Addicted To Love: 80s Baby, page 1
Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2021 Alice La Roux
Formatting: Phoenix Book Promo
Proofreading: Dom’s Proofreading
Cover: Dee Ellis
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author: alicelaroux@outlook.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For my mother,
who raised me on 80’s music, made me obsessed with The Brat Pack and nurtured my love for Adam Ant. Thank you for giving me questionable tastes.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
80’s Baby Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Alice La Roux
Pine Grove isn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis, so it shouldn’t surprise me that every man and his dog seems to be inside The Tipsy Cow this Friday evening. It’s a small bar that serves mediocre beer and occasionally has live music, but there’s not a lot of choice around here for places to drink. Mark, my boyfriend, nuzzles drunkenly into my neck, and I shove him away, only for his wet mouth to find my skin once again. I hated when he got like this, all handsy in public.
“Mark, take a chill pill.” I push him away, ignoring the way he hooks his fingers into my jean loopholes and tugs me closer.
“Come on, baby, I just wanna show you some love.”
“And I want to get a drink.” I finally manage to detangle his limbs from my body, and I realise I’m still wearing my name tag from work, reminding me that I wanted nothing more than to go home.
“Grab me a beer while you’re up there.”
As I begin to walk away, I can hear one of his friends whisper, “Dude, why is she even here?”
Did he think I was having fun? Rolling my eyes, I grab my purse and head over to the bar, my sneakers sticking to the floor. Today had been a long one, and all I wanted was to go home, crawl into my tiny bed, in my shitty trailer and sleep. Instead, I’d let Mark and his band of goonies drag me to the bar straight after work. I’d left Pine Grove Galleria, climbed into the back of a shitty Yugo and here I was. It wasn’t like my job at TapeWorld was particularly hard, it’s just today we had to do stocktake and my arms and my back ached from lugging boxes of records and vinyl around. I was in no mood for Mark and his wastoid friends. I can hear them jeering and yelling as they mess around at the table, and I tune them out as I order two beers and grab the cash from my purse.
A pretty blonde woman in a tight black dress and red heels accidentally stumbles into me, making me even more aware of the fact that I’d come here straight from work. My scruffy sneakers needed replacing, but I tried to style it out as a deliberate fashion choice, with my dark jeans and the black T-shirt I’d modified with some safety pins and a few deliberate holes. Being poor sucked, but there wasn’t much I could change about that tonight.
Weaving through the crowd that’s steadily building, I head back to the table. I can hear shouts as I get nearer, and when I finally reach Mark, he’s standing, fists balled up in some jock’s fancy polo T-shirt as they hiss abuse at each other.
“Woah, man, just apologise! No one’s looking for a fight!” another voice calls out, and I inwardly groan. Getting wasted and starting fights was Mark’s favorite hobby these days, it’s like he was angry at the world and needed to get his knuckles bloody to release some of that rage. The slightest thing could set him tumbling over the edge, a routine I knew so well by now.
So why did I stay? Because he was my first boyfriend, the boy who’d grown up in the trailer next to mine and skipped school with me on the days that the bruises were the brightest. He’d taught me how to tie my laces, how to roll a cigarette and how to kiss. He was the only person I’d ever depended on, and I couldn’t walk away from that because he liked to get drunk and brawl.
“What’s going on?” I ask Mark carefully, turning my back to the jock. He wasn’t my concern, I just needed to help Mark chill out before we get banned from here again.
“I got a little something on this dweeb’s jacket. He’s going mental over nothing.” Mark’s glassy eyes tell me he’s too far gone tonight, he’s in a world of his own, balancing on the precipice of insanity.
“Yeah, it’s just beer,” Tate, one of Mark’s friends sneers from where he’s sat. “No need to wig out.”
“That’s not the point, is it?” The guy’s voice is edged with disdain, but it’s low, melodic almost. So he’s a cool guy, huh? “You fell into me. You should apologise.”
Surging forward, Mark growls, “I ain’t apologising to some lame airhead.”
“Mark, just apologise. Please,” I grab his denim jacket, and I’m clutching it tightly, but he doesn’t seem to see or hear me. The fabric is course in my hands as I maneuver between the two of them, hoping to create a barrier. I know it’s no use, but hopefully it’ll make Mark think before he does something really stupid.
“Just listen to your girlfriend. Apologise.” The guy demands, and thanks to Mark’s jostling, I’m wedged firmly between the two of them, the stranger’s body warm against my back as they reach around me to grip onto each other.
“Don’t tell me what to fucking do. Who do you think you are?” Mark’s almost screaming now, and we’re drawing all the attention of the room.
“Just apologise! Are you mental? I don’t wanna fight you.”
I flinch as a vein begins to pop in Mark’s neck. Why was he always like this? Snorting, he all but spits, “Because you know you’d lose, you pussy.”
“Jesus! What is wrong with you, dude?” someone else shouts from behind the jock.
I pat Mark’s chest, trying to reassure him, to remind him that I’m right here and we’re in a public place. “Look, can we all just stay calm and take a step back?”
“I’m not letting go of this fucker. Thinks he can come here and disrespect me, talking smack and telling me what to do.”
“Mark, that’s not what’s happening…” My words do nothing to placate him, and I can feel the stranger shifting behind me, a gentle waft of sandalwood and citrus settling around us. Great, he even smelled like he had money.
Mark on the other hand smells like beer, and grease from the hamburger he ate earlier. “Move, Tammy. Move, before I move you.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” the soft voice says from behind me. I can feel his breath on the top of my head, making me feel smaller and more boxed in than ever. Why did I feel the urge to lean back into him? Into that cool voice of his?
“There you go again, telling me what to do!” I can feel the fury in Mark’s chest as he inhales before letting go and swinging his fist.
The rich kid releases Mark, moving his hands, and I expect him to try and get in a punch of his own, but instead he grabs my hips and pushes me to the side.
I’m not expecting the move, and I stumble, falling and catching my face on the corner of the table before landing on my knees. But no one is paying attention to me as it becomes a free-for-all, fists are flying everywhere as Mark unleashes his anger on a stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My head is spinning and the taste of copper tells me that I’m bleeding, either my gum or my lip, something I’m trying to work out from where I’m sitting on the floor, when a face comes close to mine.
“Are you okay?” A gentle hand cups my face and I’m looking into a pair of blue eyes, the colour of the ocean, the type of ocean you only see in travel magazines. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…”
His dark hair is mussed and his lip is bleeding, reminding me again of my own wound. Shrugging away from his touch, I glare. “Don’t touch me.”
I don’t need his kindness. It was my boyfriend's fault that I had a bloody mouth, not this stranger’s. I didn’t need his kindness suffocating me. I didn’t need his warm hands or his gentle voice, I needed fresh air.
He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s tugged back into the foray by Mark, and that’s when I decide I’ve had enough. I can’t sit on the floor and wait for this to be over, I had work in the morning. I had been lucky to land the job at TapeWorld, and I couldn’t throw that away for a fight over nothing.
Mark and the others don’t even notice me leave, but as I make my way to the door, I can feel eyes on my skin, and I know without looking that there is someone in the crowd determined to kill me with kindness. Clenching my jaw, I ignore it and step out into the night. Pine Grove is a tiny parish filled with gossips, and by tomorrow afternoon everyone would know that Mark Lawson had started yet another fight at The Tipsy Cow.
Grabbing a cup of coffee from the food court, I virtually speed walk to the Galleria, cutting it close since I’m due to start at work in six minutes. I hadn’t seen Mark since that night tw
My father hadn’t been conscious when I had slipped back into the trailer that night, but when I’d left for work today, my purse had been emptied once again and he wasn’t parked on his usual spot on the sofa. No doubt he’d needed a little top-up for his habit. My father wasn’t a particularly bad man, he just wasn’t a good one either, always putting his needs before anything else... like the rent or food. His addiction issues were nothing new, he’d been a junkie on and off for most of my life. A small, very guilty part of me was almost glad that my mother was no longer around, living with one narcissistic drug user was enough, two would have me going insane. I couldn’t even say that her death had caused him to go off the deep end, he was already drowning before she passed. In fact, when I’d found her in our tiny trailer, skin cold and pallid, chest stiller than anything I’d ever seen in my life, he hadn’t even been able to look at me. He was tweaking so hard, I’d had to run across to Mrs. Jones, three trailers over, for help calling an ambulance. I was seven.
It scared me sometimes, when I looked at Mark and saw echoes of my parents. But he was different. He promised me I’d never have to live like that once we got out of this town, once we’d saved up enough to leave Pine Grove for good. And again, a small, guilty part of me wondered if that would ever actually happen. I’d graduated almost four years ago, and yet I was still in the same trailer, same town, with the same people. I knew it was a cycle, and I knew I was stuck.
“Tammy! Come on, girl, it’s almost time to open up,” Tiffany, the assistant manager of TapeWorld calls as I almost skid through the door. She’s wearing yet another pink outfit, complete with pink fishnet tights. Tiff was all about the pink—like Barbie but prettier with crimped hair and hazel eyes. Barbie was too perfect, too plastic. And I was the opposite to both of them, with my dark eyeliner, faded, ripped jeans, black long-sleeved crop top and oversized denim jacket, complete with my own personalisations. I’d spent all evening a few years ago adding safety pins, badges and patches to my jacket, which had been a bargain find from a small secondhand shop just on the edge of town. Modifying clothes was my passion, and I was kinda pleased with myself over the finished product. I often had compliments from people who came into the store.
“I know! I’m sorry, I missed my bus...had to walk.” It was a lie, I had no money for the damn bus, and the only reason I’d been able to grab some coffee was thanks to Louie, who’d been on the counter at Burger Town and saw me coming. He never charged me, instead I repaid him by listening to his dating woes during our lunch breaks.
“Well, come on. You’re on the shop floor today with Lana. I need you to put out the new delivery and do an inventory on the tapes, put together a list of anything that’s missing or low.”
“Got it,” I say as I quickly dash to the back of the shop, where I dump my bag and jacket. My little walk had left me sweating, and I was only going to get warmer lugging around boxes.
Two hours later I’m regretting my clothing choices. My belt buckle cuts into my skin when I’m bending down to grab things from the floor and place them on the shelves, and I’m very aware of the way my usually flat stomach seems to have rolls when I move, as the group of teenagers have been discussing from the other side of some Whitney Huston tapes. My jeans are high waisted, so there’s only a band of skin showing, but it’s enough to make me weary of the leering from the boys, so when Tiffany’s back is turned, I flip them off and pinch my rolls, letting them know I heard every fucking word. They’re only kids, and their faces turn red before they start shoving each other out the door, embarrassed at being caught.
With a soft sigh, I side-eye the remaining tapes that need to be stacked and decide instead of leaning down, showcasing my rolls in all their glory and breaking my back, it might just be easier to reach up from the floor. Dropping to my knees, I instantly feel more comfortable and stretch out the ache that had been building in my lower back. With my hands reached out above my head as I loosen myself up before resuming the restocking, I almost jump when my fingers brush against something soft.
“Well, if this isn’t a sight,” a familiar voice murmurs, and I tilt my face upwards.
Of course, it’s the rich guy from The Tipsy Cow, looking down at me, on my knees, with a smirk. “I didn’t realise you were the submissive type, this look suits you.”
I snort, “Not even.”
“Ohhh, very even.” I can’t seem to look away as the tip of his tongue darts out and trails lazily across his bottom lip. It’s like I’m hyper aware as citrus notes seem to fill the air. Did he bathe in lemons? What was that?
Grabbing a handful of Madonna tapes, I start putting them out, trying not to look at the guy invading my space. “Can I help you? Or are you just here to be a giant creep?”
He chuckles softly, and I look away, my cheeks warm. “Actually, I’m looking for that charming boyfriend of yours.”
“Can’t help.” I stiffen, and it’s like there’s a rock settling in my stomach. What the heck had Mark gotten himself into now? Was that why he’d been avoiding the trailer park? “How did you know where to find me?”
“I saw your badge on Friday, Tammy.” I glance down at the badge pinned to my chest, with my name and TapeWorld clearly visible. A piece of paper is waved in front of my face. “Well, here’s my phone number. He’s going to want to call, since I spoke to my lawyers and it could get nasty if I decide to sue.”
I push myself to my feet, pocketing the scrap of paper. “Sue?”
Immediately I feel stupid for not noticing the black sling he’s wearing. With my tongue feeling heavy in my mouth, I ask, “Mark did that?”
He adjusts the sling, giving me a chance to take in his expensive clothes and the silver watch he wears. He oozed money, and arrogance. “After you left, yeah.”
Crossing my arms, I tilt my head. How had the scuffle escalated so much? Was Mark on drugs? No. He’d promised me...“Why?”
Rich boy smiles, and it’s gentler this time. “Said he didn’t like how I looked at you.”
“And how was that?” I can’t keep the frown from my face, so Mark had broken this guy’s arm over something stupid?
“Like I wanted to eat you apparently.” That tongue darts out again, and I swear the shiver that goes through me is from a customer opening the door and not the man with the blue eyes.
Rolling my eyes, I curse Mark. How could he let his paranoia and misplaced jealousy cause this? The rich jock had no more interest in me, than I did in becoming an Olympic rhythmic gymnast.
“I’ll pass on the message.” Grabbing the now empty box, I head back to the storeroom, ignoring the way he calls my name as I walk away.
The next day I’m on a closing shift, meaning I start in the afternoon, and I’ll be helping Tiffany lock up once she cashes up. When I leave the trailer, my father is back to his usual spot on the sofa, eyes glassy as he gets high and watches Cheers with his hand lodged into a bag of Cheetos, scattering orange dust everywhere as he laughs.
I grimace as I walk past him and leave to catch the bus, he doesn’t even acknowledge me, which suits me just fine. I don’t think he’d notice if I left, not really, not until they were trying to kick him out of the trailer or there was no electricity and he was plunged into darkness without his TV.
Today I’m wearing a plaid skirt, an oversized black shirt that’s off the shoulder and knee-high black socks, finished off with black boots. Debbie Harry was one of my style icons, and it was cheaper and easier to pull off a grungy, punk look rather than trying to be something I’m not. Preppy and stylish was for girls with money, and most of my clothes were hand-me-downs or from thrift stores. My ashy blonde hair is pulled up with a scrunchie, and as I get off the bus and walk to Tape World, I find myself walking in tempo with how my ponytail swings. Or am I swinging my hair in time to my footsteps? Either way, it’s something little and silly that seems to perk me up...that is until Rich Boy grins at me from where he’s waiting, leaning with one foot resting against the wall.
