Hard Curves (Dangerous Curves 2)

Naomi Abbott peeled out of the Dangerous Curves parking lot like she had the devil himself chasing her… and in a way she did. Two devils, actually. One old and familiar – the one that had tried to ruin her life in ways that she was just starting to get a handle on – and one new. One that was, in some ways, far more frightening than the first.

A dark-haired devil with killer gray eyes and massive hands. A devil with a stare that could smash through every single wall she’d built up to protect herself. A devil that she hadn't seen coming, and had no idea how to mount a defense against now. A devil who was pure, wicked, muscular, mouthwatering temptation.

Matt Kingston. Goddammit.

She saw a gas station and pulled over. Hands trembling, Naomi reached into her purse and pulled out the brass coin. The size of a poker chip, painted a shining copper, it represented the most astounding act of self-love that she’d ever performed.

Seven months, three weeks, four days without a drink. And Christ Almighty, right now, I feel every fucking second of it.

The coin was nestled in her sweaty palm, comforting and solid. Something to hold on to, to squeeze, to draw strength from at moments like this. A talisman and a promise.

You’re OK, just breathe. You got out of there in one piece. Calm down and get to Mirrie.

She breathed deeply, felt her heartbeat slow down. Calmer now, but still clutching her sobriety chip, she pulled back onto the highway and headed into Denver proper. She got lucky, and found a parking spot right in front of Frank’s Café. Bonus points for money still being in the meter – a whole hour, which was probably just about long enough.

Naomi pulled her collar up against the bitter late-October wind, shivering. She yanked the café door open, and spotted Mirrie at their usual table in the back. Immediately, any feelings of being unbalanced or skewed disappeared: her world realigned and settled back on its axis. She found her center again.

Miranda Kane watched Naomi approach, her violet eyes steadily taking her in. When Naomi got to the table, she sat down with a huge sigh.

“You OK?” Mirrie said without preamble.

“Not bad.”

“You want to stay here and talk, or do you need to go to a meeting? There’s one in twenty minutes.”

“I want to talk.”

Mirrie nodded. “Talk.”

Despite her shock and stress, Naomi couldn’t help but smile at Mirrie’s brisk manner. The woman’s no-bullshit attitude was exactly what she needed at moments like this. Gushing sympathy or mama-hen clucking would just send her over the edge to self-pity, or maybe even tears.

Naomi glanced around the café, saw an older man staring over at her and Mirrie with a perplexed expression on his wrinkled face. She knew what he was seeing, and didn’t blame him at all for his confusion. After all, Naomi was in a sleek suit with high heels, and no ornamentation at all except for a chunky gold bangle on her slim wrist. With her short blonde hair and minimal and tasteful makeup, she was the epitome of a conservative businesswoman. Chic, sedate and streamlined.

Mirrie, by direct and jarring contrast, was like an explosion of color: on her body, her hair, her face. Her hair was bright pink, her eyes and lips were slathered in enthusiastic dark makeup, her face was covered in piercings – eyebrow, nose, cheek, lip – and she had a sprawling neck tattoo. Her clothes were a fashion nightmare of clashing colors and patterns.

Naomi took a few seconds to admire the other woman’s fearless sense of ‘who-the-hell-cares-about-matching-anyway?’. Mirrie worked as a barista at the trendy café around the corner, and she was the most toned-down of all the staff. The owner, Spider, had most of his face tattooed with an enormous spider web, which freaked out unsuspecting customers on the regular, until they saw his kindness and humor. Mirrie was exactly like that, actually: shocking and bizarre, until you got past it all and saw her genuine desire to help others.

They had met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Naomi had been in unbelievably bad shape at that point: shaky and scared to death, vulnerable and alone. She had no fucking idea how to live her life without drinking every night, so in self-defense (and in this case, it was literally in defense of herself), she got into the routine of going straight from work to a meeting to kill the long, empty night time hours.

For almost a whole month, instead of downing two-and-a-half bottles of wine alone at home, or getting smashed in bars and picking up random guys, Naomi had sat in a room with strangers. She was committed to going to thirty AA meetings in thirty days, and beyond that, she didn’t have a goddamn clue what to do next. She drank cup after cup of tea, her hands shaking the whole time, and she listened to others, trying to draw some strength from them.

She’d talked to everyone, and everyone had blended together – except for Mirrie. Mirrie stood out for her, and not just because of her outrageous appearance. Something about her hard edges combined with her gentle eyes had just called to Naomi. And then, at Naomi’s twenty-eighth meeting, Mirrie had stood up to speak about her struggle to achieve sobriety.

As she’d listened to the younger woman talk about her own journey, Naomi felt herself relax for the first time in ages. For the first time, she really thought that she could do this – that it was possible. And it had been Mirrie who had made her believe.