Caveman: Wild Men, #1

By Jo Raven

Matthew Hansen is the kind of handsome that has grown women whispering behind their hands and giggling like schoolgirls.

Dark, tall and mysterious, he's a newcomer to our little town. He's a gritty, grease-covered mechanic, and a single daddy.

Sweet, right?

Plus, he's looking for a nanny – and I am desperately looking for a job.

Sounds like the perfect deal.

Only he's a jerk. An uncivilized, hulking brute. Zero manners. Zero interest in making me feel welcome in his home. Downright rude.

But oh, so sexy.

And I need the job. I can do this.

One thing is for sure: I can't fall for the Caveman. No matter how sexy he is. How mysterious. How tortured.

That's the only rule – and one I'm about to break.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jo Raven
• Release date: May 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386976219

Jo Raven

Jo Raven is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, best known for her series Inked Brotherhood and Damage Control. She writes edgy, contemporary New Adult romance with sexy bad boys and strong-willed heroines. She writes about MMA fighters and tattoo artists, dark pasts that bleed into the present, loyalty and raw emotion. Add to that breathtaking suspense, super-hot sex scenes and a happy ending, and you have a Jo Raven original story. Meet Jo Raven online – on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJoRaven), chat with her on Twitter (@AuthorJoRaven) and join her readers group for sneak previews of her covers and stories (http://on.fb.me/1K2LvzO). Be the first to get your hands on Jo Raven’s new releases & offers, giveaways, previews, and more by signing up here ▶ http://bit.ly/1CTNTHM

Book preview

Chapter One

Matt

There’s a bright, warm place men call home. I searched for it all my life. Thought I’d found it. Let myself roll in the warmth, believe I had reached my destination.

But it was snatched away from me.

So here I am now, standing in the early morning, staring at nothing. The house is big, the town small, a smattering of houses and trees scattered on the plain. The low porch overlooks the overgrown garden, and I gaze at it blindly, not quite sure how I got here. Maybe… through a dark, winding tunnel.

Over a deep, cold sea.

Along a long road going nowhere.

It couldn’t matter less. I’d never heard of Destiny, Missouri, in my life, and that was good enough a reason for me when I grabbed my two kids, stuffed everything I own in my truck, and drove down here.

Maybe it was the name. So fucking symbolic.

So here I am.

Nowhere.

I don’t know what I was looking for, or running from. The beginning and the end of the road are covered in mist. Everything is hazy. I feel as if I’ve been running for ages. Centuries, maybe.

I ran from my memories. I ran from the past. Then I ran from myself, and I still haven’t stopped. How can I? How do you escape what you’ve turned into?

Don’t be so fucking melodramatic, I tell myself.

But when a woman walking a small dog on the other side of the street lifts her hand in greeting, I freeze, stilling even more, until I might as well have turned to stone.

Eventually I step back, into the dimness of the house.

Might as well stop thinking useless thoughts and unpack. Settle in. Make sure the kids are all right.

I find them curled on the old sofa that came with the house, playing with Mary’s toys. Cole is solemnly imitating Mary’s actions—making the Barbie doll in his hand hop on the cushion between them.

Then he throws the doll to the floor and claps his hands.

Mary screams and shoves him.

Motherfucking hell.

I catch him before he topples over and lift him on my hip. A tremor is starting in my body, even though I’m holding him and he’s safe. I fight it, I always fight the way my body reacts to this deep fear, and it’s taking all I have not to let it show.

He threw my toys! she wails, pointing a grubby little finger at Cole who is sitting stiffly in my arms, his mouth downturned. He always destroys my stuff. And I hate my bedroom. You said—

Mary, I growl. Stop.

But… Her lower lip trembles, and her chocolate eyes fill with tears.

Fear mingles with guilt and anger, twisting into a heavy knot of rusty metal in my chest.

I should do something. Say something. But I don’t know what. Don’t kill your brother? Don’t wail like a mini banshee?

Don’t look at me as if I’ve shattered your world?

I set Cole down because my chest feels too tight, and my head is pounding too hard, trying to figure out a way to comfort them both. Not something I’ve had to do in years.

Taking care of others.

Not since the ground crumbled under my feet, taking me with it, into a pit so deep I couldn’t see the light.

And now you can?

Predictably, before I find the words or even move toward her, my five-year-old daughter climbs off the sofa and scampers out of the room, sniffling and sobbing.

Followed closely by three-year-old Cole.

What the hell am I doing here? How can I take care of them?

Love them, I hear a familiar voice in my mind and close my eyes in pain. Love them, Matt.

Of course I love them. They’re my heart’s blood. My own. There was never any doubt about that, not for me.

I shake my head, shake her voice loose, because she isn’t here, but I am.

And I won’t let myself sink into that bottomless black hole again. Not this time. I’m here to break with the past. To escape it once and for all. Remember who I was once.

I can feel it in my bones that it’s my last fucking chance…

Jasper wants to talk to you first, face to face, the guy on the phone tells me in a deep bass voice, but I’ll be straight with you: the job is as good as yours already, and Jasper will pay extra to have you. Qualified mechanics are hard to come by around here.

I blink. Didn’t expect to find a job so soon. This is good news, but I can’t find any joy in me, no matter how hard I search.

I also don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything in the stretching silence.

All right, the guy says finally, giving up on getting a reaction from me. Maybe he’s used to antisocial mechanics. The shop opens at nine. Be here half an hour earlier.

Fine, I mutter, just as a crash comes from upstairs.

My heart jolts. I drop the phone.

Fuck.

I stride to the stairs and take them two at a time, my fucking heart in my throat. Mary! Cole!

Cole is crying, and the sound twists something inside my chest, something that’s been twisted tight for years. Mary is shouting, but I can’t make out words as I pound up the last steps and run to their room.

I burst inside and stop, panting, when I see them both sitting on the floor, the shards of a mug and a dismembered doll between them.

Shaking my head, I bend over to catch my breath for a second. Fucking hell. We’ve only just arrived, and this is my second almost heart attack of the day.

And the day is still young.

One thing becomes clear to me as I crouch down to gather the jagged pieces of ceramic before either of them gets hurt—and where did they get the mug from?—to make sure they aren’t bleeding:

I need to find a nanny.

Chapter Two

Octavia

He won’t give you the job, Tati, my sister says. No way, no how.

You don’t know that. Also, why are you here and not at school?

I’m leaning against the post of the bus stop across from our house, dressed in a knee-length black dress and high-heeled pumps, my hair pulled back, my lipstick a sheer gloss. Not dressed to kill, but to land a job, a job my sister Gigi has decided I won’t get.

Well, gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Little Sis.

I’m getting a ride, she says airily, waving a hand. Her nails are done a different color each, peeking from her black fingerless gloves, and I detect a new blue streak in her hair. Mom will have a fit.

With whom?

Wouldn’t you like to know? She bats her lashes at me.

Same guy as two days ago? Big nose, droopy ears, acne craters across his forehead?

She stomps her foot, grinning. Stop it. He’s not like that.

Yeah, that’s true, he’s not. He’s actually quite good looking. Quasimodo, was it? The guy’s name?

She giggles.

Gigi has the whole Harley Quinn vibe going on. She is the prettier of the two of us, the flirty one, the funny one. The sexy one. Just one year younger than me, she’s less my sister and more my best friend. Guys tend to fall in love with her all the time.

Most of the time she doesn’t even pretend to notice them.

Then I spot someone walking our way and sigh. What about Merc?

What about him?

Is he coming with you?

Our brother, Mercury Tyson, aka Merc, reaches us and takes off his supersonic mega earphones that make him look like the male incarnation of Leia from Star Wars. He gives us a toothy grin.

What are you doing here? Gigi demands.

Hitching a ride with you.

You’re so not.

I so am. Not letting you ride with that creepy guy alone again. He may stick his tongue in your ear or grab your boob.

You’re an idiot, Gigi grumbles, and turns her back to him and her attention back to me. Hansen.

Huh? I’m checking in my bag for the address and phone number of my client, afraid I left them at home.

Matthew Hansen? The guy you’re about to meet? That one. Do you know what you’re up against?

I roll my eyes. He’s just a man. He needs a babysitter. I can do this in my sleep. What else is there to know?

Oh, Sis, you have no clue. Gigi leans in to whisper in my ear. He’s hotter than a nuclear explosion, girl. Panty-melting material. Italian ancestry, lumberjack muscles, huge—

What are you two gossiping about? Merc gives us the evil eye.

He’s also a jerk, Gigi goes on, ignoring him.

For real?

Merc huffs. Hansen is a decent guy. Guy’s a mechanic, works down at Jasper’s Garage. Stop repeating whatever you hear.

Oh, shut up, Merc. Gigi sticks her tongue out at him. The man had two nannies leave already, in the space of a week, and nobody knows why. You know nothing about him.

I gape at her. Two? What happened?

They just walked out, said he was rude. The whole town is buzzing about it.

But I never heard anything.

Then again, I’d been so busy between my graduation from school, sending out college applications and looking for a job that I haven’t done much else these past two months.

I can handle rude, I tell her, and look, my bus is arriving. Wish me luck. And be careful with Quasimodo.

His name’s Quinn! she yells at me as I board the bus. You’ll love him.

Merc makes a face of disgust, and I snicker as I get my ticket and find a seat in the back.

Siblings. Always exaggerating, always teasing.

Can’t live without them, can’t put them up for sale on eBay.

The house looks exactly the same as all the houses on the street, so I doublecheck the number, just in case. The garden is overgrown, the fence needs painting, and there’s no sign of life.

Frowning, I take a moment to pat my hair, making sure no stray strands are curling at my temples, and smooth down my dress.

I’m as formal-looking as I’d ever hope to be in my mom’s old dress and shoes. I think they’re vintage. The shoes seem to be from the seventies, suede with a thick heel, and the dress has pearly buttons down the front. It’s cinched tight at the waist and has small plaits fanning out. I’ve thrown a light black coat on top.

I may not be a beauty like Gigi, but I think I look okay.

And Gigi is making a big deal out of everything, I think, as I press the doorbell. She always does. Matthew Hansen can’t be that rude, or that hot.

One thing is clear in my mind: I’m not leaving from this spot until I land this job. I need that money.

Moments pass, and I shift from foot to foot, tugging on my dress sleeves. I feel as if the whole neighborhood is watching me. Was that a curtain twitching behind the window of the house next door?

Sweat trickles down my back despite the cold.

Should I ring the bell again? When I called, asking about the position, he said to come over at eight.

I decide to wait, give him five more minutes. Maybe he’s upstairs, or in the bathroom. I wait and wait, shifting on my heels, rubbing my hands over my thin coat, before ringing again.

It’s ten past eight. Surely, that’s enough time—

The lock turns, and the door swings open with a screech of rusted hinges, the sound making my teeth ache, and I get a glimpse of something dark and… hairy?

A grizzly this far south?

I make out a pair of bright, dark eyes just as a growly voice says, Hell no.

And the door slams shut in my face.

Shit.

After a few stunned moments spent questioning first my sanity and then the address, I raise my hand and ring again. It is the right house. And I have an appointment. He can’t leave me outside in the cold.

Right?

I ring the doorbell again.

He didn’t even talk to me. And I want this job. I need it. We have debts Mom can’t ever hope to pay back, and I will be leaving town soon… My admission papers and a partial scholarship letter sit at home in the bedroom I share with Gigi, in an envelope under my mattress.

Not that it’s a secret. But I feel like I need to keep them close to me, this promise of a new life, as soon as those debts are paid off, and I can be sure to leave my family set up okay.

There aren’t many jobs in a small place like this, and the salary offered by Matthew Hansen for a nanny to babysit his brats could make all the difference between taking some of the financial stress off Mom or leeching off her for one more summer.

Not an option.

Hey! I bang on his door when leaning on the doorbell brings no results. I’m not leaving! You’d better open up.

Curtains are definitely twitching behind the windows of nearby houses, but by now I’m flushed and warm with righteous anger and desperation.

He does need a nanny, after all. He’s the one who posted the offer on the sheet of paper outside the post office. He can’t send me away without even talking to me.

Open up! I yell. Please, Mr. Hansen, just give me a chance—

The door swings wide open, and I stumble back with a yelp.

You’re fucking crazy, he hisses. What the hell do you want?

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out as I take my first good look at him in broad daylight.

Wow.

Okay, Gigi wasn’t exaggerating. He sure is hot. His white tank top and low-slung sweats mold to a powerful body. Tousled dark hair falls in his bright eyes. He scratches at his short, scruffy beard, and licks soft-looking lips.

He grunts. "Who the fuck are you?"

Oh yeah, Gigi was right on both accounts. He’s hot—and an asshole.

Octavia Watson. I’m here for the interview? Of course you’re here for the interview, don’t make it into a question. You told me on the phone that I should be here at eight.

There.

I lift my chin and wait, my gaze meeting his. His eyes are dark, and I don’t mean just dark brown. They’re deep and stormy like rainclouds about to burst. Dark like night wells that don’t reflect the moonlight.

Interview? he mutters, sounding confused.

For the job. To babysit your children.

He squints at me.

Encouraged, I step closer. He towers over me, and his scent hits me—clean male sweat with a hint of…something chemical? Can I see the kids?

What? He scowls. No.

My heart drops to my feet. But…

We’re done here. He starts closing the door, and I panic.

I have experience! Look, I raised my brother and sister. I love kids, I’m really good with them. On the phone, you said—

He slams the door closed and I stumble back, stunned.

Jesus.

Screw you, Matt Hansen! I shout at the shuttered house, my hands fisting at my sides. I swallow hard. Jerk.

Only silence answers me this time.

Well, that went down real fine, Octavia. Real fine.

What now?

I turn my back to the door, my eyes stinging. And I hate it. I hate that this affects me so much. It’s unfair that he told me I had a chance and then slammed the door in my face without hearing me out.

It’s the unfairness that gets to me. As I stand in the morning light, not blinking, hoping I won’t shed any tears—for all the things I’ve wished for since I was little in this shitty town, for all the dreams that I may not yet fulfill—I feel so close to falling apart, it’s unreal.

Get yourself together, Octavia. This is nothing.

A small setback.

Repeating that to myself, I walk down the porch steps and stare out into the empty morning, down to the path crossing the small, overgrown garden, already thinking of any other job I could find and cursing myself for heaping all my hopes on this one as if it were a sure thing.

A mistake.

But life goes on, like before, and it’s up to me to change it around.

Chapter Three

Matt

Once I’ve managed to locate and pull on a marginally clean shirt, once I’ve put on shoes and raked a hand through my wild hair, I grab the kids and go leave them with a neighbor for the day.

Not the one across the street who’s turned out to be a chain-smoking granny, about a thousand years old, lost in a web of wrinkles and attitude. No, a young mom of three, five houses down, who looks hurried and overwhelmed in a flowery dress and a scarf wrapped around her head.

I pay her a big wad of dollars to keep an eye over the little brats while I work. It’s the fifth day in a row, and it feels wrong.

And expensive for my limited funds.

Cole clings to my leg as I turn toward the door to go. Guilt stabs sharp teeth into my soul. I shove it deep and ignore it, detaching my son from my leg and setting him aside.

Mary watches me from a few feet away, accusation in her eyes, her small mouth tight.

Hell.

It’s okay, Mr. Hansen. I’ve got them, the woman says. Her name is Sally, or Dolly, or something equally unimportant to me.

I nod, a dark thread of worry winding its way through the tangled mess of my thoughts. I’ll call at noon.

As I walk to my truck, I think again how much cheaper hiring a nanny would be. Better for the kids, too. More… stable. God knows stability hasn’t been part of their lives so far.

Yeah, I know, I’m failing as a father.

Then again, what’s new? What the fuck ever. I just need a nanny to keep an eye on the kids while I’m away at work, but the two who applied for the position earlier this week didn’t even look at my kids when they entered the house. It was obvious they didn’t give a fuck.

Instant disqualification.

So okay, I’ll keep looking. There are bound to be more women looking for a job in this town. I’ll find another.

Just… not her.

Not Octavia.

She’s not suitable. Not acceptable. Not… I dunno. She’s way too young. And headstrong. Not what I had in mind.

So that’s that. End of story.

Jasper’s Garage is on the other side of the town, a ten-minute drive. I could have walked, but I’m late as it is. Not giving the best of impressions during my first week of work.

What do I care about impressions, though? As long as I keep the job, I don’t give a damn, and Jasper Jones won’t kick me out. Good mechanics are hard to come by in this neck of the woods, it seems, and the money he’s paying me is good.

Or… I could let him kick me out. I could walk away. Take the kids and keep moving, keep searching for salvation. But the scary thing is… I’m not sure I even fucking care anymore.

There’s a guy I don’t know smoking right outside the garage door. I stride inside and check the tasks of the day, then head over to the bays and locate the car I’m supposed to work on.

Jasper’s right hand, Evan, nods at me without a comment, and I get to work. I like the fact he’s a man of few words.

My words are few, too. Not many to start with, and they’ve dried away over the years.

Which is just as well.

I lose myself in my work. Rivets, chassis, rumbling engines. All this is so familiar it almost feels like home.

Almost.

Lying on my back under the car, I frown up at the dark metal, and it fades, so that I see a night without stars, a road vanishing in black mist, and I shiver.

Cole fell and hit his knee sometime during the day, and the neighbor supposedly looking after him didn’t think to let me know. Mary is shooting me baleful glances and won’t speak to me when I go to pick them up in the later afternoon.

Girl hates me.

I have to drag her to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and then her hair tie gets caught in her hair, and she wails as I try to take it out, even though I try my godfucking best not to hurt her.

I don’t wanna hurt them.

Gritting my teeth, I wrestle the damn thing out of her golden curls and sit her down on the closed toilet seat. Just in time to catch Cole before he pitches over into the bathtub.

While I hold on to my son’s small body as he flails and whines, Mary takes the opportunity to jump off the toilet and run out of the bathroom, wailing some more.

I stand in the middle of the badly lit bathroom, trying to catch my breath, not sure what the fuck to do. My kids don’t know me anymore. They don’t like me.

They sure as hell don’t love me.

I took them away from the only other family they still have—my mom, who took care of them while I lost myself. I barely saw them over the past three years, and then I yanked them away from the only home they remember and brought them here, to this small town in the middle of nowhere, leaving them during the day with a woman who can’t look after them.

I’d fucking hate me, too.

Cole screams and I curse, putting him down. He runs away from me as fast as his little feet can carry him, and I step back until I hit the wall and slide down.

Fuck this shit. I was never good at this. She was. She wanted kids. She loved them, and I… I was helpless when it came to her.

Now that sounds like I regret them. Which isn’t true. I love them.

I just don’t know how to deal with it.

Christ, I need to sleep. It’s been a while since I last managed a couple of hours in a night. I’ll force it on myself, since nothing else works. Everything, anything to forget the past. To forget Cole’s little mournful face as I walked out this morning, Mary’s wail.

By the time I push back to my feet and splash my face at the sink, then make my way to the kid’s bedroom, the brats are two lumps under their covers, pretending to be asleep.

Like every night.

They won’t let me tuck them in.

Good night, I whisper, not sure they hear me. I stare at them a bit longer, remembering when I first held them in my arms, tiny, squirming bundles of energy and life.

My kids.

Switching off the light, I turn around and walk out to the kitchen. I leave the lights off. By touch I find the sleeping pills and swallow two with a gulp of water.

Resist the urge to take more. All of them.

Then I head into the living room and sink down on the sofa, turn on the TV and stare at it without seeing anything.

At some point, I’ll fall asleep. There’s no escape. And I know the nightmares are waiting for me.

The coffee is stale and toxic, like nuclear waste, burning my mouth. Across the sky dawn is breaking in red and yellow.

At long fucking last.

Dressed only in my sweatpants and a thin T-shirt, I’m standing on the porch, a mug in my hand I don’t remember getting from the kitchen, and a bitter fog in my lungs.

I’m on my last smoke. My last inhale.

My head is full of swirling darkness.

And then I look down at the steps leading to the yard, remembering that girl—yesterday, was it only yesterday?—the wannabe nanny, all star-eyed innocence, her mouth sinfully full, her small tits and slender body, her dark hair—and my body tightens with a pang of arousal.

With a curse, I head back inside and hunt for the bottle of booze under the kitchen sink, sparing a single thought to whether the kids might discover it in that not so well-thought hiding place, and Christ, I’m drinking before going to work, dammit—then I replace the coffee with pure Scotch and wash the night down.

Taking a deep drag from my cig, I lean against the sink with a groan. I’m a mess. I can’t take care of the kids. What was I thinking?

Leaving. That was what I was thinking. All I could think of at some point.

Not having to put up with the questions and the concern anymore. Not having to hide from everyone who watched, waiting for me to fall apart.

But I didn’t. Not as far as they could see.

It was a no-win situation. If I fell apart, I wasn’t a real man. If I didn’t, well… I had a heart of stone.

I thump my chest once, softly, with my fist. Maybe it has turned to fucking stone. God knows it feels that way. Cold. Heavy.

Unfeeling.

Maybe it was the only way.

In any case…. yeah, I had to leave, and take kids with me. Leaving them behind wasn’t an option.

Even if they hate me.

Maybe I should have left them. Maybe they’d have been happier without me. Not like they’d miss me. Maybe…

Yeah, whatever. It’s done, now. We’re here.

And I need to get my head on straight before it’s too late.

Chapter Four

Octavia

There are other jobs out there, Gigi says when she finds out about my failed attempt to talk to Matt Hansen.

But she’s still in school and hasn’t really looked for herself, apart from small summertime jobs such as selling tickets at the drive-in movie theater out of town and the occasional festival. If we lived in Springfield, or close to it, maybe, but here…

Here we’re in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I need something better than minimum wage. I need a steady job, a good-paying job, to pay those debts off, debts accumulated at a time Merc was sick and Mom had to take out some loans to keep us afloat, what with having no family to support her.

Pay the debts, and go off to college, so that I can return and take proper care of my family. That’s my dream.

Hey, I’m not giving up on that.

So I’m officially on a job hunt. I’ve already asked at the few shops on the main street if they’re looking for help, but so far, all I got in way of answers was heads shaking in the negative.

Nothing.

Not that I’m surprised. There’s a reason I banged on Matthew Hansen’s door and insisted to be interviewed. Although embarrassing myself in front of his neighbors made no frigging difference.

I’m not qualified for anything much, not yet. I’ve worked in a store before, so that counts, but without any job openings in the few stores of the town it’s useless.

And like I told Tall, Dark and Jerk, I know how to handle kids, how to care for them. I just love kids. I’ve thought about studying to become a kindergarten teacher. That would be awesome.

But that’s in the future. For now, the dream seems so distant. No matter how many ads I’ve gone over, how many houses I called, the few requests for nannies that were advertised have all been filled, and I’m running out of options.

I lick my dry lips, too hot in my dark pants and soft gray blouse, my feet killing me even in my conservative low heels as I make one more round, the same I made yesterday and the day before.

The round of desperation.

I visit the grocery store, the ice cream shop, the small hardware shop, the bank, the dentist and the two diners. I ask at the second-hand store, the gas station, and the old pizza place where Mom works. Then I enter the new coffee shop with its shiny brand new white tables and steel chairs and ask once more.

Nope. Nada.

My dream of escape dwindles on the horizon. A mirage. It was never real, never going to happen.

Unless… unless I pack my bags and leave town, penniless and desperate. Go to the big city and take my chances there.

Leave Mom, and Gigi, and Merc behind.

Not forever, I tell myself as a vise tightens around my heart. Just for a while, until I find a job and save some money. And then I’ll go to college and return with a good salary to take care of them all.

This has been my dream ever since I can remember.

And what kind of job would an educated person find here?

That’s the question I’ve been avoiding.

That, and the thought of the years between now and then, and of how badly leaving my family behind will hurt. We’re so close. My dad leaving only served to bring us closer, and going away will be like sawing off a limb.

Shaking my head, trying to dislodge the thought like every time it surfaces, I stop in front of the drugstore.

Whatcha doing here, Zipper Lips? The witty one is Anthony Stone Campbell, who’s lounging outside the coffee shop across the street, his lips pulled into a sneer.

He may have grown up from the skinny, stinky kid in my class into a tall, less stinky guy, but he never lost his obnoxiousness. Looks like you can’t outgrow mean, or stupid.

Ignoring him with the ease of long practice, I step inside the drugstore, not even sure I want to ask yet again about a job. I already know there isn’t an opening.

Maybe I’ll just buy some painkillers. My head hurts from the heat I’ve been trudging through all day.

Or some sunscreen. It feels as if my nose will be peeling come tomorrow. I touch it gingerly and wince.

Inside the store it’s blessedly air-conditioned, and I let the cool air blow on my flushed cheeks as the door closes behind me.

My hair is a frazzled mess, and I pat it down in a desperate effort to look presentable as I approach the counter. I easily find some ibuprofen, but then realize there are three people ahead of me, and I check out the small make-up display to distract myself while waiting.

Gigi always says I should wear more make-up. She says my eyes are pretty and that I should outline them more.

Gigi is crazy.

I put down the lipstick I was checking out—the hue is called Flamingo, which makes me grin—and catch a guy’s gaze