Lawful Overdose
Authors: Justine Elvira
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Coming of Age, #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College
Lawful Overdose
Justine Elvira
All rights reserved. This
book contains material under International and Federal Copyright Laws and
Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written
permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for
review purposes only.
This book is a work of
fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or
occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created
from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Cover image used under
license from shutterstock.com
Table of Contents
Chapter Three: Ice Cream and
Coffee
Chapter Seven: Drive-ins and Vin Diesel
Chapter Ten: You Can’t Take It Back
Chapter Eleven: I’ll Let You Pick Where You Put It
Chapter Fourteen: Traitorous Bitch
Chapter Sixteen: Beg and Plead
The past several months have been a whirlwind. I am
still in complete awe over everything large and small that has happened to me,
and I have so may people to thank.
To my editor Eileen Proksch
-
Thank you for
contacting me and expressing how you could help me as an indie author. You make
my writing better and I appreciate it. Our working relationship is new, but I
value and treasure it. I can’t wait to continue to work with you in the future.
Club Indie-
I have never been a part of a group that is so supportive and
informative. I have learned so much these past few months. Things I wish I had
known when I first started out. I am so proud to be a part of this group and
get advice from such amazing authors. Your advice is invaluable and I learn
more and more from you each day. Thank you.
To all the bloggers who post for me-
You’re the reason anyone has ever given me a
chance. Any success I have, I owe to you and your diligence in getting indie
authors out there and recognized. You’re the backbone of this industry and I am
so grateful to have established relationships with you. I will cherish them
forever.
A
shley over at Ashley’s Book Corner-
Thank
you for your help in organizing the cover reveal for Lawful Overdose and your
pimping of the book. Your support means so much to me and I’m glad to call you
a friend.
Special Thanks to-
Liz King at Romance Addiction, Mayas Sanders at Reading
By The Book, Ashley’s Book Corner, Book Boyfriend Reviews, Reading for Fun,
Just One More Romance Book Blog, Debbie the Book Vixen, Just Booked, Totally
Booked, Maria’s Book Blog, Crystal’s Many Reviews, Three Chicks and a Blog, The
Book Hangover, Emily at Rate My Romance, Bookworm in Barrie, Sex and the Books
Blog, Hooked on Books, Jelena’s Book Blog, Nose Stuck in a Book, Whirlwind
Books, Brooke Cumberland at Go Away, I’m Reading, The Autumn Review,
Jacqueline’s Reads, 2 Chicks and a Blog, White Zin Bookends, Dirty Girl Book
Club, Give Me Books Blog, Obsession is a Book, and Green Eyed Girl's OCD's.
Thank you for your help revealing the cover of Lawful Overdose to the thousands
of readers online. I am so very grateful.
To my kids:
I love you so much and you are the reason I do what I do. Thank you
for understanding the words "Mommy is working". You get your Momma
back... for a little while.
This book is dedicated
to the boy who left our lives so soon. We miss you every day. Each day on earth
gets a little easier, but our love for you does not change. Years have gone by,
but you’re still here with us in our hearts. I hope to help others with the
knowledge we’ve learned from your death.
Dibs
“I’m going to leave now,” I yell from the front
door of my parent’s home.
It’s Friday morning and I’ve been in my parent’s
home for two days. I came home to visit my mother for her birthday. I don’t
even know why I try. She’s only said a handful of sentences to me in the last
forty-eight hours.
I offered to take her out for dinner, have a spa
day, or just chill out and have a movie marathon. She didn’t want to do any of
those things, she wanted to just sit and stare out the window all day. She’s
stuck in the past, unwilling to move on from her mistakes.
After hassling her a little more about choosing
something to do, my mother reluctantly agreed on the movie marathon. I put on
the latest blockbuster starring Matthew McConaughey, and joined her on the sofa
in our family room. It was going great for the first fifteen minutes. Then she
got up to make a cup of tea and never came back. Luckily I had Piper
there with me. We finished the movie without my mom, before starting our
afternoon task of cleaning the house.
I hadn’t been home since Christmas and by the looks
of the house, it hasn’t been cleaned since Christmas. I cleaned up month old
take-out cartons, cigarettes overflowing the ashtrays, and dust in every
crevice of the house. My mother had dirty laundry everywhere. It was just her
clothes though; my father’s clothes seemed to get washed.
My father.
I haven’t seen him at all this visit. He works over
eighty hours a week, not because he has to, but because he is dealing with my
sister’s death in his own way. My mother lives inside her head, and my father
works himself to death. No wonder I’m so fucked up.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Piper says to me. “Bye,
Mrs. Greyson. I’ll see you again soon!” She yells as she grabs my bag from my
hand. She turns around and starts to walk towards my Volkswagen Beetle. I
follow behind her; I’m not about to wait in the doorway for a response that
will never come.
I open the door to the driver’s side as Piper
throws our bags in the backseat and hops in the passenger seat. I start my
vintage Beetle, praying, like always, that it will start. I let out a deep breath
as I hear the roar of the engine. I peel out of the driveway, never looking
back.
“So… that was interesting,” Piper says hesitantly
as she turns the radio on low.
“Interesting doesn’t even describe it. She is like
the walking dead. I swear she gets worse every time I see her. She used to be a
ghost of her old self, now she’s not even that.”
I turn up the radio, trying to convey the message
that I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I head out on the highway to begin
our three-hour journey back to school. It’s summer break, but Piper and I
decided to stay on campus to work for the summer. Neither of us has any urge to
rush home.
Piper is a military brat. Her mother passed
away when she was a toddler; her sergeant father raised her. They moved to a
new base every year or two and she’s even lived overseas. Her father was never
around so she was raised by a bunch of young men on base. Although she received
little attention from her father, she received a lot of attention from the men
on base, which she loved. She lost her virginity at fourteen and never looked
back.
I heard this story the first time I met her
freshman year. It was the first day of class and we were both running late. I
made it to the lecture hall at the same time she did. When she spotted me at
the door, she tugged on my arm and dragged me to a seat in the back of our
psychology class. It was an introductory class and we both felt like we didn’t
need to listen, so we talked the whole two hours. She told me how she lost her
virginity and I knew we were kindred spirits. I lost my virginity at fourteen,
too.
Piper and I were outgoing balls of energy,
destroying everything in our path. It felt good to have a partner in crime who was
down for anything. She didn’t look at my crazy ideas as crazy; she wanted to
know when she could get in on the action. By sophomore year, we were living in
an apartment off campus and waitressing together at Ryder’s Bar and Grill.
“So what’s the plan for tonight?” Piper asks
enthusiastically.
“We both close tonight over at Ryder’s, so find out
who’s throwing a party. We can head over when we’re done with our shift.”
Piper gets busy texting on her phone while I try to
drown out the music coming from the top-forty station on the radio. Piper and I
have a completely different taste in music, but I try to appease her. She hates
my love for 70’s classic rock.
“Dave’s throwing a party at his house or we could
go to Club Dive,” Piper mumbles as she continues to play on her phone.
Dave works with us over at Ryder’s Bar and Grill.
He is what’s called a townie, but he also attends Eastern with us. He lives in
his parent’s three-bedroom ranch that they left him when they moved away. It’s
a little run down, but the perfect party house.
“Let’s go to Dave’s,” I say enthusiastically. “This
way, we don’t have to worry about the possibility of not getting served, and we
don’t have to go to another location to hook up. We can use one of his bedrooms
tonight.”
“Normally I’d give you a speech about using sex as
an escape, but who am I to stop you from getting off. You deserve a good lay
tonight.”
I look at her from the corner of my eye and we both
burst out laughing. Only Piper could joke around with me like this, and not think
I was a total slut.
“In all seriousness, you need to stop fucking
Mikey. He’s really into you and I’m starting to think he doesn’t understand the
term friends with benefits.”
I pull my hand from the steering wheel and drag it
through my long brown hair. “I know, but sometimes he is my only option. It’s
slim pickings in this town during the summer. I want to make sure the guy I’m
with has all his teeth. Plus, Mikey knows what I like,” I wink at Piper.
“Gross! He’s like my brother, I don’t want to know
about how good he is at getting you off,” Piper groans, slapping me on the arm.
“You shouldn’t have brought him up then, Pipe.”
Pipe is my nickname for her. It started off as a
joke the first time I saw her getting high, but then it stuck. Thankfully, she
doesn’t do that stuff in front of me anymore.
“Okay, Contessa,” she drawls out my full name, and
I roll my eyes. “I just want to make sure you’re aware that Mikey has feelings
for you.”
“Noted. I promise to try and stay away from him,
but that just means I need to find someone hot tonight. After the past two
days, I need a release.” It feels good to feel loved for those several minutes,
even if it’s a false sense of love.
“Sounds like a plan. Just drive us through these
crappy cornfields and get us back to Eastern. We’ll have enough time to shower
and bring spare clothes to Ryder’s. Then tonight, we’ll get drunk off our
asses. This way, almost any guy will look hotter to you than Mikey.”
I take my right hand that’s resting on the center
divider and flick her boob with my fingers.
“Fuck! That hurt, you bitch.”
I let out a small laugh at her dramatics. “You
deserve it. I want real hot, not beer goggle hot.” I look over at her as she
rubs her breast where I just flicked her, “And I get dibs. I don’t care if you
see the hottest guy first because he’s mine. Got it?”
“Yes, Princess Tessa, he’s yours. After what I
witnessed the past few days, you deserve the hot guy, tonight. I get the hot
guy next time.”
“Deal,” I say, sticking out my hand as we shake on
it.
Piper turns the music up in the car and we drive
the rest of the way, singing top-forty music at the top of our lungs. The drive
through rural Illinois is boring, but with the music blaring and my best friend
in the passenger seat, the drive goes by quickly.
When we finally pull up to our apartment complex,
we have an hour before our shift starts at Ryder’s Bar and Grill. I started
working at Ryder’s in October of my freshman year. I needed a job, and Piper
had started there when school started, so she put in a good word for me. My
boss, Ryder Wyatt, was the owner of the place. He inherited it when his uncle
died eight years ago. Ryder made a few changes to the menu, fixed up the
building, and changed the name. He was a great boss and I guess I could even
call him a friend.
Piper and I get out of my Beetle and rush up the
two flights of stairs to our apartment.
“I call shower!” Piper yells out, as she opens the
front door and makes a dash down the hallway.
“Son of a bitch! You better make it a five minute
shower,” I yell back to her. I throw my keys on the table next to the door and
kick my shoes off into the corner of the entryway.
Our apartment is a small two bedroom. There’s a
kitchen that can occupy one person at a time, a living room, two bedrooms, and
one bathroom. It’s not one of the better off campus housing you can get, but
the rent is cheap and the neighbors don’t complain when we throw parties.
I grab a soda from the fridge and go into my room
to pick out an outfit for later tonight, and grab my uniform. By the time I’m
done choosing the sexy outfit that will grab every guys attention, Piper is out
of the bathroom. I rush in there before she tries to come back. Locking the
door, I turn the shower on and strip out of my clothing. I step into the shower
and let the warm water hit my skin. It washes away all the anxiety and emotions
from the past two days with my parents. When I’m done cleaning myself, I feel
refreshed and ready for the night.
I quickly blow-dry my hair before leaving the
bathroom and heading into my room. I put on my lace pink thong and matching
push-up bra, not that I need it. I was blessed in that category. God gave me a
porn star chest and a skinny waist to go with it. I wear a D-cup and have a
nice, firm butt from working out. The rest of my body is slim and tone, so I
can’t complain.
The uniforms at Ryder’s are on the skanky side, so
I’m glad Piper and I are in shape. The top is a ribbed, low cut black tank top,
with the words
Ryder’s Girl
on the front in red. The bottoms are red
booty shorts that barely cover my butt cheeks. The words
Try our buns
are written across the ass. When I was younger, I would have never worked at a
place like this. Now, I see the appeal. We look hot and I’ve hooked up with a
few guys because they love how I look in the outfit.
The wait staff is strictly female, but Ryder hires
men to work the bar. That’s how Piper and I met Mikey. Mikey’s been bartending
at Ryder’s for as long as I’ve worked there.
Once I’m dressed, I head over to the mirror and
apply my make-up and fix my hair. I finish applying the last loose curl to my
hair as I hear a knock on my door.
“Ready to go…” Piper says from my doorway. “Damn,
girl. You look extra hot. You weren’t kidding when you said you needed to get
some, huh?”
She walks over and starts playing with a piece of
my hair.
“I love when you do your hair like this. It’s like
a fashionable Farrah Fawcett look. You’ll have the boys eating out of the palm
of your hand.”
“I hope so,” I whisper, applying a dab of lip-gloss
on my lips. I do a quick look over of myself before grabbing my change of
clothes from the bed, and turning off the light.
Ten minutes later we’re pulling up to Ryder’s. A
quick look at the parking lot tells me this is going to be a busy night, which
is surprising since it’s the summer.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell Ryder you’ll close
tonight. We want to be first cut,” Piper lectures me as I park my car. I glance
in the rear-view mirror to make sure I look presentable before I get out of the
vehicle.
“I won’t volunteer to close, I promise. Work is the
last place I want to be right now.” It’s true. I’m going to have to work the
next four-to-six hours before I can release this built-up tension. I’m starting
to wish I just had a quick session with my battery-operated boyfriend.
“You better not. I’m going to make sure Ryder knows
you have plans, so that maybe he leaves you alone tonight. You know, it’s your
fault for being such a good employee. You need to take that down a notch,
you’re making me look bad.”
We both glance at each other before busting out
laughing. Nothing could make Piper look bad, except Piper. Her problem is she
rather socializes and hook up with one of our bartenders, Milo, in the
bathroom, than work and make a decent amount of money.
I walk inside Ryder’s, and Piper follows me. We
head back towards the kitchen and into Ryder’s office. After putting our things
away and getting our section assignments, we start work.
The first couple hours fly by. The restaurant is
busier than I expected because of a fright-fest marathon running at the local
movie theater. It’s brought in people from the neighboring towns. A little
after nine o’clock, the rush is over and I have only one table in my section.
Mikey and Milo are bartending tonight, so I decide to go chill out at the bar.
As I’m walking over, Mikey glances up and smiles at me.