SETH
(Damage Control #3)
By Jo Raven
SETH (Damage Control, 3)
Jo Raven
Copyright Jo Raven 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Modeclass="underline" Jack Wellon
Photographer: Gilles Crofta Photography
Cover art: Jo Raven
Blurb
Life is a bitch. Keeps screwing me over, and I take blow after blow, sucking it up, giving her the finger.
Don’t get me wrong: I love women. Especially one woman – Madeline. She’s gorgeous, she’s sexy, she’s goddamn perfect.
Plus – minor detail – she has a boyfriend already.
Not that she’d want anything to do with the likes of me. Apprentice tattoo artist, former homeless person, covered in ink, without a penny to my name.
And sort of cursed. I mean, I’d be lucky to run into a girl, any girl, on my way in and out of hospitals with the way life has been knocking me about lately.
But I’m not lucky. Never was. Doesn’t look like that’s gonna change any day soon, either.
Until the day the girl of my dreams literally runs into me. With her car.
Life hates me, and if this isn’t a clue, then I don’t know what is.
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PART I
Life is a game. A game of luck. And I keep losing.
Not gonna bitch about it. Did that, long ago. Learned a thing or two since then. You gotta learn to roll with the punches. It is what it is. So I try. I take the punches and roll as best I can.
Like now.
Chapter One
Seth
Broken legs are a bitch. They take too fucking long to heal and for the muscles to start functioning again. Been there, done that.
Doesn’t matter. I ditched the crutches a week ago, against the doc’s orders, because I’m done crashing on Micah’s couch—his and Ev’s apartment has an elevator, something my building sadly lacks—and I’m done hobbling around, and being unable to use my hands. Need to be independent again.
That includes walking to the closest convenience store for some much-needed ibuprofen and a pack of smokes, like, now.
So I’m using a walking stick, and I’m slow. Way too slow, and unsteady, despite the hellish exercises Rafe has put me through every night since I was released from the hospital. I know my balance is shitty, so when the afternoon darkens with the onset of a sudden storm, and the first fat raindrops splatter down, I do my best to hurry the hell up, because slick sidewalks and my stick? Not a good fucking combo.
Especially since the reason I ventured out in the first place was because my leg was killing me. Pain didn’t get any better after climbing down two flights of stairs and walking across three streets, let me tell you.
Never mind.
I’m almost there, anyway. The store is right across the street, and even though the rain is falling in buckets now, I won’t give up.
Not in my nature, see.
Squinting in the solid wall of rain, checking for cars, I step off the sidewalk. In the dimness of the downpour, the store lights from across wink at me. The cold is helping with the stiff muscles in my thigh and damaged knee. I practically drag my foot after me, one step after another, across the wet asphalt.
Almost there.
The car comes out of nowhere, tearing through the curtain of rain, headlights blinding me for an endless moment.
I jerk back.
The car swerves. Its tires screech on the wet asphalt as the driver brakes and tries to avoid me.
My stick sliding sideways, I stumble backward and wobble, trying to regain my balance.
No chance in hell. I drop like a brick. Letting go of the stick, I put down my elbows to cushion my fall, and ow, the impact cracks like a whip all the way down my spine.
Goddammit. Nice start to the week.
Happy Monday everyone.
I lie there, dazed and thankful I haven’t hit my head—I haven’t, right? I’m missing the last coupla seconds of my life—and wondering if I’ve broken my leg again. Or my arms.
Fuck, that would seriously suck in a year that has already sucked ass.
Then someone is kneeling down beside me in the rain, and I get a glimpse of wide eyes set in a small, pale face.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Her hands flutter nervously as she looks me up and down. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you, I was distracted, I… I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Don’t. I’m okay.” My voice is scratchy, my mind reeling. I struggle to sit up, my walking stick forgotten as I stare hard at that pretty face.
A familiar face. It still takes me a moment to place her—my vision is sort of blurry, and hell, it just can’t be…
The person who almost ran me over is Manon, AKA Madeline Torres. Cassie’s best friend. Prettiest girl alive.
The girl of my dreams. Stuff of my wildest fantasies.
Yeah… With the way my life has been riding my ass this year, it figures she’d be the one to hit me tonight.
***
“Let me help you up,” she’s saying, and shit, I should stop looking at her mouth. “Can you move?”
“I just…” I shake my head, hoping that might put my thoughts back in line. Christ, she doesn’t even know who I am. “Need my stick.”
“Stick?”
“My walking stick.” I gesture vaguely in the direction where I think it fell. The brace I’ve been wearing presses into my knee, and I straighten my leg carefully, relieved that I can.
“Jesus.” She wipes wet strands of hair out of her face and fumbles around on the wet street for my walking stick. “This is… unbelievable. I’m so sorry. Never happened to me before.”
Yeah. Well, I believe it. I’m so unlucky my bad luck spills over to those near me. I get them hurt.
Shane, my cousin and half-brother, thinks he’s bad luck, which is why he chooses to live on his own.
I know I’m bad luck.
See the difference?
She hands me the stick. “We need to get you off the street.”
Makes sense. With the way things are going tonight, baiting luck isn’t wise. What if another car passes by and kills us both?
Two men arrive, asking if we need a hand, and I gratefully accept their help. Not sure she can take my weight, anyway—she’s only, like, five feet five to my six feet —and with the way my leg feels right now, I doubt the stick will be much help.
The two men help me hobble back to the sidewalk, and by then my leg is on fire. Let’s not even talk about my stinging elbows and hands. At least, the cold of the rain is numbing the scratches, cooling the fire.
I thank the guys and they go their way, but she hovers, water streaming down her face. It plasters her dress to her body in a very distracting way, and even through the haze of pain I can’t help looking.
Good thing the pain keeps my dick in check, or this could get awkward. More awkward, that is.
I mean, this is the girl I’ve wanted for ages, but can’t have.
Because she’s with someone. I not only saw her status on Facebook—‘in a relationship’—I fucking saw her with him, holding hands, laughing over something he said. Someone who’s better than me, I bet, someone smarter, richer, with good prospects.
Fuck.
Meanwhile, the rain is still falling, and I’m shivering—with shock more than cold, I guess. Trudging back home like this will be a bitch, but hey, I’ve had worse.