Below Unforgiven (2 page)

6.0
Matthew’s house

Drop out of Case Western University, plagued with headaches.

Move in with Matthew.

Cont’d

“It doesn’t matter how much it costs, Vivian.”

“I have no insurance, I’m not covered by yours, and the delivery alone will be-…,”

“Stop worrying.” He pinched my pinky toe, and I giggled, twisting away.

Neither of my parents had ever carried health insurance. My father made nearly $300 thousand a year after climbing up the corporate ladder of a huge cellular phone company, and was stubborn in his beliefs that health insurance was a waste of money. My mother fully supported him.

Of course.

After I’d stopped speaking to my mother, my father had offered Matthew a sarcastic ‘congratulations, asshole’ before suggesting we look into Welfare. I tried to block that entire day from my mind.

Though I was speaking to my mother again, I was too proud to accept any money from my parents.

Not that they’d offered.

Matthew and I weren’t married yet, and there was no way I’d be covered under his insurance. The baby would, of course, but not the delivery.

I nudged him with my toe. “Why in the world do you want to marry a wannabe actress, anyway? You’re too smart for that,” I murmured, blinking. Dark spots skittered across the white walls of the living room, and I narrowed my eyes.

“You’re an amazing actress.”

“At least I have you convinced.”

“Why are you blinking like that?”

I turned to look at him.

And that was the last thing that I remembered.

One Year Later

Sin City

“Darlin, we got a situation here.”

Cringing, I drug my teeth against my bottom lip, mouthing a silent
fuck
. Turning to the counter with an overly bright smile, I raised my eyebrows. “What’s the problem, Mr. Grady?”

With a pft, he slapped the plastic DVD case on the counter, leaning forward on his elbows. The smell of tobacco and sweat and crotch turned my stomach.

“What’d I tell you? Just Mike.”

“Mike,” I corrected quickly, taking a step backward.

“
Magic
Mike.”

I raised my eyebrows again, my forced smile falling. “What’s wrong with the movie, Mr. Grady?”

“Skips. Scratched or something.”

I glanced down at the title.

Beaverjuice
.

Oh, clever.

“Okaaaay,” I gingerly picked the plastic case up by the corner. “The whole movie, or just parts?”

He gripped his enormous belt buckle and tugged left and right about five times, rolling his tongue in his mouth like he was preparing for the spittoon. “Eh, I don’t know, ‘round the time she’s getting ate-out by the ghost sluts in the attic, ‘suppose.”

“Okay! Thanks!” I clipped, tossing the case next to the old Sylvania TV/DVD combo. I reached for two pumps-make that three-of Purell next to the basket of movie boxes. The hinges of the saloon doors in the back of the trailer squeaked before I could turn to the cash register.

“This one’s on the house,” he called from the partitioned porn alcove, and I rolled my eyes, tightening my long, dark ponytail.

“I’ll credit your account after I review the disc.”

“Hmfp,” he snorted, and I heard the sound of boxes shifting on the shelves.

“Take your time in there,” I mumbled, under my breath.
Lots to consider. Girl on girl? Girl on
girl
on girl? Fetish?

I know, I sounded like a judgy two-shoes. Really, I had no problem with porn. I also had no problem with the hard-working actresses oh-my-god-I’m-coming their way through law school. Fine, whatthefuck ever, do what you gotta do. But I
did
have a problem with perves like Magic Caveman making up imaginary reasons why he was getting free porn tonight while he made sweet love to his knuckles.

“You still actin’? That why you workin’ here?”

Cringing, I wiped my palms on my jean shorts. Really? I’m an aspiring actress, therefore I work in a backwoods video store straight out of 1996?

“Someday. I need to save up, you know, work for a while.” I absently reached for my copy of
Doubting Damon
, a hopeful Indie novel of plotless proportions. The tagline on the back cover made me cringe. “
Damon’s on a path of sexual self-destruction… and only Belina can save him.
”

I wanted to strikethrough the entire blurb with my Sharpie and write: “
He was a masochistic fuckwad, but given his ability to speak in short, staccato sentences, her precious virginity was his for the taking. Moo ha ha ha!
” (Complete with smoldering, growling, and roguish goatee grabbing.)

My best friend, Theresa, had self-published a book our senior year. She had asked me to edit and format the manuscript, as well as build her a website, and I’d had so much fun designing her page that I did one for myself to sell my editing services.

My indie author clientele was growing, and I was making some decent money editing. Usually, I preferred an eversion of the book on my Kindle app, but this time the author had sent me a paperback.

I was getting paid fifty bucks to edit all three hundred pages of the print version of
Beaverjuice
.

Oh, well. Fifty bucks is fifty bucks.

“You legal yet?”

I didn’t like where this was going. I also couldn’t see his hands from behind the paper-thin trailer wall. “I’ll be twenty-one on Saturday,” I answered defensively.

While slender had described me best for most of my life (except during my pregnancy) there was a
little
magic going on in my new C cups lately. My grandmother had greeted me at her door in June, giving me an appreciative,
Sixteen Candles-
esque once over. I had almost expected her to clap her hands together and squeal ‘Vivian! You’ve gotten your boobies!’

My body had changed into a curvy place that I didn’t recognize, but now I was getting more attention than ever before.

“Whoooo, need an A/C unit in here. Hotter than a hoochiecootchie in this here trailer.”

He emerged, satisfied, tossing
Intercourse with the Vampire
on the counter. I sighed, ringing the rental into the computer. “You know,
True Blood
is basically the same thing-and it kind of has a story line, too.”

“Don’t get HBO.”

“Right.” I smiled again, slipping the movie into the Valley Video bag. “Have a good night.”

He winked at me, tossing two wadded up fives to the counter. “Keep the change, darlin’. Your granmama tells me you’re workin’ too hard. Four jobs? Five?”

“She worries too much,” I gestured to the cash register. “This’ll be credited to your account, Mr. Grady, for tomorrow. But I appreciate the gesture.”

He tipped the bill of his cap, grinning again. Eyelid up, cheek to brow, flash of teeth. Is he winking? Is that a tick?

“Take it easy, darlin’.”

Ew. “Yep.” I waited until he pulled out of the gravel driveway before flicking on the patio lights. I was closing up at ten tonight, whether Robin liked it or not. She made about enough money from Valley Video to pay me and buy one ‘new’ movie a week. And by new, I meant we finally carried
Twilight
.

New Moon.

Cracking open the DVD case, I flipped the shiny part over and held it under the old desk light. “Scratched my
ass
.” After a second, I giggled at my own stupid joke, pressing the eject button and waiting for the plastic tray to pop out of the TV. I tossed the disc into the tray, letting the machine whir and groan as it begged for readable content.

The candy beneath the counter caught my eye. Twisting my lips, I considered being good and going for the cherry Blow Pop. Fifty cents versus a dollar. One dollar, a whopping one-sixth of my shitty hourly wage. At the last minute I grabbed for the Runts, growled, and snatched the Blow Pop. Unwrapping the sucker, I shoved it in my mouth before the Runts could tempt me again.

Mmm. Dinner.

“Okay, here we go,” I exhaled, hopping up on the counter with the duct-taped remote. Hitting skip twice, I twirled my tongue over the sucker, so tempted to crunch for the gum.

No patience. Ever.

A gothy, titastic girl (I assumed this was the porn-version of Winona Ryder) almost made it up the attic stairs before the ghost attacked. And by attacked, I meant grabbed her by the ass face-first. His sheet had two eyes and a glory hole, and after a few sissy-fight attempts to ward him off, our heroine succumbed to getting railed from behind.

“You can see my cock, even with the sheet?”

“Oh, my god,” I giggled, twirling my hair in my finger. Her oh-so-fake yelps filled the trailer, and I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes.

Wait-
was
that a skip? Or some kind of bullshit attempt at fast-motion videography?

I paused and unpaused. (I don’t know why-like it would help.) Resuming play, the DVD definitely skipped. Now another ghost appeared at the top of the stairs, and there were only so many holes left for this guy. Deductive reasoning told me
she
wasn’t going to be shrieking much longer.

“Um…,”

I choked and dropped the remote, spinning to the counter.

A customer.
A man.
His cargo shorts were just the right amount of tattered, and his white tee shirt only accentuated his tan. He stared at me from behind the darkest hazel eyes I’d ever seen. Of course they were flecked with pieces of gold, like the highlights had been panned and placed there by miners. And, of course his hair-complete with a hint of sideburns-was every shade of dark in the sexy-hair rainbow.

And, of course, he was watching me.

Watch porn. Sitting on the counter, sucking on a lollipop, watching porn.

“Please, carry on,” he gestured to the TV, and I flushed. Into an actual sweat.

Shit, this had to be Robin’s brother.

“I’m checking for damage,” I cursed my shaking voice, clearing my throat and tossing the Blow Pop to the trashcan.

He tucked his hands into his pockets, raising his eyebrows. I continued to stare at him, even as the trilling ‘actress’ on the screen took on the voice of a seagull with her repetitive cries.

I cringed.

Ghost number two must have been done with her smack.

“I think the damage… has been
done
.” He leaned slightly to the left, peering over my shoulder at the screen.

Facing forward, I tucked my lips into a reluctant smile, lowering my lashes again. “A customer complained that the disc was scratched.”

“Don’t let me stop you from doing your job,” he teased, really teased, and I breathed a relieved sigh.

“Are you Robin’s brother?”

He nodded once, pulling his hands from his pockets and resting them on his hips. There was an insistent look about him-urgent, not frightening. Playful. His face was sculpted from a series of planes, unevenly attractive with the feigned look of disapproval he was shooting me.

He gave me a once-over. “This is standard procedure, then? This used to be a family-friendly place.”

I reddened. I couldn’t tell if he was serious anymore. He had at least five inches on me, and maybe five years.

And if I was 5’5”, then that made him… almost as tall as Matthew.

Guiltily, I swallowed at the random chunk of candy in my teeth. “No one comes in here this late anymore on a weekday… unless they want porn.”

He leaned forward, and I stiffened. His chiseled Clark Kent jaw line occupied my view, and he smelled like peppermint… and some nice, manly smell… and good.

Really, really,
really
damn good.

“Maybe I just came for a Blow Pop.”

I arched my eyebrow, smirking. “Fifty cents.”

“Really? Don’t I get the family discount?”

A pleasant chill began in my neck and ended in my stomach.

“Everything has a price.”

He grinned, his eyes shifting to the book on the counter. The novel was cover-side-up, bookmarked with three highlighters in three different colors (grammatical-pink, typo-green, spelling-yellow) faced his way. Boobs McGee sprawled across the front, frozen in place while Damon (no doubt) squeezed both of her ample tits in his hands.

Mortification did not adequately describe the molecular reaction in my body. Of all of the six hundred and eighty people living in New Florence, Pennsylvania, their white-trash leader proudly ran Porn Central Station.

“Thursday night is happening around here,” he waggled his brows, back to teasing. Or taunting, who cares, what’s the difference.

I automatically reached for my long ponytail, twirling it between my fingers, scowling. “I’m an editor. Hence, the highlighters. Not that it’s any of your business,” I snapped, maybe a little too harshly.

“Hence, huh?” He grinned again. “Not that I asked,” he challenged.

White teeth. Not creepy, Ross-on-
Friends
white, but just the right amount of sparkle. So straight.