“Zane knocked me up the same week we met, which was a week of epic fucking, I must say, and I’m still not sure if I know what I’m doing most days because I never thought I’d be able to fall in love, much less be a mother and a wife.” This from a tall curvy blonde whose tits and ass were nearly as bangin’ as mine and the tall strawberry blonde’s—who was also now joining the circle.
Said strawberry blonde leaned against the other blonde––this was getting confusing—who’d just shared her story. “I was a dedicated hookup artist with a cold dead heart, a wandering vagina, and zero future. Then I met a man named Ramsey, messed around with him a few times, and it turns out the dick was so good I couldn’t walk away, so I stayed with his dick…and the rest of him.”
I snorted, because that sounded like something I’d say.
Next was Aerie, the other blond twin, with Tate beside her once again. “We hooked up with the twins sort of out of curiosity regarding what it would be like with them. Tate got pregnant, and our mom disowned us, loudly and publicly, in Badd’s Bar and Grill. We gave up modeling careers to be here with them.”
“Actually, I think we disowned her just as much,” Tate said.
Joss chimed in, next. “I’m an orphan. I was homeless for a very long time. Almost got raped. And I was a virgin when I met Lucian.”
Harlow, appearing from somewhere. “I never told Xavier who I was when we met. He didn’t know, and I liked it. I liked feeling like a normal girl. So I never told him, even though I knew he was different and that whatever we were doing wasn’t going to be just random sex, because it was clear he was a virgin. I kept my fame a secret from him until things blew up, and it’s only because he has such a kind and forgiving and understanding heart that we’re together. After that deception, he had every right to forget me, but he didn’t, and here I am.”
A short, curvy girl, who looked like she was related to the giant Ink—jet-black hair and skin color and facial structure that made her Native American––held up her hand. “I was a secret tattoo artist, because my mom refused to allow me to do anything except go to college and get a real degree and a real job, so I could be the first and only one in the whole family to do so, even though I didn’t want to. I did go to college, and I did get a degree, and I did get real job at a law firm, but I hated it and it wasn’t until I met Remington that I found the courage to do what I was truly passionate about.”
Another blonde—this one not quite blond and not quite brunette. Tall with a damned near perfect body. “I lived a life of being the good girl, doing the right thing for the right reasons all the time. I couldn’t stand Roman the first time I met him…or the second, or the third. Or…quite a long time after that. Couldn’t stand him, and at some point would have said I hated him…but was absolutely bonkers for him at the same time. As Izzy would have said, I wanted the dick in the worst way.”
“Kitty!” the statuesque, potty-mouthed strawberry blonde said. “I’m shocked at you.”
Kitty just laughed. “The rest of you are rubbing off on me.”
I looked around. Looks like all the women had told me their stories, or the Spark Notes version anyway.
Cassie nudged me. “I got in a car wreck which ended my professional dance career and my relationship with my fiancé, who turned out to be gay. Moved here with Mom like a dog with its tail between its legs, and Ink saved me from walking straight into the Passage because I was anger-walking.”
“My fiancé cheated on me with my overweight middle-aged boss. I quit, moved, and then went on a cross-country road trip with my sister, and did the craziest thing I’ve ever done—fell in love with a badass biker and moved here with him.” She smiled over her shoulder at Crow, who was standing behind her with a giant glass bowl of guacamole in his hands.
Mom walked through the circle to me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “My husband of twenty-five years died, and I moved here for a change of scenery and pace, to start over. I met a strange, gruff, rough, enormous, foul-mouthed, beautiful disaster of a man named Lucas, and we did things my daughters would probably not appreciate hearing about, which made me realize how unhappy I’d been in my marriage before Darren died. I had to accept that, digest it, and then figure out how to fall in love all over again, as a middle-aged woman, well past her prime, with five grown daughters.”
“Ain’t shit about you being past your prime, woman,” Lucas growled.
Mom sighed, smiled. “Thank you, Lucas.” She stayed focused on me. “The point of all this, my dear love, is that there is no story about yourself you could tell which we all here would not understand, sympathize with, and do everything in our power to help you through. You are among family, Alexandra.”
My throat was hot and tight. I didn’t know any of these women except Mom and my sisters, and the only men I knew were Myles and Crow.
So…
Family?
My family was scattered across the country—or had been until recently; now Mom, Cassie, and Charlie were here in Alaska, Torie was still in Connecticut wasting her life away with a bong and a waitress’s apron, and Poppy was in New York dodging the reality of having to either woman up and chase her real dream, or give up on it. And me? I was…I had no
