Cherry Bomb (Brighton #1)

  Cherry Bomb

  Copyright © 2019 by Carmel Rhodes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing: Kristen—Your Editing Lounge

  Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover Design: NET Hook Line Design

  Interior Formatting: Champagne Book Design

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About This Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek of Midnight Kiss

  Also By Carmel Rhodes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For the sad girls and the bad girls and the good girls and the hood girls. I see you. I love you.

  Love Madly.

  My heart doesn’t beat, it ticks.

  It’s been that way since I was sixteen years old and I caught my sister in bed with my boyfriend.

  I gave my heart to a boy who didn’t deserve it, then spent the next few years indulging in hard drugs and even harder sex.

  Life is easier when you don’t get attached. Casual. No commitments. That’s the rule. At least it was before he came along.

  Cash Davidson is the tattooed prince who walked into the restaurant where I work and turned my life upside down.

  He is everything I never knew I needed. There’s just one problem

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  He’s my best friend’s dad.

  Boom

  Cherry

  “SHIT!” I HISS REACHING FOR my knee. Pain radiates through the bone, and I rub the bright pink mark in a vain attempt to soothe it away. Stupid dresser. Stupid Dr. Mathers, keeping me after my advisory meeting. Stupid Brighton traffic, putting me thirty minutes behind schedule.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  Hobbling into my closet, I yank my black uniform dress from its hanger and slip it over my head. The smell of yesterday’s dinner rush permeates the fabric.

  Restaurant work is legalized prostitution. Five nights a week, I pull on the mini dress the female servers are forced to wear and kiss people’s asses for tips, all while balancing hot plates of food on my bare arms. The silver lining, I have a job that leaves me with cash every night and a boss who works around my school schedule.

  I groan, fisting the dress into a ball and dart back into my room.

  Dirty clothes spill out of the laundry basket and onto the floor. I add the smelly dress to the top of the pile and make a mental note to do laundry in the morning.

  “Where is it?” I murmur to myself, looking around the disaster that is my room. The walls are the color of granite, posters of Lana Del Rey and Amy Winehouse are tacked on either side of my bed. Empty Diet Dr. Pepper cans litter the nightstand. My comforter lies tossed aside, half of it draped over my mattress, the other half on the floor. I lift it, dropping to my knees, momentarily forgetting about my run-in with the dresser.

  Ignoring the pain shooting up my thigh, I reach under the bed and slide out one of the plastic totes I was supposed to drop off at Goodwill three months ago. Bingo. I grin and pop off the lid. Thankfully, my old uniform is right on top. It’s slightly faded and rides higher up my legs than the newer ones, but it’s black, has a Brighton Steak & Brew logo stamped on the chest, and most importantly, it doesn’t stink.

  I rise to my feet, catching a glimpse of my body in the mirror just before the dress covers me. Ink stains the length of my right arm, and a black rose sits between my tits. I’d like to say my tattoos are an extension of my personality, that each piece tells a part of a larger story, but mostly, I just like the way they look. I like the way they make me look. Edgy, badass, and complete opposite of her. It’s sad really, the only things my mother ever gave me were her looks and her innate ability to ruin everything she touches. I can’t do anything about my almond-shaped gray eyes, or my slender build, but I can dye my hair jet black and cover my olive skin in pretty pictures to hide the ugly truth.

  My alarm beeps, a reminder that my shift starts in fifteen minutes. Okay, Cherry, you can still make it. The drive from our apartment to downtown only takes ten, so I grab my combat boots and haul ass to the bathroom. There’s just enough time to swipe on some of my signature red lipstick and another layer of black kohl around my eyes. It’s a cross between rocker chic and prostitute. The plus side of having the personal style and aesthetic of a homeless stripper is that all the makeup hides the bags under my eyes caused by the late-night cramming session for my Data Structures and Algorithms exam.

  One last glance in the mirror, then I bound down the hall, snagging my apron from the breakfast bar. A stack of mail catches my eye, specifically, a letter addressed to me from our school’s financial aid department. Great. I tuck the envelope inside my apron without opening it. I’m already running late, so any bad news will have to wait for a more convenient time.

  I spy two sets of keys on the hook by the door, which means Arden’s home. “I’m out,” I yell, shoving my feet into my boots.

  “You’re leaving?” a muffled voice calls from the other side of the apartment. Arden, my roommate, peeks around the corner. Long strands of pale hair cascade around her shoulders as she takes me in. “You’re working tonight?”

  “No, I just like wearing this.” I gesture to my uniform sarcastically.

  “Oh, okay.” She sniffles. It’s then I notice the puffiness under her eyes and the lack of makeup on her face. Arden Walden is the definition of prim and proper, aka, the exact opposite of me. We met freshman year, when we were forced together by fate and a shitty dorm assignment. When I walked into our room and saw the bubbly blonde tacking up posters of sayings like Slay All Day and Live. Laugh. Love., I started thinking up ways to make her death look like an accident. Turns out, the thing about judging a book by its cover is true. Despite her blonde hair, blue eyes, and porn star boobs, Arden is one of the best people I know.

  “Derek and I broke up.”

  Shit. I definitely don’t have time for a meltdown. I glance at my watch. “Babe, I’m already late.” It’s a dick thing to say, but in my defense, Derek is a douchebag and Arden is better off without him. Also, I can’t afford to lose my job.

  “Totally.” Her bottom lip quivers, and she looks at me with those huge doe eyes, and the ice around my heart melts a little.

  I trudge across the apartment. “Five minutes,” I grit. I’m not a complete asshole.

  Arden’s room is bright pink. She and I really
are polar opposites. Where I’m all hipster chick with tattoos and a ring through my nose, Arden is a princess. She and Derek have been on and off for two years now. He’s the quarterback of Brighton University’s football team. On paper, they’re a perfect match. In reality, he’s a fuckboy who keeps her tucked away, only dragging her out when he needs suitable arm candy. He spends the rest of the time fucking his way through the freshman class.

  “Hey,” I say somberly, climbing onto the bed. The pile of dirty tissues on the nightstand is the only thing out of place in the otherwise pristine space. “What happened?”

  “He was fucking my Little,” she says, erupting into a full-on sob.

  I wince, Arden’s only flaw (aside from shitty taste in men) is that she’s Greek, and not the Aegean Sea kind of Greek, but the airhead sorority kind. She takes her colors seriously. The fact that it was her Little the douche banged is like salt poured directly into the wound.

  “I’m sorry, babe.” And I truly mean it. I might hate Derek, and I’m definitely not a fan of organized social clubs, but I know the pain of being cheated on all too well. Hell, that pain is why I have refused to date anyone seriously since moving to Brighton.

  “I expected it from him…if that makes sense. I mean, I didn’t expect better…I know that sounds pathetic, but it’s true. My Little though…she broke my heart.”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t promise you fidelity.”

  “No, just sisterhood,” she snaps.

  I hold my hands up in surrender. “They’re both assholes.”

  “And to make matters worse, my mom is riding me about my plans for this summer, saying I need to be more active in the community.” She rolls her eyes. “And on top of that, my sperm donor is in town and wants to meet me,” she grumbles falling back into a mountain of pillows.

  “He’s what?” The Sperm Donor is Arden’s real father, who I learned about the first night we got drunk together freshman year and we bonded over our dysfunctional families. He, The Sperm Donor, resurfaced the year she graduated high school. They’ve exchanged emails a few times a month, but otherwise, she doesn’t talk about him. The fact that he wants to meet is big, way bigger of an issue to unpack than cheating-ass-Derek cheating.

  “Have you talked to your mom?” I ask, munching on my bottom lip. The clock on her nightstand tells me I’m screwed, and not in a fun way. But I can’t leave now. Maybe my boss will take pity on me.

  “No, you know how she is.” Arden rolls her eyes. Do I ever. Mrs. Walden is a pit bull dressed in designer clothes. She’s the only female in a male-dominated industry, so she kind of has to be, but the pressure she puts on Arden to be perfect all the time is draining, even for me.

  “You know what you need?” I snap. “A night out. A change of scenery will do you some good. Get off Greek row for a bit. I’ll see if Marco will let me out early, and we can dust off our fake IDs and go to Eddy’s and flirt with real men, who have real jobs, and forget all about Derek and the rest of the boys of Brighton University.”

  After talking Arden off the ledge, I swing my cherry-red Volkswagen Beetle into the employee lot, twenty minutes after my shift was supposed to start.

  Brighton Steak & Brew is an upscale steak and alehouse in downtown Brighton. Our claim to fame is craft beers and aged beef. Marco, the owner, was a tech hotshot who sold his million-dollar company to chase his lifelong dream of opening a restaurant.

  In short, Marco is an idiot.

  Well, technically, he’s a genius, with stupid dreams. If I had a million dollars to fund a new enterprise, you’d better believe it wouldn’t be opening a restaurant. He works twelve-hour days, hasn’t had a stable relationship since I’ve known him, and quite frankly, he desperately needs to get laid.

  I twist my long black hair up into a bun as I round the hostess stand. Emma, our newest hire, stares blankly at the screen in front of her. “Everything okay over here?” I ask, reaching over her to punch in.

  “Yes…well, no. How do I cancel a reservation again?” She blinks up at me, her crystal green eyes are wide and terrified. She looks like a doll, with her smooth skin and naturally pink lips. A total babe. She’ll fit right in with the staff, comprised mostly of LA model rejects and Brighton University students. We study during the day and sling overpriced carafes of beer at night.

  After walking her through canceling a reservation, I help seat the small line that gathered during my tutorial.

  “Thanks…umm…sorry, what’s your name again?”

  I hold up my name badge. “It’s Cherry, Cherry Valentine. And before you ask, yes, that’s my real name, and no, I’m not a stripper, I just look like one.”

  Some of the tension in Emma’s shoulders loosens as she laughs. “The thought did cross my mind…sorry.”

  I bump my narrow hip into hers. “Stop apologizing, babe. Just make sure I get some good tables and we’ll call it even.” I wink, as I grab an iPad from the doc and log in. The one good thing about having a tech-savvy owner is that BSB has all the latest technology. At the last place I worked, the credit card machine went down more than Arden’s sorority sisters after a few beers.

  As the handheld comes to life, my section assignment blinks in the center of the screen.

  Cherry V.

  Garden Room

  Tables 5-10.

  “What the fuck?” I grit, scanning the screen.

  “Something wrong?” Emma asks, wiping a stack of menus with disinfecting wipes.

  I inhale, trying to rein in the Irish temper I inherited from my grandmother. “I’m in the Garden.”

  “It’s pretty out there?” She says it as more of a question than a statement, like she’s trying to talk me off a ledge I’ve already chained myself to.

  Yes, the Garden is pretty, just like everything else in Brighton, but it’s also a major pain in the ass. “It’s outside, and on the other side of the restaurant, which means I have to lug heavy trays of food back and forth while dodging customers who act like they don’t see me coming. Not to mention it’s breezy out, so no one is going to want to sit out there anyway.”

  “I…I’ll try to push the Garden.” Emma’s voice lifts three octaves and she tugs on her ear. This chick has the whole skittish-deer thing down. Absently, I wonder if it’s an act or if she really is this timid.

  “Thanks,” I murmur, tagging her on the arm. My shitty section assignment isn’t her fault.

  Turning, I stomp my way past the kitchen and up the single flight of stairs to the manager’s office. The door is ajar, so I push my way inside. Marco sits behind the desk. His head is bent, his scruffy, dark hair hides his equally scruffy face. The pen in his hand glides across the page in front of him. The muscles in his forearm flex with each word he scribbles.

  Marco is hot, in that tall, dark, and handsome sort of way, but the draw wears off a few days into your employment. He is also a dick. A kind dick who will give you the shirt off his back if you need it—but fuck up an order and you’ll hear about it for weeks.

  “The Garden, really?” I huff plopping down into the chair.

  Marco looks pointedly at his wrist, then glances at me. “You’d think someone who was twenty minutes late for her shift would go straight to the floor, but not you. You love being a pain in my ass.”

  “You love me,” I sass.

  “Love is a four-letter word. You know what else is?” He pauses, waiting for me to speak. When I only offer him a few bored blinks, he continues. “Late, as in you are late, so get to work.”

  “But you put me in the Garden,” I seethe.

  “You hacked into the schedule and gave yourself last weekend off.” He arches a questioning brow, but I don’t deny it.

  “Wait, you knew about that?” He blows out an exasperated breath, and his eyes roll so far back into his head, his chocolate irises disappear. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because you covered it well.” He shrugs. “I’m not saying do it again, but I figured if you went through the trouble, you ea
rned the weekend off.”

  I smile and bite my tongue. I needed the weekend to go visit my dad. He’s been shady as shit the last few times we’ve talked on the phone, and I want to make sure he hasn’t fallen off the wagon. Lord knows my older sister is too self-involved to care, and there’s no way I can work and focus on school and worry about him.

  Unfortunately, my car crapped out halfway to my small hometown. I had to call Arden to come and pick me up, then spent the rest of the weekend trying and failing to negotiate car repairs for sexual favors. Turns out, I found the one honorable mechanic in Brighton. His loss, I give good blow jobs.

  “If you’re not mad about the schedule thing, then can you switch my section to the main dining room?”

  “No can do.” He shakes his head. Marco’s office is small, clean, and functional. A framed degree from MIT hangs next to the restaurant’s liquor license. It’s the perfect metaphor for Marco, really. He is one part STEM nerd and one part badass, like me. It’s probably why he hasn’t fired me yet. I’m like the little sister he never wanted.

  “Why not?” I ask, poking my bottom lip out.

  Marco looks up from whatever it is that he’s working on, and I can tell by the look on his face, the pout isn’t working. “Logan’s coming in and you’re the only server on the schedule tonight that he hasn’t made cry.”

  Great.

  Logan Gregory, one of Marco’s best friends and Beelzebub in human form. The staff call him Satan, and he is, in fact, the devil. All that anger is really a cover for some deep-seated pain he’s repressed, which I sussed out last fall after taking one semester of psychology. But that man needs Freudian-level help, and I’m only a computer science major.

  “Fine, I’ll serve your stupid friends in the stupid Garden IF you promise to cut me early.”

  “You showed up twenty minutes late.” His brow kisses his hairline. He’s going to kill me, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t push.