Satisfaction

  Satisfaction

  Piper Lawson

  Three things matter: What you want. What you have. And the distance between them.

  * * *

  L.A. is the capital of unfulfilled desire. After busting my ass for years in the City of Angels, I’m handed the flagship location of the hottest new fashion label in the country…

  * * *

  If I can pass one test.

  * * *

  Enter Kent. My boss’ friend is 100%, fresh-squeezed California, from the hard body to the easy grin to the sky-high confidence.

  * * *

  He offers me a one-week deal. He’ll help me get over my fears if I teach him how to sell his boards at the biggest surf championship in the world.

  * * *

  The problem? It’s not easy to help him and ignore how he looks at me. To learn from him, without being seduced by his carpe diem lifestyle.

  * * *

  Because Kent might be a good friend but he goes through women like a missile. There’s no way I’m falling for a guy like that again.

  * * *

  If we follow the rules of our deal, he’ll walk away and we’ll both be satisfied.

  * * *

  Unless one of us decides we’ve been chasing the wrong thing all along…

  * * *

  Satisfaction is Kent and Dahlia’s sweet and steamy 150-page story! It’s also part 5 in Piper Lawson’s TRAVESTY series about smart women with big dreams and the hot-as-hell guys that get in the way.

  Satisfaction

  (TRAVESTY #5)

  1

  Dal

  “Who’s that guy?”

  “The one in the tube top?” I craned my neck to see across the dark, crowded store. “He has a Netflix show.”

  Ava tapped a finger against her painted lips, her face flashing in the neon lights from the DJ booth. “Not what I expected when I designed it.”

  “It’s LA. Nothing is what you expect.” Jordan’s low deadpan was just audible over the music. “You get this in Texas, Dahlia?”

  “Nope.” My home state was a lot of things, but you would not see an actor dancing shirtless except for a pink band around his ripped chest in a clothing boutique on a Saturday night.

  The store looked different after dark, transformed by lights, music, and alcohol. The two catwalks that ran the length of the upstairs were roped off. My staff were doing a steady business on cash, their heads bouncing to the beat.

  Travesty’s LA flagship location was a year old today.

  Happy birthday, baby.

  “Genius idea to bring the party here.” Lex’s sleek red hair slid over one shoulder. Her short lime dress showed off her pale skin and model’s figure. “I’m not sure how you got the permits, but…”

  I grinned. “Don’t worry, boss. We’re legal.”

  “Now to the serious shit. Initiation for our new store manager.” Ava’s smile widened with mischief as she pulled me toward the bar.

  “Wait, what?” The words echoed in my brain.

  “Ava! That’s not how we were going to tell her,” Lex protested. “You were supposed to talk about how we’re growing the brand, expanding to Europe…”

  “And she has to accept first,” Jordan reasoned.

  “Of course she'll accept.” Three pairs of eyes landed on me.

  Waves of emotion rushed over me. Disbelief. Fear. Validation.

  The day Jordan had offered me the assistant manager gig at Travesty’s LA clothing store the year before had been one of the best days of my life. The kind of day you look around to see if you’re on candid camera and some TV host with a douche smile is about to leap out and tell you it’s all fake.

  Lex, Ava and Jordan might’ve been in their twenties like me, but they’d built a fashion brand with a worldwide reputation. One that squeezed fun and attitude into every thread of each skirt, tank, and jacket.

  They weren’t just my bosses, they were my idols.

  And they were still staring.

  “Oh, shit. Yes! I accept. Of course I accept.” Their faces dissolved into smiles but I hesitated. “Wait. What does initiation involve?”

  “Snakes,” Jordan replied.

  “Fire,” Lex added with a raised brow.

  “Running naked through Santa Monica,” Ava declared.

  “In that order?”

  Ava pulled a box the size of the ones we wrapped our clothes in from behind her back. Her gold cuff blinked in the light, and with her black jumpsuit, she was every bit as trendy as you’d expect from the woman responsible for our designs. “Put this on your hot self and walk the runway.” She pointed to the catwalk.

  I carefully opened the lid. My heart stopped. “I need that drink first.”

  Ava reached over the bar to pass out shots.

  “To Team T,” I declared. The liquid tasted like orange and burned down my throat.

  I grabbed the box and took it to a change room upstairs.

  Whoever had come up with the idea of initiation in the first place?

  Probably some tribe in the mountains.

  Becoming an adult is just one eyeball tattoo or wild boar hunt away.

  I shimmied into the dress and looked in the mirror. Ava’d made the skin-tight garment out of plastic Travesty bags, and the strips of white covered with our Travesty logo made it look like pink and white caution tape.

  I tugged at the hem. The thought of those eyes on me made my stomach lurch.

  All I had to do was get down the catwalk and the stairs. It was a crowded room. No one would notice.

  I opened the door and was greeted by the sound of a microphoned voice. “Ladies and gentlemen of Santa Monica…” Ava had climbed on top of a speaker by the DJ booth, raising her arms like it was the start of a drag race. “For a special one-night-only performance. I give you the newest member of Team T, Dahlia Rhodes!”

  I stepped out of the change room and died as the mob let loose a deafening cry.

  Shoulders. Boobs. Don’t roll an ankle at the end and fall like a skyscraper.

  It was ten paces from the upstairs change room to the stairs. Twenty stairs, with one landing partway. Another twenty steps to the front door.

  I started down the catwalk.

  At the top of the stairs, I made the mistake of glancing over the railing, and my insides shriveled up.

  My ankle wobbled, and I grabbed for the railing.

  At the bottom, it got worse. The crowd looked down at me, jeering. I probably knew half the people but now they might as well have been strangers.

  Or hyenas.

  The bass grew louder, the vibration heavy through my heels.

  Some people are born to be the center of attention. I prefer the center of obscurity. Growing up in the unofficial capital of big hair, big smiles, and everything fried, I’d been one girl who didn’t want to be a Cowboys cheerleader.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been comfortable with myself and who I am…

  As long as no one’s looking too closely.

  Then it makes me wonder what they’re looking at. If I have food in my teeth or put my skirt on inside out.

  Or if they somehow know I was a B student from a thoroughly average neighborhood with dreams but no exceptional talent.

  But you’re not. You're the store manager now. Grow some lady balls.

  “Good job!” Lex exclaimed when I made it to her and Jordan at the front of the store, gasping.

  “Great.” I braced a hand on the wall behind Jordan.

  “Another drink!” Ava declared, wrapping an arm around my waist but I lurched toward the door.

  Outside, I looked up to see Jordan’s boyfriend, Ethan, playing bouncer. “Hey, are you—”

  “Need air,” I panted.

  I spun away from him ju
st in time to stagger to the edge of the sidewalk…

  And hurled all over the road.

  2

  Dal

  I glanced down in horror, the shame dialing up tenfold.

  You just violated Montana Ave. And now you’re breaking the brand. I tried to cup my hands over the Travesty logo plastered on my dress, but there were more logos than hands.

  Lex stepped between me and the line of onlookers, her face concerned. But it was another voice that had us all turning.

  “Some party. What’d I miss?”

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as the guy in jeans and a Henley stepped up onto the curb. The second he and Lex locked gazes, the rest of us were no more than random atoms occupying the same universe.

  “Dylan! You made it.”

  “I was late getting to La Guardia. We were working on an overpass in Brooklyn all day,” he offered by way of an apology.

  Then he tugged her against him, his mouth swooping down to hers in a kiss that had more than a few eyebrows rising before he looped an arm around Lex’s waist.

  I’d had a hard time picturing Lex with Ava’s younger brother…until I met Dylan Cameron. He could’ve been in a band, his dark hair falling across his face, and though I knew he’d quit playing serious rugby due to an injury, you wouldn’t know it to look at him.

  The grin that stretched across her face when he pulled back made her look like a giddy student.

  “You know you’re married now.” Ava called from the doorway.

  “So?”

  “So your PDA days are over. Get with the plan.”

  “You’re jealous because Nate’s not here,” Dylan said.

  “He’s hosting a charity gala. Which means three-piece suit. And he’ll FaceTime me later.” Her smile was wicked. “God, I love whoever invented video chat.”

  “You have two brothers in a five foot radius,” Ethan reminded her.

  “And you’re both more twisted than I am,” she tossed over her shoulder as she headed back inside. Dylan shook his head before following, his fingers laced through Lex’s, her ring blinking in the half-light.

  Jordan hung back. Her straight blond hair, chopped in an angled bob, made her cheekbones look even sharper. Despite the usual uniform of jeans that she’d ditched in favor of a black denim skirt and tank tonight, she reminded me of a rockstar incognito. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

  “Nothing,” I insisted. “Just nerves.”

  Jordan studied me a moment before turning to Ethan. “Jacket.”

  “You asking me to strip, Jersey?”

  “You love it.”

  He slipped it off and passed it to her with a grin. I heard the hearts of half the girls in line break, even over the house music streaming from the store. Oblivious, Jordan wrapped the jacket around my shoulders and sat on the edge of the sidewalk with me.

  I resisted the urge to turn and spit into the sewer grate.

  “You guys make it look good. Being in love,” I added, realizing it was probably an awkward thing to talk about with your boss.

  But she didn’t seem to notice. “You’ll find it, Dal.”

  When I'd moved to California with the suitcase I’d gotten for my twelfth birthday and the earnings from working two summer jobs after senior year, I’d figured it would be easy to find love. I mean, this was LA. Lots of passionate young people, genuine, ready to give their all, right?

  What I’d learned was that kind of ambition had a dark side.

  “Ethan and I are leaving for Colorado in the morning for his real estate conference.” Jordan’s voice brought me back.

  “Do you want me to check on the house for you?”

  “Actually, Kent’s staying at our place while we’re gone.”

  I tucked a piece of hair back into my mermaid braid, tingling starting deep in my chest as I waited a beat. Two. “The whole week?”

  My voice was nonchalant as I thought about the Idaho farmer turned San Diego surfer. The one who always had a smile and a compliment in that midwestern drawl that hadn’t been shaped by an acting coach.

  “Yes, the whole week.”

  Seven consecutive days, and probably nights…

  Not that it mattered, because we’d never done more than talk.

  Still, there it was again. The tingling.

  “If you need anything before we go,” Jordan started. I forced myself to focus. Despite the music, the gastrointestinal pyrotechnics and my tape dress, I was still technically at work.

  “Huh? Oh, no, I’m fine. The store’s fine.” Still, it took longer than normal to conjure up my mental calendar for the week. “We have fall inventory coming tomorrow, I have a merchandising plan and some social media ideas for clearing out the end-of-summer stock, and…Wait,” I said, straightening. “Thursday’s the photo shoot for Modern Style. And Friday is the interview.”

  “Yep.” The look on her face in the low streetlight had my heart skipping.

  “Are you doing the interview by phone?”

  “You’re doing it. In person.” Jordan sat back, bracing her hands on the sidewalk behind her.

  This was the first national media coverage of our LA store, a full spread in a glossy magazine. Though publishing had changed and bloggers mattered more and more, there was still something to be said for the major publications. Modern Style would be the most important media opportunity since I’d joined Travesty.

  A feeling suspiciously like panic inched up my throat once more. “What about Ava? Or Lex? She used to work at a magazine.”

  “Ava’s flying back to New York Monday. Lex and Dylan are staying for the week, but they haven’t had a vacation since their honeymoon. They’re driving to Napa to get their drink on.”

  This is the real initiation. The thought had my stomach threatening to empty itself again. The fact that it was already empty didn’t seem to help.

  “I’ve never done media,” I started.

  Jordan shrugged. “You think building a business is about doing things you’ve done before? My dad has run businesses his whole life. It’s new, every time. He says there are two kinds of people. Ones who get off on it and ones who can’t take it.”

  “What do you think?”

  She stared past me, her gaze working over something in the distance. “I think there’s a third kind. The kind who’re scared shitless but do it anyway because it’s worth doing.” She brushed her hands over her bare knees, her attention coming back to me. “I don’t like to feed people bullshit. But Lex and Ava are the best friends I never knew I needed. And Travesty is what binds us together. We all pull our weight, beautiful things happen.”

  And if I don’t pull my weight… I didn’t need Jordan to finish the sentence as she rose.

  If I didn’t pull my weight, there was no room for me at Travesty.

  Or more likely, because Jordan, Ava and Lex were too nice to fire me outright, I’d end up a sales associate watching someone else do my dream job.

  I pulled the jacket tight around my shoulders as I stared up at Jordan. “Is it too late to opt for the fire and snakes initiation instead?”

  3

  Dal

  When I drove my Jetta back to Travesty six hours after I'd left the night before, it was barely daybreak, the streets empty save for a few too-fit-to-be-real joggers.

  Jordan might run, but my boss also ate carbs. My main form of exercise was yoga with my roommate Mac, plus moving boxes, mannequins, and displays at work.

  Which was practically CrossFit.

  It kept my ass jiggle closer to Jell-o status, not cottage cheese. My former pageant-winning mom would be horrified. (She also whitened her teeth weekly and did vocal exercises in the car on the way to work. In case anyone ever called on her to sing the national anthem at her job as a pharmaceutical sales rep.)

  My parents loved me, in that slightly oppressive way that makes you feel like they're trying to live out their forgotten dreams through you. Reason number three hundred and fifty-seven why
I'd moved to LA after school.

  I’d just sat down in my office, leaving Kyla to finish prepping for the day, when my phone vibrated. I wiped my hands on my jean shorts, glad I’d worn them and a tank top to prepare before the store opened later this morning, and made my way back through the storage room.

  I opened the back door, bracing as the heat hit me like a wall. It’d been hot all week.

  Not California hot, Texas hot.

  The truck driver opened the back and I sprang up into the truck. I bent to grab the first box, struggling to lift it.

  “You can't unload this alone,” he said, skeptical.

  I grunted as it lifted. “I’ll find a way. Just need to—“ I changed the angle so my butt was facing the open back of the truck and dropped into a squat, pulling it toward me. This time it moved at least six inches. “—Change it up.”

  It wasn’t going to be easy, but no one had promised this would be a glamorous job.

  “Wow. You flip tires, too?”

  The new voice at my back was low and familiar, and it wrapped around me like the heat.

  I turned, straightening from my squat so fast I would’ve hit my head on the roof of the truck if I’d been tall enough to do it.

  The guy who’d spoken stared up at me, his broad shoulders level with my hips and a teasing glint in his eyes. He grinned, shoving a hand through the too-long sandy blond hair I considered “summer Kent.”

  “Hey, Supergirl.” A hint of midwestern drawl edged in and I straightened, putting my hands on my hips but unable to stop the answering smile.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Thought I’d stop by and bring you a coffee on my way to the beach. It’s inside with Kyla.”