TRUST

  Trust

  Copyright © 2016 by Jana Aston

  Ebook ISBN 978-0-9982444-1-9

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Cover Design by JA Huss

  Formatting by Erik Gevers

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One: Chloe

  Two: Chloe

  Three: Chloe

  Four: Chloe

  Five: Chloe

  Six: Boyd

  Seven: Chloe

  Eight: Boyd

  Nine: Chloe

  Ten: Boyd

  Eleven: Chloe

  Twelve: Boyd

  Thirteen: Chloe

  Fourteen: Boyd

  Fifteen: Chloe

  Sixteen: Chloe

  Seventeen: Boyd

  Eighteen: Chloe

  Nineteen: Boyd

  Twenty: Chloe

  Twenty-One: Boyd

  Twenty-Two: Boyd

  Twenty-Three: Chloe

  Twenty-Four: Chloe

  Twenty-Five: Chloe

  Twenty-Six: Chloe

  Twenty-Seven: Chloe

  Epilogue: Chloe

  The Complete Series

  Acknowledgements

  Follow me on Social Media:

  About the author

  Dedication

  To Chelcie, for trusting herself.

  One

  Chloe

  “Look at us. We are so ladies who lunch.” Everly glances at the waitress. “Can I have tea, love? Do you have tea with a proper cup and saucer?” Everly blinks at the waitress in complete sincerity while the poor woman smiles politely and replies that they just have regular mugs. The four of us—Sophie, Sandra, Everly and myself—have met for lunch at the Italian restaurant located in the building Sophie lives in. We just sat down, so I’m not sure yet why Everly is speaking in the worst attempt at a British accent I’ve ever heard.

  “She’ll have an iced tea—in a regular glass. Thank you.” I cut Everly off and smile at the waitress, who happily accepts my interference and bolts. It’s warm inside the restaurant so I slip out of the sweater I put on before I left the house. You never can predict how the weather will behave in October, so it’s best to be prepared.

  “Cheerio, Chloe, thank you for ordering for me.”

  “Why in the hell are you suddenly British?” I lower my menu and stare at her.

  “She’s practicing,” Sandra says. “Sawyer’s taking her to London with him on a business trip.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone really speaks like that in London,” I say drily.

  “They might, mates, they might.” Everly looks hopefully around the table while Sandra, Sophie and I stare at her, unconvinced. “Am I getting any better, loves?”

  “You might want to work on that a bit longer,” Sophie suggests. “Or maybe just get a hat. They wear a lot of hats in the UK, don’t they?”

  “Oh, holy shit, I am getting a fascinator!” Everly drops the accent and her face lights up as she waves her hands around in excitement.

  “Here we go,” I mumble. “Thanks, Sophie.”

  “Do you think I can get one online? Or do you think I should wait till I get there to buy one?” Everly’s eyes widen. “Do you think I can pull off a feather?”

  “You should definitely wait,” Sophie tells her, setting down her menu. “Definitely not to the feather. Now pick something to eat. I’m starving. And if you try to order fish and chips in an Italian restaurant I will punch you in the face.”

  “Tsk, tsk, someone’s a little crabby,” Everly complains.

  “I’m not crabby, I’m pregnant. So freaking pregnant. I’ve been pregnant for a year. I know it’s nine months, blah blah, but guess how long nine months is in gestation time? I’ll tell you, it’s an eon. My ankles are swollen, my boobs are ginormous, my back aches and I’m big enough to be carrying a litter, but no, my doctor and my husband both insist there’s only one baby in there.” She finishes her rant pointing to her stomach. “One!”

  We all stop looking at our menus to look at Sophie. She’s adorable, actually. She looks good pregnant, even if she doesn’t think so. Her stomach is indeed huge—she’s due in less than two weeks—but it looks like she’s got a basketball shoved under her shirt. She’s all limbs and bump.

  “Yeah, about that.” Everly waves at Sophie’s stomach. “How is the sex with that thing?” The question is directed at Sophie, but Sandra blushes and I groan.

  Sophie doesn’t even blink. Apparently growing a human reduces your embarrassment threshold. “I’m horny all the time,” Sophie wails in a whisper. “All the freaking time. Luke says it’s the hormones and perfectly normal, but I don’t think it’s normal. I think I’m a pregnant pervert.”

  “So like…” Everly looks at her seriously, smoothing her long dark hair over her shoulders and leaning in closer. “Doggie style?”

  Sandra and I glance at each other, then to Sophie. Fine, I’m curious. That bump is huge.

  “For a while, but my boobs got so big it hurts when they bounce. So now I cowgirl him and make him hold my boobs with his hands.”

  Huh. Well, then.

  “Well, I am never having children,” Everly proclaims, eyeing Sophie’s bump warily, “but I might cowgirl Sawyer when I get home.”

  “You have a child,” I remind her.

  “Obviously, Chloe,” she replies, waving her hand at me dismissively. “And Jake is the most perfect kid anyone could ever hope for. But he arrived already walking, talking and potty-trained.” She looks at Sophie’s giant bump again with genuine concern in her eyes. “I wonder if Sawyer has any other secret baby mommas.” She says this hopefully, like only she could. “A little girl would be super fun if I didn’t have to push her out of my vagina.”

  Sophie’s the first one of us to have a baby, even though Everly has a five-year-old son, Jake. Everything is happening so fast. Well, for my friends anyway. Sophie met Luke last fall during our senior year at Penn. She was pregnant and married before graduation. Everly met Sawyer last Thanksgiving and they were married over the summer. Sawyer’s son from a previous relationship lives with them full-time and Everly adapted to insta-motherhood better than anyone could have expected. She’s working on a children’s book series about blended families now. Weird, I know. I always assumed she’d write porn. And then there’s Sandra; she’s a few years older than us. Sandra works for Everly’s husband and quickly became a part of our friendship circle, or squad, as Everly prefers we call it. Sandra started dating Gabe at the beginning of the year and was living with him by summer.

  That leaves me.

  Chloe Scott. Third wheel, or seventh wheel in this case.

  It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have. It’s just that I’m super awkward. Plus dating is hard.

  I’ve been stood up. I’ve been sent dick pics—more unsolicited dick pics than I can count. I mean, what is with that? How does that seem like a good idea? I deleted the first one figuring it was a random loony. After the third one I checked my online dating profile, wondering if I’d somehow checked a box requesting penis pictures. I couldn’t even find an option for that.

  Once a guy forgot my name—in the middle of our date. Just last month I went out with a guy who asked me if I wanted to have sex b
efore dinner. I’m not even kidding. I met him at seven outside of the restaurant and he mentioned our dinner reservation was at nine. I was confused, but I put a smile on my face, thinking he’d actually forgotten to get a reservation and now we had to wait till nine. No biggie. But no. He told me he lived around the corner from there and he thought we could go back to his place before dinner. Because, and I quote, “It’s not good to have sex on a full stomach.”

  I’d met him online a few weeks earlier—having joined a dating website in my quest to fulfill my being-an-adult checklist:

  Graduate with honors.

  Secure a full-time teaching position.

  Find an apartment.

  Learn how to date.

  I’d felt comfortable with him. I’d enjoyed talking to him both online and eventually over the phone, and he was one of the few who hadn’t sent an unsolicited dick pic. So when he’d asked me if he could take me to dinner I’d readily agreed.

  Then he made the comment about having sex on a full stomach. I was about to make a sarcastic joke, thinking he was kidding, when he continued. “They have great steak here, but I can’t eat red meat before sex, so I thought we could do sex before dinner instead of after.”

  Totally. Serious.

  I about had a heart attack because in my limited experience I don’t know what one says to that. Besides no thank you, obviously. But I hate rejecting people. I hate it. I teach the second grade. I’m all about kindness and inclusion and not hurting feelings. Which is stupid, I know. Bad behavior does not deserve a reward. That’s what I tell my classroom. Be kind, class. Treat each of your classmates as a friend. Compliment each other. If you know something, share. If you can help someone, help. When they do, they earn classroom coins that they can exchange for special prizes in my classroom store. When they’re unkind to a classmate they lose a coin.

  But those rules don’t apply to dating. So while I wanted to ask my date to hand over his coins, I’m not sure it would have been effective—or given the message intended. But I wasn’t putting out to spare someone’s feelings. So I made it clear I wasn’t having sex with him on the first date. I tried that once, in college. No lie, the guy didn’t remember having sex with me the next day—or pretended he didn’t. Neither of which was great for my self-esteem.

  So I’d declined his offer to have sex before dinner and he’d declined taking me to dinner. He’d left, and I’d gone home and eaten ramen noodles. Which is fine, it’s not that tragic. Ramen noodles are delicious.

  I was on a dating site once before. Everly, my college roommate, signed me up without my knowledge. Apparently I had a lot of interest based on a profile I didn’t fill out and conversations I wasn’t having. My bestie, posing as me, was very popular. Later, she would try to tell me that it was practically the same as me being popular, but I wasn’t buying it. She did get me to go on a date disguised as a tutoring session. How she got the guy to meet me in a college library I’ll never know. It took me twenty minutes to realize he didn’t need tutoring in sophomore English, that he had in fact graduated with a degree in engineering four years prior. It took another five minutes for me to explain to him that I wasn’t the girl he’d been chatting with online and apologize for my roommate’s well-meaning interference.

  I wasn’t interested in Everly’s matchmaking. College was for studying, preparing for the future. Plus Everly thinks with her heart, not her head, and where did that ever get anyone? I mean, yes, she did marry a billionaire who’s crazy in love with her… okay, never mind, my point sucks. But I’m not Everly. Flying by the seat of your pants and thinking with your heart works for girls like Everly, but not for girls like me. Men gravitate towards Everly. I send off warning signals that say, Too much work.

  Anyway, I don’t need a man or anything. I might want one, but I don’t need one. I’m capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need anyone to save me or fix my life. Totally ridiculous. I don’t need flowers and butterflies, I really don’t.

  I graduated in May, moved into my own apartment in June and started my job as a second-grade teacher in August. I’m totally nailing life.

  Except…

  Except dating isn’t any easier than it was in high school. Or college. Meaning it’s not great. Dating is basically three hours of talking to a stranger, which is stupid, right? I don’t enjoy that. I mean who enjoys that? Who? Who are those people? It’s weird. Dating is weird.

  And as much as I don’t need a man, it’d be nice to have one. I’ll get better at dating though, I will. Practice makes perfect, right? That’s what I tell my students. They learn something new every week and it’s not always easy. Some lessons are trickier than others. Some kids learn at a different pace than others, and that’s okay. So I’m not as good at dating as my friends are. I’ll figure it out. Eventually.

  The waitress stops back and takes our orders and the second she leaves Everly turns her attention on me.

  “So, how’s the dating going?” Everly asks. “Have you gotten any more POD’s?”

  “What’s a POD?” I ask her, confused.

  “Proof of dick,” Everly says with a nod when we all stare at her.

  “Is that what it’s called now?” Sophie asks while rubbing the side of her bump with a grimace.

  “Not yet,” Everly says while swirling the straw in her glass. “But I’m trying to make it catch on. It’s a little classier than ‘dick pic’, don’t you think?” She takes a sip of her iced tea and then sets the glass down, brows raised as we all stare at her. “What?”

  “How exactly are you intending to make it catch on?”

  “I’m so glad you asked, Chloe. The thing is, I’m married, so no one is sending me POD’s anymore,” she begins.

  “Right,” I agree. “I would hope not.”

  “But you, my friend, are still dating, so I thought you could—”

  “No,” I interrupt. “No. Stop talking.”

  “All you need to do,” she continues anyway, “is reply to the dick pics you get and say, ‘Nice POD.’ Or even, ‘Nice POD, LOL.’”

  “Nope, not doing it. I am not going to encourage dick pics so you can coin a new phrase. No.”

  “Okay, no problem,” she says with a shrug. She’s quiet for exactly three seconds before her mouth opens again. “How about, ‘Why are you sending me a POD?’ That way you’re still delivering the branding message, but without the encouragement.”

  I stuff a forkful of pasta into my mouth, glare at Everly and shake my head no.

  “Well, I think it’s catchy.”

  “Why do men do that?” I ask, glancing around the table in disbelief. “Do you know how many dick pics—”

  “POD’s!” Everly interrupts.

  “POD’s I get sent with nothing more than two words exchanged? They say ‘hey,’ I reply back ‘hi,’ and the next thing they send is a picture of their dick. It’s bizarre.”

  “They want to prove they have a dick, obviously. In case you were worried they’re a eunuch.” Everly states this calmly, like it’s a reasonable explanation, while the rest of us stare at her. “Funny story, I was actually worried Sawyer might be a eunuch because he made me wait like, all night to have sex on our first date.”

  That story is greeted by the three of us staring at her, silent.

  “What? He’s not. I mean, he’s really not, if you know what I mean. He’s the opposite of—”

  “We get it, Everly. Thank you.”

  “Anyway,” Everly continues with her story. “A lot of men catfish their dick pics, so the only way to verify is in person anyway.”

  “What?” I ask, tilting my head at her in confusion.

  “You know, when they send a picture of some random dick from the internet, because it’s bigger than theirs.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Does that really happen?”

  “All the time,” Everly says, nodding confidently. “I saw an article on it. On a blog.”

  “Anyw
ay,” Sophie interjects and turns to me. “Back to Chloe. How is the dating going?” She reaches behind her and rubs at her back while she talks.

  “Well, I got asked to fuck a guy with a strap-on,” I mumble and stuff a piece of bread into my mouth.

  “I’m sorry?” Everly asks, leaning forward. Sophie shifts in her chair uncomfortably, rubbing her bump, and Sandra sighs, because she’s already heard this story. Everly’s my best friend, but Sandra is my dating confidante. Everly is filled with good intentions, but she’s… a little invasive. She’s forever trying to set me up with guys she’s picked out and it’s just too much pressure. Plus if she actually managed to set me up with someone I liked she’d be so smug about it. And she’d probably follow me on the dates to watch and text me pointers.

  So I talk to Sandra about these things. She’s been on the receiving end of Everly’s matchmaking shenanigans, so she gets it. Sandra is very discreet. I can send her all the details of the guy I’m meeting and know that she’ll never use it, unless I actually do disappear while on a date. Everly on the other hand would use the information to Facebook-friend the guy, run a background check and befriend his mother. So Sandra is the one I send the details to. You know, the safety details—who I’m meeting, when, where etc. I watch a lot of crime television, specifically Criminal Minds, so I always make sure someone knows where I am if I’m meeting a date. Just in case he turns out to be a criminal or whatever.

  “A strap-on,” I repeat. “Penis,” I clarify when no one speaks.

  I’m met with silence. I glance around the table at their shocked faces and then stuff another bite of pasta in my mouth while shrugging again.

  “I’m gonna need you to back this story up,” Everly says while holding both hands up and bending her fingers towards her like she’s directing traffic. “Back. It. Up.”

  “Yeah, I think we’re going to need more information,” Sophie agrees.

  “I got a match on the dating app I’m using. The guy is gorgeous. He messages me immediately and I’m all hell yeah, fist-pumping myself in my living room. The message says, ‘One question. Will you fuck me with a strap-on?’” I pause and look around the table. “So I think he’s joking and type back, ‘Only if I can pick the size,’ and I’m proud of myself for being so quick on my feet, you know? I’m sitting on my couch laughing when his next message comes in. It said, ‘Any size you want. I’ll buy.’ He was serious. That’s what dating looks like. Men messaging and asking if I want to fuck them with a strap-on. I think it’s me. I attract weirdos.”