Inferno Anthology (21 page)

Copyright © 2013 by Vi Keeland

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

BELONG TO YOU: A COLE NOVEL

Edited by: Ocean’s Edge Editing

Cover photo: © CURAphotography -
Fotolia.com

Cover art: © RomCon® -
www.romcon.com

To the boy that pushed me off my bicycle when we were six and scarred my knee. Who else would I dedicate this book to?

“C
an I get you something to drink?”

Startled out of my daydream by the perky flight attendant, it took me a minute to snap out of my thoughts. I was in such a fog that I couldn’t be sure if I had just woken, and the last week had been just a dream, or if it was really an unforgettable memory.

“I’ll have a vodka cranberry and she’ll have a merlot. You’ll have to excuse her, she’s spent the last week fucking her brains out with a gorgeous stranger and can’t seem to snap out of it.” Sienna smiled to the appalled flight attendant, a pleasant-looking mid-forties woman who was wearing way too many pins on her bulging uniform. From the look on her face, I was sure the flight attendant wasn’t used to a raunchy-mouth like Sienna in first class. I looked around and saw most of the other passengers looked well bred and refined, more like they were dressed for an uppity tennis match than a twelve hour flight from Honolulu to New York. Sienna would have stood out even if she didn’t have a mouth like a truck driver.

Sienna McAllister had been my best friend since the third grade. We became kindred spirits on our first day in chorus when we realized we could sing in natural harmony together without so much as a beat of music. Twenty years later, our lives had taken us down very different paths, but it had never dulled our bond.

Aside from being the same age, we had nothing in common on the outside anymore. With her wild, dark curls falling around her alabaster skin, and black tight-fitting clothes coupled with five-inch laced-up leather boots, Sienna looked like she’d just walked out of a rock band. If her voluptuous curves straining her tight clothes weren’t enough to catch an eye as she passed by, the hundred or so bracelets she wore halfway up her arms actually played a sweet jingle as she moved.

I, on the other hand, had a penchant for pink and all things girly. My long blonde hair was almost white after a week in the sun and stood in stark contrast to my deeply-tanned skin — and the wild woman sitting next to me. When I was younger, I hated my olive skin and bright blonde hair. It was an unusual combination to have such tan skin and natural blonde hair. Most people assumed I was a bottle blonde. My dad used to tell me that I was special because I bound together my mom’s Swedish ancestry with his Italian heritage. But, as I suspected most kids did in their teens at some point, I wanted to look like someone else. It took me until I was in my late teens to stop fighting my looks and to learn to play them up.

The flight attendant brought us our drinks and scurried away with a hesitant smile. It was obvious she was trying to avoid hearing any more about our vacation, which Sienna would have surely divulged if given the opportunity. Sienna enjoyed shocking uptight people with her crass mouth. Watching them squirm was a sport for her.

Sienna raised her glass to me in a toast. “To the best damn honeymoon I’ve ever been on.” I laughed and shook my head as we clinked glasses and both tipped our heads back to drink.

A
full day of sun after we landed left me exhausted. I must not have been thinking straight when I booked a direct overnight flight from New York to Honolulu. Did I really think I would land at 8am and feel fresh and relaxed, ready to take on the first day of my honeymoon? A two hour nap on the beach did nothing to shake off my jetlag, and by 8pm, as I was getting ready for a night out with Sienna, I had started to wonder what I had got myself into.

We arrived at the resort’s Japanese restaurant and I silently reminded myself that I needed to eat, even though I was not very hungry at all. The last time I’d gone out drinking with Sienna without eating, Michael had to carry me up the stairs when I passed out face down on the floor in the kitchen. Hating that thoughts of Michael still uncontrollably filled my memory, I took a deep breath and pushed all thought of him out of my head, determined not to let him ruin our honeymoon even more than he already had.

After we ordered, a pretty waitress wearing a traditional red kimono delivered us drinks served in coconuts with cute little purple umbrellas. “Thank you, but we didn’t order those,” I said as she started to put the drinks in front of us. The waitress smiled at me and silently pointed to the other end of the restaurant where I saw a table of a dozen men, one of which was holding up a drink and smiling.

Sienna smiled and took one of the drinks and held it up, offering cheers back to the smiling man. Even though he was across the room, I could see he was handsome and had a damn sexy smile. My eyes scanned the table he was sitting at, and I almost gasped at what I took in. Damn, they were all handsome, one better looking than the next. They looked like they could have been traveling for a rugby tournament, or a Calvin Klein underwear photo shoot perhaps. I was grateful for my tan skin at that moment, so no one would see me blush.

Sienna clinked her glass to mine and said loud enough for the table next to us to hear, “Remember, we should do lots of fucking on our honeymoon, baby!” I choked on my drink before we laughed together like we were back in third grade.

Our dinner was just being served when I saw the boys club began to make their way out of the restaurant. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to notice their departure; they seemed to have the attention of half the restaurant. They were rowdy, handsome, and drinking a lot. The smiling man that had sent over our drinks stopped by our table with two of his friends on their way out. “I hope you ladies are coming down to the bonfire tonight that the resort is throwing.” His dimpled smile made his face even more handsome.

“We are.” Sienna raised her eyebrows and smiled up at the man. “And thank you for the drinks, they were delicious.” Her response was more of a purr than a statement. I had forgotten how good at flirting she was. It was second nature to her. She had the ability to make anything sound teasing. I was pretty sure she could ask a man walking by for the time and he would think she wanted to sleep with him.

“You’re very welcome. You know, this may sound like a bad pick-up line, but you look so familiar.” His brows creased and I could see the wheels in motion as he tried to place her face.

Sienna raised one eyebrow provocatively. “Maybe we can figure out where you know me from at the bonfire later.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. “ He smiled and I watched his eyes slowly drift over Sienna. But his attention was quickly called away by the rest of the boys club that were making a ruckus near the door. “I better go before the jackasses get themselves kicked out. I’ll be looking for you ladies later.”

After Sienna’s brief time as the lead singer of No Worries, people always thought she looked familiar. Five years ago the band had a number one hit, then they broke up due to fighting between the members before a follow up album could be released to cement their fame. Apparently the guitarist had been sleeping with the drummer’s wife and they couldn’t get past it. Unfortunately, the group became somewhat of a one hit wonder, but people still vaguely remembered Sienna’s face. She really wasn’t the type of woman that people forgot easily.

Sienna and I had played together in an all girl band in Boston for three years. We did a lot of local shows and had a pretty good following. It didn’t earn us enough money to survive, but we loved doing it and it worked for us for a while. By the time we decided to go our separate ways, I had already met Michael and started pursuing a degree in music, slowly growing content with my life. Sienna hadn’t given up on our dream of being rock stars, so we parted friends when she took off for New York at twenty-one to join No Worries as the lead singer.

After that, we talked on the phone twice a week and I went to New York to visit her on most of my breaks from school. There was definitely no love lost between her and Michael, and he made it clear that he disapproved of her partying lifestyle and didn’t like my frequent trips to New York. I sacrificed a lot for Michael over the years, giving up a lot of who I was, but never let him come between Sienna and me. She was supposed to have been my maid of honor at our wedding last weekend.

Sienna watched as the boys club sauntered out of the restaurant and then turned to me. “Syd, I think you need to pick one of those boys and get a rebound screw under your belt. What better place to do it than Hawaii?”