Taking Chances (Learning to Love) Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Books By LJ Baker

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Heartless by Vanessa Marie

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Taking Chances

  Learning to Love, book 1

  LJ Baker

  Copyright © 2014 LJ Baker

  http://www.lj-baker.com/

  Cover by Cover to Cover Designs

  http://www.covertocoverdesigns.com/

  Photography by Mandy Hollis at MHPhotography

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/MHPhotography-stock-and-custom-photos/575584915823179

  Books by LJ Baker

  Taking Chances (Learning to love, book 1)

  Save Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 1)

  Find Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 2)

  Hold Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 3)

  Remember Me (A Life After the Outbreak Extra) Coming Soon!

  For my Mother.

  The one person who always believed I could be great

  at anything I ever wanted to do.

  I miss you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "How about this one?" Kat picked up a huge purple dildo and ran her fingers suggestively up and down the veiny plastic flesh. It was so big, it was hard to believe that any human girl could accommodate such a giant.

  "Uh, no."

  I looked over the sex toys displayed on the shelves. The arrangement of penis-substitutions was mind blowing, from the itty bitty to one that was more than a foot tall, a rainbow of colors, ribs, spikes, and others named after furry pets. They all seemed so outrageous and over the top. Not the kind of things I would normally be shopping for but Kat insisted we had to get our good friend, Jamie something like this for her bachelorette party. Knowing Jamie, and her love for all things freaky, she was probably right.

  "What about these?" She flashed me a wicked smile and held up a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs. "Actually, I think I'll get these for myself. Matty, will love them." Her eyes lit up and I was sure she was imagining using them with him.

  "Ugh," I groaned.

  That wasn't an image I needed in my head of my best friend and my brother.

  Why am I friends with a bunch of sex crazed nymphomaniacs?

  "Oh, this is the one." Kat picked up a large box with an assortment of bondage items straight out of that book everyone's so crazy about. She was so excited with the find she practically bounced in place.

  I took a look at the side of the box and glanced at the contents. Faux fur handcuffs, blindfold, riding crop, some feathery thing on a stick, and a bar thing that went between the ankles to keep the legs spread apart. "It looks like a bunch of medieval torture devices to me." Probably exactly what Jamie would love.

  "Lexi James, stop being such a prude. It's not like we're buying it for you."

  "You've got that right." I snorted.

  She raised her eyebrow. "Come on, she will love this and you know it."

  Kat stuck out her bottom lip in a pout and used her please-gimme voice. She always did that when she wanted her way, and it was rare for her not to get it. Especially with men. She had the most beautiful shade of natural golden blonde hair, emerald green eyes and the kind of body people paid money to get.

  "Okay, I guess. If you really think she will like that," I said, trying to hide my disgust.

  She just smiled and batted her ridiculously long eyelashes, knowing full well I'd give in. With the fuzzy handcuffs looped on her finger, she carried the box, which was nearly half her size, up to the counter, and flashed a sexy smile at the poor guy.

  "Will that, uh, be...all?" His eyes were glued to Kat's boobs.

  "Unless there's something else you could suggest?" She ran her finger slowly over the display of flavored body oils in front of the register, wetting her lips as she looked into his eyes.

  The poor boy at the register turned a deep shade of red. I was just grateful that the counter was there to shield us from seeing where the rest of the blood not pooling in his cheeks had gone.

  Kat enjoyed toying with people and there was no shortage of men willing to play along. I shouldn't even have felt bad for him, because it was his own fault. If he wasn't checking out her rack, she wouldn't have started.

  I rolled my eyes and nudged her aside. "This will be all, thanks." I handed him my credit card, waving it briefly in front of his face to get his attention away from Kat.

  He took the card, dropping it on the glass counter before swiping it, and pushed a receipt toward me to sign. I picked up the enormous box, while Kat grabbed the handcuffs, and hurried out of the store.

  I unlocked my trunk and dropped the box in. There was no way it was coming across the street with us to the cafe. "Did you really have to torture the poor boy?"

  She laughed, tossing her hair behind her as we walked across the street to our usual lunch spot. "Yes actually, I did. His face was priceless."

  We found a small table outside on the street, our usual spot unless it was raining or winter. A guy walking past with his dog nearly walked into a light post because his eyes were glued to Kat. I was used to seeing men fall all over themselves for her. Some proved quite amusing, so I couldn't stop myself from watching the idiot.

  "Lexi, are you paying attention to me?" She waved her hand in front of my face, bringing me back to reality.

  "Sorry. I was waiting to see if that idiot was going to give himself a concussion." I motioned over to the guy.

  She waved my comment off uninterested and pulled her cell phone out to type something quickly, then laid it on the table. "He was looking at you anyway," she murmured flippantly.

  "He certainly was not." I half laughed at her.

  She rolled her eyes. "Lexi, when are you going to get it through your thick skull? You're gorgeous. Guys look at you," she said, irritation clearly visible on her face.

  Kat's phone buzzed. She smiled as she picked it up and typed another text, all irritation gone.

  "Matt?"

  She just smiled and lifted her green eyes up to look at me through her lashes. By the look on her face, I knew it was my brother, and that I did not want to know what they were talking about.

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. I was against Kat dating my brother for a long time, unfortunately I had no say in the matter. She had a crush on him since we hit puberty, but it wasn't until we came home after college, that he even noticed she was a girl.

  "Aren't you two sick of each other yet?" I teased.

  She stuck her tongue out at me and went back to her phone.

  My brother was the one man in the world I had unconditional love for no matter how badly he screwed up or who he screwed over, but he wasn't exactly the kind of guy I wanted dating my best friend. He slept with every female friend our older sister Angie brought home. Maybe that was part of the reason she moved so far away. Needless to say, those friendships didn't last. I was lucky being four years younger. Matt stayed away from my friends. Until Kat.

  My cell buzzed with a text from Jamie.

  You guys at the cafe?

  Before I could even answer she sent anoth
er text.

  Did you know Justin is having strippers at the bachelor party???

  Jamie was a great girl and I loved her to death, but since she started planning this wedding, she went a little crazy.

  I held the phone up to Kat, letting her read the texts.

  "You think we should tell her what we have planned for her bachelorette party to keep her mind off it?" she asked.

  "I think that telling her that would only make her worry about Justin more."

  "Yeah, you're probably right." Her phone buzzed again, and she smiled like a schoolgirl.

  For a moment, I missed the way it felt to be so infatuated with someone that just seeing his name show up on your phone could make you smile. Then I reminded myself what it felt like the rest of the time. Like the way it felt when he lied about working late, or spending spring break with his parents when he was really off in Florida with some sorority bimbo. Or how it felt walking into the science lab to find him screwing a totally different tramp next to the microscopes.

  I sent off a quick text to Jamie, telling her where we were, even though I was sure she already knew. It wasn't a secret where we went every Wednesday. A small part of me hoped she wouldn't be able to make it. As guilty as I felt thinking it, I was tired of all the wedding plans and complaining. She was one of my best friends though, so I guess we could put up with her craziness for a few more days. After Saturday, she'd be married and off on her honeymoon. If there was any residual insanity, she'd be Justin's problem then. I'd known him since kindergarten and he was a good guy. He treated Jamie like a princess, so I was sure he could handle it.

  ***

  After listening to Jamie bitch about strippers for Justin's bachelor party for nearly thirty minutes, I was ready to strangle her.

  "Jamie, what do you think goes on at bachelor parties?"

  She looked at me blankly and thought for a minute. A panicked look came across her face. "Oh my God! He's going to sleep with her?"

  Well that was the wrong thing to say. I wanted to smack my face into the table.

  "Honey, no." Kat rubbed her hand over Jamie's back, shooting me a glare for saying something so stupid. "The boys don't touch the strippers sweetie. They just look."

  I rubbed her arm gently trying to make up for my big mouth. "You've never been jealous before. Why are you so worried?"

  Jamie thought I was being paranoid when I told her I thought Marcus was cheating on me. It didn't take long to realize the bastard was incapable of keeping it in his pants. When the news of our breakup spread across our college campus, four other girls came up to me to admit sleeping with him. That was in addition to the bimbo I caught him with. I could only imagine how many more there were.

  "Look, hon," I said, trying my best to keep the irritation out of my voice. "You are marrying the guy. You're going to have to trust him."

  Kat spit her latte across the table, and I gave her the evil eye. My 'trust no man' motto was irrelevant as I looked across the table at Jamie's big brown eyes, knowing she needed reassurance. Not cynicism.

  "I know you're right. It's just that I love him so much. I don't know what I'd do without him," Jamie said, oblivious to the hypocrisy of my comment.

  "Let me ask you something then, if we had strippers at your bachelorette party, would you do something Justin had to worry about?" Kat smiled and tried to look innocent. She was failing.

  "Wait... are you saying you got a stripper for Friday?" Jamie's face lit up. Suddenly Justin's bachelor party was the last thing on her mind.

  "I've been dying to tell you for weeks." Kat nearly bubbled over with excitement.

  I rolled my eyes at their enthusiasm. "I'm surprised she held it in this long. You can't possibly be surprised."

  Anyone who knows Kat would expect nothing less than the full porn experience for a bachelorette party. I was just grateful she chose her as the Maid of Honor rather than me. I would not have been hiring a stripper.

  Kat broke down, happily, and told Jamie all the details of Friday's party. I sat thumbing through posts on Facebook, bored with the conversation. The last thing I was in the mood for was a party celebrating an impending marriage.

  This kind of event calls for an intervention, if you ask me.

  Jamie's eyes were wide as she hung on Kat's every word. "I can't believe you got Club Verde. That wait-list is like a year long."

  Club Verde was an over-priced, high end club that catered to businessmen, and other rich clientele. It was basically a high end strip club for the overpaid.

  "My cousin had her bachelorette party there and it was out-fucking-rageous. We just happened to get lucky enough that their monthly male revue was right before your wedding. How's that for luck?" Kat winked at me over her shoulder.

  "How did you even manage to get in there?" Jamie ignored three texts, mesmerized by Kat's details.

  "I had a nice long conversation with the sweet guy who runs the desk. He promised to give me a call the second there was a cancellation, and what do you know, there just happened to be one."

  Honestly, I think the guy had something to do with the cancellation because it seemed a little too convenient that someone would cancel at all, much less on the exact day we wanted.

  I tried taking Jamie's attention off the strippers "You all set for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow? Anything you need?"

  "Mom and Dad took care of everything. Now hopefully they can play nice with each other." She shook her head, looking skeptical.

  All Jamie's parents ever did was fight and sometimes it got quite ugly. They never bothered to get divorced, but they hadn't lived together in almost a decade. Yet every holiday or family gathering, there they were together, pretending everything was great between them. At least my parents had the decency to get divorced and avoid each other properly.

  Jamie finally glanced down at her missed texts. "Ugh, that's Mom now. She can wait." Jamie put the phone back down on the table and turned back to Kat. "So tell me more about Friday." The excitement returned to her face.

  Kat's smile widened. "Oh my God, the guys are awesome. At my cousin's party, they dragged her up on stage and two of them were rubbing all over her. I was so jealous."

  I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, Kat?"

  She laughed. "Yes, Lex. Maybe you'll get to see just how awesome on Friday."

  I snorted. Yeah right.

  Once Jamie got over the excitement of having her party at Verde and the group of strippers, because one is just never enough according to Kat, she started to panic.

  "Do you think that Justin will be upset that I'm having strippers? What if he thinks I did something with one of them? Oh my god, what if one of them tries something with me? And, what if I'm too drunk to say no and oh my god, what if--"

  "Jamie, calm down," I said, trying to placate her. "We will be there with you. We won't let you do anything stupid. Besides, Justin knows you. He knows you won't cheat on him."

  Jamie would never cheat, but Justin could be just as freaked out, for all I knew. He didn't seem like the type to cheat, but then men don't always reveal their douchebaggery until it was too late.

  Jamie's panic turned into tears, as she let her emotions get the better of her.

  Kat tried to gently sooth her. "Sweetie, don't cry." She pushed Jamie's hair back from her tear-soaked face. "Lexi and I are here for you. You have nothing to worry about."

  I nodded in agreement, trying my best to look empathetic. There was only so long I could convince my friend that everything was going to be fine when I just couldn't help but feel it wouldn't be.

  Part of the problem was, Jamie was in love with being in love. Ever since fifth grade when she had a fake wedding to Michael Hartwick, she wanted to be in love and get married. She went through boy after boy, trying them on like shoes, always thinking the newest one was the perfect fit. Of course, they never were, until she met Justin that is.

  The waiter interrupted, mercifully, and I wondered if he heard my telepathic plea for someone to save us. "Ca
n I get you ladies anything else?" He shot a nervous look from me to Kat to Jamie, who was still sobbing quietly next to Kat.

  "I don't know Leo, is there something else you could offer us?" Kat purred, and smiled seductively at him.

  Leo's face lit up at Kat's flirting, as if he had been waiting for that moment his entire life. He opened his mouth, about to tell her exactly what he could offer when Matt walked up behind Kat, leaned down and nuzzled his face into her hair. Leo's face fell, knowing he had just missed the perfect opportunity to make his case.

  "I don't think they need anything else, Leo," Matt said, sarcasm dripped from his voice.

  "Matty!" Kat flipped herself around to face him and planted her mouth on his in a disgustingly long show of affection. For a moment, I thought she was about to swallow his face.

  "Oh get a room!" Even Jamie had enough of them. Not that she was any better when she was with Justin.

  When he finally tore himself off her, he turned to me and kissed the top of my head. "Hey sis."

  "Hey."

  I looked over him for a minute. His hair was brown like mine, though a shade or two lighter, and hung in an overgrown messy-on-purpose style that framed his sapphire eyes perfectly. He was dressed in ripped jeans and a white t-shirt, both showed evidence of hard work from his construction job. He had the kind of boyish good looks that got plenty of attention and he wasn't the least bit shy about accepting it.

  Matt pushed a chair up between me and Kat, and pulled her legs up onto his lap. He watched her intently as she went back to reassuring Jamie, who was finally starting to calm down a bit. There was something different about the way he was with her, than how he was with every other girl I'd ever seen him with. I think that Kat wanted to believe it was because he somehow changed, that he could be different with her. Maybe she even thought he would fall in love with her. I wasn't convinced that he wouldn't slip back to his old ways, love or not.

  "So sis," Matt said quietly, nudging my arm. "You coming over later for dinner?"