Falling in Between Read online

  Falling in Between

  Stevie J. Cole

  Copyright © 2018 by Stevie J. Cole

  All rights reserved

  This book is an original work of fiction. All of the names, characters, sponsors, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual events, incidences, persons, deceased or living, is strictly coincidental.

  Any opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author.

  Falling in Between

  Copyright ©2018 by Stevie J. Cole

  Published in the United States of America.

  E-books are non-transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement including infringement without monetary gain is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of Stevie J. Cole.

  Editing: Ellie McLove

  Line Editing: GFY EDITS

  Cover Design: Michele Catalano Creative Design

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Other free KU titles:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Exrated- Short Excerpt

  Also by Stevie J. Cole

  Acknowledgments

  Other free KU titles:

  Exrated

  Jag- A Pandemic ROCKER book

  Whiskey Lullaby

  Wrong

  1

  Seagulls caw. Turquoise waves lap at the sugar-white shoreline. Happy couples sit underneath palm trees and kiss. And here I am, the rim of my festive, three-dollar sombrero rippling in the breeze as I trudge across hot sand with a bottle of Jose Cuervo in hand, my lounge chair still a hundred yards away.

  Freaking Cancun. This is where college kids come for spring break, not the place you come to celebrate divorces, unless your me. And yes, divorces, as in plural. Evidently, good friends don’t let friends divorce alone.

  If the entire divorce thing isn’t bad enough, all I can think about as I trek across the beach is that the last time I was here, I had perky tits, and I possessed an annoyingly optimistic outlook on life. Now, the second my bikini top comes off, my boobs drop like the New Year Eve’s ball in Times Square—except without all the confetti and festivities. My optimism took a nose dive with the same force of gravity that weighed my drooping tits. I’m a thirty-five-year-old marriage counselor with a failed marriage tucked neatly under my belt.

  You could say that as of late, life has beaten me down and called me her bitch.

  My calves are on fire by the time I reach our chairs. With a huff, I sink into the pink and white lounge between my two best friends, Dani and Steph.

  Steph slathers on lip stain, puckering before she swats her brown hair out of her face. Eyeing the bottle in my hand, she grins. “Well, that’s definitely a drink.”

  “Look, my goal here is to get drunk, and the margarita mix gives me indigestion.”

  “Charlie, after having to fuck Missionary-Style-Harold for ten years, you deserve to drink straight from the bottle like a wino.” She clinks her massive margarita to Jose’s neck and then leans across my lap to tap her glass against Dani’s Pina Colada. “And happy divorce to you, too, sugar plum.”

  “Fuck you, Steph.” Dani piles her blond hair into one of those perfect, messy buns on the first try. She’s a pro at those and chopsticks; she’s just not so lucky in the love department.

  “Harold was…” Steph gags and puffs out her cheeks, pretending to hold in vomit. “At least Sean was hot.” Snorting, she grabs Dani’s sunburned shoulder and gently shakes it.

  Dani glares at her. After all, Cancun was Steph’s idea. She swore it would give us a boost of confidence. Being surrounded by teenagers with tight asses hasn’t proven to be a massive boost to my confidence.

  “Steph!” I try to discreetly dig sand out of my butt crack. “Sean was a mooch.”

  “But…he was a hot mooch,” Steph argues.

  Dani swears under her breath, threatening to punch Steph.

  “He was awful!” I can’t help but chime in. “And that’s putting it mildly.”

  When Dani started dating Sean three years ago, we told her he was bad news, but she refused to listen. He wooed her with flowers and, from what she told us, mind-blowing sex. One trip to Turks and Caicos and she came back married, with a wedding ring he purchased on her American Express.

  I lean over the arm of my beach chair. “He lied about being a lawyer. And from the second Dani married him, he did nothing but sit around naked on her couch and play Call of Duty.”

  Dani groans, slurping back the last of her drink. “Can we please stop talking about Sean? And, for the record, I met him at a law school party. He said he had an internship with David and Meeks Law Firm. How was I supposed to know that was just a ploy to meet women?”

  “He really was a genius.” Steph shrugs. “I mean, I get why you hate him, but still…he was the most driven bum I’ve ever known.”

  “Just shut up, Steph!” Dani pushes up from her lounge chair, kicking sand on Steph’s legs when she staggers a few steps.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “I’ve got to check in with Bill.”

  “Would you just sit down?” Steph finds a broken conch shell and chucks it at Dani, missing her by at least a foot. “Stop trying to micromanage your work. Bill’s a big boy. He can handle his shit.”

  Dani shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Bill is an intern! He doesn’t know the beans when the bag is open.”

  Steph glances at me with a raised brow. “What the hell does that mean? I don’t speak uptight lawyer.”

  “Let me put it into terms you’ll understand.” I pat Steph’s shoulder. “He doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”

  “Ah!”

  Before we can argue with Dani any longer, she starts down the beach with her phone to her ear, already shouting at Bill for being incompetent.

  “She works too much.” Steph is matter of fact and rarely keeps her opinion to herself.

  “Right? I was shocked when she actually boarded the plane.”

  Steph snorts. “Yeah, well, I was floored that you didn’t get thrown off the flight.”

  My eyes flutter as I attempt to hide my feigned irritation. Steph acted as if I didn’t have a valid reason for my apprehension.

  “Charlie, I had to wrestle you back into the seat three separate times, promising you we wouldn’t crash.” The animation in Steph’s tone is melodramatic given the circumstances.

  “Plenty of people are afraid to fly.” I attempt to downplay the sheer panic that ripped through me on takeoff.

  Her perfectly sculpted brows arch, and she crosses her arms as if that somehow proves her point. “Yes. Afraid. Not hysterical.”

  The sun bakes my skin as I stare out over the crystal-blue water. The scent of coconut oil and saltwater swirl around me with the humid breeze. Paradise… I think on a sigh, then take a burning swig of tequila.

  “Just so you know,” Steph relaxes into her chair, squirming to get comfortable again, “I hated Harold. Loathed him, actually.”

  “What? I thought you liked Harold?”

  “Meh, he was all right until the day he tried to pencil me into your weekly calendar. That put him on my shit list. I’ve been your best friend since eighth grade. I don’t get penciled in.”

  I laugh and turn the bottle up again. Honestly, it’s comical that I spent the last ten years of my life living by Harold’s routines—and good God, the spreadsheets.

  He had one for everything. He had a serious issue, but he swore it was the sign of a good CPA. There was a spreadsheet for dinner to ensure we were eating the right vitamins. One for bills and mileage. He kept his CSI chart taped to the top of our side table, because his anal-retentive ass had to make sure he watched every episode an equal number of times. I played along for the most part, but I drew the line with companion diaries for our bowel movements. That was too far. I didn’t want to know, or need to know, the color and consistency of his crap.

  But even with Harold’s quirks, our marriage wasn’t terrible. Sure, there was no passion, and we had mediocre sex. I at least thought he was safe. I’d learned in my earlier years that men who make you weak in the
knees, the ones who give you butterflies, will do nothing other than eat your heart up and spit it out. Don’t even get me started on that love-at-first-sight bullshit.

  I settled for an average-looking man with an average job and a propensity for Microsoft Excel, because I was confident he would never disappoint me. Imagine my shock when I caught him screwing our twenty-year-old housekeeper on the balcony of our townhome. I never found that written into any schedule or accounted for on any chart.

  A group of young girls trot along the shoreline. Someone whistles at them, and as I watch them strut along, hips swinging and asses firm, it’s like a halogen light bulb goes off. Bright and blinding before it explodes in sparks and smoke. I’m not twenty-something anymore. I’m stuck somewhere between vibrant youthfulness and over-the-hill martyrdom. Divorced when so many other people have just settled down. “Shit.” I release a loud exhalation. “I wasted my prime years!”

  “You did not.” Steph giggles. “Stop it. You’re not even in your forties, and forty is the new twenty or some shit. The world is your oyster.” She waves her open palm, Vanna White style, at the crowded beach around us. “You could sleep with any of those men. Well, not the young ones with the hard bodies. More like any of those guys.” She points at a group of middle-aged men, half of whom are wearing Speedos. “Oh, look at the one in the neon-green banana hammock.” Steph shoves her fingers in her mouth and whistles.

  “He’s got more hair on his chest than his head.”

  “Meh, so maybe you did waste your prime years.”

  Divorces. Speedos. Tits that look like tube socks with tennis balls shoved inside them… Understandably, I turn the bottle up again. I’m newly divorced and in Mexico, after all. When in Rome—in this case, Cancun—do as the Romans do.

  ______

  A headache rocking through my skull wakes me. All I taste is tequila and salt.

  Last night is a blur. There was tequila and “The Macarena.” Tequila and a limbo party. Tequila and… “Oh God,” I groan, swiping my hand over my face. “Steph, I don’t remember anything past that limbo party last night.”

  When I sit up on the mattress, the cool air kisses my bare skin, and I swallow. Why—am I naked?

  My pulse steadily accelerates. Directly across from the bed is an open closet. Several suits hang neatly inside. Shit! This is not my room. Slowly, I turn my head, and there, where Steph should be—because I most definitely should not be in a stranger’s hotel room—lies a man, sprawled out, face down on luxurious, cotton sheets with only one corner of the linen still in place.

  I quickly peek under the comforter and gasp. I’m focused on the horrible razor burn and offensive tan lines on my thighs when my focus should be my current predicament. I clutch the covers to my chest, desperately trying to plan my escape.

  First, I need clothes. My clothes. Any clothes. A towel…

  Closing my eyes, I inhale and shake my head. It’s okay. I just had my first one-night stand. I’m not a whore. Just inexperienced in life. I direct my attention once again to the sleeping man’s muscular back. Tattoos wind over his shoulder and arm, snaking down the length of his side. This is not the type of guy I usually go for. My heart races at the possibilities of this man’s mafia affiliation—a cartel boss is a definite consideration or maybe a drug lord. Only I could drag in the dregs during a sexual escapade that I couldn’t remember. Jesus in heaven. This is almost scandalous.

  I cautiously crawl out of bed, trying not to wake him. As soon as I’m on my feet, I wince. Something about the twinge of pain that just shot between my legs makes this feel even more sordid. I evidently let a strange man fuck me to the point that I—an older-than-I-care-to-admit woman—feel it like a newly deflowered teen. And to top it off, I have zero recollection. Steph is going to love this.

  I quickly survey the room and find my sarong tossed carelessly on the floor, and I snatch it up. Seconds later, I spot my cell phone and what I pray is my room key sitting on the dresser.

  The guy shifts, groaning. My pulse hammers in my ears while I watch in horror as he pats the vacant spot where I’d been lying. Oh, my God. He’s looking for me!

  He sits up and turns, narrowing his hooded, hazel eyes on the empty sheet.

  I’d like to say that my jaw isn’t hanging open, but it is. And rightfully so. That man is the stuff wet dreams are made of. A stubble-covered jawbone. Dark hair tousled in that messy, zero-fucks-given way. Lips Theo James would cut throats for. Muscles. Tattoos… This guy makes Tom Hardy’s looks unfortunate.

  His gaze drifts from the mattress to me, trailing over my body and stopping on my tube-sock tits. I hold up my sarong, covering myself, because unlike last night, I’m painfully sober.

  He smirks, and a dimple pops. I bite my lip, thanking God it’s not two. Two dimples would be akin to kryptonite. Please, don’t let him speak English. That would make this much easier. All I’d have to say is “No habla Español, señor…”

  “The polite thing to do”—he says. In English. Fuck my life. — “would be to leave a thank-you note.” Then he shoots me another, deeper grin. And, of course, two dimples dot his cheeks this time, because this is my punishment for being a slut. Asshole-bastard.

  “Well, I, uh…” My face stings with heat as I slowly begin my retreat across his room.

  “Come on, don’t leave yet.” He pushes up. And he’s very, very naked. Penises are like a magnet, and my gaze drops right to his. I fight a little whimper. That thing must have some serious weight to it. No wonder I’m sore.

  “I have to…” I say, still using my sarong like a protective shield as I back toward the door. “I don’t usually do things like this, and I just—”

  “I know.”

  He can’t possibly know. “You do?”

  One of his impeccably shaped eyebrows arch. He must have money because I would guarantee, brows that perfect only come from being threaded. “How much of last night do you remember?”

  “Well, you know. Enough,” I lie, tripping over one of his shoes.

  “Demi…”

  Oh, I must have been wasted. Demi was the fake identity I used in college, one I thought fit my personality better than Charlie. I mean, I’m named after my dad. My dad, who is an asshole. No guy wants to groan, “Charlie, you’re so wet for me.” Unless it’s guys like Spreadsheet Harold, certainly not El Chapo here. I haven’t used that alias in fifteen years, but what’s the point in correcting a man whose name I can’t even begin to guess.

  He’s smiling, watching me back across the room.

  My heel hits the wall, and I exhale. “I just…” I feel around for the handle behind me, find it, and turn it. The door creaks, causing me to jump as though I’m afraid of my own shadow. “I have a flight to catch,” I blurt.

  “You do realize you’re naked?” He fights a laugh.

  My cheeks heat, and my mind scrambles to save myself from further embarrassment. “Of course I do.”

  The stranger beams with amusement as I wrap the sarong under my arms.

  “Thanks for, um…” I shrug before pointing at his dick. “That.” I slip out and hightail it through the hotel corridor toward the elevator.

  I left my shoes, my shirt…everything in that man’s hotel room. Thank the one-night-stand gods that I remembered my cell phone and grabbed my room key.

  The elevator dings and I step on with a shake of my head. Cheesy jazz music pipes through the speakers. I close my eyes, massaging my temples as I fight to recall anything that took place last night. Flashes of the Latino god at the limbo party come to mind. Us on the beach. He smiles and grabs my hand, and then…I draw a big, fat blank.

  The elevator opens and, as luck would have it, just when I step off, a group of college-aged guys move into the narrow hallway. Great! I tighten my hold on the see-through fabric. Oh, they stare when I do the freshly fucked shuffle right past them. But as tempted as I am to flip them the bird, I refrain.