High on You Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter TWELVE

  Other Books by Mysti Parker

  Connect with the authors:

  About the authors:

  High on You

  By Mysti Parker & MJ Post

  Want access to new books from Mysti Parker before they're even released? How about exclusive prizes just for members? Click here to get a FREE book just for signing up!

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Mysti Parker on Kindle Direct Publishing

  High on You

  City Meets Country #2

  Copyright © 2018 Mysti Parker & MJ Post

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, shame on you. Every time a book is stolen, a kitten dies somewhere in the world. You don't want to kill a kitten, do you? Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and/or persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are the property of their respective owners and are used for reference only and not an implied endorsement. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter TWELVE

  Other Books by Mysti Parker

  Connect with the authors:

  About the authors:

  Chapter One

  Każda milość przychodzi w porę.

  Love comes when its time is coming.

  — Polish traditional saying

  Idiot, Lena Bosko thought. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  Was she thinking of Brynne, who was sitting on the corner of her desk over-sharing the history of her failed diets?

  Was she thinking of Elvis, who was leaning on the side of the doorframe pretending to listen and staring at her breasts like they were fresh loaves at a panaderia?

  Did she mean Chrissy, their boss, who called two meetings a day which were aimed at efficiency but constantly interrupted real work?

  Did she mean herself, for loving the advertising game so much that she would surround herself with these mind-numbing dufuses for a living? Yeah, advertising, the most dumbass-plagued job you’ll ever love.

  Did she mean herself, because her best friend Ellie was married and expecting and here she was, 23, with no boyfriend, no prospect of one, no sex life, and a closet full of stiletto heels that pinched her feet?

  All of the above.

  She was going to speed-dating tonight. That would cost fifty dollars she would never see again. A syrupy drink of fruit juice, melted ice, and alcohol-flavored water; a meal she couldn’t do more than nibble because the men thought she’d get fat if she ate with her usual enthusiasm; five to ten minutes each with men who were there because they didn’t know how to approach women any other way.

  In the meantime, she was left to deal with two co-workers, a ninny with her hair dyed blue and a douchebag with his shirt unbuttoned to reveal untrimmed chest hair. Both, for some reason, preferred her office to their own.

  Brynne (blue hair): “So I was like, this juicer isn’t really giving me the kind of texture I like, you know, it’s too grainy, but then if I filter out the grit, I’m losing nutrients too, right?”

  Elvis (chest hair): “Hey, I got a juicer. Lena, you got a juicer?”

  Lena: “I don’t have a juicer, Elvis. I bet you like to juice yourself, right?”

  Elvis (eyes narrowing in a dumbass expression): “Huh?”

  Lena: “Listen, Brynne, you’re beautiful. You don’t need to diet.”

  Brynne: “This is New York City. Everyone needs to diet. Did you see that coconut water vendor by the Flatiron Building? I told you, tell him I sent you, he’ll let you cut in front of the line.”

  Lena: “Yeah, sure, I’ll go. Seriously, Brynne, you look great. You weigh less than me.”

  Elvis: “Yeah, Brynne. Lena’s in great shape. I always notice that about her.”

  Lena: “Elvis, get the fuck out of my office.”

  Elvis winked and stepped out of the doorframe and into the hall. “I’m out of your office.” His ogling continued. “Now what, huh?”

  Lena got up from the desk. She took Brynne’s arm gently and guided her to the doorway. “Brynne, you’re gorgeous. You don’t need to diet. Would you go work already? Elvis, get the fuck out of here.”

  “But I can’t,” he answered. “You’re like a giant Elvis magnet.”

  Lena raised her middle finger into his face, nudged Brynne out, and slammed the office door.

  The intercom blooped.

  Chrissy announced, “Lena, just reminding you of the meeting at three.”

  It was noon.

  Lena buzzed her back. “Can I get out of it, Chrissy?”

  Bloop. Chrissy responded, “It’s an important team building exercise.”

  Lena (buzz): “Ok, I’ll be there.”

  A moment of silence. Lena tapped her keyboard, and her screen came up with a page of copy she was working on. The client’s original: Conquistador Coffee. 100% Organic. 100% Delicious.

  100% Lame.

  Bloop. Chrissy again. “Three sharp, okay?”

  Lena pounded the desk. It hurt. She buzzed her boss. “Okay already! Three sharp! I got it!”

  Silence.

  Conquistador Coffee. 100% Organic. 100% … what? You don’t say delicious when talking about coffee, do you?

  Bloop. Chrissy noted, “The attitude, Lena. I need you to be a team player.”

  The office door was cracked open. Lena saw Elvis peeking in. She grabbed her stapler and threw it at the gap where his face showed. A bang and a thud. He shut the door.

  Lena said to herself, “I’ll kick his fucking ass, I swear. I will beat him into the fucking ground.”

  Her email dinged. She knew better than to leave the email client open when trying to work, but she had opened it hoping to get something that would help her ignore both the douchebag and the ninny. She opened the email without looking at it.

  A picture of a kielbasa. From Elvis.

  She forwarded it to Chrissy with the message: Elvis is harrassing me.

  A moment later, she realized she’d misspelled harassing.

  It was the worst day ever, except for yesterday and tomorrow and the day after that.

  ****

  It was six-thirty PM and she was walking to the speed-dating event's venue, Mitmita, the Ethiopian restaurant one block from the Flatiron Building, when her heel snapped off just as she was passing a homeless woman seated against a building. She squatted — thank God she was wearing jeans, not a miniskirt — and the homeless woman blinked at her as she felt around on the ground for the broken piece. “God bless you,” the woman said.

  “God bless you,” Lena answered. She tucked the broken heel into her pocket, took out a dollar for the woman from her wallet, and resumed walking, unevenly, till she reached the Payless on the corner. One container of glue and one cheap pair of flats later, she was back en route. Her plan had been to get to the restaurant early and have actual food so she wouldn’t have to eat in front of her speed dates. After all, she thought, who doesn’t want to pig out on wat stew and injera flatbread before meeting the prospective love of your life? But now there wasn’t enough time. She got a bag of toasted almonds from a street vendor, ate a handful to kill any hunger that might come later, and stuffed the rest in her purse, which would stink of the almonds (and sweaty work feet) from then on, but it was an old purse, so whatever.

  Her mobile phone rang. She told her mother she hadn’t forgotten about the speed-dating event and she was on her way there and for Christ’s sake not to bother her

  "Yes, I'm sorry for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Yes, I do want to find a man. Ma, it doesn't matter if Aunt Violka says I might be a lesbian. I like men. I've always liked men. Aunt Violka, she's the one who's a lesbian. Remember when she used to hang around with that lady with the hair coming out of the mole on her eyebrow? Who do you think that was, Ma, her drug pusher? Goodbye, Ma!"

  Arriving at Mitmita, Lena asked the hostess, a tall tan girl dressed in all-black with the sides of her head shaved, to put her Payless bag somewhere safe while the glue was drying on the broken heel.

  The hostess bit
her lip. “I don’t really have a place, um… Hang on.” She picked up the phone that rang at an opportune moment, attention permanently shifted to avoid precisely saying no.

  Lena didn’t want to go through speed-dating holding a shoe store bag. She put the bag behind a potted plant in the window. The speed dating agency representative, an Indian-American woman named Kamala, melted out of the orange shadows of Mitmita’s long candlelit dining room, greeted Lena, and began processing her credit card with her iPad card reader. Kamala and Lena were well acquainted. Lena had worked on a campaign for her service, until Chrissy took it over personally to “fix it up” and take the credit. The two women knew the truth, but couldn’t do much more than shrug about it. This was Lena’s third event, and she was mainly hoping to not meet the same men she’d already met, neither the ones she hadn’t liked, nor the ones she’d liked who didn’t like her.

  The burnt-almond smell was coming out of her bag. Kamala sniffed slightly. Lena said sorry and went to the bathroom, where she ate a few more nuts and tossed them into the wastebasket under the crumpled paper towels.

  The event went wonderfully. Several men only bragged about themselves. Some made dirty jokes. Some were just gross, and others were boring.

  "So, what made you decide to do this, Rick? Nice eyebrows, by the way."

  "Oh, of course. I pluck them myself. You can't trust salons these days -- I don't know where they find those people. Well, you know, Mom is getting old and she wants me to settle down."

  "Yeah, I know what you mean."

  "I don't know if I should move out though. We have a routine, Mom and me. She's really my best friend. What's your mom like?"

  "She's a hard-drinking manicurist from Wroclaw, Rick. Maybe she could be your best friend, too."

  Well, so much for Rick. He was looking for a beard.

  After Rick, she met Raj. He was handsome, had deep dark eyes and wavy hair and just a little touch of exotic Indian accent. He had loosened his Hilfiger tie, so she could see his corded neck; he worked out.

  "Advertising, you have to love it, right?" he said. "I think the firm where I am has really built up some momentum partnering with Amazon on their drone-based distribution program. Getting in the ground floor could make us the firm to beat ten years down the line. We're really a family there. We're moving toward the Google model of employee time management. What are you guys working on?"

  "Conquistador Coffee."

  "Oh, yeah. Conquistador -- exploring new territories of flavor. Right?"

  That was better than what she had come up with. This guy was going places. He was a little conceited, but that was something that could be managed.

  "I was thinking…" Her stomach rumbled. Raj noticed.

  "Whoops, working too hard to have time for dinner, right?" he asked.

  "No, sorry, I'm okay," Lena said. Well, that must have turned him off.

  Their time ended.

  Lena next sat down across from Mick, who had a delightful Irish accent, but whose lips were too close to his nose. He told her stories about Dublin and she laughed, but all she could think was, "If I wake up in the morning next to this man, I'll think I'm curled up with a schnauzer."

  The other dates were mostly just as unsuitable. She checked okay for second dates with Raj and with Jake, who was a slightly heavy Brooklyn boy who had bored her talking about the Nets.

  At the end of the night, as she hid in a shadowy corner scooping wat into her mouth with pinched corners of injera, Kamala found her and gave her a sad smile. No matches this time. She waved a survey card. “I shouldn’t tell you, but I think I can trust you. This man rated you number one. You want to change your mind and give him a chance.”

  Lena looked at the name. “Is that the guy who kept talking about how he went to Iraq to teach the towelheads a lesson? Or the one who said he’d had his tubes tied to punish his mother who really wants grandchildren?”

  Kamala shrugged.

  “No thanks,” Lena concluded.

  “Sorry about my brother, Raj,” Kamala said. “I told him to give you a try, but he’s looking for a redhead. I keep thinking if he meets the right girl, he’ll give up on that.”

  Lena offered Kamala a piece of flatbread.

  ****

  Friday night was dateless, so Lena got herself invited out to Newark for a dinner at Tops Diner with her best friend Ellison and Ellie's husband Luke. Ellison, seven months pregnant, had such a natural grace that her belly didn’t even slow her steps. Luke, Lena's former high school classmate and once a hottie with a bad attitude, was now a hottie with a good attitude thanks to his wife. On weekends, he was preparing the baby’s room in their apartment. Lena had already demanded that their first girl be named after her, but the baby was a boy, to be called Albert after Luke’s father.

  “My mom and dad asked about you,” Ellie said. Her father managed a stable in Lexington, where Lena had met her when attending the University of Kentucky. “They said to come down and see the new colts. I can’t travel far since I’m due in two months, but you’re their other daughter, kind of.”

  “I’ll call them,” Lena promised.

  “So how’s your love life?” Luke asked. “Getting any of this?” He speared a pork chop on his fork and held it up.

  “Don’t get cocky, pal,” Lena warned. “I still have the right hook that put Fat Gina on her ass that time in gym.” She was eating a large salad and drinking a light beer to avoid having to spend hours in the gym, as she had after pigging out on Ethiopian stew two nights before. That ninny Brynne was getting to her. “Seriously, another speed-dating session was the shits. If I like them, they don’t like me. If they like me, they’re seriously disgusting. In this case, I was even willing to settle, but the guys I didn’t really like that much said no, too.”

  “Hey, I heard Donny Junior’s getting divorced again,” Luke suggested. “Forget if it’s the second or third time. Want me to text him and tell him you’re desperate?”

  Lena lifted her bottle. “I’ll break this over your head right now. I mean it. I will fuck you up.”

  Luke cracked up. “You could help him pay his child support, right?”

  “Fuck. You.”

  Lena sipped her beer. She knew Luke was just trying to cheer her up. She’d made so many jokes at his expense at the wedding during the maid of honor speech that he hadn’t caught up in the half-year since. “You know the thing,” she said. “I see you guys happy and settled, with good jobs and your own home and a baby coming, and I’m like, I could totally do that. Never mind my big mouth, I could totally be somebody’s wife. I’m not playing Suzie Homemaker, like my mom, you know, but I could take care of a guy. I really could.”

  “You’re very caring,” Ellie said. “Luke, you know what? When Lena and I moved into the dorm at Kentucky, I was only twenty minutes from home, but I was crazy homesick. Lena came all the way down from Brooklyn, and she was the one who made me feel better about being away from home.”

  “Yeah, that’s wild,” said Luke. “Lena, you know what it is? These guys don’t appreciate you because they’re insecure. They can’t handle a strong personality. It’s not your fault. It’s theirs. Just keep flying your flag till you find someone who doesn’t back off the moment you look at him funny.”

  Ellie lifted her phone and read an instant-message. She tapped out a reply, then sat back in her chair, resting her phone on her belly. At last she looked up. “Hey, Lena, you remember Harper Wheeler?”

  “The tall girl with the perfect ass?” Lena asked.

  “Got any pictures?” Luke asked.

  “Not of her ass,” Ellie said. She showed a Facebook profile picture. Lena recognized her face, which was pretty close to perfect, too, shining eyes and a button nose over heart-shaped lips, all framed with shoulder-length auburn hair and freckles on a dainty nose. “We used to look at her and wish our asses were that good, but that’s not why I brought her up. She’s texting me. There’s this ad agency in Lexington that’s looking for some new blood to shake things up. She wants to know if I’ve met any good advertising people while working for the city. I don’t know if it’s for you, though.”

  Lena had always seen herself working in Manhattan when she grew up. She had always imagined the fast-paced lifestyle, the great clothes, the chance to mix with the powerful and wealthy and famous. Now she was on the path toward those things, but the path had people like Elvis and Brynne and Chrissy on it. Was it all it was cracked up to be?