Bottoms Up: The Rock Bottom Series, Book 1 Read online

  I didn’t even know the guy, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. He was too good looking. His smile was too slick, and his dimples were too deep. Yes. I know how ridiculous I sound, but everything about him was getting on my nerves.

  “Where are the two of you from?” Brooke passed the food around to Liam and Tucker, and I thanked God she was there. Otherwise, this dinner would be completely awkward.

  “A really small town in Tennessee. You’ve probably never heard of it.” Liam chuckled.

  “What brought you all here?” I grabbed a breadstick out of the basket that Liam just handed me.

  “Business ventures,” Tucker said while looking over at Liam.

  “That’s vague.” I snorted. “Does that mean you’re selling drugs or something?”

  “No.” Liam laughed. “That would probably be more lucrative though. We’re actually working on a restaurant downtown.”

  “So, Brooke.” Tucker’s voice pulled me out of my own head, and I realized I was wadding up my napkin in my lap. “Are you a professional cook?”

  I snorted and every set of eyes turned to me including Brooke’s narrowed ones.

  “Sorry. There was something in my throat.” I avoided looking at Brooke because I knew I would be getting a death glare. The reason why? She was a horrible cook. One of the worst. But she had about three meals in her arsenal that she was damn good at. Steer outside of those three meals, and you would probably be puking for a week. Luckily, tonight she had cooked her top recipe. Lasagna.

  “Well, it tastes amazing,” Liam said to Brooke and shot her a smile that was causing her to practically swoon before my eyes.

  I bit into my own food before I could manage to make any more embarrassing noises, but I groaned when the flavor hit my tongue. How someone could cook something so good then butcher everything else was beyond me.

  “Is it as good as it sounds?” Tucker’s voice was low but full of humor.

  I swallowed the food that was still in my mouth. “What?”

  “You were practically moaning over there. I think I know what you sound like when you’re about to come.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “If that is what it sounds like when you’re about to make a woman come then you seriously need some practice.”

  Liam choked on a sip of his drink and then a coughing fit started that was mixed with laughter. Tucker was laughing too. My insult didn’t faze him.

  “Like I said, firecracker.” He took another sip of beer, and I was suddenly jealous of the bottle that was touching his lips.

  “Like I said, practice.” I winked at him before cracking my own smile, and internally I shivered a little because I didn’t think he would need any practice at all.

  4

  Mother From Hell

  Thump.

  Thump, thump.

  Thump.

  Peeking one eye open, I stared around my pitch-black bedroom.

  Thump.

  I looked over my head and stared at the wall behind me. I felt like I was having deja vu except this time it was pounding on the wall instead of loud music.

  Thump, thump.

  My head rattled with the loud hammering behind me, and I could have sworn that I could almost feel vibrations in my bed.

  I set up and stared at the wall. Mad wasn’t a good enough description of what I was. I needed sleep, and I wanted it uninterrupted.

  I wasn’t sure which of my new neighbors shared a wall with me, but I knew that I was ready to kill him. They had literally just left our apartment a few hours before. Did they have a speed dial of tramps just waiting for their call?

  Thump.

  I guess that was my answer.

  Those man whores.

  It ran through my mind that I should have just got up and went to sleep on the couch, but it was my house, damn it. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. In peace.

  Light flooded the room when I clicked on my lamp, and I went searching for my headphones and iPod. I pressed the power button and smiled at the image of a cat wearing sunglasses pointing its paw at me saying “You’re Purrfect.”

  I entered my passcode and scrolled through my music to find something that I could manage to sleep through.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  It would definitely need a beat.

  My hand hesitated over the song choices and with a simple title of a song, I got a new idea. I quickly grabbed my speakers and set them on my nightstand, but instead of pointing them where I could hear them, I faced them directly against the wall. I clicked on the song before turning my volume to full blast. I knew it wouldn’t bother Brooke. The speakers could be next to her ear, and it wouldn’t wake her up.

  The lyrics to “Scrub” by TLC blared through the speakers, and I flew back on my bed in a fit of giggles. I could no longer hear the pounding against my wall, but I wasn’t sure if it was because they had stopped or because my music was too loud.

  Then it happened.

  There was a series of rapid knocks against my wall. I paused my music and waited to see what would happen next as my heart raced in my chest. I stared at the wall as if I was expecting someone to jump through it at any moment.

  My heart beat louder than the thumping moments before.

  A deep laughter echoed through the wall then I heard his gruff voice yell, “Well played, Firecracker.”

  …

  The next day I didn’t have a shoot scheduled, and I was thankful that I didn’t have to wake up early for work because I had an appointment, yes, appointment, scheduled with my mother. Sleep was desperately needed for an appointment with my mother, and I couldn’t miss it either. If you missed an appointment with my mother, you would never hear the end of it.

  You’re so irresponsible.

  Maybe if you had a real career, you would understand the importance of keeping appointments.

  That one was my favorite.

  Neither of my parents approved of my “little hobby” as they so nicely put it. They had expected me to become a doctor like my brother or possibly a lawyer like my dad. I think my mother’s biggest dream was for me to marry a doctor or a lawyer like she did, but I disappointed them both and followed my dream. They refused to acknowledge my photography as an actual career.

  It didn’t matter how much money I made or how many times I got recognized, it would always be a hobby to them. It didn’t matter that I was booked out for a few months.

  I liked to lie to myself and say that their opinion didn’t matter, but deep down, it mattered way too much. But every time someone raved about my work, it seemed to chip away a small amount of the weight of their disapproval. I always avoided them long enough that I almost felt weightless by the time I saw them again, but they never failed to lay it on me again.

  We were meeting at a trendy restaurant downtown close to my favorite buildings. I would have settled for a burger joint, but my mom didn’t do greasy food or hole in the wall restaurants. She couldn’t have it affecting her body or her image. She would drop dead before one of her “friends” saw her in a place like that.

  I walked into the restaurant, but I didn’t have to approach the hostess because I could see my mother sitting in the middle of the restaurant where she could see everyone and everyone could clearly see her. She smiled up at me but I could see the fakeness in her cheery expression as I always had. She looked down my body, and I almost saw her physically jolt back when she saw the jeans that covered my legs.

  Her overly sweet perfume hit my nose as soon as I plopped down in the seat across from her. It was a familiar smell and one that always made my stomach turn.

  “Could you not dress appropriately just once?” She acted exasperated but her voice was low so no one around us could hear that she was anything but perfectly happy.

  I looked across the table at her flawlessly pressed pink button-down top that I was sure was either tucked into trousers or a pencil skirt. There wasn’t much variety where that was concerned. Her perfect brown hair was pul
led back in a tight bun that made her face look even more severe than the Botox injections alone could provide. As if she needed the help.

  “It’s nice to see you too.” I pulled my napkin off the table in front of me and laid it in my lap.

  The waiter arrived at the table before she could get out another snarky comment, and I ordered a Coke while she ordered a mimosa.

  “Drinking at lunch. You must have had a hard day.”

  “Don’t sass your mother in public.” She straightened her already perfectly straight top while smiling at the table next to us.

  “So what did you want the appointment for?” I cut to the chase.

  She looked me over again, and I could feel her judgment with every inch of skin her eyes passed over. I could feel it as if it was a living breathing thing.

  “Why don’t you let me make you an appointment at my salon so they can do something with your hair? You’re not a teenager anymore.”

  I fingered a strand on my straight hair then looked back up at hers. I didn’t know what she expected of me. Why I had to fit some perfect mold.

  Her stern eyes were boring into mine when I didn’t answer her. “Did you see the new restaurant that they are putting in down the block? They should have just torn down that building and started over.”

  “I’m not really into new buildings. I like things that are old and decrepit. What’s it called?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Rock Bottom. How tacky.”

  Before I could tell her that I really liked it, the waiter returned to our table and set our drinks in front of us.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t ask me if I was ready. “I would like a house salad with the vinaigrette dressing on the side. Do you know if the dressing is made fresh?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “If not, I would like it freshly made.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned to me.

  “I’ll take the cheeseburger with fries, please.”

  He smiled at me kindly then took our menus and walked away to probably spit in our food.

  “Should you really be eating a burger? You’ve finally lost some weight, and you know how easy you put it back on.”

  I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. If my mother wasn’t complaining about my job, then she was complaining about my weight. As you could imagine, having a fat daughter didn’t really fit into her perfect storybook life, and I couldn’t count the number of diets or work out plans she had forced me to do over the years. She wanted a daughter who was her mini-me. Someone who she could go to the salon with regularly and dress up like a Barbie doll, but a plus size Barbie wasn’t in her repertoire. I was never into sweater vests or pastel pink, and it drove her insane.

  “So are you going to tell me the real reason why you wanted to meet today?” I ignored her question about the burger.

  “Your father and I have been talking, and we think it’s time that you stop playing and decide on a career.”

  And there it is.

  “Your father said that he will allow you to come work at his firm as a receptionist while you get into school, and if you choose an approved major, we’ll pay for it.”

  Now I know what you might be thinking. A free education? Score! But nothing with my parents was free. Everything they gave came with strings attached. Except those strings tended to be more like chains.

  Did you hear the “approved” portion of that grand gesture? I knew exactly what that meant. I could choose from being a lawyer, doctor, pharmacist, or a similar career. As if there wasn’t anything else that could suck my soul out for cheaper.

  I was a creative person. I loved to create, capture, invent, get my hands dirty, and not with a bunch of criminals that I got paid several hundreds of dollars an hour to defend. My dad would defend anyone. As long as you could pay, he’d be on your side.

  “That’s not going to happen.” I shook my head at her. “I have a career, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, and I have no interest in going back to school.”

  “When are you going to stop wasting your life? You have no stability in photography. No guaranteed income.”

  “It is stable. I’m booked out months at a time.”

  She waved her hand to cut me off. “What about ten years from now, Kennedy? Do you really think you’ll be out there taking pictures?”

  I swallowed the words that I wanted to spew at her. I wanted to tell her how happy my photography made me. I wanted her to know how well I was doing, but I knew it wouldn’t matter.

  I had said it all before and she didn’t care.

  “Have you talked to Jessica lately?” She stabbed her fork into her salad. “She’s almost finished with her MBA.”

  Internally, I rolled my eyes, but I just dipped a French fry into ketchup.

  “She will have so many opportunities when she gets finished. She has so many opportunities in front of her now.”

  I nodded my head and shoved the fry in my mouth.

  It wasn’t the first time I had heard about how amazing Jessica was, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  Jessica’s mother and mine had been friends for as long as I could remember, and Jessica had always been around. She was always there, and she had always been better than me. At least to my mother.

  She would always be better than me to my mother.

  Jessica was the perfect version of the daughter my mother always wanted. She was beautiful, she was smart, she did exactly as her parents wanted, but she was also cruel.

  I had spent too many years of my life ridiculed by the cruelty that Jessica spewed.

  “That’s awesome for her, Mom, but I don’t want to get my MBA.”

  I could see the frustration in her eyes without her even saying a word. I could feel her disappointment.

  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it, that I hadn’t spent too many nights lying awake in bed thinking about it. About doing whatever it took for them to be proud of me. I thought about it all the time.

  “It doesn’t have to be your MBA. You have several other options.” She smiled a large smile and waved at someone making their way over to us.

  And just like that my mother dropped everything else to make small talk with her friend who I didn’t recognize. She was dressed almost identically to my mother, and I just smiled and finished my meal while they gossiped.

  With every passing second, I let my doubts fester. Doubts about what I was doing. Doubts about whether or not I was making the right decisions.

  Doubts about me.

  5

  Fabio

  I took my time walking home and took in the scenery around me. Each building, every tree. I imagined how it would look through my camera lens. It calmed me. Centered me. I needed it before I made my way back home. If I had gone home directly from the restaurant, Brooke would have known exactly what was wrong with me, and Brooke despised my parents.

  She begged me frequently to quit wasting my time on them at all, but for some reason, I apparently liked to torture myself. I knew the likelihood was practically impossible, but somewhere deep inside of me, I hoped that one day my parents would actually love me for who I was. It was a dream that would never come true, and I needed to stop wasting my time on it. I knew that. But it was easier said than done.

  By the time I made it to our building, I was emotional, irritated, and exhausted. A long bubble bath, a large glass of wine, and a good book were exactly what I needed. What I wasn’t in the mood for was the loud music that filled the hallway as soon as I made it to our floor.

  The sound of me knocking on their door could barely be heard over the music, so I continued to knock until I heard movement from the other side. I never thought I was such a picky neighbor, but the constant noise coming from their apartment was about to drive me insane.

  The door jerked open and my jaw hit the floor. In front of me stood a very shirtless and very muscular Tucker. His hands were covered with yellow rubber gloves, and
one hand held a bottle of cleaner while the other was latched around a rag.

  “What have I done now, Firecracker?”

  “Do you need hearing aids?” I dropped my gaze down his tan body tracing the ridges of his abs and practically drooled when I got to the deep V of his hips.

  “I don’t think so.” He chuckled, deep and masculine.

  I traced my way back up each ripple of muscle before I noticed he was watching me. My blush was creeping up my chest.

  “Well, you’re going to if you don’t turn down your music. Are you always so loud?”

  “I haven’t really noticed, but it’s good to know that you are noticing me.” He smirked, and I simultaneously wanted to suck his bottom lip into my mouth and smack the smirk off his lips.

  “I wouldn’t take that as a compliment when you’re in everyone’s face.”

  “I guess you’re right, but Brooke doesn’t seem to mind my ‘loudness,’” he actually did air quotes, “as much as you do.”

  He was right, but Brooke rarely complained about anything. It was just who she was.

  “I’m really not in the mood for this today, Tucker. Please just turn down the music.”

  His smirk instantly dropped from his face, and he stood taller.

  “Are you okay?” He actually looked concerned.

  “Yes. I just need some peace and quiet.”

  “Done.” He looked me in the eyes. “I’ll be here for a few more hours before I have to run some errands if you want to talk about it.”

  “No, thanks.” I tucked some loose hair behind my ear. “I’d rather go listen to the characters in my book.” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder.

  “Well let me know if Fabio has any tips for me.” He laughed softly and started to run his gloved hand through his hair but thought better of it.

  “Will do.” I chuckled, and he smiled at me.