Tallulah Crush (Tallulah Cove Book 7) Read online

  HAGEN NOVELS, LLC

  KENNEBUNK, MAINE

  Copyright © 2019 by Casey Hagen

  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. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

  Hagen Novels, LLC

  www.CaseyHagenAuthor.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Tallulah Crush/Casey Hagen. — 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-0000000-0-0

  I only wish you could see what I see when I look at you.

  ―KOBI YAMADA

  Contents

  Her Crush 1

  His Crush 16

  Hiding Out 30

  Anyone See Those Misplaced Passions? 43

  Boobytraps Out of the Mouths of Babes 58

  Nothing Left to Lose 82

  Then There’s a Small Matter of a Needle Dick Wonder 114

  Your Never Too Old For a Good Old-Fashioned Parental Lecture 133

  Secrets 147

  With a Little Help From My Friends 162

  Haven’t We Outgrown This Shit? 177

  Final Shot 197

  The Lookout 213

  The Fire 228

  Bacon and Boners 1

  The Shithead 13

  That Ghosting MoFo 28

  Gravel Greetings 39

  Changes 50

  CHAPTER ONE

  Her Crush

  Devin McGovern glanced at her phone again and waited for the rings to subside and go to voicemail.

  She knew what her agent, Stephen, was going to say.

  Or rather ask.

  Did she lose the required five pounds yet?

  No, damn him, she did not. As a matter of fact, she’d gained two more.

  Thirty-three years old and it wasn’t going to be her age that killed her modeling career with Vixen Luxury Wear. Nope, the razor-sharp edge of the guillotine was going to be seven pounds.

  The phone buzzed again.

  Stephen.

  Recognizing he wasn’t going to give up, she clicked the button, but instead of using speakerphone as she usually did, she held the iPhone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “You were supposed to keep me in the loop, Devin. What the hell is going on?” he asked with irritation lacing his acid tone.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “On the treadmill, I hope,” he said.

  She wanted to smack that snide tone right out of him. “That’s none of your business.”

  “That’s my only business with you,” he pointed out. His voice dropped an octave. “I pulled a lot of strings to get this gig for you, and you know the deal. You have to fill out their design the way they intend it to look, and that’s a size fourteen.”

  Her spine snapped ramrod straight as his barb hit its mark. “I am a size fourteen.”

  “Yeah, with a muffin top,” he said with a mean-spirited snicker.

  “You slimy, degrading son of a—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. I get the job done. That’s what they pay me for. Meet the weight requirement in seven days, Devin, or you’re out.”

  The phone when dead in her shaking hand. Tears of rage and humiliation stung her eyes. For a moment, she might as well have been that girl in high school again.

  The one who had all the right clothes, but knew they would never look on her the way they did on Madison Rowe or Kelly Steen, the two single most popular girls in school.

  Those girls walked the halls with their heads held high, every hair in place, comfortable with how they looked. When they sat, their bellies didn’t bunch and roll.

  Nope, not at all. She’d bet they never spent a moment thinking about how their clothes felt on them.

  Devin spent years wearing the same clothes as Madison and Kelly, but instead of feeling confident, she couldn’t help but be distracted by the way the waistband cut into her skin, the way her tummy rounded, and the way the fat of her back squeezed out when she sat down.

  Humiliation consumed her once again. She swiped with jerky movements at the tears that spilled over onto her cheeks.

  He would not fucking make her cry.

  She had a net worth of nine million. Stephen, the cocky piece of shit, would not shake her.

  Only, he already had, and no amount of money could protect her from that.

  She reached for the laces of her running shoes, reminding her that no matter how much attitude she mustered, losing her career terrified her to her toes.

  It hit her in every weak spot she had so stupidly believed she had obliterated over her fifteen-year career.

  The perfect hair, perfect makeup, and sexy clothes that maximized her curves had been her armor and not just the adult version of dress-up that so many liked to believe.

  Made to look like the goddess she’d never quite managed to become in real life, the glamour gave her a shield in a world full of people so ready to tear one another down in order to feel better about themselves.

  Funny, without it, she’d be more naked than she’d ever been, even when she’d been sprawled out in a bikini designed to rein in problem areas while showing a scandalous amount of skin.

  She yanked the laces with one angry pull, then had to loosen them before finally tying and double-knotting them as she fought to stuff down the panic of the unknown that tried for the millionth time to creep up on her.

  Taking a deep breath, she cracked open the door of her childhood room, ignoring the Kid Rock poster with the tear in the corner.

  What she had been thinking, having the hots for him, she still didn’t know. Every time she looked at his face after the whole video that circulated online where he and Scott Stapp had so brazenly encouraged groupies to service their dicks, bile rose in her throat, and her face puckered like she’d bit into a lemon.

  Teenagers were stupid. And groupies. They were dumb as fuck, too.

  With a roll of her eyes, she opened her door the rest of the way, an ear-splitting creak from the brass hinges the only sound in the tiny house, making her flinch. She scanned the hall, hoping to avoid her annoying, yet well-intentioned parents. The only thing that had saved her from the third degree so far was her dad’s return home from the hospital after his heart attack.

  Her mother had done everything to make sure nothing exciting or upsetting entered her father’s orbit.

  And finding out their daughter’s visit had less to do with keeping an eye on him and more to do with her dwindling modeling contract was enough to fire him up and land him back in the hospital.

  Or so her mother said. Not that she knew about the contract, but her mom radar definitely had picked up a disturbance in the force.

  Moms always knew when something was up. How was that?

  She scrawled a quick note, tore the paper from the pad on the fridge, and laid it on the center of the table where no one could miss it.

  She may not live at home anymore, but it didn’t matter. If your head hit the pillow under that roof for the night, you let people know if you were heading out.

  Her mother had even gone so far as to leave notes on the table on school days when they’d get off the bus so they knew she was in the backyard gardening.

  Grabbing a cold water bottle, she hurried out into the cheerful California sunshine.

  Just once, she would love to feel like she could take a leisurely walk without having to worry that someone would stop her.

  She hadn’t made it out once this whole visit without interruption. Especially now that her brother, Shane, and his high school sweetheart, Bellamy, found each other once again. It seemed like no matter where she went—the grocery store, the pizza place, the liquor store—everyone wanted to know how they were doing.

  They were disgustingly, blissfully, and enviably in love.

  Bellamy had stitched together the gaping, tattered hole in her brother’s heart from the death of his wife, Laura, and little boy, Jason.

  Not that she begrudged either of them, well, not really. That would make her a dick, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that seeing them together highlighted her loneliness.

  Tallulah Cove, on the other hand, was ready to throw a parade in their honor and plant them right on top of the biggest float.

  And right now, she just couldn’t take another barb in her heart.

  Hopping in her car, she backed out of the driveway and drove the measly half-mile drive to the high school on the outskirts of town.

  She parked in the back lot by the tennis courts and jogged down to the thankfully empty turf football field and the track surrounding it.

  After a few stretches, probably not even done properly, she took off at a healthy pace around the loop. The perfect seventy-degree day morphed into a late-season scorcher, and soon the sun beating down had her sweating around her hairline, the short tendrils of hair springing free from her ponytail sticking to her damp flesh.

  Seventy h er ass. More like eighty.

  Despite the sweat and the way her yoga pants had crawled into crevices she didn’t even know she had, she found her stride and kept her focus on the fresh air moving in and out of her lungs.

  The familiar scent, something about this area in particular, brought her right back to Friday night football games under the lights where for two years, TJ Bennett, star quarterback, played in her every teenage boy fantasy, until he graduated and left Tallulah Cove for all things amazing.

  And why wouldn’t he? With his almost perfect grades and stunning talent, he’d been given a full ride to University of Southern California. Who wouldn’t run after that?

  Her lungs heaving to the point of bursting and blood racing through her veins, she climbed the metal bleachers, took a seat in the third row, and leaned her elbows back on the row behind her and pictured him out there in his pads while he practiced.

  His dark, shaggy hair glistened in the sun, and his blue eyes shone with warmth and humor, his kindness always at the forefront. It didn’t matter if you were the most popular girl, the geek with your nose in a book, or the most severe of the developmentally disabled kids, he had a ready smile and said hi to everyone.

  He said hi to Devin.

  And her love-thirsty heart reached for it as though he dropped down on bended knee with a magnificent diamond cut to perfection winking from a ring box.

  Closing her eyes, she dumped a hefty portion of her bottled water over her face and neck to cool her raging hormones.

  “The weathermen got this one wrong, didn’t they?”

  Devin’s eyes shot open, the familiar voice piercing her love-lamenting brain.

  Not now. For the love of God, she probably had camel toe; she definitely had mountain dew going under her breasts, and knowing her luck, a sweat line running along her ass crack.

  To top it off, the persistent drip of water she had just poured over herself.

  Stay seated, cross the legs, and well, the tits, nothing could be done but send up a prayer that the sports bra had contained the flood for now.

  “TJ Bennett, is that you?” she called, shielding her eyes. Like she didn’t know exactly who it was.

  “It sure is. Devin McGovern?” he asked from where he stood on the track in gym shorts and a tank top, his once mouthwatering muscles, now even more so, and God, did she wish she were wearing just about anything other than what she had on right at the moment.

  “Yes, sir. In the melting flesh in my case,” she said, stifling a groan for confessing that she might as well be a sweat-stained gym sock.

  He jogged over to the bleachers, his hair gleaming in the late afternoon sun, his tan skin shifting with the flex of his every muscle as he moved with a confident grace. “I heard you were around but hadn’t seen you once. Where have you been hiding out?”

  He heard? As near as she could tell, she’d done a hell of a good job hiding out.

  “Honestly? In my old bedroom with a bottle of Jack Daniels under my bed.” That’s it. When she got home, her lips had a date with a tube of Super Glue. “Not to say that I’m a pathetic loser who drinks herself to sleep at night.”

  He laughed, the sound deep and confident as he looked her up and down.

  God, don’t do that.

  “I don’t know. Sounds like with a little company, that could be called a party.”

  She bobbed her head and smiled. “That’s me, thirty-three and ultracool, sleeping at Mom and Dad’s in my twin bed with my boyfriend Jack, hoping the parents are going to hit the town so I can have the joint to myself. I’m living the high life. You know you’re jealous.”

  What the hell? Now she had resorted to smart-ass flirting?

  Where was the lightning to strike her dead?

  Locusts?

  A tornado? A tornado would totally do it.

  “Actually, I might be. I’m under the watchful eye of a twelve-year-old. Sometimes she’s great. Other times, well, let’s just say, it’s a wonder I don’t have Jack by the gallon under my pillow.”

  And he was married. Of course he was.

  Well, duh, did you really think there was a chance that the all-American football god would be single? That would be like finding a unicorn.

  “Hmmm, I don’t know. Sounds uncomfortable. If you develop a très chic, wee bit of a drinking habit like me, it’s so much more convenient to find the room to store your fix,” she said, giving him an unabashed smile now that she knew there was no point trying to impress him.

  “Good point. Goals,” he said with a laugh.

  “Goals? Now I know for sure you have a twelve-year-old daughter since her words just came out of you.”

  “I know, right. And there I go again,” he said with his hands on his hips, dropping his chin to his chest.

  “I won’t hold it against you…well, that’s not entirely true. If you say ‘bye, Felicia,’ ‘I can’t even,’ ‘bae,’ or ‘that’s so extra,’ I’m revoking your man card permanently.”

  He climbed up on the bleachers and took a seat next to her.

  She forced herself to look at his face since she couldn’t manage to not drool over everything from the neck down, but there were parts of her she had fantasized about rubbing against him for so long in the neck-down region, that she’d relegated herself to the G-rated, above-the-neck adoration.

  “Noted,” he said with a chuckle.

  “So where is Mrs. Bennett right now?” she asked, leaning back, once again a whole lot more relaxed than before. She tipped back her water bottle for a much-needed sip.

  He glanced at his watch. “Right now, she’s probably at our old house in LA, riding the pool boy.”

  She choked. Her lungs spasmed. She sat up, and everything that had lodged in her throat sprayed out of her.

  Onto the bleachers before her.

  Onto her.

  And yeah, onto him.

  To her mortification, single TJ Bennett rubbed her sweaty back where she hadn’t adequately concealed her back fat and kept his gaze locked on hers as she got control over herself.

  “I should probably stop blurting it out like that,” he said.

  “You think,” she shot back, her voice cracking from her raw throat.

  CHAPTER TWO

  His Crush

  Devin McGovern.

  Devin Freaking McGovern, in the flesh.

  And what flesh it was.

  TJ would be lying if he didn’t admit to having a fantasy or two over the years about sinking into those curves of hers.

  Every time he went to his sister’s house and spotted her Vixen catalog, he had to battle the growing problem in his jeans. Devin had graced the cover nine times out of ten, something he should be ashamed to know, and that summer edition…

  Holy hell.

  After living in LA for ten years, in constant company with women who did nothing but diet, nip, tuck, and tweak themselves from head to toe until they were nothing but puckered, bony versions of their original selves, seeing a naturally beautiful woman, one who didn’t conform to the idea of female perfection, fueled something primal in him.

  Round, soft, and real. Women like Devin made him think of the nude classic paintings of fertile women, their strength built to bear children.

  Their soft flesh to enchant men.

  Satisfied her choking fit had subsided, he scratched the back of his head and winced. “Yeah, well, she did me a favor. I wasn’t happy. She sure as hell wasn’t happy. I just wish her idea of happy included our daughter.”

  Devin slid her sunglasses up and narrowed those aquamarine eyes of hers. Practically hypnotizing laser beams, they glowed in the California sun. “She doesn’t see her?”

  He sighed and stretched his neck right, then left, stretching the muscles that had been warm when he’d set out for his run, but were now locked up tight without a proper cooldown. A small price to pay to stop and talk to Devin.

  He’d begun to wonder if the mutterings about her being in town were just vestiges of his sex-starved imagination. “Rory sees her mother twice a year for the obligatory birthday and Christmas holidays. Otherwise, nothing.”

  She dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes and tipped her face up to the sun. “What a shitbag.”

  With her focus elsewhere, he allowed himself to study her face, the curve of her plump lips, the point of her chin, and the damp skin of her outstretched neck. A neck he wouldn’t mind tasting. He swallowed and glanced back at the track. “It’s cathartic to hear someone else say it since I can’t.”