Out of the Blues

Out of the Blues

Mercy Celeste

Copyright

Out of the Blues is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Mercy Celeste

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Mercy Celeste

Warning: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any many without written permission, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Contact the publisher for further information:

[email protected]

Acknowledgments

Cover art by

Jay Aheer

@ Jay’s Covers by Design

www.jayscoversbydesign.com

Dedication

To the people who stand behind me and push me to move forward.

Rhys Ford, Carrie Ann Murphy, Crissy Morris, Jambrea Jo Jones, and Mary Wallace (because the threat of drop bears is enough to keep me in her good graces).

Chapter One

In which Mason goes to hell via the ATL.

My flight home was a nightmare. The redeye meant coming through Atlanta at the ass crack of morning. I left California the night before only to be delayed in Denver for a freak snow storm. Of course, I’d spent the night sitting in the airport praying that the snow would get worse so I wouldn’t have to fly home, but that didn’t happen. So, Atlanta at six in the morning Eastern Standard Time and I’d landed to find out I was delayed again.

I stared at the screen that should have my next flight listed only to see the flashing
delayed
of my worst nightmares.

Okay, so, I could think of this as a sign. Denver was a more welcome sign. I could have stayed in Denver for a couple of days. Called the family and said, “Sorry, snowed in, in the Mile High City, can’t be helped.” That would have been that.

A four-hour delay in Atlanta would mean someone would be here in less than three and I’d be driving home with some great-aunt gray hair, or worse, some uncle cousin Bubba. Not happening.

I pulled up the rental app on my phone and thumbed through until I found something I could drive back home in style. No fucking Prius. Hell no to the Honda. I settled on a nice black Charger, not too big, not too small. Not a pussy coming home to get his ass kicked car.

I found the
get the fuck out of dodge
directions and dragged my slightly over-sized rolling bag along, not caring who got in my way. Fuck them, I’d been traveling for nearly twenty hours. I stopped to grab a coffee when my nose detected the delectable aromas of strong fucking coffee…Venti, stat. Hell yeah, I want it as thick with caffeine as it can legally be because I had to drive myself to fucking backwoods Georgia for my sister’s wedding.

I was so fucking not doing this.

The barista seemed concerned when he handed me off my shot of death in a cup. “Wedding,” I mumbled between sips so hot that my tongue screamed for a paramedic. “Sister. Daddy’s little princess.”

“My condolences,” the guy said with a wink. I was too tired to wonder more than a moment or two why guys always flirted with me.

I mean, seriously? Did I come off as…well, hell, maybe it was the hair. Maybe it was the clothes. My sister wasn’t the only one raised by our mother. She wasn’t the only one who’d been in a beauty pageant. I shuddered. There were pictures of those days before my father put his cleat down.

Not that football was my thing either. Or any sports. Okay, I liked baseball. I liked going to the games. I loved when we’d come to Atlanta to a Braves game and then shopping for school clothes.

Because I was a big old princess just like Harper.

Fuck me
.

The guy winked again and I realized I said that out loud. So I remembered that I had a car to go rent and a long damned drive through this fucking city and I needed to get going before someone really did sic one of the aunts or crazy uncles on me.

Getting the car wasn’t the problem, getting out of the airport and onto the interstate was much more complicated than I imagined.

I mean, I
have
been to Atlanta, many times in fact, but I’d never actually driven here. And this place was insane.

So, finally on the road and into pre-rush hour traffic. I live in California. Okay, it’s Napa, not L.A. I’m more into making wine than wining and dining. Okay, so I was into being a small-time lawyer who helped out part-time on my girlfriend’s family’s vineyard. Or I had until Glory had found one of the farm boys to more her taste. I hadn’t been back in nearly six months. And I missed…what exactly?

The taxi driver behind me laid on his horn and I realized the light had turned green and I could finally get onto the interstate. I floored it. Forgetting what it was I missed about Glory besides her family and her vineyard.

Maybe I just liked knowing there were people who could function as adults and not run around like grown children when they fought over how their children should be raised.

Divorce sucks by the way.

Being a child of divorced rich people with huge damned egos sucked even more.

Yes, my parents are divorced. Yes, my parents are rich. Yes, my parents are famous. My mother was a model. She still does some modeling I suppose. She’d even acted in a few movies. Thankfully, she had the foresight to have a stage name or I’d never have made it through college without dying of shame.

My father was problem enough. I’d grown up the disappointment in the family. I was supposed to follow my dad into the NFL. I looked more like my mother than even my sister did. When I was fourteen I was six foot nothing and skinny as a fence post with long brown hair and a massive chip on my shoulder. I wouldn’t have lasted a day in professional football.

I am considerably taller than six feet now. I am taller than my dad which seemed to piss him off more often than not. I am still skinny. I have big hands and feet. A gift from him. And I assume that part of my body that goes along with the big hands and feet package was inherited from him as well.

I have never seen either of my parents naked. Or my sister. I saw a cousin naked once. He…yes, it was a he…he stripped down to his birthday suit and chased me around his pool one afternoon when we were thirteen.

I changed lanes when the GPS told me to change lanes and drained the rest of my coffee. My bladder wasn’t going to make it all the way home and I was going to need food sooner rather than later, but fuck if I was getting off this damned circle of hell until I was headed in the right direction because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back on.

“Why is it always the dudes?” I asked when the talk radio jocks started chattering away about football and politics and the politics of having gays in football.

I’m not gay.

I’m not interested in football either.

I avoid politics and religion like the proverbial plague.

I changed the station looking for some easy listening. I found more talk.

The GPS on the dash told me to get in the right lane.

I missed hitting a semi by two inches.

Fucking GPS.

I yawned.

Not good.

I made it to my exit and found the first McDonalds and went in to take a piss, get something to eat, and a second cup of death, in that order.

An hour later I had nothing but farmland and country music for company.

I was wishing for the blizzard in Denver when the penis-on-wheels blew past me, horn blaring. The Semper Fi sticker in the back window came into view about the same time as the extended finger appeared out of the window.

Well, fuck you, too.

I got off at the next exit because I was not going to survive another hour without more coffee or an ice bath.

Unfortunately, the penis-on-wheels was parked in the only Starbucks lot in this part of the state.

Fuck me, sideways.

Chapter Two

Or how Mason survived to drink more coffee.

I may or may not be addicted to coffee. I was also exhausted at this point, and wishing I’d stayed at the airport to await my puddle jumper flight to take me the rest of the way home. I could have napped in the lounge.

Like I did on the flight from Denver, the Denver airport, and on the flight from San Francisco.

I can’t sleep when I’m sitting up.

Unless I’m behind the wheel of a car, apparently.

I chose to risk the owner of the penis-on-wheels and went inside the last bastion of civilization I would likely find for the next hundred miles or so. I had no idea what the owner of the bird finger looked like and there were several likely candidates.

This was redneck country after all.

All of Georgia outside of Atlanta was redneck country if you wanted the honest truth. I was raised in redneck country. I am not proud of that.

I never said I wasn’t an asshole.

But the dude with the high-and-tight haircut and the tattoos standing between me and salvation in a cup was most likely the one who’d flipped me off so I gave him plenty of room.

He placed his order, which unfortunately was an exact duplicate of what I planned to order.

He gave his name. Kilby.

What kind of name was Kilby?

Most likely a last name, I told myself. Hey, the dude was trained in combat, what the hell did it matter to me what his name was? He stepped to the side to wait and I went up to place my order, sounding completely unoriginal. So, I threw in a pumpkin scone. I wasn’t hungry. I just didn’t want to sound like I was a complete douche because a tall black coffee was as generic as they came in a double vanilla latte kind of world.

I gave my name and knew it would be a few minutes so I went to the restroom. I needed to splash some water on my face, I needed to piss again, and I needed to wake the fuck up. And I wanted this to be my last pit stop.

My order was up when I came back out and Kilby of the penis truck, with his high-and-tight hair and blue eyes, wasn’t anywhere to be found.

I thanked the barista and tucked a tip into the jar and went outside to sit on the patio. I hoped the cool mid-morning breeze would refresh me.

I wasn’t prepared for muscles to sit down across from me.

“You were weaving all over the road,” he said, leveling me a look that said he was pissed but concerned as well.

“Yeah, well, sorry,” I replied, hoping he’d go on his way and leave me the fuck alone.

“You nearly ran me off the road.” He obviously wasn’t finished. “You can’t drive when you’re exhausted.”

“Why do you think I’m sitting out here? I was drifting. I said I was sorry. I got off at the first exit.” Yeah, I was going to be a fucking great lawyer one of these days. I’m pretty sure my face was flame red and my voice was quivering.

“Sorry won’t save your life, or the life of someone else. Take a nap. Just don’t get back on the road until you’re awake. Understood?” He shrugged and checked his phone then he got up and left me sitting there with my mouth open.

I’d expected an ass kicking, not an ultimatum.

Who the fuck did he think he was? My mother?

He stood for a moment laughing into his phone at whatever the person said on the other end and then he climbed into his big black penis truck and drove off.

And I was alone with my thoughts on my place in the world and why I was sitting at the only Starbucks in the middle of nowhere fucking Georgia when I had sworn on my supposed grandmother’s bible that I would never come back here again.

I’d been eighteen at the time.

I was stupid, and young, and probably far too dramatic for my own good. My father called me a drama queen.

Just another disappointment.

I’m sure he called me other names, completely wrong names, mind you, but I never could escape the feeling that he judged me because he thought I was gay.

Maybe it was him yelling at me to ‘just fucking come out and be done with it’ that gave me that idea.

I’m not gay.

I’ve never slept with a man, I’ve never touched a man.

Glory hadn’t wanted a sexual relationship from me. I have no idea what she wanted from me.

I started out as a clerk in her uncle’s law office where she was a secretary when she wasn’t in class. College. Fuck, I am not into high school girls either. She is only a couple of years younger than me.

I’m twenty-five. I took a couple of years off before I went to law school so I’m still in the learning stage. I’m still not a partner.

Her uncle likes me. He lets me handle some accounts.

She liked me.

We dated. She asked for advice on clothes and hair while she was screwing one of the farm boys in the stable.

I am not gay.

I like clothes and I like helping out my friends.

Fuck, she friend-zoned me and I never realized.

I am a fool.

But I am not a twenty-five year old virgin despite Glory.

Something about the Marine’s ass.

Never mind.

I pinched at the pumpkin scone.

I don’t really like pumpkin flavored food, but when in autumn, do as the hipsters do.

God help me, I was in fucking Georgia and my sister was about to marry her prince charming.

Alert the media, the royal family had nothing on Harper and what was sure to be the wedding of the century.

I took my coffee and tossed the scone and got back into my rental.

I turned the radio up and rolled the window down and I went home.