The Spark (Carolina Connections Book 2) Read online

  The thought of driving back to Greensboro so late was unappealing at best, and with the bubbly coursing through me, would have been idiotic. I am not the most responsible person on a good day—Guilt can attest—and I have a healthy respect for my own limits, so driving would just be begging for trouble. Instead, I crashed in my old bedroom. This happens often enough that I keep a small wardrobe and stash of beauty supplies at my parents’ house for just such times. I consulted my phone on the next day’s plans and slipped into my nightgown. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

  Thank God for champagne.

  Oh right, and for letting me be alive.

  Can I go to sleep now, Guilt?

  Chapter Two

  Go Team!

  MARK

  Maybe if I just opened one eye it wouldn’t be so bad.

  I slowly lifted my left eyelid but quickly snapped it shut again as the morning light seared through my eyeball on a direct path to my brain.

  Ow.

  Last night had not been one of my better ideas.

  Time to man up. I gradually opened both eyes and then blinked rapidly, finally registering the unfamiliar light fixture above me. The bed shifted slightly and I stilled every muscle. Shit!

  I tried to recall last night’s events, but things were a bit fuzzy past the numerous shots at the bar. Everything I knew about myself promised that my bedmate was at least of the female variety, but any other details were up for grabs. I was extremely confident in my sexuality, but I was equally confident in the power of Jack Daniels.

  Ever so slowly, I looked to my side. Okay, lots of dark hair on the pillow—long dark hair—this was good. I could resume breathing.

  Wait, not too fast. I didn’t want to wake her up.

  I carefully rose onto an elbow to have a look around. My brain throbbed painfully in my skull.

  So, not my bedroom. And definitely not my sheets. These had a bunch of colorful girly shit on them. Was that…were those fucking unicorns? It was then I realized I was naked—naked on a shitload of unicorns.

  Oh, God, please tell me I did not just spend the night with a teenager! How could this happen? I was at a bar last night, not a high school party! I looked around frantically for some evidence that this was, in fact, an adult’s room and not that of an underaged girl. Sweet Jesus, what had I done?!

  A pink lava lamp on the bedside table—Shit!

  A stuffed rabbit on a chair in the corner—Shit! Shit! Shit!

  And the rabbit was holding a baby bunny in its fluffy rabbit paws.

  Fuck me—I was going to jail.

  I was too pretty to go to jail, and I definitely didn’t want to be anyone’s bitch. My mom always told me my smile would get me in trouble one day, and here it was. That day had arrived. My perfect smile was going to land me in a twelve-by-twelve cell with a roommate named Attila who would probably want to call me his baby bunny.

  “Oh goody, you’re awake!” a high-pitched voice came from the pillow next to mine. My head swiveled around and I got my first sober look at the girl who would be the cause of my incarceration. Okay, well, Jack had a partial share in the responsibility, but whatever.

  She did indeed have long dark hair that was currently in a rat’s nest around her head, and she had one of those little pug noses that can sometimes be cute, but when faced with a future in the state penitentiary, I wasn’t finding anything cute.

  She offered me an extremely wide smile and almost bounced in the bed while remaining horizontal. She was very cheerful. And young.

  Cheerful and young…and bouncy…cheerful and young? And bouncy?

  Wait one minute—it was coming back to me! I sprang up in bed, ignoring my complete nudity, and searched the floor—and there it was. A goddamn cheerleading uniform.

  Nooooooo!

  “Baby, what’s the matter?” the little jailbait asked.

  “You’re a cheerleader,” was all I could say. Or whimper.

  “Duh,” she perked up. “Remember? Goooooooo Mark!”

  I cringed and then looked back at her. In the midst of her cheer she had lost the top half of the sheet and her plump breasts were on display. I lunged for the sheet to cover her up but she obviously misunderstood my intent.

  “Oh, yay, are we playing lion and lion-tamer again?! Rawr!”

  “No!” I yelled at her. “No more playing! I need to get out of here. Oh my God.” I put my head in my hands and tried to fight off the giant migraine that was forming so I could come up with a plan. A plan that did not involve a three-hundred-pound man feeding me, ahem, carrots.

  “Oh, okay,” she chirped. I chanced a glance at her again to see her shrug and then climb out of bed buck-ass naked.

  I was not only going to jail, I was also going to hell.

  “I have to go to class anyway. Leave your number if you want—maybe I’ll call you sometime. Thanks for the fun night!” She slipped on a robe, blew me a kiss, and opened the bedroom door, grabbing a shower caddy on her way out.

  Thank my lucky motherfucking stars—I was in a college dorm.

  “Why does all the awesome stuff always happen to you?!” Brett asked as he slapped the table in frustration and then took a gulp of his beer.

  What I was doing at a bar again was beyond me, but I was still freaked out by my near miss from the night before and I didn’t feel like hanging out at my place alone. I took a sip of my soda and gave him a look that I hoped communicated exactly how stupid I found him. “Did you not just hear that story?” I looked around the table at the other two guys sitting with us, but they didn’t seem to think Brett’s comment was anything less than spot-on.

  “Dude, you spent the night in a women’s college dormitory with a fucking cheerleader. How old are you? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? That doesn’t happen. And not only did you bang the cheerleading co-ed, she then invited you to come back again and bang her some more. This is like the foundation for every teenage boy’s spank bank. Scratch that—every male on earth, not just the teenagers,” said Brett.

  “I have to say, I’m definitely filing it away,” said Gavin, a friend from work. Gavin’s sister, Laney, was dating my buddy Nate, who also happened to be my sort-of boss. Yeah, confusing, but we’ll get to that later.

  “I might be sporting wood right now thinking about it,” said Trey, as he raised a handful of peanuts to his mouth.

  We all looked at him with a good measure of revulsion.

  “Dude, keep it to yourself or just go home,” said Gavin.

  “You know those nuts have been touched by probably a hundred guys who didn’t wash their hands after taking a leak, right?” Brett pointed to the peanuts and Trey dropped them on the table.

  “Whatever,” I said, sweeping the mess of nuts aside. “You guys don’t fully understand the feeling I had when I woke up and thought for just those few moments that I had crossed that uncrossable line. It was…it was…indescribable. I mean, I was scared shitless and I completely loathed myself. It was awful.” I suppressed a shudder just thinking about it.

  “Okay.” Gavin raised a hand like he was asking permission to speak. “Let’s assume for a moment that this was really as bad as you say.” I nodded and he went on. “What if you, I don’t know, stopped drinking to the point where you black out and bang a complete stranger who may or may not have a daddy waiting down the hall with a loaded shotgun?” He shrugged. “Just an idea.”

  Huh. It was possible he could have a point.

  “Nah,” said Trey. “I say you go back next weekend. I’ll be happy to be your wingman. I used to play football in high school—I’m feeling the need to hear someone cheering my name again—Trey, Trey, Trey!” He raised his beer in a toast and simulated humping under the table. Why did I hang out with this guy again?

  Oh yeah, because I did stupid shit like that too.

  God, I was a mess.

  Today was going to be a new day. I was going to clean up my behavior and start acting responsibly—well more responsibly at least. It was, after
all, completely moronic to drink so much that (a) I couldn’t remember who I’d screwed, (b) I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain I’d used a condom—I know. Just don’t, okay?—, and (c) I could have conceivably broken the law as well as about two hundred moral codes. I’d never envisioned myself as such a douchebag.

  In general, I’d say I am a pretty dependable guy. I have a good job working for a construction company called Built by Murphy, and I’m well thought of there, as far as I know. My friend Nate’s family owns the company and they’ve been really good to me. I started out working there after high school while I took night classes at community college, and over the years I’ve worked my way up to foreman and then, more recently, taken on responsibilities on the administrative side. I get paid well, I work hard, and I enjoy the job and the people I work with.

  In fact, out of all the guys I know in their late twenties, I’m probably the most responsible among us—in theory, at least. I don’t own a home, but I rent a house and I keep it furnished with nice stuff that I take care of. I know what it’s like to live in shit and I don’t reckon I’d like to revisit that experience, so I’m generally careful with my things and my work. I have a truck that may not be the latest model, but it does the trick. I’ve worked hard for my success, which is another reason I was so pissed at myself for losing sight of that and acting like an idiot.

  After the night out with the guys, I’d had a hard time sleeping and couldn’t seem to shut my mind off. It could have been the caffeine from the soda, but I had a suspicion it was more than likely a guilty conscience. Yes, even I have a conscience. Most of my brain wanted to blame my bonehead behavior on the Jack, but there was that one part telling me that maybe I was getting too old to be such a manwhore. Or not. It was too painful to think anymore.

  I ended up getting out of bed at five and going for a run before hitting the gym. I gave a chin lift to Blaine, one of the trainers, on my way out of the locker room. The gym was practically empty at this time on a Sunday morning, with only a few of my fellow die-hards present. I threw my towel on one of the benches and began to stack the weights for my first set of reps.

  The gym is my zen place. I don’t like to brag—okay, that’s not true, I totally like to brag—but I’m a super fit guy. I work out religiously and love to challenge myself and push my limits. I do an hour of cardio six days a week and I do weight training five days a week, rotating areas of the body to achieve maximum results. And I definitely achieve the desired results if the looks I get from women are anything to go by. And then there’s that smile my mom was always talking about, so you do the math.

  I don’t have to try too hard to get a girl into my bed when I want one. Which, I’ll be honest, is pretty often. I like all kinds of women—curvy, thin, short, tall, blond, brunette. As long as it’s not the same girl twice, I’m game.

  I don’t do repeats. It’s too much hassle—feelings get involved and then I have to try to avoid the girl and it’s just a headache I don’t need. Instead, I’m always upfront and tell every girl I’m with that all I’m looking for is a good time. One night of fun and then we part as friends. Or not precisely friends—in fact, the exact opposite. We part as strangers—just how it was meant to be.

  So, the fly in the ointment must have been the alcohol because my fuck-and-run policy was certainly not the problem. It had always worked perfectly for me and I was getting too old to drink like that anyway. I was just going to have to cut down on the booze, just like Gavin had suggested. Awesome plan.

  See, I told you the gym was my zen place.

  Problem solved.

  “Why are these girls so fucking boring?” I asked Nate for the third time that night as I returned to our table.

  “Maybe because you’re sober as a judge and you’re not blocking out their voices while mentally undressing them?” he returned.

  No, that wasn’t it. I was definitely mentally undressing them. They were just boring as shit.

  Gavin had recruited Nate to help clean up my act—you had to admire his youthful energy and optimism. Somehow they had talked me into going to happy hour after work on Friday to hone my new technique. Ha!

  Their plan was for me to attempt to meet an “appropriate” girl without the aid of alcohol and then—choke—simply engage her in conversation instead of seducing her and taking her home. What was the fun in that? What were we, high school virgins?

  Oh right, now I remembered the reason for this little intervention. I decided to placate them and give it a try, but I didn’t really see the point.

  “How do you ever expect to meet the right girl if you can’t have a conversation with her before you whip it out?” asked Nate as he checked his phone. Probably looking for messages from Laney—he was so pussy whipped I was almost embarrassed for him. He’d turned into a fuckmuppet.

  “I meet the ‘right girl’ all the time,” I told him. “I think you and I have different definitions of the ‘right girl.’ My definition involves the girl who’s right for my dick on that particular night.” I fist bumped Gavin as Nate’s eyes lifted from his phone and he gave me a look you’d give a dog who’d just eaten its own shit.

  “What?!” I demanded.

  “For the moment, let’s set aside the issues of possible incarceration and diseases that make your dick fall off. Do you want to be ‘that guy’?” Nate asked.

  “You’ll have to elaborate—my mind is still numb from the conversation I just had with that girl at the bar. She wouldn’t shut up about her pet cockatoo, and I wasn’t even allowed to make any awesome jokes about it.”

  Nate hastily dropped his phone on the table and threw his hand out in exasperation. “The pathetic guy who’s in his mid-thirties and still trolling for college chicks while his friends are starting families and not having to spare any thoughts for STDs and psycho one-night-stands!”

  “That was only once, and how was I supposed to know she’d just gotten out of rehab?!” I pointed my finger in his face and then grabbed my drink, forgetting for a moment that it contained no alcohol. “Since when did you get so old and boring?!” I demanded and slammed my glass down. “This sucks!” I may have whined a bit.

  “Tell that to my cockatoo,” Gavin snorted and then ducked as my fist almost connected with the side of his head. I wasn’t going to actually hit him but I wouldn’t have been too sad if he’d at least fallen off his stool, the asshole. Nothing was going my way tonight.

  “Okay,” Gavin said once he’d stopped laughing and deemed it safe to resume his position on his stool. “Let’s do a little math here.” He spared Nate a glance. “I’m not sure I’m with you a hundred percent on this one, Nate.” His gaze turned back to me. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “So, half plus seven—that gives us twenty-one and a half—let’s be safe and go with twenty-two. It’s not socially acceptable for you to date or bone anyone under the age of twenty-two…which makes last weekend pretty fucked up.” As if I didn’t know that already.

  “We’ve established that, thank you, Dr. Drew,” said Nate. Why in the hell was he so agitated? That was my gig tonight—he needed to get in line.

  “So, all I’m saying is you don’t have to be all domestic like dickless wonder over here—” He gestured to Nate who opened his mouth to object. Gavin’s hand shot out to intercept. “Don’t even try it—you’re dating my sister. It is my God-given right to consider you a eunuch.” Gavin then looked back at me. “Maybe you can at least take a girl out to dinner first—wouldn’t hurt to try. Hell, I’m a lot younger than you and even I take a girl out—well, most of the time.”

  Well, shit, now I’d been slut-shamed and kind of felt like a cross between a lecher and Charlie Sheen—wait, was that redundant? Not important. Instead, I made a mental note to go get tested on Monday.

  Nate turned to Gavin with a half-awed, half-amused expression. “I kind of want to take a video of your little speech and show Laney—you sound so grown up I think she would cry.” />
  Gavin just responded by flipping him off, making the whole point completely moot.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out to see who was calling, hoping for a distraction.

  Shit. My mom.

  I was not in the right head space to talk to her right now, although she did provide further evidence of why romantic relationships are way more trouble than they’re worth. I noted the time—8:15. I’d only be here a bit longer and then I’d call on my way home to check on her.

  “So,” Nate continued, fidgeting on his stool, “I’ve gotta get over to Laney’s soon, but if you’re both done striking out with all the girls in this bar, I need your help with something.”

  “Anything to get off this topic,” I offered.

  He paused and folded and unfolded the bar napkin in front of him. He looked weird. Was he gonna puke?

  “Dude, do I need to hold your hair back or something? You look like you’re gonna puke,” said Gavin, echoing my thoughts.

  “No, I’m not going to puke!” Nate bellowed as the napkin tore in two.

  “Well, you look like it. Oh wait, do you have the shits? Do you need me to walk out behind you? If that’s it, you’re going to owe me big-time!” Gavin grumbled.

  “I don’t have the shits—Jesus, Gavin—I’m going to ask your sister to marry me!” He looked dumbstruck that those words had escaped his mouth, and he face-planted on the table.

  “Fuck,” was all I could say.

  “Dude,” Gavin said, and then promptly fell off his stool.

  Huh, look at that—something finally went my way.

  Chapter Three

  My Favorite River in Egypt

  FIONA

  “Oh my God. I think I just had a tiny orgasm,” Laney whispered under her breath, closing her eyes and licking her lips to retrieve any stray remnants of sauce she may have left behind. “You are more than welcome to work your culinary magic in my kitchen anytime,” she said as if she’d forgotten that I cook at her house at least once a week as it is.