Soul Sisters Book 2

“No,” I begged. “Please, no.”

The stupid needle didn’t listen.

My car temperature gauge started tormenting me when I was about halfway between my condo and the shop, bobbing up and down while I wondered how I would afford a major repair.

I pulled into Grave to Road Restorations and killed the hot engine. My purple Mustang was the only car I’d ever owned.

But it was twenty years old, and the maintenance was becoming too much for my tight budget.

The past couple of months had been rough. My best friend got married and moved out of the condo we shared—the condo she owned, and I’d been living in rent-free.

Vada kept the condo as an investment property, but her new husbands controlled all of her finances.

Her father actually owned the condo. But when he passed away, he left instructions for her assets to be managed by his business partners, the aforementioned husbands.

I understood why. Vada had no idea how to manage money.

They agreed to let me continue living there, but I had to pay the taxes, condo fees, and utilities. I was barely able to cover all that with my minimum wage income.

My savings were dwindling, and I’d started looking around for an apartment I could afford. But that was no easy feat in Miami.

I climbed out of my car with a heavy sigh, my achy vagina a reminder of my bad decision the night before.

Bad?

Nah.

Ill-advised?

Perhaps.

That orgasm was totally worth it though.

I pulled open the glass door, muttering under my breath when I was greeted with Christmas music.

The towering tree in the corner of the lobby twinkled with a thousand fucking lights, a cruel reminder that the holidays were right around the corner.

My first Christmas without Vada.

The high-pitched squeal of the receptionist pulled me from my pity party. “Good afternoon,” she squawked. “What can I help you with today?”

“I’m here to see Vada.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, reaching for her phone. “Who shall I tell her is here?”

“Mandy.”

“Mandy?”

“Hale.”

“Mandy Hale is here to see you,” she said into the receiver, gesturing for me to proceed down the long corridor of offices.

Vada inherited her dad’s share of a classic car restoration business, and she married the three men who owned the place with her late father. So technically, she now owned the entire company.

I knocked on the partially open door.

“Come in!” Vada yelled.

“Hey,” I said, flopping down in the chair facing her desk.

“Somebody is having a bad day,” she observed.

“You could say that,” I confirmed with a heavy sigh.

“You can tell me all about it over lunch,” she suggested, grabbing her purse from the desk drawer. “Let’s go.”

“My car overheated.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I don’t suppose you got your license yet.”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t had time to study. But it’s on my to-do list.”

“Sure it is, babe.” I chuckled.

“How are we supposed to go for lunch, then?” she whined.

“Bigger problem for me is, how am I going to get my car fixed?”

“You want Jake to take a look at it?”

“That would be awesome.”

She pulled out her phone and fired off a text. “He said sure. Where’s the keys?”

“Right here,” I said, holding up my keychain.

A guy in coveralls appeared a couple of minutes later. “Jake sent me to get a set of keys for the purple Mustang outside.”

“That would be my piece of shit,” I said, handing over the keys. “It started overheating on the way over here.”

“We’ll pull her into the shop and take a look,” he said.

“Now, about lunch,” Vada declared, sending another text.

One of her husbands appeared a minute later. Garrett was the nicest of the three. He was always smiling. And he was hot. A sexy silver fox.

All three of Vada’s husbands were nice-looking guys. They were old. Like, forty-three. But definitely sexy. Even Evan, the grump.

“You need a ride somewhere?” Garrett asked.

Vada rose up from behind her desk and sashayed across the room.

“We have lunch reservations, but Mandy’s car broke down,” she explained, sticking out her lower lip while she ran her hands up his chest. “We have no way to get there.”

“This is exactly why you need your license, sweetheart.”

“I know.”

“Do you want me to give you a ride?”

“You have a meeting at twelve-thirty.”

“Can you drive a stick shift, Mandy?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“You can take the Viper, then.”

“I’m not driving that car,” I gasped.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s expensive.”

“It’s insured,” he said with a shrug.

“I don’t know,” I sighed.

“Yes!” Vada shrieked. “Let’s go!”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” I accepted the keys.

“You’ll be just fine,” he assured me. “Go. Have lunch. Take your time.”

“You’re the best, Garrett,” Vada said, leaning up to give him a peck on the lips before she grabbed my arm and dragged me down the hallway.

We ran into Evan on the way to the lobby.

Literally.

Vada plowed right into him with a loud oomph.

“Slow down, baby,” he said. “Where’s the fire?”

“We’re just going to lunch,” Vada explained.

“How are you, Mandy?” he asked stiffly.

“Fine.”

Evan made no bones about the fact that he didn’t like me. Before Vada fell in love with three old dudes, we were an item.

We were bisexual, and we’d been engaging in a friends-with-benefits-type arrangement since we were fourteen. Evan was uncomfortable with it, and he felt threatened by me while they were courting Vada.

“I wish you wouldn’t ride around in that deathtrap of hers,” he muttered after they exchanged a steamy kiss. “I doubt it even has airbags.”

“We’re taking the Viper,” she informed him.

“Garrett’s Viper?” he gasped. “Has he completely lost his mind?”

“Probably,” she chuckled. “See ya!”

We burst outside, the midday heat blasting us in the face. The red sports car was parked in the employee lot.

I climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine. My hands trembled on the steering wheel as I slowly exited the lot.

“Relax,” Vada laughed. “It’s just a car.”

I drove under the speed limit the entire way to the restaurant.

“C’mon, Grandma,” Vada grumbled. “I do have to go back to work. At this rate it’ll be dinnertime before we get there.”

I parked at the far end of the lot, away from all the other cars.

“Really?” Vada sighed.

“Zip it,” I ordered before climbing out of the ridiculously low car.

“Why are you walking funny?” she asked.

“No reason,” I mumbled.

“I know that walk,” she laughed, poking me in the shoulder. “Somebody got some cock.”

“Shh!”

“Spill it!”

“Can you at least wait until we’re seated?”

“I guess so.”

The hostess led us to a table on the waterfront patio. I chewed on my lower lip while I tried to decide which salad to get. That was about all I could afford.

“Lunch is on me,” Vada said. “Stop fretting about the cost and get whatever you want.”

“You know I don’t like handouts,” I said quietly.

“Too bad.”

“How much do you think it’s gonna cost to fix my car?”

“Jake will fix it. You might have to pay for the parts though.”

“I’m looking for something more affordable,” I said. “The condo is too expensive.”

“Have you tried to find a roommate?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I prefer to live by myself.”

“Are you ever gonna tell me about the guy you fucked last night?”

The waitress returned with our drinks and took our orders. I gazed out at the water while I sipped my iced tea.

“I did something kinda stupid,” I said.

“Uh-oh.”

“This guy came into the store to buy his daughter her first bra.”

“No!” Vada yelled, drawing a dirty look from the table behind us.

“Can I tell the story?”

“Sorry.”

“So, this super sexy dude comes in with his twelve-year-old daughter. Says she needs a bra, and he doesn’t know anything about buying bras.”

“So he brings her to the most expensive lingerie store in Miami?” she chuckled.

“I know, right?”

“How did you end up fucking a bra-buying dad? And why the hell didn’t her mother bring her?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, that’s sad.”

“Yes. Fotune took her to the change room to do her fitting and left me alone with the sexy dad.”

“Did he fuck you on the checkout counter?” she gasped.

“No!”

“Bummer,” she mumbled.

“But he flirted with me.”

“How old was this guy?”

“Forty-five.”

“Nice.”

“Anyway, Fotune took forever finding the kid a bra. By the time they came out, he’d invited me for a drink after work.”

“Did you go?”

“Obviously! Hence the limp.”

“Oh, right,” she laughed. “He was packing some serious meat?”

“Oh yeah.” My raw pussy clenched as I recalled the feel of him stretching me open. I’d never been with a guy that big before. “We went to an upscale club and ended up fucking in the bathroom.”

“Ew,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose.

“No. The place was clean. Really fancy. I think this guy is loaded.”

“Do you like him?”

“What does it matter?”

“Aren’t you gonna see him again?”

“I doubt it. It was a quickie in a bar bathroom. We didn’t even exchange numbers or last names.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m worried about you, Mandy,” she said, reaching across the table for my hand.

“I’m fine.”

“I wish you would reconsider and join us for Christmas.”

“It’s your first Christmas with your husbands,” I said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable. And Evan hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Mandy,” she sighed. “And if he gets to have his family there, why can’t I have mine?”

“I’m not really your family, Vada.”

“I consider you family,” she said. “This is my first Christmas without my dad. You’re the closest thing to family I have left.”

“You have three husbands.”

“You’ve been part of every Christmas at my house since we were eight years old.”

I grew up in foster care. When I first started at Vada’s public school, she bullied me. But we ended up becoming best friends.

The Collinses welcomed me into their home and treated me like family. I had no idea where my mother was.

Child Protective Services removed me when I was four, and I hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

“I can’t come to your house for Christmas, Vada,” I said.

“What will you do?”

“Probably order Chinese and binge-watch something on Netflix.”

“I have a proposition for you,” she revealed, rubbing her palms together.

“I’m not going to change my mind about Christmas, babe,” I said quietly.

“This has nothing to do with Christmas.”

“What is it about then, Vada?”

“There are a few tickets left for the cruise. And I got you one!”

“What?”

“The cruise we’re going on. The guys said I could invite you.”

“I can’t go on a cruise, Vada.”

“Why not?”

“Um, let’s see,” I said, pressing my finger against my chin. “Where to begin? I’m not part of your cult, nor do I want to be. I don’t have any money. And I can’t take a week off work.”

“Sixteen days,” she corrected.

“Sixteen days?”

“Yeah. They’ve been planning this for years. People come from all over the world. They wanna make it worth their while.”

“I can’t afford to take two weeks off work, Vada.”

“You have holidays. I know you haven’t used them.”

“I can’t afford to go on a cruise.”

“It’s all paid for. Food, booze, everything.”

“I highly doubt Evan agreed to this.”

“It was his idea.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He figures if he marries you off to three guys, he won’t have to worry about you trying to steal me away.”

“I’m not marrying three men.”

“I know that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t participate.”

“Participate in what?”

“The cruise isn’t just a reunion of all the polyandrous families. There are lots of young men looking for a wife to share.

“Everyone is tasked with bringing a single gal along. It’s kind of like a dating-game-type scenario.”

“Are you insane?”

“No.”

“That sounds like a meat market, Vada.”

“It’s not,” she laughed.

“So, you don’t really want me to come,” I surmised. “You have an obligation to bring a single woman for the pool.”

“That’s not the only reason I want you to come, Mandy.”

“Even if I was interested in your strange harem lifestyle, which I’m not, you’re forgetting one important thing that all these men want.”

“Sex?”

“They want babies, Vada,” I sighed. “Are there any families without kids?”

“I have no idea. I’m sure there are. Not everyone wants kids.”

“But most of them do, don’t they?”

“I guess.”

“I don’t qualify to be one of your dating game contestants.”

“You’re not coming to find a harem. You’re coming because you need to have some fun in your life.”

“I’m not going on your cruise.”

The waitress arrived with our lunches. I inhaled my Cuban sandwich and sweet potato fries.

“I guess you were hungry,” Vada observed.

“Yeah. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

“Have you lost weight?”

“No.”

“I’m worried about you, Mandy,” she said. “Will you at least let me buy you some groceries?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Mandy!”

“Just drop it, Vada.”

I slid my key into the lock, wrestling to keep my umbrella over my head, my body already drenched from head to toe. Nothing beats an hour-long bus ride on a rainy morning.

“What happened to you?” my coworker gasped when I stepped inside the back entrance of the store.

“I had to take the bus.”

“The bus?”

“Yep. My car is in the shop.”

“How horrible.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I think your day is about to get worse,” she whispered. “Fotune asked me to send you to her office as soon as you arrived.”

I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat, dread gnawing at my gut as I racked my brain to try and figure out what I was getting in shit for.

My feet felt like they had bricks strapped to them as I took the short walk to my boss’s office. I tapped lightly on her door and waited.

“Come in!”

“You wanted to see me, Fotune?”

“Yes,” she clipped. “Sit.”

“Have I done something wrong?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go, Mandy.”

“Why?” I gasped.

“I watched the security tapes from your last shift.”

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“I watch them every night. Your interactions with a male customer were extremely inappropriate.

“I was in the fitting room with his young daughter for eighteen minutes. During that time, you flirted nonstop with that man, and he with you. It was appalling to watch.”

“You got all that from a grainy surveillance video?”

She turned her laptop around, a very ungrainy video playing on the screen. There was no sound. But the facial expressions and body language were enough to seal my fate.