CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) (13 page)

Don’t Worry, Be Sappy

Callie

Gruffy is banging shit around in the kitchen like she’s mad at the world and ready to start brawling. I can’t say I blame her. If I didn’t feel this crappy I’d probably go for a walk and try to find Sabrina Dormer for round two, just so I can feel a little better.

              When the banging starts up again and Luci rolls her eyes at me for the millionth time, I heave myself off the sofa where I’ve been growing moss and trudge to the kitchen.

“Gruffy, calm down and stop breaking the freaking dishes. I won’t buy you more, you old coot,” I warn, praying for the butter dish when she reaches for it.

It slams down just as her eyes shoot up and I cringe and draw back a little when she gets her
look
.

“I will not. I am so sick and bloody tired of this shite, it’s making my bile rise. You’re an ass, Calliopeia Landry. You’re a complete dunderheaded ninnypate for being so bloody stubborn.”

We’ve had this conversation. We had it all night last night when I got here, bawling because I finally lost my shit in the cab and totally peed myself.

No laughing, people. It happened and I’m mortified and I just wanted to die when I covered half of the back seat.

Sheesh, I hope the cabbie doesn’t remember the address and come back here or I will never hear the end of it from the hyenas in the living room.

“Gruff, we’ve been over this and you have insulted me to death already. This is not Jack’s baby. Jack was not with me the night I conceived. Jack does not deserve to be saddled with me thinking this is his kid when he did nothing wrong.”

Jesus help me. What is it with these people?

“Callie, you’re an ass.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’ve only said it like a hundred times since breakfast,” I mutter, grabbing Gramps’s hallowed teacup before she can destroy the prized momento.

“Stop that!”

“I won’t. It’s the only thing saving you from a right good thrashing right now, young lady.”

The cane comes up and I hesitantly hand her the cup to save myself a hard pounding. Gruffy takes it and looks at it for the longest time before placing it gently on the table and looking up at me again.

“Tell me this, Calliopeia, and I’ll stop trying to convince you of your foolishness.”

Finally.

“Do you love the boy?”

“Gruffy.”

“Answer, lass. Do you or do you not love that boy, and don’t go scowling at your old gran. Answer.”

I feel my shoulders slump and I sit with a huff, closing my eyes against another flood of grief.

“Of course I do, Gruffy. Jesus, old woman, you think I cry for just any old hobo? I have a freaking heart too, you know, and unfortunately for me, the stupid thing started beating for that asshole, no matter how hard I tried not to give in.”

“Then why give up, lass?” she asks gently, her sad eyes penetrating my very soul.

“Gruffy, I can’t do the whole duty thing again. You and Gramps loved me, I know that, and I will never forget that I had a great home and all the love I could ask for, but I wasn’t yours till Mom dumped me here. You were already old and ready to retire and go on your cruise that Gramps had been saving for. What you got instead was a snot-nosed little kid that you had to take responsibility for. I don’t want that for me. Or Jack.”

“Well what the hell do you want, lass?”

“I want him to love me and want me and JJ because he can’t live without us, not do this because he feels like he has to take responsibility for us. The kid isn’t even his,” I say mournfully, hoping like hell that my little one has a fighting chance in the looks department now that the dice is up in the air again.

From the looks of Jethro, I am terrified that I’ll give birth to a hobbit.

“Gruffy is right, baby, you are an idiot.”

My shock and absolute joy at hearing that voice have me turning so swiftly, I almost dump my ass on the floor as I look up and right into Jack’s eyes.

My grin is unstoppable. I can’t help it. The sight of him is just so welcome, I feel like the bloody sun just rose in the kitchen.

Of course the whole crew has crowded in like the apes they are, and so it’s with a public spectacle at hand that I register his words and feel my eyes narrow dangerously.

              “Did you just call me an idiot, Levin?”

His mouth twitches, as if this is funny, and I growl before catching sight of last night’s stunner. Great. Just great. He brought his hooker with.

“Hey! I’ll have you know you just said that out loud, Callie. Not cool. I don’t hook, I’m not that smart. I just sleep around for the odd dinner or ten.”

Whoops.

“Sorry. My bad.”

She grins and elbows Jack, who is now trying and failing to stifle his laughter, and I roll my eyes and blow out a huge breath when he loses the fight and starts howling.

“Yeah I just called you an idiot. Shit, lady, I just had to stand there and listen to you whining like a girl about bullshit. You think that kid isn’t mine?” he asks, going to his knees to lay his hands on my swelling waistline.

Damn those cookies.

“Jack—”

“He’s mine, Cal. He is most definitely mine and I know it.”

“How?” I ask, my lip pouting as the tenderness in his eyes grabs me and won’t let go.

“Baby, I told you from that first night, I remember the smell of honeysuckle and it’s not perfume I kept scenting. Was it?”

I blush at that and giggle a little, recalling the way he discovered exactly the scent he was looking for. Hell yeah I remember where he found what he called
the source
.

              “But Lesley—”

“Is a Goddamn liar, Callie. Look at me, baby. Do you really think I’d go anywhere near that lunatic with my dick? Sorry, Elsa.”

“No, boy. Go on, then, I’m truly enjoying this, I am. Why my husband used to tell me I smell—”

“Gruffy. Nasty,” Percy yells, cutting her off as Jack and I freeze and cringe.

“Well fine, then.”

“Callie. You know I didn’t want to have to bring this up since I saw the way you were so self-conscious about the thing, but I have to tell ya, baby, there cannot be another woman alive on this planet who got that little shrivelled dick as a tattoo.”

What! Oh God, you did not just tell the animals about my only secret.

“Tattoo?”

“Shrivelled dick.”

“Screw off! I’m having an epiphany,” I yell, biting into my lip as hope surges. “The tattoo?”

Please, God, please let him say what I think he’s going to say. He mentioned it before, but I didn’t pay it any mind and he never said it again. I just assumed he was talking about the tiny one on my neck beneath my hair.

“I may not remember much about our first night together, baby, and I may be a complete asshole for this, but I have to tell you that if there is one thing that I do remember and will never stop laughing about, it’s that tattoo. That shit is unforgettable. You’re my girl, Callie. I knew it before I saw that tattoo, and it may have taken me a while last night to pull my head out of my ass, but it’s out and I am telling you—you and me, we’re it.”

Oh, I have never loved that ugly little dick so much in my life.

My heart is just about ready to beat out of my chest as joy hits me, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m crying a little as I launch myself at him and start laugh kissing him all over the face.

“Oh, Jack. I love you so much. I was so scared when she told me it couldn’t be you, and then I went to talk to you and she was in your office and then this one—hey! Who is this sexy bitch?” I demand, pushing away with a scowl.

Jack starts laughing even harder and stops my struggles as I attempt to rise to get to supermodel. She won’t be hot for long if she touched my man, I can tell you that.

My moxy is back, people, and I’m ready to start biting.

“Calm down, baby. That’s Pris. My cousin.” He chuckles as Woody cuffs her upside the head with a grin.

Pris rubs at her offended head and grins at me with a giggle.

“Sorry, love. If you’d have stuck around last night you’d have seen him toss me onto the guest bed with nary a bit of concern for my fragile state and leave me to sleep in a puddle of my own puke. Sorry for that by the way, Jack.”

Even I wince at that, but it’s forgotten when Jack takes my face in his hands and lovingly stroked my tears away.

“Callie, you adorable fool. I love you, woman. Why would I ever need to look at someone else when I’ve found my crazy soul mate? Now, stop crying and tell me you’re gonna marry me. I have to warn you, Mom’s already planned the wedding so
no
is not an option.”

My answer is a squeal I will deny in the years to come and a kiss that gets us both hot enough that people start grumbling and leave us alone for fear of a porn show taking place.

When I pull away to catch my breath I feel like I just won the freaking lottery. We’re both grinning and happy enough to make a real woman puke but I don’t care.

He’s my one. He’s my Mr. Hotel. My annoying other half, and I have never felt so wanted in all my bloody life.

“I love you, Jack, you annoying git. Now take me home and do naughty, naughty thing to me, please.”

“Jesus, save my stomach. That drivel’s sweet enough to turn an old woman’s stomach,” Gruffy grumbles. “At least give us a little show before you start making me sick, you young sappy idiots.”

We both groan and look up to see Gruffy now sitting at the table, a glass of scotch in her hand, looking for all the world as if she’s comfortable and ready to watch like this is a spectator sport.

“You know we’re a packaged deal, right?” I groan, burying my face in his neck.

He grunts again and I feel him shaking with laughter as he kisses my hair and pulls me closer.

“I can deal with that, baby. As long as she and Gramps never make it down the aisle, I can deal.”

Yikes. I’ll be fine with that as long as I never have to see them smooch. Or anything else.

Here Comes the Bride

Luci

Today is the absolutely perfect day for a wedding, I think happily as I look around the yard and admire my handiwork. Mama Levin and I did the back yard up in grand-old style and I even went so far as to let her use my flower scheme for Callie’s wedding, because, let’s all face it, I am probably never ever getting married so I won’t need my book of crushed dreams to plan my own extravaganza.

To say that Freddie and I are on a hiatus is the hopeful and completely delusional part of me still praying that I have not gone and fallen in love with the world’s biggest ass.

He’s a gobbler. I don’t care how harsh that sounds or that my heart squeezes and protests the moniker whenever I have the uncharitable thought.

He is.

At first when I’d realized that I’d given my special gift to a total player and liar, I’d been broken with grief and regret. It hurt to think that Freddie would be callous enough to take something that special to me without a thought or care for what I meant.

I cried. Into my pillow late at night when no one could hear. Because I was truly heartbroken when he stopped coming around and then sent me that freaking text. As if you could ever break up with someone via text without coming off a complete ass.

After that I’d gone into what I would call a bit of a tailspin. I got angry. So angry I had the insane urge to tell my daddy all about him and watch as my usually laid back parent lost his temper.

Something most people would never suspect about my father is that he has a horrible, violent temper when riled. He’s so easygoing normally, something Mummy confessed to me was a conscious decision on his part because he did not want to ever be the angry young man he’d once been.

So yeah, Daddy would have beaten Freddie Cage to a bleeding pulp if I’d told him what the blighter did to me.

              After that I lost another screw and convinced myself that he just needed some time. Admittedly, I was grasping at straws by then, but who can blame me?

I’ve been pretending to be a tough, hard-talking, ballsy lass since I was five years old and somehow got lucky enough to meet Callie Landry and be taken under her wing.

I’ve fought, been suspended from school, almost been arrested while joyriding in the neighbor’s car. After stealing the thing.

I’ve done a lot of stuff and got into some awful scrapes over the years since I decided that I had to become the right type of girl to fit in with my friends.

I went from painting and listening to opera while Mummy flitted about in a daze of crazy and Daddy just floated about in a lost fog, to wearing hooker attire and getting pierced in places that still give me nightmares.

I created my persona and went from soft spoken and shy to the girl who hopped beds. In reality, I never once slept with or even blew one of the many men who I pretended to date.

Of course, they went about lying through their teeth, but I was golden with that as long as my friends believed I was who I was pretending to be. I was right happy with it all until I looked up at a party we were catering and saw a man I know is my one.

After that I was a wreck of nervous energy and pure fear. I was afraid of everything from rejection to losing him before I’d even had a chance.

Imagine my delight when Freddie Cage walked up to me after I gaped at him like a fish and made my every dream come true by flirting the hell out of me.

I just fell like a ton of bricks for him. I went from infatuation to outright, panty-grabbing, heart-twisting love in mere seconds, and to this day I will never understand why God had to go and make that ass my one.

He took everything I had to give. He wined and dined me and threw some words around, and before I knew it I was offering myself to him on a silver bloody platter.

              I was dead honest and brutally clear with him about it all. I made no bones about the fact that I got to thirty years of age with my maidenhead still intact because it meant something to me.

I told him that for me, sex was not just a function but something deep and meaningful. I made it blatantly fucking clear that if we slept together, it would be because I have feelings. For him.

You know what he did? He blew my world apart.

He blew me away and ruined me for anyone else.

I can’t look at a man now without wondering if he’d be any good. Hell, I’m not even the least attracted to other men.

I went clubbing, got hammered, and took a blue-eyed, sandy blond home with me and tried to get naked with him. He was game, was rearing to go and bloody pissed when I couldn’t go through with it and kicked him out.

I just wasn’t able to forget that Freddie plague on my existence, so I couldn’t do it.

So yeah. After grief and tears, after anger and the need to kick him so hard he’d have a vagina, after desperate hope and stupidity, I am now at the last stage of mourning for the death of my useless heart.

Acceptance.

“Luci, would you go wrangle Jack and Callie out of the freaking closet and tell those two animals that we need them on the front lawn for the wedding photos?”

I snap right back to reality to see Mama Levin hustling away, leaving me the job of going to pull those two apart when we all know I’m liable to find them actually screwing by this point.

Let a man put a ring on his woman and he goes caveman. They’ve been snogging since the priest pronounced the death of their single status.

“Bleeding hell.”

Passing all the Naughties, the three dads and two wives, Gruffy (who’s flirting up a storm), all the Levins’ guests and even a grinning Woody, I manage to make it into the house relatively unscathed and find the married apes going at it in a downstairs closet.

“My eyes!” I screech, slamming the door back when I get shot of something I really should not have witnessed.

“Oh, Jack.”

“Oh come on already! Your mom’s looking for you and the freaking photographer’s waiting.”

They keep moaning like a pair of minks at the job, and I finally just give up the ghost and stalk away, back outside to find the poor sod I’ve conned into being my date at this torture session.

Not that I don’t like Alan. Indeed, the man is extremely attractive with dark brown hair and eyes the color of a spring leaf. And he’s damned nice, too.

I met him at one of the charity things we catered and got to know him. He’s more friend material than anything else, and he knows it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to look at him in a different light.

He’s moneyed and likes children and after seeing the charming way he handled my scatty parents after meeting them today, I was tempted to go to a shrink to help me with my mental issues. Really, who looks at Alan, knows Alan, spends time with Alan, and does not fall for the hot goodness at once?

              “There you are, baby. I was just about to send out a search party for you.” He laughs when I fall into the seat beside him and flop my head onto his shoulder.

“Sorry. Last-minute checks before the porn couple finally come out. The cake…” I trail off as he laughs and chucks me under the chin.

“No worries, I get it. You’re a good friend to have done all this in such a short space of time. It must have been a job and a half to get things this perfect with all these people on your back.”

The truth? It was unbelievably easy, leading me to think that I’ve lost that last bit of me I used to cling to. I didn’t get all deliriously happy thinking about these things where before I would have cut off a limb just to do what I have always wanted to do—plan weddings.

Gone is the romance now that I’m a dead husk of broken love.

“Meh. It was fine,” I muse, looking around at the three hundred other guests without much enthusiasm.

Alan sighs and I feel myself go red with guilt before he pushes me up and takes me by the shoulders.

“Listen to me, Luci goosey. This listless attitude is not you and I don’t like it. You need to either get over him and move the hell on or just go after what you want. But you need to do something, because if I have to look at you much longer and see how little you care about anything I may just kick that fucker’s ass.”

His words make my lips twitch and I giggle to lighten the mood while he looks over my shoulder with a growl.

“Cage is coming this way, Luci. And he’s looking pissed off about something. You have two choices. I can get up from here and go get a drink so you can be alone, or I can do what I’ve been wanting to do since I clapped eyes on him tonight and kiss the hell out of you to make him see what he pushed away. Your choice.”

Hmmm.

“Are you sure?”

Alan grins at me in such a way that makes me wish I could have loved him instead and leans in with a glint in his eyes.

“Pucker up, hot stuff.”

Okay, I was wrong. I can kiss other men.

The moment his lips hit mine, I feel it all. His mouth is soft, full, and just the right amount of wet before he tilts my head to the side and really goes to work.

Alan is a master kisser and he does himself proud when he pens my mouth and licks inside in a lewd and completely hot way that I know other people can see.

The kiss is all tongue, moans, and lewd display, and I love each and every moment of the mouth-screw he lays on me. By the time he pulls back and I blink my eyes open, I feel giddy with victory.

“You call that loving me, Luci?”

I look up with wide eyes to see Freddie standing beside me, glaring his head off as Alan smiles and hooks an arm around me.

“Freddie—”

“You tell him yet that we fucked, Luci? That you were a virgin when I made you scream in pleasure?”

What? Why, the utter gall!

“You unbelievable arse. How dare you? I—”

“What? Moved on at the speed of light? I fucking knew you were a crock the moment you told me that bullshit, Luci. I should have known it was stupid to try and hope that you were better than the vapid women I’ve been with. I…”

His eyes flare and go dark, but he cuts himself off and turns on his heel, stalking away without a backward glance.

I’m left stunned, speechless, and confused as I turn my eyes back to Alan and just stare.

“What the hell?”

“You still ready to walk away from him, kid? That was not the behavior of a man who is not interested, sweetheart.”

No. I don’t think it was. The only question in my mind as I turn to watch his retreating back is…will Diva Brides still have my wedding dress on hold?

~~~