Tats Too

• Other Bella Books by Layce Gardner
  
• About the Author
  
• Prologue
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  

Copyright © 2012 by Layce Gardner

Bella Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 10543

Tallahassee, FL 32302

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

First published 2012

Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

Cover Designer: Linda Callaghan

ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-291-5

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Tats

For Emma

Layce lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma with her daughter Emma, her girlfriend, Saxon, and a menagerie of animals. To read more about Layce, please visit her website at Laycegardner.com.

I see it before I hear it.

The house, our cute little house, the place I call home, the base of my happiness for years to come, expands like it’s filling up its lungs to scream, then it collapses back in on itself, letting all its breath out and there’s an immense whoosh of hot air and—

BOOM!

—the sound of the explosion syncs with the force of the wind—glass shatters in every direction, boards, splinters, shingles, siding, furniture, fly up in the air. It’s like Old Faithful erupts and spews everything I own, some things I don’t even have paid for yet, straight to kingdom come.

I trot to the front of the garage and throw up the rolling door. I jump on my idling motorcycle, lower my sunglasses and peel out of the garage, hitting second gear before I even hit the street.

I glance back over my shoulder as I speed away. Black smoke and orange flames lick the sky.

I’m three blocks away before I pull in the clutch and skid to a stop. Vivian runs out of the alley toward me, wearing jeans, sunglasses, a V-neck white T-shirt and new white tennis shoes with her big-ass red purse on one shoulder. I’ve never seen her wear tennis shoes before. But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Vivian is always full of surprises.

Her tits bounce high with each running step and I come to a sudden realization: I love to watch that woman run. Then, just like she’s reading my mind, she grabs her tits with both hands to stop their bouncing and picks up speed. She catapults herself onto the seat behind me, slaps me on the thigh like I’m a horse and yells, “Let’s roll!”

We haven’t gone half a block before a big rocket drops out of the sky and lands in the middle of the road right in front of us. It crashes with enough force to bury itself three feet deep in the asphalt. I have just enough reflex time to swerve around it.

I’m leaning into the next corner when it finally dawns on me—that was no rocket. It was our hot water heater.

This morning I fell asleep on the toilet. I only woke up when I started to fall off. And yesterday I fell asleep standing straight up in the shower. I only woke up when all the hot water ran out.

I can’t sleep at night anymore, but I can sleep through the day and all bodily functions. So, I stay up all night writing in my journal and watching the classic movie channel and Nick at Night.

Even though I sold my first book, I don’t have any aspirations for this journal. Nothing exciting is going to happen anyway and that’s fine with me. But I still write. I like the sound of my pen scratching across paper trying to keep up with my thoughts.

The book I sold about me and Vivian’s adventure ended up being called
Tats.
I wanted to name it
Tits
, but my agent thought that prudish people wouldn’t be able to say
Tits
out loud.
I thought it should be called
Tits
just so people would think it was porn and it’d sell more copies. But I’m just the writer, what do I know?

Tats
was one of those weird books that nobody could categorize. Some people thought it was a lesbian romance with action adventure, and other people thought it was a mainstream black comedy with dramatic undertones, and still others called it a dramedy for everybody. I don’t know what it was except it was about me meeting Vivian and both of us being chased by the British Mafia because we stole half a million of their dollars. In only three hundred pages, I got out of prison for shooting my stepfather; I got shot by the Mafia; I slept with a man and got pregnant; Vivian got sober; I almost died; and Vivian and I fell in love.

Tats
made it onto some bestseller list and it’s already in its second printing. There was even what they called a bidding war between movie studios over the book rights. One of the big studios nabbed the rights and they issued a press release saying they were going to sign Drew Barrymore and Hilary Swank to play the parts of me and Viv. But, as luck would have it, those two were busy for the next ten years and so the studio started looking at B-list actresses and none of them wanted to endanger their potential career by playing a lesbian and, next thing you know, there’s a couple of unknowns signed on to play the leads.

I already forgot the names of the actresses, but they were the spitting image of Drew and Hilary. That’s Hollywood for you. If they can’t afford the real Drew and Hilary, then they’ll hire a cheaper version of the same thing. Vivian started calling them Fake Drew and Fake Hilary and those’re the names that are stuck in my head.

The best news was that Vivian finagled her way into what they call a coproducing credit. Which, as it turns out, means nothing except you get to see your name in the credits. That’s all she wanted anyway.

They gave me money up front for the movie rights and told me I’d get a lot more on the back end. Which made me laugh because I’ve always liked getting it on the back end. They shot the whole thing up in Canada. I guess they think eastern Oklahoma looks like Canada. They FedExed us a bunch of tickets to the Hollywood movie premiere and Viv’s already shopping for the dress she’s going to wear. I’ve put my foot down about her getting me in another dress, though. I want to pull up to the red carpet with the two of us on my Harley, but Vivian’s worried about the wind messing up her hair. We’ll see who wins that argument.

Vivian even asked if the carpet has to be red. She’s worried that it’ll clash with her hair.

I’m just glad for the money the book brought in. Between buying the house and setting up my motorcycle repair shop, we blew through all our money in about two months. It turns out that Vivian’s real good at spending money.

I watch a little more of the late-night movie then snap off the TV when it starts getting too scary. I hear Vivian’s snores echoing down the hallway and it’s like the house itself is breathing hard. A couple of tree branches scrape against the roof, sounding like fingernails trying to scratch their way in.

I really have to cut out the scary movies.

I keep feeling like I’m being watched.

I launch myself out of the recliner and follow my big belly through the dark to the front window. I carefully stand to the side, pull back the curtain about an inch and peek outside.

They’re still there. Five of them. Sitting right there, talking to each other and looking at me looking at them.

I quickly reach through the curtain and snap the lock on the window. I test the deadbolt on the front door. I run through the house, checking all the doors and windows. They might still be able to get in, but they’ll have to break some glass to do it.

I wish I had a gun so I could sniper them off one at a time and be done with it. Vivian won’t allow me to have a gun in the house, though. She says I have poor impulse control and a Dirty Harry attitude.

I peek back around the curtain. Damn, now there’s six of them. Twelve eyes peer back at me, sending a chill racing up and down my spine.

“Lee?”

I gasp and turn. It’s only Vivian. She’s wearing her sleepy
face and her hair is messed up, and she looks way too good for somebody who just woke up. It’s at times like this that Vivian is at her most heart-stoppingly beautiful. She’s just standing there pigeon-toed, in plain cotton panties and a big old T-shirt and pillow creases on her cheek. She absofuckinglutely melts me from the inside out.

“What’re you doing awake?” I ask.

“What’re
you
doing awake? It’s four in the fucking morning,” she says, scratching her butt.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answer. “So I watched a movie.”

“Honey, you need to sleep. The baby needs to rest. You shouldn’t be up all night watching TV,” she scolds.

“Don’t you think I want to sleep?” I ask, running my hands over my gigantic belly. “She keeps kicking and moving, and I have to pee like every five minutes. If I could sleep, I would.”

Vivian walks up to me and sweetly kisses my belly. “Ssshhh, baby, your moms need some sleep,” she whispers to my belly button.

“Don’t talk to her. It just makes her more excited.”

“What were you looking at?” she asks, opening the curtain.

“Don’t!” I yell, jerking the curtain closed. I whisper harshly, “They can see you.”

“Who?” she asks, alarmed.

“The birds.”

“Birds?” she asks again like she didn’t hear me right.

“Yeah,” I answer a little sheepishly.

“Birds,” she says again, this time without the question at the end.