The F Word - Misti Murphy Page 0,1
miss you, which I’ll never send. Then I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon playing video games with Vale. And I’ll pick up that blonde who flirts with me at the bar tonight and take her home for the night. And I won’t tell a soul about any of these thoughts and feelings in my head.
Not even you.
Chapter One
Hudson
Oh man, this is my jam. I pump up the volume on my phone up as one of my favorite nineties pop hits starts. I was six years old the first time I heard the Spice Girls and I am still in love with them to this day. I wiggle my shoulders along to the music as I walk toward Chicago’s train system, the L, to head to the bar where I work.
A woman in denim cut offs and a long, flowy open shirt over a singlet top touches her hair under the brim of her straw hat and smiles as we get close on the sidewalk. I sing along to the tune in my ear and stretch out my arms, palm forward, one after the other. Shake my fists back toward my shoulder, cross my heart, and shimmy my shoulders. When I wink as she passes she blushes and giggles.
If she’d stopped to talk to me I would have considered flirting with her, but she doesn’t so I bust a dance move in the other direction. It’s a beautiful day. My latest book is selling like hotcakes on the online retailers. Even the local indie bookstore a block from my apartment was out of stock. Well, except the one copy that the lovely Colleen puts away for me whenever a new J.J. Valentino book comes out.
She asked me once if I was the anonymous author. I refused to confirm or deny her suspicions and told her that J.J. Valentino gets me right in the feels. Which is true. I might not tell my friends about my secret career as a romance author, but there are people like Colleen and my readers out there in this big wide and beautiful world who understand my passion in a way my friends wouldn’t.
Not that my friends don’t appreciate me. They do. They have since college. I’m the Scary Spice to Cal’s Sporty, Fleetwood’s Posh, and Vale’s Ginger. The loud one. The Bro. The comedian. That’s me. Most of the time. What they don’t get is the stuff I don’t tell them. The parts of me that end up buried in the stories I’ve published as J.J. Valentino.
The song switches and I do a little spin on the pavement. “Hey, you. Hey, you. I don’t like your boyfriend. I could be your boyfriend.”
Okay, they’re obviously not the real words, but whatever. I’ve been singing my own version of this song since I was a skinny eleven-year-old who couldn’t pick up a chick on his best day. Trust me, I wasn’t born this perfect. A lot of effort went into becoming this spunkerific hunk over the years. Lots of protein. And throwing around beer barrels. The physical difference between stocking beer and drinking it is amazing too. That’s a nifty little hint I picked up throwing all night ragers in college.
I catch a glimpse of the platform as the song ends. It’s less than a five-minute wait for the train. There are teens in school uniforms huddled in groups of four or five like mini gangs. One of the heathens shakes up a spray can while he shares a cigarette with his buddy. I was doing dumb shit too at that age.
A mom with a pram tries to corral twin toddlers. Other parents stare longingly in the direction the train will come from while small people yank on their arms in an effort to explore. A few backpackers talk loudly in a language I’m almost certain is Swedish. Interspersed among them are the usual riff raff, those of us on our way home or to work or otherwise travelling around the city in our usual manner.
I’m totally enjoying my own little bubble when a woman catches my attention. I crane my neck to follow her as she weaves through the crowd like she’s trying to be invisible. Does she have any idea how impossible that is when she glows like a beacon? Not literally of course. She’s not radioactive. At least I hope not. It’s just... wow. That body is banging. Thick. Full. Curvy in all the right places. And as a guy, I appreciate that.