The Crazy Good SEAL Series: Books 1-3 Page 2

  “It’s just hard. You know I was with Nash for four years. We were planning our wedding, Gretchen. I can’t just pretend that didn’t happen. I can’t act like I wasn’t ready to settle down. I’m over the bar scene,” I tell her, hoping playing the sympathy card will make her shut up. Even the Gretchen machine has boundaries when it comes to my botched engagement and the downward spiral that almost landed me in the looney bin. “I’m over the hapless fun and, frankly, men are just skeevy these days.” I look down at my toes, making sure they aren’t touching. “They only want sex.”

  Gretchen leans in and hugs me, her lean arms wrapping around my shoulders, and light brown hair sticking to my glossed lips. “They aren’t all skeevy, honey. Some are good and you will find a good one because you are good,” she whispers.

  “You smell like a baked potato, Gretch,” I counter, trying to figure out the exact scent of her spray tan. I already know for a fact all men are skeevy, and all the good ones get snapped up quickly. She giggles, then pulls back and plays at mock outrage, one hand splayed across her chest.

  She sniffs a forearm. “It’s vanilla passion,” she says, lacing her words with a slight French accent. It sounds more like a Crocodile Hunter accent, but I don’t say so. I know she is trying to lighten the mood, to force my focus to the present. “How do you expect to get Johnny Nash out of your head if you don’t fuck him out of it?” Gretchen smarts.

  Her question is crass, but I can’t deny the truth in her words. It’s been years since Nash and I can’t stop dwelling on the monumental birthday I have coming up. Thirty. I am alone. I shudder.

  “You don’t want to be alone when you start to get wrinkles. You have to find a man now, so he’ll think your wrinkles are adorable when you do get them. These are your prime years,” she says, cocking one eyebrow, urging me to disagree. The obscene wisdom that trickles out of her mouth at times such as this reminds me why we’ve been friends for so long. I puff out my cheeks and pretend to swallow down a mouth full of vomit. Then I smile.

  She folds her arms under her breasts, not amused by my joke. “Seriously though. You’re giving him all this power over you just by acting like a stick in the mud.” Gretchen pauses. “Meeting someone new will help.”

  I sigh. Meeting someone new will only mute the dastardly sorrows for a brief time. Thinking maybe I do want a mute button, at least for the night, I decide to agree with my best friend, the dictator.

  “Fine, Hitler. I’ll go out. I’ll try to have fun. I’ll dance from the windows to the walls until sweat drips down my balls. Happy?”

  Gretchen nearly chokes on her own spit before she replies through hysterics. “I’m going to go find that song on my iPod and you are going to get your hot little ass into that very dark corner of your closet. Find that dress –you know the one. Then we are taking our hot, professional asses to the club. I need to stalk Benji and you need…to get out. I’m going to introduce you to some people and I won’t let you self sabotage either, so don’t even think about wearing cotton briefs.” She pats me on the ass and, just like that, my best friend, the Gretchen machine is back in action, our tender moment gone. Her outrageous attitude and her inability to lie made the decision to move into her Virginia Beach condo the easiest decision I’d made in a long time.

  “Professional. Ass. Club. Words that don’t go together for a thousand, Alex,” I quip at her retreating back. I add, “You have a brown smudge on your professional ass!” Gretchen merely laughs and adds a little extra jiggle as she struts down the hallway to her room.

  Benji wants her. I know he does. What I’m not sure of is why she doesn’t act on her feelings for him. Then again, I obviously don’t know much about love and relationships. The only guy I’ve ever loved wriggled his way into my heart and then ripped it out. When I thought the worst was over, he had his new, much younger girlfriend prance on it in her daddy-bought Louboutins.

  Breaks weren’t something thrown my way often. When you want something so badly for so long, it takes a very long time to get over it. I don’t expect anyone else to understand, but I’ve been grieving for the life I didn’t get. The life I probably won’t ever get with my rapidly deepening wrinkles. I scowl at my full-length mirror as I pass by to the dark place in my closet.

  When I exit my bedroom wearing the tight black dress and a pair of sky-high heels, I see Gretchen waiting for me by the door. She looks up from digging in her clutch and smiles widely. She squints her eyes, then nods fiercely one time. She approves, thank God. I roll my eyes as I brush past her to open the door.

  She puts her pointer finger all the way into her mouth and then pulls it out, effectively removing the red lipstick that could potentially get on her perfectly white teeth. She wipes her finger off on a napkin and throws it on the counter before wrapping her hand around my waist.

  “Let’s go. Jess is out front waiting. She’s the DD tonight,” Gretchen admits with a smile. With one sentence she is also letting me know she expects me to get crazy-pants-wasted with her tonight. I slide into the passenger seat of Jess’s BMW and strong perfume assaults me at the same time as the artic blast from the air vents.

  “Hey Jess,” Gretchen exclaims from the back seat, as the car pulls away from the curb.

  “Hey, guys,” Jess says as she points the vents in front of me onto herself. She continues, “I don’t want my makeup to get shiny.” I laugh because her makeup is the least of her worries. I look over at her and drop my eyes to her barely there white mini-skirt. Like barely there. She doesn’t have a slutty bone in her body, so how she dresses when she goes out confounds me.

  “I can see your underwear,” I tell her, laughing. She doesn’t even attempt to pull her skirt down.

  She shrugs. “I’m not going to be sitting down tonight. It’s just us girls right now.” Her flawed logic is painfully refreshing. Because dancing won’t make it ride up more than sitting. Sure. Jess cranks up her rap music to a level that makes me wince. Always the ghetto booty rap when in the world of Jess.

  “Good point,” I say, peeking into the side mirror to see Gretchen stifling a laugh. When we arrive moments later and the valet guy opens the door for Jess, I don’t try to hide my sniggering when his eyes widen briefly. Jess hands him the fob with a small wink and finally readjusts herself.

  When people say age is only a number, I don’t think they take into account the difference a few years can make. As I watch all the newly minted twenty-one year olds dance around with full cups splashing vodka everywhere, I wince remembering those days. Finding yourself, losing yourself, and then finding your real self. That’s what happens in only a few years. Unfortunately for me, I get to lose myself one extra time. Here I am, warped back in time, mixed in with twenty-one year olds, trying to find it again.

  Being almost thirty and supposedly wiser, Gretchen called ahead and reserved a table for the night; not that Jess will be sitting at it, but it is a reprieve all the same. I slide into the booth and wedge myself toward the corner, deciding to make it my home for the night. I watch Jess meander closer to a few of our other friends just as Gretch sits down next to me.

  I bump her leg. “Total hottie checking you out at twelve o’clock,” I say in her ear. She just smiles like a person mad. At Benji. Who just so happens to be the bartender at the club she chose for the night. Which just happens to be the club she chooses every weekend. “I don’t get why you give him the run around. Go on a date with the poor guy already. Your wrinkles are getting uglier as we speak.” Benji waves at our table, knowing full well we’re talking about him.

  “I’ll go get drinks. Morganna is on her way. Keep an eye out,” Gretchen says, disappearing into the crowd of swaying bodies and flashing lights. We got here later than usual because good spray tans take time. The drunkenness in this place has already peaked.

  Through a crowd of stumbling babies I see her. Our friend. As she approaches my mind plays the song from Mean Girls. You know the one where the Plastics walk in a fierce group down the high schoo
l hallway? Then everyone stops and stares? That’s Morganna in one song.

  Morganna comes from a small southern town where people talk more than they listen. When they do listen they take their careful, manipulative time to listen to the undercurrents laced throughout the words. Innocuous statements turn into gritty rumors that spread like wildfire in the parched forests of California. Morganna caught more than a thick southern drawl growing up in her hometown; she caught a fearsome, incurable drive to succeed. Nothing is more potent or dangerous than a woman with something to prove and proving things, no matter fact or fiction is her favorite past time.

  After obtaining scrupulous grades throughout her stint at an Ivy League college and passing the BAR with ease, Morganna became a divorce attorney. She is feared, revered and, most of all, wildly successful. I’ve never seen Morganna cry nor have I ever seen her show any emotion that she hasn’t planned out at least fifteen days in advance. She is untouchable, beautiful and her confidence knows no bounds. It’s easy to forget Morganna’s southern roots. I know she only lets her country accent slip when she is furious with her husband or when she’s had a few too many glasses of red wine.

  You go to her when you need help organizing a party, if you need advice about your stepbrother’s DUI arrest, or if you need directions on how to cook and serve a fifty course, organic based meal. The fact that she wears designer, five-inch heels in her home office is a testament to everything Morganna stands for. Simply put, Morganna gets shit done.

  She has an assistant named Phillipe that I can’t help but feel bad for. The first three months Phillipe was employed by Morganna, I assumed his name was Phillipe Get because his name was always followed by a direct order.

  “Phillipe get Mary Saunders on the line.”

  “Phillipe get my calendar book.”

  “Phillipe get me the client’s number.” Freaking relentless, but you only feel bad for so long. I bet a million gays would scratch eyes out to be Morganna’s assistant.

  I smile sweetly at Phillipe when I visit Morganna at home because I know he is the one who pencils me in. His returning smile says, “You better hurry up, bitch. I wrote in a thirty minute slot for you and it will be my head if you stay any longer.” I know better though; she doesn’t care how long I stay. She just likes to bitch at him to assert control. Control is huge for Morganna because the one thing she can’t control is the most important to her. Her husband, Stone Sterns. Who happens to be absent tonight.

  Why is any of this important? Well, Morganna has everything I want. She is the person I would choose to be on any given Sunday.

  The waters part and she struts to our table. “You look gorgeous Morganna. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I say. “Where is Phillipe? Did you give him the night off?”

  She raises her eyebrows as she notices my tight black dress. “Finally,” she whispers, red lips twitching in a mischievous smile. I shake my head as she sits down next to me. “Oh, that regurgitated piece of human flesh is typing some documents for me tonight. I don’t want to talk about him anyway. I want to talk about you.” True to form, she switches the focus back to someone else almost immediately. She’s your friend. I have to remind myself.

  I nod toward the bar where Gretchen stands. “Gretch is grabbing us drinks. Want one? I can go…” I plead for an escape. She knows it.

  “I’m going to set you up,” Morganna demands. It’s not a question. I laugh a little to try to diffuse the situation. It’s the same situation every time I hang out with her in a single atmosphere. You might wonder why I don’t let her set me up. Someone I idolize so much has to have some taste, right? Well, I don’t want anyone’s help replacing the Nashhole. Call me a romantic at heart, but I want it to happen organically. Like in the bread aisle. Because he needs to know up front I like and eat carbs like a duck in a pond. They’re hopeless aspirations, but they are my own.

  “Where’s Stone?” I utter the only name I know will shut her up.

  She fluffs her already high hair even higher. “He’s with the rat pack tonight. Actually I suspect they may have already slithered their way here somewhere.” She glances around the bar slowly. “The guy I want to set you up with is with him.”

  I start shaking my head the second the words leave her mouth. No way. Not one of them. One of The Guys. I’d rather meet a vegan on the veggie aisle. I don’t hang out with Stone very often as he has a lot of work trips, but I know all of his friends are the same as him. Crazy. Reckless crazy, not deranged. Not fully deranged anyway. One glance and I know Morganna is merely waiting for me to continue, knowing I’m not done rejecting her ludicrous idea.

  “I love you, but you’re absolutely crazy and there is no way. No way.” I make my arms into an X in front of chest and open them up. “You know when I’m ready – and I’m not saying I’m ready – that I want to stumble into a guy. There will be slow clapping, and heart palpitations. If I go out with one of The Guys there will only be heart palpitations because I’ll be in a near death experience, I’m sure. I’m here tonight because Gretchen thinks I’m on the fast track to inhabiting a library with cats winding around my feet. Oh, and I’m wrinkly in the un-cute way.”

  “You are,” Morganna says, unapologetically. I flinch a little, but they are both right. And I can’t hate the haters. Nash has made me the ultimate hater. “Well you aren’t wrinkly and Botox can fix that, but it’s time. That’s the end of it. You either want help or you want to fend for yourself. Which is it?” she asks.

  I look away, honestly considering doing what she wants. I want to please her and do something decent for myself at the same time.

  I decide to head to the bar. “I’ll think about it. Meaning I will really consider it, but not tonight, okay? I’m not ready to dive into the deep end.” I smile. She nods. “One dose of Benji and Gretchen has forgotten all about us. I’m going to grab us drinks. Warn me if your rat pack arrives so I can duck in a corner.” I shake my finger at her as I teeter away. A red nail brushes the bottom of her chin. She’s conspiring, God dammit.

  I hear them before I see them. Voices commanding. Laughter booming. A drunken baby turns to look at the commotion and splashes half her cup onto the top of my foot. A wet high heel—perfect. I don’t even bother looking. I know it’s The Guys. I glare at Morganna, and she just laughs. I know the exact moment her sights lock on Stone. Her face morphs into a puddle of slush. I walk, with my heel slipping out of my shoe all the way to the bar, and grab a cocktail napkin out of a stack. I slip my foot out of my shoe and start drying it. When I look up, I see him.

  Muscles are everywhere. He’s so large he is the only thing my eyes can possibly be drawn to. I think the rest of the bar is probably looking at him too, but I wouldn’t know because I’m staring at him. Like a deer in freaking headlights.

  Except he hasn’t even noticed me. His black dress shirt is cuffed up his forearms and dark tattoos peek out. His dark wash jeans fall to that exceptional place on his narrow waist. Usually, I’m not so into physical things about the opposite sex. Right now, though, all I can think about is sex. Him. Muscles. On me. I’m hot all at once. I can’t breathe.

  He throws his head back and laughs at something one of the trophy women around him says. I want to thank whoever made this creature laugh because it reveals perfect teeth, and I now know his eyes crinkle when he laughs, and it looks like perfection. He is perfect. He probably knows how perfect he is and that is the number one thing that I do not want or need in a man. Not that he’d have plain ole’ me anyways. It looks as if he could have his choice out of the entire bar—perhaps even the world. Stone claps the guy on the back, looking directly at Morganna, and then retreats to his wife. Of course he is one of The Guys.

  Off limits, Windsor, I remind myself because my damn traitorous body has other thoughts.

  I notice his black watch, the tattoo that creeps out of the neck of his shirt, all tell tale signs. I know what he does; I also know exactly how long he can hold his breath.

  Mr. Se
xy meets my gaze. I suck in a sharp breath when he rakes his eyes over my body once and then again. A predatory smile creeps its way up the lower part of his face. Dimples. Two of them—one on each side. They aren’t cute either, like little boys with dirt smeared on their faces. These dimples are hot. What makes them smolder is that they don’t go with the rest of him. The juxtaposition of the dimples on something so unfathomably masculine is…mouthwatering.

  Even as embarrassed as I am, I can’t look away. He leans his head to one side trying to hear the girl talking next to his ear, but his narrowed gaze doesn’t stray from mine.

  Someone jerks my arm. “Put your fucking shoe on, Windsor,” Gretchen hisses from behind me. “That man, and he is a fine ass specimen, is coming over here. By the way he’s looking at you I think he might want to eat you for dinner.” One crude sentence is all it takes. I’m back on guard, minus the fluttering heart. Gretchen knows it.

  “Good thing I don’t like to be munched on then.” I fix her with my icy stare. The wall is up. This guy could be Kellan Kyle mixed with Channing Tatum, and he wouldn’t have a chance in hell with my wall.

  Awareness of everything on and inside my body hits me. I don’t even need to turn around. I know he’s there. I sense it. Every hair on my neck rises as I take in his sweet, musky cologne.

  “Maybe I can fix that,” Mr. Sexy says, voice licking each syllable like he invented the damn English language. I still don’t turn around. I stare at Gretchen’s face, transfixed by this man’s presence. Her face breaks into a huge grin.

  “Damn. That is best line I’ve heard in a long time,” she says to him, slow clapping and shaking her head to drive the point home. “Fix that? Munch on you? Get it?” Gretchen snorts.