Chapter Four
Lemon
“Fuck that fucker.” Mud sloshes up against my slick thighs and bare center, but I don’t give a damn right now. I refuse to care about what anyone else considers wrong or dirty or different.
My entire life, I’ve been told to sit still. To obey standards impossibly opposite what I feel inside.
All I’ve ever wanted was to be seen for who I am and accepted for the things they shame.
“You are not a slut.”
He does that. Mr. O. L. Fucking Nashville, whatever the hell that stupid ass acronym stands for.
He sees me.
He makes my insides melt and my outsides burn at the same goddamned time, his stare branding me as his, even if he says it’s not so.
He knows where his eyes will always wander.
And now? I’ll be wherever I please.
On his tour bus.
In his office.
Right the fuck in his face.
Until he stops playing games and mans up. Nothing is forever, but I know if he’ll give in and let us ride whatever this thing between us is, it’ll put an end to the constant ache I feel around him.
Two weeks of Daddy Nash as my personal pogo stick, and we’ll both be better for it. He’ll be just like the rest, in the past, and maybe he won’t be so grumpy all the damn time.
He can deny all he pleases, but he wants it as bad as I do; my ass still feels the proof.
I wish my ass didn’t like it.
Getting it out of our systems is the only option, whether he believes it or not.
I slide to a halt by the market from earlier, the witchy woman fresh on my mind. She couldn’t have vanished into thin air. It was a trick, a sleight of hand or…mirrors. That’s got to be how she got the charms on my wrist.
And if she’s here somewhere, maybe she could read my tarot. Look into a crystal ball or some shit.
At this point, I just need to bitch to someone, and if that someone happens to be clairvoyant, at least one of us will know what the fuck Nash was thinking.
I duck beneath the railing and wind between rows of vendors, but after minutes of circling, I’m at a loss.
Maybe it’s time for a new adventure. One that isn’t O.L. Nashville.
I pull in lungfuls of air as I skid to a defeated stop. I’ve never been turned down.
A school sits to my left behind a tall chain-link fence. A few kids stop playing to wave, but as soon as I wave back, their fearless ringleader gives me the middle finger and mocks my wonky stop.
Glad to see mean girls haven’t changed.
“Santa saw that!” I skate past, but my wheel jams beneath me, and before I know it, I’m toppling over while the little brats gather at the fence to point and giggle.
“Girls,” an elderly woman shrieks, “get away from that woman! Back to the blacktop!”
I roll my eyes before I hear the last bit. “You never know what diseases women like that have. This is why you stay in school.”
Wow. Good to know authority hasn’t changed since I was in school either.
People think what they want.
I’ve learned to let them.
Soon, their snickering fades to the back of my mind as a stickier situation settles in. A glob of bubblegum stretches from my wheels to a crumpled paper, the RealiTea TV logo across the top in all caps. I unfold it, shaking the sand from its crevices.
Are you a thrill seeker? Athletic, tactical, and…single?
Defy the odds and test your limits.
On a secluded, booby-trapped mountain where two adventurous singles will find love as they become
King and Queen of Adventure Mountain.
Oh, and did we mention…
ONE MILLION DOLLARS
RealiTea is seeking twenty contestants ages 18+ for their newest reality show
Interested parties are asked to send a video application.
Agency Represented Casting Only.
That’s it.
My next adventure. Who better to take on the title of Queen of Adventure Mountain than the queen of adventures herself?
My bangles jingle in the wind, and I swear I can hear the unmistakable cackle of the woman from before as the wind howls around me, the rain finally gone and the clouds opening to a tiny sliver of yellow sun.
I yank my phone from the waterproof compartment attached to my skates—something that, yes, money can buy, as it happens—and I snap a quick photo of the casting call.
Sending it to my former agent, Tina, I fold the paper into a tiny football and shove it beneath my phone case, returning both to my skate compartment and zipping it closed.
I’m going to apply for this show. And if money has anything to say about it, I’m getting cast too.
Throw some cleavage and a couple thousand dollars at a man behind a desk, and you can get just about any gig you want in this city.
I learned that in my short stint acting and modeling, quitting after realizing what a sham the whole industry was.
At least I got Tina out of it. She may have been a shitty agent, but she’s the life of the party, and just what I need to get over the grump I refuse to think about.
I’m sure Papa won’t love it, especially when it’s not for the benefit of the company…
or marriage, something he never forgets to mention when he sees me.
I get that he’s worried. I haven’t found my dream job yet, or man, and despite his attempts to convince me hard work at the family company will satisfy my whims or be just my thing, it’s not.
And it won’t.
Not until it’s under my control. I can’t make change in this place if he keeps insisting we stay in the 1900s with our promotional tactics. I’ve tried. Working alongside my father is like choosing an A track when the iPhone is right in front of you.
I have plans for this company, but not until he agrees to let me do it my way.
And one day soon, he’ll stop letting me gallivant and force me into that box I’m not sure he enjoys, himself, all for the Perkins name.
I feel it coming sooner than I’d like. With each day that nears my thirtieth birthday, his worried eyes scan me, almost diagnostically. Categorically.
Will I settle down?
Get married?
Provide a grandson so his fortune has a proper heir? Stupid patriarchy. That’s the first construct I’ll be dismantling the moment I have financial power at Perkins Global.
Or perhaps I’ll finally take an interest in the company as a good female trustee and roll my ass around in a cubicle and tube skirt with plain black stilettos, possibly with buckles on the ankles.
I shudder at that. Of being glued to screens of arbitrary words, answering foreign rights calls and sitting pretty for press conferences, even though my voice won’t ever be heard. It’s never been done before for someone like me.
A woman in charge at Perkins Global.
Not with all the Johns and Jims who congest my father’s judgement.
A whimsical girl who can’t sit still in charge at Perkins Global? They’d never take me seriously.
I’m not serious or still.
And I don’t plan on changing that.
So, yeah, I guess I’m gonna climb this mountain and win that competition. Not for a million-dollar prize; Lord knows I don’t need it. I’ll donate my earnings like always.
No…it’s something more.
The power to be unapologetically me.
I can sit still and pretty when I’m dead.
Scrunching my nose, I dial up my bestie. I need to confirm whether I’m justified in today’s drama.
“Hey, Jer.” I sigh.
“Hey, Lem.” He sighs back.
“Am I being a brat?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. Probably. Give me the parameters by which I should judge you this time.”
“Well, everything was fine until I let Daddy Nashville spank me until he came in his…get this, Jer…fucking gray sweatpants—”
“No!” He groans wistfully. “They were actually gray? Not even ash? He has to know.”
“Right?” I run my fingers through my tangled mess of hair.
“Anyway, he comes faster than a frat boy on a Friday, then gets all ‘don’t tell your dad’ and ‘this can’t be,’ like I’m a child and not a perfectly whole ass woman, and I got mad, Jer, okay?
Don’t judge, but I used his fancy jacket as a cum rag before I left and threw it at his stupid old man feet. ”
I take in a breath of air while Jeremy remains silent and the football shaped flier burns a hole through my skate, clouding my mind with my next thrill.
“There’s more!” I say, rolling through the plaza, still searching for my psychic. “I met this old witchy woman earlier who charged me six hundred dollars for a dog charm…”
“What?” Jeremy balks.
“It’s a long story. But I came back to her stand and found something. A reality show is looking for contestants. There’s a mountain and adventures, and it might be a dating show, but who cares. It’s a sign, right? I should forget about Daddy Whorebucks and go climb the mountain?”
Jeremy stays silent longer than I’d like.
But I don’t want to be wrong this time.
“I’m being a brat, huh?”
“Yes, hon, you are.”
“How?” I whine. “I don’t see how I was in the wrong when he’s the one not man enough to admit he wants me.
And even if he does admit it, it wouldn’t be forever.
He needs like…a wife. I think he might have kids.
Can you imagine me with a toddler on my hip?
Have you seen me? I’m nobody’s wife, Jeremy.
I’m likely somebody’s future mistress, for all we know.
Probably multiple somebodies…like mafia brothers or something.
I’m that kind of wife. Certainly not a respectable one. ”
“You could be.” I hear a smirk, even if I can’t see it, and I roll my eyes.
“Okay, sure, Jer. I can see it now, me, the perfect little doting wife. There when he comes home, packing his lunches before he leaves and sucking his big fat cock each night when he’s tired from important man work. What the fuck ever.”
Jeremy laughs. “You have a very skewed idea of marriage, Lemon. And can I be honest with you without giving offense?”
“Always.” If he can’t, who will? They’re all so baffled by me they’d prefer to wonder rather than ask. I know I’m a lot, but I’m also a little when made to feel that way. I brush that thought back, because in no way, shape, or form will I acknowledge stupid Nash making me feel small.
If anything, I should feel tall and proud, having him squirt like a schoolboy at the sight of my nipples and only one hand on my ass. He’s pathetic, really. And I’m lucky that’s done.
“Your mom left when you were so little, I don’t think you’ve ever seen two people in love before. Like functioning as a couple.”
True. “But I’m supposed to be able to change that because a grumpy old man can’t handle his emotions?”
“No,” Jeremy chuckles, “you’re the only one fixating on the grumpy old man. I was talking about the general population of men at this point.”
Fuck. He’s right. My thoughts go back to that insufferable grump and his stupid silver beard every time I blink lately.
“I’m saying whether you go on this TV show or not, keep an open mind. You can love adventure and seek passion any way you like, Lem, but there’s nothing like finding someone to love forever. Someone who fits that space within you like a puzzle and makes life an adventure just by being near.”
A dog barks, and the phone rustles on his end. “Look, I gotta go, Lem, but remember. You are perfect how you are, as wild and free as that may be, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there to be your other half. Oh, he’s back! Gotta go!”
I shove the phone back into my skate, wondering who he is while I try to let Jer’s other words marinate.
He’s right. I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about Nash, even if that’s ridiculous. It’s not as if I have real feelings for the old asshole.
Lust is a complete biological reaction.
Besides, his intentions with me were made loud and clear. I was simply a toy for him to use and discard.
I’m gonna be on that TV show. I’ll win it, too, and I’ll write a big fat check to whatever charity the Pine Forest kids have going on this year like usual, grinning ear to ear at Papa’s frugal accountant as I do.
The wind whips across my face as I skate back to the bus, and I feel a renewed sense of wonder. My next thrill just around the bend. I’ll avoid Daddy Nashville, scoop up my things, and get started on my next adventure.
My heart soars with peace and tranquility, and my body soars with the birds above, carried by the same kiss of wind.
But a scowling figure leaned against the loading bay has me skidding to a halt just before I reach my destination.
My instincts tug me toward him when he lifts his head to meet my eyes, but even those fuckers won’t tell me what to do. I skate past without a word and make my way to the VIP lounge where my agent is planning to pick me up and launch my destiny.