Mad Gold (Providence Gold 2)

When the DNA tests had come back, it had been hard for them to understand and a different lab had done a second set of tests. All came back conclusive that her father was in fact her father. When they’d done even more tests, they’d discovered she was what is referred to as a genetic ‘throwback’, also known as Atavism. Basically, our DNA is made up of all the DNA of our lineage. Some genes become dormant, and then they mutate and knock out the new traits we’d have gotten and replace them with the older ones. It was hard to understand, but when she’d described it she’d used the example of some babies who are born with tails. We have a tail bone, but not a tail. The babies born with one end up like that because the dormant gene that gave us a tail all of those millennia ago, become active again and somehow mutate to override the non-tailed version of us.

I’m not sure how I would be as a person if what had happened to her had happened to me either. Bonnie never let it show that it hurt her when people assumed her mother had cheated, her parents had adopted her, or that her father had cheated and her mother had pretended she was hers because she didn’t want to lose Bonnie’s dad. There were other theories like abduction and shit like that, but those people were just assholes.

Bonnie also had a specific type of man that she went for – an over six-foot in height kind of type. I swear she could sniff a tall guy out a mile away. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for her to blush and drool over the Townsend men who were all good-looking Amazonians. Well, maybe not to that exact categorization, but they were all really tall.

“That’s the one,” I replied, watching as her eyes widened.

“You Slutty McWhorebag,” she snapped, glaring at me. “I wanted him.”

“Did I mention that his sister is married to Noah Townsend?” I asked, watching her shake her head in return. “And that he lives with the Townsends?” I pressed, now watching a grin take over her face.

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place, Slutty McSlightlyButIForgiveYouNowWhoreBag. I do declare that I’ll be visiting his fine residence regularly then.” I may have forgotten to mention that she had a crush on both Levi and Archer which had started when we were in middle school and Archer was close to graduating high school. She’d slipped on the floor, which had been wet because it was raining outside, as he’d been walking by. When everyone else would have ignored her, Archer had leaned down and helped her up, asking her if she was okay, before passing her onto Levi who had walked her to her classes asking her constantly if she was all right. They were tall gentlemen – just her type.

Rolling my eyes, I picked up my coffee and watched as she went back to lying out on my couch. They really were divine couches you could sink into, to be fair. Before I’d gotten my new bed, I’d slept on them because I got such a good night’s sleep.

“So, what about…” I began but cut off when I saw her squinting at my leg, which had more skin on display since my shirt had slipped up slightly when I’d reached for my cup.

“What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head and squinting harder.

“Huh?” I questioned, confused as I looked down at the area she was looking at.

In all honesty, it had flashed into my head that I had a Madix Blue sized hand print on my thigh or a hickey or something. What I saw was far, far different.

On my leg, going from mid-shin to mid-thigh, was writing. Putting my mug on the coffee table and twisting my leg so I could read it better, I muttered each word as I read it out.

Last night was better than my fantasies. MB xxxx

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times while I tried to get my head around it, and when I did, I ended up screaming instead.

“Oh, my God. I feel like a porn star!” I screeched at Bonnie, holding my leg up in the air. “Wait, would this happen to a porn star?”

Some women might have been offended by it, some might have laughed, but to me this new discovery was the coolest thing ever.

“How do you feel about tattoos?” Bonnie squealed quickly, jumping up from her seat.

I’d already decided that I was going into work late today, so I got up and ran toward my bedroom to get changed, with my best friend right behind me.

Just as she went to jump onto my bed, like she always did, she stopped and looked at me with her lip curled upward.