Chapter 2 #2
“Oh, we could start a book club!” Molly seemed so excited about her idea that she was almost bouncing in the seat.
Ella’s eyes lit up. “Count me in.”
“Me, too, especially if it’s a spicy book club,” Abby giggled, and Molly reached up to give her a high-five.
“The smuttier, the better,” Ella agreed with a grin.
“I love it! I’m in, too,” I said. It seemed that I’d found my people.
Molly glanced around the table, then made a circular motion with her finger to indicate herself, Ella, and Abby. “I know the three of us have just finished a terrific book. We could start with it,” she suggested. She mentioned the title, and I smiled.
“I’ve had that one on my Tbr list for a while. I can bump it to the top and start it this afternoon. I don’t have any plans for the rest of the weekend anyway.”
Ella looked puzzled. “Tbr list?”
“To be read,” Molly and I answered in unison as Abby nodded.
“Got it,” Ella replied. “I have one of those, I just didn’t know what it was called. I’m going to have to live until I’m one-hundred-and-ten to be able to finish mine, and that’s if I don’t add anything else to it.”
The rest of us nodded, clearly having the same kind of out-of-control lists.
“I’m happy to host it,” she continued. After a bit of back and forth, we agreed to meet at Ella’s place Monday evening, for tacos, margaritas, and sexy book boyfriends.
After stopping at the counter to pay our bills, we parted ways in the parking lot. I checked my phone once I got in my car to find three more missed calls from Beau, along with numerous texts from him, the first demanding to know why I wasn’t answering my phone.
“Why do you think I’m not answering, twatface?” I muttered to myself as I scrolled through the rest of them. “The sound of your voice makes me sick.”
The rest were condescending missives berating me for leaving him and complaining that we were taking a slight loss on the sale of the condo, thanks to the dip in the housing market.
Beau The Bastard: We’re losing eleven thousand dollars on this deal because you couldn’t be an adult about things, Lauren. I told you that they didn’t mean anything to me. I love you. We could have worked things out if you hadn’t run away like a child.
Me: I didn’t run away. I left town because you wouldn’t stop showing up everywhere like a fucking creep. The ONLY way we could have worked things out would be if you’d kept your dick in your pants and not been a lying, cheating piece of shit!
Beau The Bastard: Name-calling now? You’re proving my point that you’re acting like a child.
Me: And you’re acting like an insufferable twatwaffle. Of course, it’s not really an act, I suppose. You ARE an insufferable twatwaffle…and a lying, cheating piece of shit.
Me: Don’t contact me unless it’s about the condo sale.
Me: LEGITIMATE business about the condo sale, NOT whining that we’re losing money on it.
Hopefully, he would actually listen this time.
It didn’t take long to make it back to my new place, which I was renting from Uncle Bill’s best friend, Sinner, the founder of the 5th Circle Guardians MC.
It had been used by Abby’s husband during their separation earlier in the year.
They’d reconciled right before I’d moved back, and Sinner had offered it to me as soon as he’d heard I was looking for a place to rent.
Luckily, the duplex was almost fully furnished, so I hadn’t needed to buy much before moving in.
I’d only been back in Indy for four months, but it hadn’t taken long to settle in and start making friends with some of the women associated with the club.
Abby and Molly were married to Rome and Jagger respectively, twin brothers who were the sons of Ella’s husband King.
King was the current club president, as well as being Sinner’s son.
The entire Morgan family had all been incredibly welcoming, and I was enjoying my new life – especially since it no longer included Beau the Bastard.
As I curled up in the overstuffed chair in the corner with my e-reader, my cat, Elvis – so named for the scar on his lip that caused it to pull up on one side, like Elvis Presley’s famous lip curl – jumped up on my lap.
After spending a few minutes with me giving him the cuddles and belly scratches he demanded, he jumped back down, deeming me unworthy of any further attention.
He was a fickle beast, but I adored him.
My stomach growled later that evening, alerting me to the fact that it was after seven o’clock.
I placed my e-reader on the table next to me, then stood and stretched my back to relieve the slight stiffness that had developed from sitting in one spot to read for the past few hours.
I headed into the kitchen and filled Elvis’s bowls with food and fresh water.
After studying the meager choices available in the refrigerator, I warmed up some leftovers from the night before, when I’d ordered dinner from the Chinese restaurant a few blocks away.
I wasn’t much of a cook, to put it mildly, but I could reheat things in the microwave like a pro. Most of the time, anyway.
There had been that unfortunate incident last month with a chocolate Pop-Tart that I’d accidentally put in for thirty minutes, instead of thirty seconds.
I didn’t own a toaster and figured the microwave would work just as well to heat it.
I’d gotten distracted by a phone call right then and hadn’t realized my mistake until I’d heard a loud pop a few minutes later as the damned thing had exploded.
Acrid, black smoke had rolled out of the microwave as soon as I’d opened the door, which had then set off the smoke detector.
The duplex had smelled vaguely of burning tires for two days afterward, which didn’t say much for whatever chocolate Pop-Tarts were made of.
Luckily, I was able to warm up my dinner tonight without any problems, before settling in to finish the last few chapters of the book.
By the time I slid into bed, my head was filled with the story, except in my mind, Ryder, the hero of the book, had been replaced by a man with very nice, albeit pale, buns of steel.
I hadn’t seen Trick’s face, but if he looked nearly as good from the front as he did from the back, it might be worth the risk to get to know him.
I groaned and rolled over, sternly reminding myself that no matter how sexy the man was, he was no good for me. “He probably wouldn’t even ask my name before pulling his dick out of his pants and would forget my existence by the time he zipped up again,” I grumbled into the darkness.