Misadventures with a Book Boyfriend Read online

  Misadventures with a Book Boyfriend

  Victoria Blue

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2019 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press

  Cover photographs: Shutterstock

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For David — the best boyfriend a girl could ever dream of having.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Acknowledgments

  Don’t miss any Misadventures!

  Excerpt from Misadventures in a Threesome

  More Misadventures

  About Victoria Blue

  Chapter One

  I was Oliver Connely, for Christ’s sake! A household name—especially if the house had women living in it. For the past decade, my face had been plastered on billboards and buildings around the world and every magazine cover from GQ to Esquire. I’d walked for top designers in Milan, Paris, and New York. I was at the top of my modeling game.

  But today?

  Today I could barely pay my rent.

  I’d heard of the proverbial “wall” from others in the industry but smugly laughed it off, never believing it would happen to me. After all, I was the most sought-after model of my generation. But my twenty-seventh birthday loomed like a dark cloud on the horizon, and the blustery wind that blew in before the storm took all the modeling jobs out to sea with it.

  And now I was the guy scraping together change to pay his fucking cell phone bill.

  Well, my agent, Harrison Firestein, might not be calling, but my favorite lounge chair at the pool in my condo complex certainly was. I’d been setting up shop there a few times a week to perfect my tan, relax, and forget about the stress in my life.

  Since I actually was expecting a call from Harrison, I made sure my phone was charged and then grabbed my backpack and strolled across the complex to the pool.

  I usually had most of the place to myself during the week. Everyone in Southern California was so health conscious and worried about wrinkles that sun worshiping had fallen prey to self-tanners and fake ’n bake salons. But I’d grown up in rural Iowa, where the summer was barely a quarter of the year and not a decent four-fifths. I hadn’t yet given up appreciation for how the sun warmed my skin and gave me a sense of peace like nothing else in my regular routine.

  I usually worked out five days a week, but I took an extra day off this week because—honestly?—I just wasn’t that into it. It was so much easier for me to get motivated when I knew I had a shoot coming up or a show to walk. Since my phone had been unusually silent, I lacked the drive to hit the weights. Where were the job offers from Harrison?

  The pool was particularly busy, and I questioned if I’d mistaken today for a weekday when it was actually a weekend.

  No. Definitely not.

  Skye Delaney, my best friend and amazing roommate, had been out the door at five thirty this morning like she was every workday without fail. Her punctuality used to annoy me, but I’d learned to admire her for her dedication to her career. I might not like the asshole she worked for, but she loved what she did and made a great wage doing it.

  We’d been best friends since sophomore year at UCLA, and she’d been my rock when my family abandoned me for dropping out—and also through the crazy ride of my modeling career. It probably looked like we should’ve just hooked up and called it done. Been there. Tried that. We had less sexual chemistry than the leads in a bad rom-com. We could laugh about it now, but at the time, it was a disaster.

  As I surveyed the crowd at the pool, a vacant lounge chair near the deep end called to me from across the deck. Three little shithead kids were screaming “Polo” in the shallow end while one of their pals turned in haphazard circles randomly shouting “Marco” to coax out their clap backs. Who was the sadistic bastard that came up with that game in the first place? I sent up a mental thank you to the ingenious creator of the AirPods in my backpack that were about to drown out the racket.

  A cluster of empty chairs just a few feet from mine could pose a potential problem if those kids took a break and decided to camp out there, but a quick scan of the rest of the pool-goers yielded a view of their mothers across the deck. Two were absentmindedly watching the game in the water; the other two were huddled together, obviously talking about something they didn’t want the others to hear.

  I loved people watching. I’d done a good amount of traveling in the last few years, and often times I was alone. Making up people’s backstories had become one of my favorite pastimes. I didn’t even try to get it right. I just tried to make it interesting.

  My own parents were two of the most boring adults I’d ever met. They met in high school and had been stuck with each other ever since. When I’d come along as an unwelcome party favor from their senior prom night, any hope of leaving that small town and making something of their lives went down the toilet with the first flush of morning sickness.

  If the rest of middle-class America were in the same boat, I’d have begged that sucker to pull a Titanic. In the stories I created, people were happy, had adventures, and made the most out of every day.

  A nasally voice broke through I Prevail’s rendition of “Blank Space” being belted into my ear canal. “Anyone sitting here?” Judging by the “annoyed mom” look on the woman’s face when I opened my eyes, she had already asked more than once. I pulled the little white pod from my ear and gave my practiced grin.

  “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize you had— Hey, what is that?” She pointed at my AirPod.

  “They’re the new AirPods. Perfect sound without the bothersome cord. They connect to your phone or any other device by Bluetooth.”

  “Well, I’ll be… Janine, check this out!” She looked over her shoulder to her three approaching friends. Apparently, the leader of the posse was named Janine.

  The bedazzled word Diva on her impossibly white ball cap threw tiny rainbows on her friend’s face and chest as she spoke to her. “Honey, don’t point at him like he’s a piece of meat. I’m sure he has a name. And I saw him the minute we walked in. You’d have to be unconscious not to.” Janine gave me a conspiratorial wink, like we were sharing a joke at her friend’s expense. Except, when I thought about it further, it was really at mine.

  She pushed her way past her friend and offered her hand. “Forgive my friend here. She doesn’t get out much. We signed her out for a few hours before the nurses came by with her medication.”

  I took the offered hand and turned it over to place a light kiss on the slope of her inner wrist, but not before noticing the enormous pear-shaped diamond on her ring finger. And I’m talking enormous, as in “my husband works like a dog and we never have sex, but he buys me whatever I want” enormous. The way her mout
h hung open after I grinned at her reinforced my assessment.

  “Pleased to meet you, Janine. Oliver—”

  “Connely. Shit! You’re Oliver Connely!” She stammered and stared, and I had to admit, the effect never got old. For all the emotional scars they’d dealt me, I was eternally grateful to my parents for the physical attributes they’d bestowed upon me. Gene pool for the win.

  “I am.” I grinned again, motioning to the ladies to make themselves comfortable in the neighboring lounge chairs. It was becoming clear we were going to be spending the afternoon together.

  “You live here? In this complex?” Janine commandeered the seat next to mine.

  “I do. I’m sorry, but I think you ladies have me at a disadvantage. You already knew my name, and now you know where I live. How about some introductions?” My Midwestern upbringing always went over big with the females.

  In turn, they each introduced themselves. They reminded me of the cast of Friends, fast-forwarded about ten years. Janine was the obvious leader of the pack, the Monica stand-in. The original friend I met—the woman fascinated by my AirPods—was Beth. She was a nutritionist and Sunday school teacher, and she reminded me of my mom. She was so much like Phoebe with her peace, love, and happiness vibe, I found myself visually searching around her lounge chair area for an acoustic guitar. Beth and my mom would be fast friends—exchanging recipes and wistful stories about wanting to be grandmothers. Something my younger brother, Shane, and his former high school sweetheart turned wife were working hard at making a reality.

  Lisa was the Rachel stand-in. Stylish and sexy, albeit a little dingy. She spent the better part of the afternoon sitting by the side of the pool texting on her cell phone. The fourth woman was Dani. She was quiet and distracted, and when she excused herself to use the restroom, the other ladies quickly leaned in to explain she was having trouble in her marriage and was having a bad day. I nodded sagely, as if I had any experience to draw from, and sat back in my chair, put my pods back in, and closed my eyes—universal signals that I was checking out of the conversation.

  Thankfully, it worked like a charm. When Dani came back from the bathroom, Lisa joined the ladies on the lounge chairs, and even though I had my AirPods in, I held off playing music so I could listen to what they were saying. There was a perverse part of me that was intrigued with the female psyche in general.

  For example, when I was a boy, I would eavesdrop on my mom’s sewing club when they met at our house. Inevitably they would gossip about their spouses, and sometimes the conversation would get pretty blue. I had my first sex-ed class while hiding behind the sofa listening to Mrs. Levinson talk about giving Mr. Levinson a “blowy” and fingering his asshole. Listening to her insist to the other women that didn’t mean he was homosexual was priceless, even at the tender age of ten.

  “You okay, honey?” Janine asked Dani.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. I really just wish he’d leave. I mean, I don’t think I’m out of line in thinking if my husband is going to keep fucking his massage therapist, he should just move out of our house, am I? I can barely stand the sight of him at this point,” Dani spoke to the group.

  “I agree,” Lisa said, shaking her head in disgust.

  I pretended to shuffle songs so I was able to watch their interactions with inconspicuous glances.

  “Instead of making you witness it all. It’s just not right.” Lisa now faced Dani squarely to convey her support.

  “Well, that damn prenup says if I leave, I get nothing,” Dani said to the group, starting strong but slumping back against her chair by the last part of the sentence.

  “Yeah, well, isn’t your sanity worth more than his estate?” Beth asked Dani, seeming innocent but somehow wiser than she let on.

  I sneaked a quick peek from behind my sunglasses at the group’s reaction when silence sliced through the air. They were all giving Beth the death stare.

  “Well, I’m just saying…” She shrugged and then looked out across the pool.

  “Let’s talk about something else. What are you guys reading? Janine, you always have something good to tell us about.” Dani decided the group needed a new topic rather than her dead-end marriage, and like a cardiac patient on the receiving end of a defibrillator, Janine jolted several inches off her chair.

  “Oh. My. God.” She even clutched her heart to further illustrate my simile. “You will not believe the book I just finished.”

  “Was it that biker one? With the guy?” Lisa waved her hand in the air, trying to jog her own memory. “With the brother? The twin?”

  “No. I finished that like two weeks ago. God, girl, where have you been?” Janine scoffed, wholly disappointed with her friend’s lack of upkeep with her latest literary prince.

  “I can’t keep up with you. How do you read so fast?” Lisa shook her head in amazement.

  “I’m obsessed! Once I start, I can’t stop until I finish, even if that means staying up way past my bedtime.” There was a mixture of pride and resignation in the woman’s voice. I couldn’t pinpoint which was stronger.

  “What’s this one about?” Beth pulled the brim of her enormous sun hat down a bit lower and then adjusted the seat back of her chair for the seventh time.

  “This guy is definitely my new book boyfriend.” Janine’s decree was met by her friends’ orchestrated harrumphs, as if they practiced the ensemble regularly.

  “They can’t all be your boyfriends,” several of them said in unison.

  “Why not?” their fearless leader argued.

  Beth was the first to cave. “Okay. They can. Fine. Go on.” Something told me that’s how the conversations always played out.

  Dani asked, “Is he rich?”

  “Duh. Who wants to fantasize about a man who’s just getting by?” Janine looked at her over the top of her oversized sunglasses and continued. “Or a fat guy? Or a guy with a small dick and a bald head? I can get that shit at home.”

  The whole gaggle burst out laughing, causing half the people at the pool to turn their heads to see what was so funny.

  “Oh my God, Janine, keep your voice down.” Beth tugged on the brim of her hat again. “There are children here.”

  “Oh please. Those aren’t children. Those are Marissa’s monster multiples. I live right next door to those little savages, don’t forget. And I’ve had to hear Marissa and her husband making the next batch. Every night they go at it in their bedroom—which just happens to share a wall with my dining room. You want to lose your appetite? Listen to Harlem panting while she rides his wild wildebeest across the finish line if you know what I’m talking about. It sounds like an animal is either giving birth or dying a cruel and unusual death when that man has an orgasm. Or I don’t know… Shit, maybe that’s her.”

  The women were in stitches by the time she finished, and I wasn’t doing much better. I’d given up pretending I wasn’t listening a while back, and seriously? The lady could have her own comedy routine at the local open mike night.

  “Please forgive her. She’s not always this outspoken.” Beth looked to me with tears running down her cheeks from laughing so hard.

  The other ladies, again in what seemed like a well-rehearsed chorus, said, “Yes, she is!” Which, of course, made them all laugh even harder.

  When the laughter settled down, Lisa reminded Janine they were still waiting to hear about her latest book boyfriend. She spent the next twenty minutes going into great detail about the hero of the latest best seller.

  The hero was some sort of “alpha male” billionaire, whatever the hell that meant. He told the leading lady what to do—and she liked it. Hell! She fell to her knees and gave him a blow job because of it. He was a dick to every other man in the story, and that really got her hot and bothered. For that behavior, she had anal sex with him!

  “Oh my God! I would pay good money to have a date with a man like that. Wouldn’t you?” Beth asked the group.

  “Absolutely,” they all agreed.

  “Even an ho
ur or two. Just to feel important to someone,” Lisa added on.

  “Exactly!” Dani said emphatically.

  Apparently, the book was part of a series all the women were familiar with. The “hero” sounded like an arrogant asshole to me, but the ladies were swooning, and I mean swooning, over every example of assholeness their friend told about the guy. Did shit like this truly turn women on? I would definitely have to check in with Skye about this over dinner.

  Crap. Dinner.

  “Ladies, I need to go.” I heaved myself off the lounge chair and gathered my things while I explained. “I completely forgot I have to cook dinner, and my roommate gets very, very testy if she doesn’t eat the minute she walks in the door.”

  “Are you for real, Oliver Connely?”

  “Excuse me? Ma’am?”

  “Cut the crap. And if you ever call me ma’am again, I’ll knee you in the balls. I’m not that much older than you. You little shit.” Janine was a firecracker for sure.

  When I raised my eyebrow, I instinctively lurched back at the hips, protecting my family jewels, and rightly so. She playfully hiked her knee up so fast, if I hadn’t protected myself, I would’ve been singing along with Bruno Mars in his typical falsetto and not massacring the notes like I normally did.

  “I think what our overcaffeinated friend was getting at is you may be too good to be true. So handsome, so charming, and you cook? How on earth are you single?” Lisa asked.

  “He just said his roommate was a woman. That doesn’t exactly sound single, now does it?” Dani was quick to point out.

  “Oh, it’s not like that,” I corrected. “Skye and I are really just friends. Nothing more.”