn for the eyes. I was glued—along with the rest of America—to the complete disaster-class occurring on-screen as Randall doubled down on his shocking behavior.

“So, let me get this straight,” Hannah’s voice echoed through the loudspeaker on my phone as I watched Randall offer his partnership bracelet to the third girl in two days, having bedded the first two already, “Lucy Heaton is at a luxury resort, full board, ocean view, hot guys by the pool in just their teeny tiny shorts, and you’re holed up in your room, eating ice-cream and watching Love Villa? ”

“Your point being?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Well… You know, has anything happened?”

“Happened how exactly?”

“Like, anyone interesting there?”

I sighed and put down the tub of ice cream. “Hannah, I’m here for a break. That includes guys.”

“Rightttt,” I could literally hear her eyes rolling down the phone, “You could be back in Merryville doing that.”

She wasn’t wrong. I mean, there was that one guy I met on the first day.

Nice teeth, thick hair, good abs. After a few tequilas, he’d laid it on pretty thick.

Fortunately, I turned down his offer of a roll-around in my room, and—hindsight being the truth sayer it always is—thank God I did.

Seeing as the next morning, I ran into him, looking very pale and uncomfortable with his fiancée at breakfast.

It was safe to say my idea of love was really going through a testing time. Literally, everyone seemed to be a nightmare waiting to happen.

“You think Randy’s getting voted out at the next fireside chat?” Hannah asked.

“I’m obsessed with watching him, but he’s the absolute worst. He has to go, surely. It’s either him or Barbie Becca.”

“Ugh, she’s so goddamn fake. Also, how’s that soccer player still in the villa?”

“I swear there’s nothing but baby oil in his sun cream bottle, he’s the shiniest slipperiest thing I’ve ever seen. Oh my God, Hannah! Now Randall’s doing press-ups to try and impress Mandy Max!”

“Haha, Mandy’s walked away, and he’s still going!”

“What is wrong with that man? He’s like an eager cock in human form.”

I reclaimed my tub of ice cream, squirted some more whipped cream on top, and took another scoop while watching.

Honestly, I don’t know when things ended up like this.

I’m not talking about me. Or the fact I was on an enforced two-week holiday in Mexico.

But this odd world where everyone just seemed to want to suck all the good stuff out of everyone else, while they continued acting like a complete ass all the time, thinking nothing of it.

And this summer’s TV highlight, Randall Jackson, was the poster boy for that right now.

Rich, arrogant, misogynistic, didn’t use his brain (c’mon, he’s a hockey player, it’s not like he’s working on quantum physics or curing cancer), and somehow… somehow… That’s all okay. And, in a few months, he’ll be on some underwear billboard that I have to drive past every day on my way to work.

Watching Randall crash and burn in excruciating fashion on Love Villa was enjoyable for now, but of course, he’d come out of it unscathed, and probably only with more fame and multi-million-dollar endorsements to his name.

Which comes back to my point. Where have all the good guys gone? The ones who listen, who respect you, who open doors and notice your perfume, who lift you up because they don’t want to own you or steal your very essence. Someone who actually gives a damn about another person.

“Lucy! He’s… Oh, my God… He’s actually hard.”

Randall was now talking to Tina. The obscenely attractive, big boobed, big lipped, bleach blonde, doe-eyed daughter of the actor Malcolm Freestone. And it was showing through his sweatpants. And it was at least half-excited right now.

“She hasn’t even noticed yet!” Hannah gasped.

I took another big scoop of ice cream and pushed it into my mouth, hating that my brain was strangely fizzing with delight at the idea of what was going on in Randy’s pants.

I know it’s been a minute, Lucy, but please don’t go there! I told myself. I’ll take you out and find you someone, I promise. Just don’t get excited about him…

On the screen, Tina’s eyes finally traveled downwards, and as she looked back up at Randy, her juicy lips had fallen open in shocked confusion. In return, Randy smiled a toothy and wry grin back at her.

“Fuck! Now Kent’s coming over,” Hannah gasped in delight.

Tina was Kent’s current ‘Villa Bride’ and by far the most dull person on the show to watch. If anyone was the dad of the villa, it was Kent.

“Oh shitttt, Hannah, this is gonna go off.”

Kent took one disbelieving look at the tent-pole in Randy’s shorts, looked over at the open-mouthed Tina, and then a menacing frown ruffled across his forehead as he turned back to the grinning Randy.

“He’s going to hit him, Lucy! You can see it on his face.”

We both took a deep breath as we waited to see what Kent would do.

The moment was starting to slide though, the initial fury on Kent’s face beginning to waver as he regained control.

Eventually, his face softened, and Kent managed only a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, before reaching out for Tina’s hand and lifting her onto her perfect little feet.

“Get yourself together, Randall. Not cool, man,” Kent muttered in disgust, before turning and walking away with Tina. Randy cackled to himself like it was all some funny joke that he was pleased with.

“Damn, I really thought he was going to do it. You’re so lame, Kent!” Hannah yelled.

Our disappointment was short-lived. It only took a few minutes before Randall went into the boy’s bedroom with a ketchup bottle and started spraying red, tomato-flavored graffiti all over Kent’s clothes.

“What a fucking child!”

“I think he thinks it’s funny, Hannah. I mean, you just wouldn’t, would you?”

“I might want to, but impulse control, Luce, right? Alright, look, I’m heading out to the gym. A new instructor started last week, and he is showing me things I didn’t know were possible. I really wouldn’t mind showing him one, or perhaps even three, things too. How about you?”

“Meh. I guess I’ll get out there and see what is waiting for me.”

After the Love Villa episode, small flutters had softened my thoughts into more impulsive ideas. Now, my skin prickled with strange excitement. The fleeting thought of some hot skin-on-skin action was oddly appealing right now.

“Oh, I thought of another one!” Hannah said.

A few weeks ago, we’d been parking outside the Hot Henry’s Diner, and a man, outraged that we’d apparently not given him enough room to get into the parking spot next to ours, had come at us yelling, “Hey! I was about to stick mine in that one, then you came and filled up the big one!”

Being in a silly mood, we’d burst into giggles at the innuendo and now regularly came up with new parking phrases that could be taken in more salacious ways.

“Go on then,” I indulged her.

“Can you go stand behind me and watch me put it in?”

“Haha, pretty good, Han.” I chuckled.

“Okay, I’ll check in later. Love ya!”

And with that, Hannah hung up, and I went to choose between my two swimsuits.

There was no middle ground. It was either a tiny, sexy black two-piece that I might wear if I’d been on Love Villa—if I knew how to not fall out of it—or a matronly pale pink one-piece that was wildly less sexy, but at least held everything in.

After trying them both in front of the mirror, and cursing myself for devouring too many—now nightly—tubs of ice cream on this trip, I went for the one-piece and headed out to meet my destiny.

Hopefully, with what was a short-sighted gentleman with perfect abs and a taste for women in swimwear their grandmother might wear.