The Anchor Read online

  Shit. I’m out here on my own. My friends and family are all far away and it kind of sucks. Women have done a pretty good job filling the void. Case in point, the snuggler.

  I thought moving to New York would be epic, but things didn’t work out like I thought they would. For starters, my best friend, John, was supposed to live here with me. But he fell in love and stayed put in our home state of North Carolina, taking some dinky position at an attorney’s office in Holly Springs to be close to his now fiancée, Edie. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for him. She’s a great girl and all, but it does suck we don’t get to tear up New York together. We’d passed the North Carolina State Bar back in July. At the time, we saw it as a brilliant backup plan in case things didn’t pan out here in New York. The New York State Bar isn’t until February, but I guess I’ll be taking it alone. Till then, I’ll be working my ass off, impressing my superiors in hopes that my current gig becomes a permanent one.

  Karissa mumbles something in her sleep and squirms enough where I’m able to shift her off of me. Climbing out of bed, I slip on my boxers and head into the living room, pouring myself a Scotch. I hate the shit, but this is my uncle’s apartment and he keeps it stocked even though he’s hardly ever here, so I drink it. When John bailed on moving to New York, my uncle asked me to stay here to keep an eye on the place since he’s barely ever in town. I pay him rent and pretty much have the place to myself. Picking up my cell, I thumb through Facebook and see a photo of Edie and her best friend, Nikki, toasting their beers as Nikki obnoxiously points to Edie’s ring finger.

  In two weeks, I head down to Holly Springs for John and Edie’s engagement party. I’m happy for my friend and excited to see him, but I can’t deny I’m most anxious to see Nikki. The weekend we shared two months ago is burned in my mind. The Southern princess was quite surprising. She was ladylike in most ways, but not so much in others. She curses like a sailor, drinks like a man, and looks like a beauty queen. I was a goner from the moment I saw her the day she arrived at the airport with John and Edie for their weekend visit. By the end of the first night, I was ready to give my left nut to have her.

  When we hooked up, I was shocked, and ecstatic, and pissed. She was a virgin. The fuck? How could she not tell me that shit beforehand? And how was that even possible? I didn’t know there were still virgins out there. And I had been rough, too. That’s not the way a girl’s first time should be. As if I hadn’t already wanted her bad enough, knowing I was the first man to take her only intensified those feelings. There was just something about her that made me want to possess her. It wasn’t her innocence because by all accounts I would’ve never guessed she was a virgin. She just seemed so . . . unattainable. Her confidence was probably what I found most attractive. Women find out I work in an elite law firm and they fling themselves at me. Hell, Karissa banged me for the first time an hour after we met. And although Nikki did have sex with me after only knowing me a weekend, she didn’t want anything more. She used me . . . that’s how it feels anyway. I’ve tried for the last two months to keep in touch with her through Facebook and texting. I also call, but she never answers. She said we’re friends. And that is all because in her mind long-distance relationships never work.

  I’m hoping when I see her at John and Edie’s party, maybe I can convince her to give me the time of day. But something tells me Nikki Reese is going to make it hard on me. And I gotta admit, it fucking turns me on.

  Something hard kicks my shin and jolts me awake. My eyes squint as I try to look away from the glare from the kitchen light shining into the living room. Shit. I fell asleep on the couch. I move my tongue around inside my cotton-dry mouth, regretting all the Scotch I drank last night.

  “Parker,” a stern voice says, and my eyes peel open a little wider as I look up and find my uncle, Gregory Paul—Uncle Paul, for short—staring down at me, his expression hard. “You need to see your guest out.” When he moves to the side, Karissa is standing about fifteen feet away, her eye makeup smeared down her cheeks and her dress wrinkled and drab. Shit. Slow to stand, I take a minute to get my bearings before I make my way over to her and lead her to the door. Uncle Paul remains in the living room, his arms crossed, watching us. I’m in only my boxers, which makes this all the more uncomfortable with my uncle standing here.

  “I tried to leave without waking you,” Karissa whispers. “He insisted we wake you first.” Of course he did. Paul’s a dick like that.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her as I open the door. “Do you need cab fare?”

  “No,” she says, as her brows furrow. I guess she wants me to say I’ll call her. That we’ll meet up again. Yeah, not going to happen.

  “Thanks for last night,” I whisper and kiss her forehead. “I gotta go deal with this.” I jut my chin toward my uncle.

  “Oh, yes. Of course,” she agrees and steps out. “I guess . . . I’ll talk to you later?”

  I run a hand through my hair, hating how awkward this is. We’ve hooked up three times and I’ve never called her. She just always happens to be at the bar I go to after work and we’ve ended up back at my place. I think I need to cut this off because obviously she thinks we’re becoming . . . more. I have no inclination for more right now. “Bye, Karissa,” I finally manage with an apologetic smile. She hears my message loud and clear: This is done. Shaking her head, she turns and walks toward the elevator as I shut the door.

  Making my way into the kitchen, I grab the O.J. out of the fridge and chug straight from the carton. It’s mine; no one else drinks it, so I don’t think it matters.

  Paul slips off his suit jacket and lays it across the arm of the couch before walking to the breakfast bar and standing in front of it with his hands in his pockets. “Ever heard of a glass?”

  I put the carton down and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Did you want some?”

  He snorts. “I’d love some of your backwash.”

  “It is tasty,” I jest. “When did you get in?”

  Moving to the counter, he laces his fingers together and rests his hands on the dark granite. “This morning at one. Had to do a few things at the office.” Paul works as a liaison between the law firm’s New York office and its international offices. He’s rarely home or at the office, but even when he is, he never seems to stop and relax. It was his reputation as a meticulous employee and contact along with years of working with Shuestar and Bechman that got me my kick-ass job.

  A heavy moment of silence falls between us and when his gaze moves from his hands, folded on the counter, to me, I know he has something that he deems as ‘extremely important’ to say.

  “It’s not easy being a young man in your position. You’re smart with a bright future ahead of you.”

  “And I’m a stud,” I add. This only earns a halfhearted smirk from him.

  “But . . .” I groan with an eye roll, knowing what’s coming.

  “You’re going to fuck your future up if you’re not careful. Women like that,” he points at the door, indicating he’s talking about Karissa, “would love nothing more than to nail down a guy who’s about to become a New York lawyer. And what better way to do that than with a baby?”

  “I’m always safe, Paul,” I say, defensibly.

  “Condoms aren’t one hundred percent foolproof, Parker,” he argues as he runs a wide palm down his face. “Do you want to end up like your parents?”

  I pinch my lips together to avoid saying something shitty to him. My father, Paul’s younger brother, knocked up my mother the summer before his senior year of college. He was destined to be a prestigious architect but when my mother got pregnant with me he had to drop out. That was quickly followed by my grandparents pulling the plug on any support for him because he knocked up the town ‘floozy,’ as they called my mother. He never made it back to college after that. Two years after they had me, my sister was born. My parents didn’t even marry until years later. It was quite the scandal among the town’s elite.

  “My parents are
doing just fine,” I point out, my tone hiding none of the disdain I have for his comment.

  “Yeah.” Paul nods in acknowledgement. “They live in a shithole and couldn’t even put their kids through college.” The latter is true. Our home isn’t a shithole though. Maybe it is by Paul’s standards. It’s a small three-bedroom rancher. Modest, and just enough room for our family. My father’s other brother, Uncle Winston, still trains horses out in the country, close to my parents, in the outskirts of my hometown of Knightdale. Unfortunately, Paul’s comment about college is spot-on. If it wasn’t for him and Winston’s insistence, neither I nor my little sister would’ve been able to get degrees without taking on huge student loans. His parents cut my father off, but not their bastard grandchildren. I hated taking their money after the way they treated him, but my father insisted. He wanted us to have an education no matter the cost . . . even his pride.

  “I’m careful, Paul. Now, can we drop this?”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t fuck up your future on some one-night stand, Parker. You’re smarter than that.” I know he’s speaking out of genuine concern but part of me wonders if those are his true feelings about my mother.

  Then he leaves me standing in the kitchen in my underwear. Did he just give me the safe sex talk? Jesus. That was awkward.

  “I don’t know if I like this color, Edie,” I pout as I gaze at myself in the full-length mirror in the back of Pearl’s shop. Pearl has been my dressmaker since I started pageants; I bring her a design and she makes it fit me perfectly.

  “The color looks great on you, Nikki,” Edie insists. “Besides, you’ve already spent a small fortune having this one made.”

  “I’m competing in the Miss North Carolina Pageant, Edie,” I point out, as if she didn’t already know that. “I have to win this to get to Miss USA. The expense is irrelevant.” Sliding my hand down the front, I realize the fabric is tight, even when I’m sucking in. “Pearl, I think you need to let it out a bit. It’s a little snug around the waist.”

  Pearl moves around me, eyeing the dress, and her brows furrow. “I made it twenty-three inches. Same as always.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask as I turn to look at my side profile.

  “Let me measure you again.” She pulls out her tape measure and wraps it around my waist as I hold my arms up to give her better access. Tilting her head, her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose as she stares at the number.

  “You’re a twenty-six,” she says, not making eye contact with me. She knows I’m going to freak out.

  “What?” I shriek. “That’s impossible. I’ve been on a thousand-calorie diet and worked out every day for the last two months.”

  “Have you weighed yourself?” Edie asks. “Maybe it’s just muscle weight you’ve gained.”

  “Unzip me,” I order Pearl, and she does so quickly. “Do you have a scale, Pearl?”

  “In the bathroom,” she mumbles. Holding the dress to my chest, I rush to the unisex bathroom in the back. When I reach the doorway, I gingerly step out of the dress and hand it to Edie. The fact I’m in nothing but heels and a thong right now doesn’t seem to faze her a bit. She’s been to enough of my pageants.

  “Even if you’ve put on a little weight, you still look amazing, so stop freaking out,” she warns as she delicately holds my gown.

  “Three inches, Edie,” I say, adamantly. “She took my measurements a month ago and I’m three inches bigger now.” I flick on the light in the bathroom and using my foot to slide the scale out and away from under the sink, I slip my heels off and step on it. Remaining still as the dial swings back and forth, I try to calm myself with a deep breath. At five foot seven, I’ve managed to hold my weight at 118 pounds for years. Not an easy feat when I drink beer like a man. And it’s not lite beer either. But maybe my age is catching up with me and I’ll have to cut that out. When the dial lands on 124 pounds, my stomach twists into knots. What the fuck? Six pounds?

  “What does it say?” Edie asks from the doorway where she patiently stands leaning against the doorframe.

  “Six pounds,” I say, numb, still staring at the scale, willing it to move down.

  “Maybe you’re about to start your cycle. Most women gain a little weight around their time of the month,” she offers in an attempt to calm me. But her words do just the opposite. Her words send terror down my spine and make me nauseous. My periods are always off. With the way I work out constantly, I may have my cycle one month and not have it the next. Normally I wouldn’t freak out about it, but right now, I’m about to have a fucking stroke. It wasn’t that long ago that I gave my virginity to Parker Hayes. We used protection—well, mostly. But nothing is foolproof. Shit.

  “Nikki?” Edie steps toward me and places a hand on my shoulder while holding my dress with the other.

  Turning my head to look at her, I say five dreaded words. “I need a pregnancy test.”

  Thirty minutes later, we’re sitting in my Audi outside of Holly Spring’s Pharmacy.

  “If you want me to go in and buy it, can’t we drive somewhere else? What if someone sees me with it?” Edie asks.

  “You are engaged,” I point out. “It wouldn’t look as bad for someone to see you as it would for me. I have no damn boyfriend.”

  She huffs and darts her brown eyes to me. “All right,” she says, defeated.

  My stomach is in knots as I nod and whisper, “Thank you, Edie.”

  Placing her hand softly on my thigh, she says, “No matter what, it’s going to be okay.”

  Again, I nod, even though I don’t agree at all. If I am, in fact, pregnant, nothing will be okay. My life will be over. My dreams will be destroyed.

  Edie slips on my giant sunglasses, attempting to disguise herself, and hustles in.

  As I wait for her, I open the Facebook app on my cell phone and pull up Parker’s page. He’s messaged me several times over the past two months and I’ve ignored each one. I know; I’m a bitch. It’s not like I don’t like him. I do. But I knew keeping in touch would just complicate things. I’d want to know what was going on with him. And I don’t want to want to know what’s going on with him. If it hadn’t been completely necessary, I would’ve never accepted his friend request, but I’d needed him. I knew if I posted that picture of Edie giving a friendly birthday kiss to Dierk, Parker would see it and show it to John. So maybe the kiss didn’t look friendly, even though it was, but Parker and John didn’t know that.

  Parker’s latest post: Loving New York and my new job.

  I roll my eyes. What a random post. It almost sounds like he was saying it more to himself than his Facebook friends. Groaning, I toss my cell in my purse on the floorboard and wait. Ten minutes later, Edie comes flying out of the store with the test that’s in a white paper bag under her arm, running to the car like she’s got heroine and she’s being chased by the DEA.

  “I bought two.” She breathes heavily as she slams her door shut. “Just in case.”

  Starting the car, I reverse out of the space and silently pray that these tests will come back negative and the two of us will laugh at how badly I freaked out.

  “Nikki and I are just having a little girl time.” Edie is on her cell when I come out of the bathroom. The white stick of doom is sitting on my sink, precariously plotting my life’s demise. Please be negative. Please be negative.

  I’m busy making all kinds of promises to God if he’ll just give me this one free pass. I won’t curse . . . as much. I won’t drink . . . as much. I’ll go to church more.

  “I love you, too.” Edie giggles. “Yeah . . . me too.” When she looks up and sees I’ve exited the bathroom, her smile fades. “I gotta go, Suit. I’ll be home in a bit.”

  When she hangs up, she tosses her phone on my bed. “Plotting your next sexcapade?” I ask.

  Edie gives me a guilty grin. That’s exactly what they were doing, but she feels bad about it when I’m in the state I’m in. “Don’t hold back,” I tell her and flash a smile. “What’s next?”


  “He bought a Kama Sutra book.”

  “At this rate, you two are going to run out of shit to do,” I warn her as I chuckle.

  Her dark eyes dart away from mine as she grins shyly. “Not as long as romance and erotica thrive in the book world.”

  “Touché, my friend.”

  “Has it been three minutes yet?”

  “I think so.” I swallow the giant lump in my throat.

  “Do you want me to go in and look with you?” she asks timidly as she pushes some of her dark hair behind her left ear.

  “No. I can do it.”

  I don’t really remember the seconds as I walked into the bathroom. Once I saw the two pink lines, the only thing I could see, think, or hear were my dreams dying a slow and brutal death. Before I know it, I’m on my bed, sobbing, Edie rubbing my arms, telling me it will be okay. That she’s here and will help me through this.

  But how do you help someone who ruined their own life? I made a decision. I gave myself to a man. And now, that decision has left consequences.

  One weekend with the sexy and charming Parker Hayes has changed my life forever.

  Two months ago . . .

  JFK was packed, which I’m sure only added to Edie’s fuck buddy’s annoyance as he collected the—even I can admit—asinine amount of luggage I brought with me for our weekend getaway.

  “Did you leave anything in Holly Springs, Nikki?” John grumbled as he lugged my large suitcase off the carousel.

  I chuckled slightly from where I stood beside Edie, our arms looped together as we watched him chuck the suitcase on a luggage cart. “I am packing for two, you know,” I said casually. John and Edie’s eyes went wide as their gazes darted to one another’s.