Quirks and Kinks by Laurel Ulen Curtis
“It’s a new show, Quirks and Kinks. We’ve already
selected a male reenactment actor to be your co-host, so you're the last piece
of the puzzle. There’s some seriously f@$%ed up sh*t out there that
people are into, and the two of you are going to be the face of it.”
“I’m going to be the face of people’s freakish
fetishes?” I asked
disbelievingly.
Larry shrugged his
nonchalance, shoving it directly down the throat of my panic. “Half of it.”
That conversation was the beginning of more than a show.
It was the beginning of mystery, friendship, and love, and the
outcome of mixing all three together with two unsuspecting victims.
Easie Reynolds and Anderson Evans were drawn to the same,
simple thing—each
other.
But, sometimes, undeniable chemistry isn’t enough. After all, how easy
is it to get know someone when they’re constantly pretending to be someone else?
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Keep reading for an excerpt!
“I’m still not even sure what we’re doing here,” I told Ashley as I glanced around at the cheap Tex Mex
themed decor of El Loco Restaurant.
All
around us, business-suit-clad, young singles chatted and laughed, sinking
deeper into their margaritas and each other. A life untraveled stared me in the
face, but it didn’t make me feel bitter or regretful. All I felt was stupid
for being out and spending money that we didn’t have.
“You just landed a job,” she cooed before sipping delicately from the free water.
Giving
her my undivided attention, I narrowed my cat-like blue eyes.
“Granted, it’s not a job you’re exactly thrilled about, but it comes with money, and
that’s
worth celebrating a little.”
“Pff,” I huffed. “So far, all it’s come with is a bag of muffin mix and humiliation.” Exaggeratedly, I checked
my purse. “Nope,
no money.”
Ashley
just shook her head. “We’re eating one dollar tacos. Peanut butter and bread are
more expensive. Relax.”
My
fingers itched for a cigarette, and astute twenty-three year old lady that she
was, Ashley didn’t miss it.
“Besides, if we’re going to get on the money discussion you’re going to have to take
a closer look at some of your other expensive habits.”
Ashley
had been trying to talk me into quitting for years, and I knew my lungs would
thank me if I somehow managed to follow through. But for as desirable as it
sounded, I just…couldn’t. It wasn’t so much the addiction and the work it would take to kick
a years-in-the-making habit. It was that smoking had become my emotional
crutch. My timeout in any moment of need and my excuse to busy myself with
something other than being a bitch. I was scared of the chasm I’d fall into, the
unclimbable hill I’d create with my auger-like anxiety.
My
sister didn’t
know any of that. No one did.
“I smoke for my career.”
Her eyes
practically rolled all the way out of her head. “This ought to be good.”
“You know this industry is unbelievably vapid, and vapid
means skinny. Smoking keeps me that way.”
She
shook her head in disdain.
“And it’s cheaper than a gym membership.”
“Global warming, anyone?” she called dramatically. “You’re argument is balancing on some pretty thin ice.”
“Shut up.”
Suddenly,
warmth wafted up into my face as our waiter shoved the toasty basket of
complimentary chips into the center of our table. My eyes drifted naturally
from the basket to the hand holding it, where a large, oval, heavy metal ring
sat in blazing contrast to the tan expanse of his long ring finger, up the line
of his muscular—deliciously
veiny—forearm,
to the cuff of his rolled up black sleeve. On a runaway mission of their own,
my eyes wouldn’t
stop, eating up the expanse of his bicep in an instant, stutter-stepping up the
corded column of his slender throat, and landing on one of the most attractive
male mugs I’ve
ever seen.
A mixing
bowl of ethnicity, his naturally tanned skin and dark features stood in stark
contrast with the minty green of his eyes. Directly on me and smirking, they
were mesmerizing.
And
mocking.
Ashley
spoke, as I’d
apparently lost all of my normal snarky ability.
“Thanks.”
A small
glance from me to her preceded his polite answer. “You’re welcome.”
She
smiled her prettiest smile, the one that infused her entire being from chest to
eyes, and the corner of his mouth notched higher in response.
A
foreign heaviness settled in my chest as I watched, and its completely
unwelcome presence nearly made me sick.
He
turned to leave slowly, one last lingering look in my direction making my
nerves ratchet up to an eleven.
Fuck. I
did not like to be rattled. Confident words were my modus operandi, but
a good earthquake could wreck even the strongest of routines. My table at El
Loco, tonight—this
guy—was
the epicenter.
The man
in question had just earned himself automatic placement on my shit list.
Straight,
white, top teeth just barely teased the plump pillow of his bottom lip. It was
unintentional, completely innocent, and hot as Jesus’ sauna.
Shit
list position confirmed.
“You’re, like, really attractive,” Ashley noted, evidently drunk on her water and speaking via
a direct link to my brain.
His
chuckle was like a full body vibrator, skating through the nerves on every inch
of my skin. One long-fingered hand shot straight to his neck, rubbing the
uneasiness of Ashley’s compliment out quickly.
“Thanks.”
“Are you an actor?” she continued. “You’ve got to be, right?”
LA.
Every attractive person you meet must be in the business.
I would
have laughed at Ashley’s assumption and how ridiculous it was if I hadn’t been thinking the same
thing.
He
looked slightly bashful, but fought straight through the discomfort and
answered her frankly. “Uh, yeah. I mean, I’m trying anyway. I’m not particularly successful.”
Distracted
by my reaction to him and his honesty, I didn’t run a pre-check on anything coming out of my mouth. Not
that I normally had the best filter. “So you’re another one of those actors, waiting tables to pay the
bills and pass the time?”
He
bristled, and rightfully so. But he did it with an otherworldly calm, meeting
my eyes directly and speaking in a soft, polite—if only slightly teasing—voice.
“One of those? Oh. No. Waiting tables is my dream. I just
act to fit in.”
My
cheeks felt hot with embarrassment and shame, and the glint in his eyes told me
that he saw it.
Sometimes
I hated that my default setting was bitch. Such a dominant trait was hard to
overturn. “Okay,
so maybe that was a little rude.”
One
corner of his mouth—the smug one—rose just slightly. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
Silence
hung between us, but while my time was spent avoiding eye contact, his was
spent calculating his next blow.
“I guess you must be something really impressive then?”
“Huh?” My wandering eyes shot to his with the focus of a
heat-seeking missile.
“Well, you obviously aren’t on the waiting tables slash acting track that the rest of
us losers are.”
“Um—”
“I mean, you must do something that really matters, right?
Educating orphaned kids. Curing Cancer. Coming up with the way to end all of
the world’s
unrest.” Attractive arms crossed over an equally nice chest. “Am I right?”
For as
confident as I usually was, and as many comebacks as I normally had, I couldn’t think of one single
thing to say.
Unfortunately,
my sister wasn’t
suffering from a similar problem.
“Hah! She’s an actor too. But she’s too busy to wait tables.”
“Working?” he asked, one manly eyebrow cocking in time with his
question. If I wasn’t mistaken, he actually looked impressed for a minute.
I was
ready to leave right then, but Ashley, being the one of us with a conscience,
had a knack for ruining a good thing.
“Oh. No. She’s just too busy being her. You know, cutting people like
you down in her spare time.” She looked away, bopped to the music in the background. “But, she doesn’t do it on purpose. She
was born this way. Cold, dead heart and all. I guess that’s why people like me
still love her.”
I tried
not to let her words hurt. After all, if I were describing myself, I probably
would have chosen the exact same words, and because I knew her so well, I knew
she was just trying to make a joke and bail me out of a situation of my own
making.
And yet,
I still couldn’t
stop the smile from slipping and sliding its way off of my face.
It only
took a few seconds to recover, but when I looked back up at the waiter, he was
looking at me differently. Assessing.
Uncomfortable
was too cushy a word for what I was feeling. Bombs exploded and sprayed
shrapnel, the sharp edges of his scrutiny digging into the flesh of my muscle
and making it twitch just beneath the not-protective-enough layer of my skin.
Laurel Ulen Curtis is a 27 year old mother of one. She lives with
her husband and son (and cat and two fish!) in New Jersey, but grew up all over
the United States. She graduated from Rutgers University in 2009 with a
Bachelor of Science in Meteorology, and puts that to almost no use other than
forecasting for her friends! She has a passion for her family, laughing, and
reading and writing Romance novels.
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