Wicked Dirty (Stark World 2)

Joy rolls her eyes and shakes her head, making the colored gemstones that line the curve of her left ear sparkle.

I lean forward and prop my chin on my fist. "Honestly, you're right. I should figure out a way to grab a few more hours. But I just don't know how. I'm already pulling shifts at Blacklist and Maudie's," I say, naming off our favorite bar as well as a local diner.

"Plus, Mrs. Donahue's letting me come in once a week to deep clean sections of her house. And Jacob is paying me to walk Lancelot most mornings." My neighbor, Mrs. Donahue, is perfectly capable of scouring her own house, despite having just celebrated her eighty-first birthday. But she's a sweetheart who takes in stray pets and people, and she offered me the cleaning gig the minute she learned about my financial woes. Jacob, the UCLA business major who lives in Mrs. Donahue's garage apartment, is less of a sweetheart, but I'm not about to turn down the extra cash.

"Jacob just wants to get in your pants."

I grimace.

"What? What's wrong with Jacob?"

"You mean other than the fact that ever since he learned my first name he won't stop asking if I taste like candy?"

Joy snorts. "Like you've never heard that one before."

My name is Sugar Laine. Which, as names go, is about as bad as it gets. Couple that with blonde hair, huge brown eyes, and tits that I consider unfortunately large, and I probably should have chucked it all years ago and signed up to be a stripper or a hooker.

Then again, maybe I got off lucky. I mean, my last name could have been Buns.

That's me. Always looking on the bright side.

Despite having saddled me with an utterly ridiculous name, I'm certain my parents loved me. Or, at least, I'm certain my mom did. And she always swore that my dad loved me, too, and that his sudden and unexpected departure when I was nine had nothing whatsoever to do with the way he felt about me or my little brother Andy, who lucked out with a completely normal name.

Maybe Mom was right. But I'm still operating under the assumption that my father is a soulless, charmless prick who feels nothing for nobody.

I figure if I'm wrong, he can damn well crawl out of the woodwork, track me down, and then bust his tail to prove it.

My mom, though...

Well, despite her unfortunate choice of names, she did love me. And when I once asked--after having been teased in fourth grade--what she could possibly have been thinking, she said that when the nurse put me in her arms, she thought I was the sweetest thing she'd ever seen. And what was sweeter than sugar?

How could I get upset about that?

I couldn't. So I didn't.

But I did start calling myself Laine.

An uncomfortable tightness grips my chest as I think about my mom. How we'd settle on the couch with Andy between us to read or watch TV. How she let me make Christmas cookies in July because every day should be like Christmas. How she used to listen to classic country music and cry, because she said it cleared her soul and refilled her well.

Oh, God. I try to draw in a breath, and realize my throat is clogged with tears.

"Hey?" Joy's moved around the counter, so now she's pretty much nose to nose with me. She takes my hand and squeezes, the pressure bringing me back to myself. "Hey, you okay?"

"Sorry. Sorry. I just--I started thinking about my name, and that made me think about my mom and Andy and--"

I break off, tears threatening.

"It's okay. Come on, girl. Deep breaths."

I sniffle and manage a wobbly smile. "I don't know what set me off," I say when I can talk again. I swipe the edge of my forefingers under each eye, drying my tears. "It's not like thinking about them is an unusual occurrence. Hell, I think about them every time I walk through my front door."

My breath hitches and tears fill my eyes again. "Dammit," I murmur as I grab a tissue. "It's the house. I just can't cope with losing the house. It's all I have left of them."

My mom and thirteen-year-old brother were killed when a drunk driver plowed his SUV into their car five years ago. I was finishing my first semester at UCLA, and they were on their way to pick me up so that we could celebrate by driving to Anaheim and going to Disneyland.

They both died at the scene. The officer who found me in my dorm told me that it had been fast. That they wouldn't have suffered. I don't know if that's true or not, but I believe it because I have to.

My mother had scrambled her entire life, waitressing, working temp jobs, manning the checkout stand at grocery stores. Her only asset was the house, which my dad had paid off before he bailed. But it hadn't been kept up well, and at the end of her life, my mom had a mountain of debt, a house in desperate need of repairs, and no money in the bank.