Her Time, page 1
Her Time
Edie Bryant
Contents
Copyright
1. Candace
2. Brynne
3. Candace
4. Brynne
5. Candace
6. Brynne
7. Candace
8. Brynne
9. Candace
10. Brynne
11. Candace
12. Brynne
13. Candace
14. Brynne
15. Candace
Her Prime Preview
16. Gina
17. Anabella
18. Gina
Free Bonus Chapter
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Edie Bryant
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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 noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
* * *
This book is a reimagined version of a previously published MM romance novel. I really enjoyed revitalizing this story with lesbian themes and new lovers. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed rewriting it.
1
Candace
I downed the last of my Midori Sour and let out a big sigh.
“Can I have another, please?” I requisitioned the bartender.
He nodded. “I take it you aren’t having such a good day?” he asked.
“How could you tell?” I said in a light, sarcastic tone.
Today had been my last day at what was once my dream job. I worked as a journalist at one of the most prestigious news companies in LA. I had managed to get an internship right out of college which eventually landed me a full-time position writing for the Arts and Culture department.
I had been working there for four years now and I loved every minute of it. It truly was a dream come true for me, and not just because I had landed myself a very prestigious position, but also because the people I worked with were fantastic.
You always hear of coworker horror stories, but there were none in our department. Some of my coworkers actually went on to become a few of my best friends. I had a home at work, a family.
Which was important to me considering I didn’t really have a home or family outside of work. I mean, sure, I had an apartment where I slept, but I spent so much time working that I was barely ever there. I never even took the time to decorate the damn place. It literally had the most basic furniture, clothes, bath essentials, and not much else.
I was a workaholic, I will fully admit to that. I gave every piece of myself to my job and I liked it that way. So now that I had been let go, it literally felt like my life was over.
We had been informed that the Arts and Culture department was being shut down merely two weeks ago. I think, until now, I had been in disbelief.
I guess I had hoped the decision wasn’t final, that the board of directors would change their mind and we’d be allowed to stay. But today was the last day and there had been no reversal of their decision.
A few staff members had been absorbed into other departments, but I wasn’t one of them. So I’d been on the hunt for a new job for the last couple weeks. I hadn’t had any luck yet, despite nabbing a few interviews. I thought it’d be easier for me to find a job coming from a prestigious news network, but apparently Los Angeles was oversaturated with journalists right now.
But I wasn’t going to worry about that right now. I wasn’t going to worry about anything right now. I came here for one reason and one reason only: to drink until I forgot about all my problems. I even took a cab here, knowing there was no way I’d be able to drive myself home later.
I continued sipping on my drink. I was starting to feel a little buzzed when I heard the stool next to me creak as a tall man pulled it out to sit down.
“Hey there.” He grinned at me.
I looked him up and down. To my surprise, he wasn’t bad looking. Dark hair, dimpled cheeks, perfect teeth. On any other night, I might indulge him with a little flirting… if he were a woman.
But not tonight. Tonight was not about hooking up, even if it was a woman that was hitting on me. I promised myself that before I even came out tonight. I was going to forget my problems, yes, but I wasn’t going to drown them with another person.
“Hello,” I said nonchalantly, trying to make it clear from the beginning that I had no interest in him.
“What’s your name?” He grinned at me.
“Candace,” I said shortly.
“I’m Derek.” He extended his hand, and I shook it because I couldn’t think of way to tell him politely to fuck off right now.
But, still, I think I made my intentions clear when I looked back down at my drink and started chugging it before asking for another.
“Wow, you’re serious about your drinking, huh?” he asked.
“Tonight I am,” I told him.
“Boyfriend troubles?” he asked, clearly trying to hint at whether or not I was single.
“No,” I said. “Job troubles.”
I purposely tried to be vague because I was hoping this guy would just back off on his own. I always hated rejecting people, and I certainly knew how it felt to be rejected… especially with what I was going through at the moment. And guys could be weird about it if you simply told them you were gay. Sometimes they’d think you were lying and try even harder. It was weird. And I was in no mood to put up with anything like that tonight.
“Job troubles, huh?” he said. “Where do you work?”
“Look,” I finally began, “I’m flattered that you’re interested in me, but I’m really not looking to hook up with anyone tonight. Not that you don’t seem nice and obviously you’re a good looking man, but your time would be better spent chasing someone else in this bar.” The alcohol gave me courage to be blunt with him.
“You think I’m good looking?” He grinned playfully.
But I was not feeling playful.
“I think you missed the point,” I told him. “I was saying that I was not here to meet men. Or anyone. So whether or not you’re good looking doesn’t play a factor, I was just trying to be nice. But you’re gonna have to move on here.”
“Come on, I know this game. Hard to get, right?” He placed his hand on the small of my back and I jerked away from it.
“Uh, no. I’m really not. Look, dude, there’s plenty of other girls here tonight and I’m sure one of them would love to go home with you, but I’m not that girl.”
“But, you see, there’s only one girl in here that I actually have my eye on, and that’s you.”
I rolled my eyes. “And why is that?” I asked as I continued to drink my next Midori.
“You’re the cutest.”
This was meant to flatter me, but it didn’t. Firstly, because I knew it wasn’t true. There were certainly prettier girls than me in this bar right now. And secondly, compliments on my looks always felt very shallow to me.
I didn’t care if I looked good, honestly. What did that matter? It had nothing to do with the kind of person I was. My looks were something I was born with, they’re just genetics.
“That’s flattering, but it means nothing to me,” I said more coldly than I’d intended.
His face went hard. “Bitch,” he said sharply.
“Excuse me?” I snapped.
“You heard me. You’re being a bitch. I come here, try to be nice to you, try to compliment your bitchy ass, and this is how you react? I could have any girl in here, you know!”
“Yeah, uh, I was the one who said that, remember? So go find one of them! I told you, I’m not fucking interested. Move the fuck along.”
He stood up and stared down at me in a menacing way. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way, or I swear to fucking God I’ll—”
He was cut off by a woman’s voice. I whipped around to see a tall, athletic-looking woman standing behind me.
“Hey, back the fuck off her, dude,” she told Derek.
“Stay out of this, lady. This doesn’t concern you.”
“I think it does. When you’re yelling at a girl, making a scene in a public bar, I think it becomes a public concern.”
“Do you know this bitch or something?” he asked.
“No, I don’t, but don’t fucking talk to her like that. I’ve been over there the whole time, watching you leer at her like some fucking predatory piece of shit. She didn’t do anything but reject you. If your ego can’t take it, that’s not her problem. She’s just trying to relax and have a drink, fucking respect that.”
“If she was really trying to relax and have a drink, why didn’t she do it at home, huh? If she didn’t want to get hit on, why is she sitting at the fucking bar? We both know why she’s here.”
I could see the stranger’s eyes getting darker the longer she stared at Derek.
“You are really starting to piss me the fuck off, man,” she said. “Get out of here, before I make you get out of here.”
Without warning, Derek lunged at the stranger, his fist hitting her right cheek before the stranger could react.
But she took it like a champ. She barely even moved, it had no effect on her. Which wasn’t surprising, she was built like a fucking rock.
Derek wasn’t even that much bigger than her, so I have no idea why he’d pick this battle. And you could see by the smile on the stranger’s face tha t she wasn’t sure either, but she looked glad for the opportunity to kick Derek’s ass.
The woman immediately landed a punch back on Derek. And he did not take it nearly as well. His hands immediately went to his face as he stumbled backward.
“Hey!” the bartender yelled at the stranger, but she paid literally no mind.
She dove back on Derek and landed another three punches. But that was all she could get in before the security guard waltzed over and pulled her off.
“Come on, you need to leave,” he’d told her in a serious tone.
“Fine, fine.” The stranger put her hands up. “As long as you kick this fucker out too. He was harassing this girl.”
“Yeah, the both of you, let’s go.”
Derek groaned on the floor as the security guard nudged him up. The stranger was already headed out the door and I had barely processed everything that just happened.
Seriously, this had all come so fast. Mere minutes ago I was drinking alone, stewing over my job, and now I had just incited a bar fight.
Without thinking, my drunken self ran out the bar to chase down the stranger. I’m not even sure why. I guess I just felt I had to thank her, maybe apologize for being the reason she got kicked out of the bar.
“Wait!” I called out as I saw her walk down the sidewalk.
She stopped and turned around. “Yeah?”
“I… I just wanted to thank you. I mean, I’m sorry you got kicked out, but… thanks.”
Oh, God, I was way too drunk to have this conversation without fumbling all over my words.
She smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I needed to blow off some steam anyway. I’m actually glad I met that fucking prick tonight.”
I looked at her with narrowed eyes. She looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on why.
“Do… Do I know you?”
She shifted her eyes and shrugged. “I doubt it.”
“No… I think I do. You look really familiar.”
“I just have one of those faces.” She gave a half smile. “Seriously, I get that a lot. Don’t overthink it too much.”
“If you say so,” I said, before taking a step forward.
I stumbled and started to fall toward the concrete, but she caught me before I hit the ground.
“Hey there, now, you alright?”
“I’m fine, just… totally wasted.” I laughed.
“Well, do you have a way to get home? Normally I’d offer to drive you but I’m pretty drunk myself. I can call you a cab, though?”
“Yeah… a cab. That’s how I was going to get home.” I planted myself on a bus station bench and sighed. “But I’m not ready to go yet. You wanna talk?” I asked boldly.
I couldn’t even believe the words came out of my mouth. But the alcohol had thrown all my inhibitions out the window and I really wasn’t ready to go back to my lonely apartment and be by my drunken self.
“Sure, I have no plans.” She sat. “Are you upset about something?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “My job. I was laid off, today was my last day. I’m, like, pretty upset about it.” God, I sounded stupid right now. No doubt about it, I was wasted.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Things aren’t exactly going great with my job, either.”
“Really? Why not?”
She thought for a moment as if she couldn’t be sure exactly how to word her problem.
“My company has been taking a loss, despite my best efforts,” she said vaguely.
“I see. So we’re both having pretty bad nights, huh?” I said awkwardly. I was trying to continue the conversation, but I couldn’t think of another topic without sounding completely awkward. Of course, I already did sound pretty awkward.
She laughed. “I guess so.” I think she knew I was in no shape to continue the conversation, so she did it for me. “Where are you from?” she asked.
“The Midwest. I moved here after journalism school.”
“Journalism school? So you’re a journalist?”
“I am.”
“I really admire that. I’ve always liked journalists. I deal with a lot of them in my line of work.”
I was tempted to ask what line of work that was, but she had been so vague about her job earlier. I got the feeling she didn’t want to tell me. So I moved on.
“And where are you from?”
“Here. Born and bred in Los Angeles,” she told me.
“Oh, that’s great, that’s—” I don’t even know what I was going to say, my sentence was broken up by me suddenly puking right next to the park bench.
Classy.
She put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Woah! Are you okay?”
“I… I’m fine, I…” Humiliated was the word. “Well, uh, this has been thoroughly embarrassing… so I think I’m going to go back into the bar.”
She laughed. “It’s fine, really, it happens. It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time I see a girl vomit. Here, I’ll call a cab, alright? I’m on my way home too. We can ride together.”
I didn’t feel like going home, but I also didn’t want to walk away from her. With the dull light from the streetlamp above us, I was noticing how incredibly beautiful she was. She had a lovely face, toned arms, and a perfect sideways smile.
“Okay, sure, I’ll ride home with you,” I told her.
But I had no intention of going home.
2
Brynne
I sat at one of the booths in my favorite bar and gripped my fourth beer. I was here by myself, which was unusual for me, but I needed to drink and I wasn’t in the mood to be with other people.
I guess I could’ve just stayed home and got drunk on my couch, but something about that sounded so pathetic. It’s the kind of thing you do when your life is falling apart or you’re on the road to alcoholism. And my life wasn’t falling apart, in fact it was on the up and up. It was just my day that was bad.
I quietly observed all the patrons of the bar. It was the only entertaining thing I could do without having to interact with anyone.
There was a pretty big group here tonight. A lot of people playing pool, a group of three giggly girls were drinking behind me. There were a few people scattered at the bar top.
I don’t know why, but I really got a kick out of watching the people around me. Something about imagining all of their individual lives really interested me.
What kind of jobs did these people have? Were they happily drinking or sadly drinking? What had they experienced in life?
I looked down at my drink, deciding on whether or not to chug it, when a voice jerked my attention away.
“Hey, I know you!” she said excitedly.
Goddammit, I thought to myself. I specifically chose a low-key bar so shit like this wouldn’t happen tonight.
“No, I don’t think so.” I shrugged her off.
“Yes, I do! You’re that volleyball player, aren’t you? You play for the—”
“No, I’m not,” I cut her off. “I get that a lot, but I’m not,” I lied.
“Oh,” she said, clearly disappointed. “Sorry to bother you, but you could be her twin!”
I gave a forced smile. “That’s what I hear.”
She paused for a second, clearly mulling over what to say next. She had clearly come over here expecting to speak to a famous athlete. I think now that she knew that wasn’t the case, she was trying to decide if she was still interested or not.
“Buy me a drink?” She smiled.
I wasn’t surprised by this response at all. Not to be cocky, but even besides being a famous athlete, I was pretty good looking. I’d never had a problem with dating.
On the contrary, I’d never even had to try. It had been like this for a long time. People just threw themselves at me, men and women. Either because I was rich and famous, or because I was attractive. And that didn’t usually bother me. I enjoyed the attention and the constant stream of unattached sex.
But tonight I had no interest in that. Hell, I might have been done with that lifestyle altogether.
“Sorry,” I told her. “Not tonight.”
She didn’t say a word, but her eyebrows sloped downward as she walked away in a huff.
