Plagiarized (3 page)

For the next five minutes, I gave myself the necessary pep talk to get through this fucking kiss. I was totally freaking out big time and had no idea even what to expect. Holy shit! This was really happening.

The countdown started… 10… 9… 8… 7… I glanced at Ben and then back to the phone. I felt completely awkward, 5… 4… 3… Ben gently took my face between his hands. 2… 1… “Happy New Year!”

He brought his face closer, and just when his lips were about to meet mine, I brazenly took over.

I couldn’t stop grinning. It had been so easy to type the first part of my book. I felt like I was on a roll and things were finally moving in the right direction. The problem was, I was stuck again. The need for more material encompassed my thoughts and I felt like an addict feigning for drugs. Not that I would do drugs, well at least not the
me
that people thought they knew.

What was I going to do? I needed to see Missy again. But if I called her after just seeing her the day before, she would know something was up. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other in years and out of the blue I call and request to see her two days in a row? Definitely fishy… Then an idea came to me. What if I said I had tickets to something? It could be a last minute thing, like someone had to back out of going and I was stuck with an extra ticket!

I patted myself on the back as I quickly dialed her number. As her phone rang, I frantically searched for anything ticket-like available in our godforsaken small town.

“Hello,” I heard Missy softly answer and rolled my eyes. I really couldn’t stand her very much. She was so mousy and blah.

“Hey.” I made my voice sound cheery. “I had so much fun catching up with you yesterday.” The fake cheer in my voice was enough to make me vomit, so I rolled my eyes again instead.

“Me too,” she agreed eagerly. I knew at that moment that she would agree to meet me, no matter what. She sounded so fucking eager.

“Do you want to go to dinner tonight?” I asked indifferently. The more aloof I acted, the more she ate up the shit I served.

“Yes! I’ve been dying to get out ever since coming back.”

I winced when she actually squealed as she said that last part. We made arrangements of where and when to meet. I looked at my watch and realized I had less than two hours to get ready. I usually took longer than that to get ready. I mean, I lovingly referred to my body as my Picasso. But everyone has pet names for their bodies, I was sure of it. I thought of myself constantly. My fans loved all the pictures I posted of my figure, scantily clad in my most favorite outfits and boots. I was so cute and tiny that practically everything looked good on me. Practically everything? Who was I kidding…
everything
looked good on me.

The next day was Thursday and I was excited. I needed my Keegen fix; I rubbed my thighs together at the mere thought of him. He was so good! Much better than the sixty seconds of passion my husband gifted me once every couple of weeks.

Once I finished dressing, I stood in front of my long mirror and just stared. I was beyond gorgeous. I knew it because everyone said so. My entire life, I had been told how attractive I was. The hardest part about being so good-looking was pretending not to know it. I had long wavy-brown hair that almost reached my waist, porcelain skin, and huge brown eyes you could easily get lost in. At least that’s what I had been told. No one liked someone who professed how stunning they were, so I acted meek and mild when compliments were given. That way, no one was the wiser that I worshipped my body in private, standing in front of mirrors longer than I would ever admit.

I arrived at the restaurant first so I secured a booth toward the back. I ordered a glass of wine and sat in wait, like a lioness waiting to pounce on her prey.

I watched the other patrons with half-lidded eyes, easily feeling superior in my surroundings. It wasn’t hard to feel majestic in a town full of halfwits. I smirked as I saw a pair of teenagers making out whilst sharing a milkshake. The boy was shoving his tongue in the poor girl’s mouth and she didn’t look like she knew what to do with it. I could definitely show him a thing or two, I smirked.

“Hello,” a hurried Missy breathed out as sat down across from me.

I greeted her coolly before I snapped myself into reality and realized what I was doing. “Hey, you,” I gushed. “Would you like a drink?” I gestured to my now almost empty glass.

There was a reason I had met Keegen while patronizing the bar he worked at. I didn’t mind admitting that I liked alcohol. It helped me cope with my life.

“Tell me more about what brought you back here,” I asked her after she gave the waiter her drink order.

“Well, my husband and I got a divorce,” she said quietly and looked down at the table.

She started playing with the paper napkin and I wondered if she would continue. I smiled at her sympathetically. “I’m so sorry,” I said in mock-horror.

She nodded and then took a sip of the wine glass that was placed in front of her.

This was taking forever and I needed content,
fucking spit it out
! I smiled encouragingly.

“Gosh, I just kind of blurted that out,” she chuckled. “It’s getting easier to say, I guess. He was disappearing at night and not really invested in the marriage any longer. He never admitted to cheating on me, but all the signs where there.”

I nodded and urged her to continue.

“I’m not lucky, like you! You married Thomas Roby! He is such a doll,” she gushed. “I’ve always been partial to older men. I suppose that’s why I fell in love with my husband—
ex
-husband.”

She started telling me about how she had met him. It all sounded so romantic and sent me off into dreamland. My life with Tom was not romantic in the least. And Keegen? If you considered extremely hot fucking and mindless orgasms romantic, then yeah. But listening to the way her husband had swept her off her feet made my head spin with the kinds of things readers loved.

“Do you understand?” she asked me and brought me back to the present.

“Of course I do, dear,” I commiserated and met her gaze. I saw hatred, but had to be mistaken. I looked again and saw sadness in her eyes. Maybe she had been thinking of her husband when I had seen the hatred?

“What about your husband? You two don’t have children?” she asked.

Here we go… The old
why don’t you have children
speech, my readers were dying for me to have a child and I yearned for one on Facebook. I had recently begun posting pictures of my niece when she was a baby, making up a story that she had just been born and I was spoiling her rotten. But those were lies. I detested children and couldn’t even begin to imagine having to mother one of those rug rats. My niece was now a teenager; the pictures I posted were old pictures from her childhood. Having to teach children was torturous; I couldn’t even fathom having to be around one for twenty-four hours, seven days a week. I visibly shivered. “I can’t have children.” I looked down and feigned sadness. The lie came out so easily, it nearly surprised me.

“Oh, no, that’s terrible. I’m so very sorry!” She reached across the table for my hand. I gave it to her and stuffed down my kneejerk reaction to pull away.

I nodded and dabbed my eyes with the paper napkin. I needed to change the subject quickly.

“You didn’t have children, either?” I questioned her, easily changing the conversation back to her. I was ravenous for details; I needed anything I could get my hands on to use in my book.

She shook her head sadly. “I can’t have them, either. Isn’t that strange!” she looked at me. “Neither one of us is able to have children.”

“Very strange,” I agreed.

“I always wondered what it would be like to have a baby,” Missy said wistfully. “I would have loved to have one. You would have been a wonderful mother, Sage.”

“Maybe we should get puppies,” I joked. It evoked laughter from her and I spontaneously joined in. Tom had always wanted dogs, but I just couldn’t imagine having to care for them in his absence. Who would feed them and everything while he was away on business? And their hair would get all over my clothes. No thank you!

“I love puppies.”

“Not to change the topic, but I have a problem about something in the book I’m writing, and I was wondering if you’d be able to help me out,” I interjected, not caring to talk any more about dogs.

“Sure! What is it?” she plucked a fry from the plate and dipped it in ketchup, then stuffed it in her mouth. I tried not to grimace.

“How would one keep a relationship secret, like with no trace? Not even from a cell phone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, if my character was say having an affair... how would I get around people finding out?”

She dipped another fry into her ketchup and shoved it straight into her mouth. Then she spoke, before swallowing it. I wanted to hurl. “Oh, that’s easy. Just have one of them, whoever doesn’t want to get caught, keep a prepaid cell phone. Those are untraceable.”

I nodded, silently thanking her for her help. She smiled back at me, acknowledging my gratitude. Had she known I was thanking her for helping write a book idea I had stolen from her, she might’ve felt differently. But she didn’t need to know that part.

We continued to chat; she told me how she became engaged and I shared my story. Hers was funnier and I made mental notes. She shared how she lost her virginity and I made up a story about losing mine, since the real one was boring, and then made more mental notes. This was going to be one hell of a book!

We made plans to do something over the weekend and I surprisingly agreed without even hesitating. I did enjoy the time I spent with her, as long as I overlooked the many annoyances of her personality.

By the time I reached home, my fingers were literally itching to type.

I moved my mouth like a guppy fish and practically ate his face off. Then to try to make things better, I thrust my tongue into his mouth.

Ben quickly moved away. “What are you doing?” he asked, confused.

“Kissing,” I answered meekly with a shrug. I felt so embarrassed.

His eyes bore into mine and I could see the realization slowly creep into his facial features, which made the mortification I was feeling even more intense. He took my chin gently between his hands again. He tipped my head up and started slowly kissing my chin. When he was done, he pulled back and looked at me. It had felt really good. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like on my lips. The anticipation was killing me. I was ready to dive back in.

He pulled me closer and started to kiss my lips. His lips were soft and pliable against mine. After a few seconds, I started to move my lips in tandem with his. Then, he inserted the tip of his tongue. I gasped and moved back, halting the kiss. It had been so different from the time I had my tongue shoved into his mouth on our first attempt at this.

He chuckled and then pulled me close again, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. Unlike the last time, he held me close and wouldn’t let me pull back. I had no choice but to contribute what I could to the kiss, but it wasn’t enjoyable at all. All the kindness he had shown before was gone. When he finally pulled away, he was breathing hard and I could tell by his body language and the look in his eyes that he wanted more.

“I really need to get back,” I stated firmly and took one more step away from him. I was feeling confused by all the different moods that had flooded my system. Was it even possible not to like kissing? Was there something wrong with me? Maybe I was dysfunctional? Or maybe I didn’t even like guys and I was a lesbian? My grandmother would flip! My heart thudded at all the scary thoughts running through my head.

By the time he dropped me back off at Marissa’s, I was totally freaking out. I didn’t tell her how I was feeling, I couldn’t tell anyone. There was something seriously wrong with me! I had waited all this time for my first kiss and now I didn’t even like it. What the fuck was I going to do?

Ben said that he wanted to see me again in two days’ time. I told him I wasn’t sure and would call him. My mom didn’t even know I was dating him. What was I to do? There was no way to pull this off. I wanted nothing more than to bury my head in a pillow and not wake up. On one hand, I wanted to see him again. But on the other, I was scared shitless.

I told Marissa that he had asked me to be his girlfriend and recounted the entire evening for her to experience it with me. I glossed over the whole kissing incident and by the time I was finished with my story I was convinced I was madly in love with him.

I immediately called Ben, with Marissa listening in, and told him that my mom was going to freak. He said he would like to meet with my mom and ask her permission to date me. That was so sweet! It made my heart pound and I knew it was love. I also knew that I could never introduce him to my family. They would never understand.