Mr. February: A One Night Stand Romance (Calendar Boys Book 2) Read online

  MR. FEBRUARY

  Calendar Boys Series

  NICOLE S. GOODIN

  COPYRIGHT

  Mr. February

  Published by Nicole S. Goodin

  Digital edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9951168-2-5

  Copyright 2019 by Nicole S. Goodin

  All rights reserved. ©

  This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Mr. February

  First published February 2019

  All rights reserved. ©

  Cover design by Nicole Goodin

  Images purchased from Depositphoto

  Editing by Spell Bound

  DISCLAIMER

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, places, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges all song titles, song lyrics, film titles, film characters, trademarked statuses and brands mentioned in this book are the property of, and belong to, their respective owners.

  Nicole S. Goodin is in no way affiliated with any of the brands, songs, musicians or artists mentioned in this book.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  THANK YOU!

  MR. MARCH

  OTHER TITLES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PLAYLIST

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  UPCOMING TITLES

  DEDICATION

  For all the babes born in February

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book has been written using UK English and may contain euphemisms and slang words that form part of the New Zealand spoken word.

  Please remember that the words are not misspelled. They are slang terms and form part of everyday, New Zealand vernacular.

  I.e: I’m from New Zealand and sometimes we say weird things down here… please try and be cool about it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jackson

  I toss back another shot even though I know it’s a fucking terrible idea.

  Everything has a blur to it and I know that as soon as I lie down, the whole god damn place is going to spin like crazy.

  I poke at the bar with my finger, hopeful that it’s somehow got less solid wood feeling in the past hour so that I might just be able to crash here rather than dragging my ass upstairs to bed.

  I glance around the bar, lit only by a couple of dim lights now.

  I feel sick – like about-to-chunder type of sick.

  I know I shouldn’t throw up in here—sending home all the staff so that I could go on a drinking bender means that if I vomit, I’ll have to clean it up. No one is going to swoop in and save the day with a mop and bucket.

  I’m all alone.

  I might always be alone.

  I reach for the bottle of bourbon, but the damn thing is empty.

  “Stupid bourbon,” I slur as I nudge the bottle away with my hand.

  I contemplate going behind the bar and finding another bottle of something even stronger, but that would require moving, and I’m not particularly well equipped for moving right now.

  “Oh shit. Where did everyone go?”

  The female voice behind me should startle me, but I guess I’m way too drunk to be taken by surprise.

  “Holy crap, how long have I been in the bathroom?”

  “Sweetie,” I slur as I spin around incredibly unsteady on the bar stool. “Don’t ask me… I don’t even know what day it is.”

  It takes a minute for the room to stop swaying, but when it does, my eyes land on a woman in a bright red dress.

  Now, I might be drunk as fuck, but I’m still with it enough to know this chick is hot.

  Not my usual type, but right now I need a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman about as much as I need a hole in the head.

  “Damn. You look smokin’,” I drawl.

  “And you look wasted,” she replies with a grin and a shake of her head.

  I try to lean back against the bar, in a cool, relaxed, non-drunk fashion and fail spectacularly, only just managing to somehow stay on the stool and avoid hitting the ground.

  She walks closer and I can hear the click of her heels against the wood flooring.

  “Well, drunk guy, it’s been thrilling talking to you, but would you mind telling me how I get out of here?”

  “Can’t.” I smirk. “We’re shut. You’re stuck in here forever. With me.”

  She laughs at my pathetic attempt at picking her up.

  “Nice try, dreamboat, are you planning on sleeping on that stool tonight?”

  I point upwards and nearly fall off my seat again.

  “Jesus,” she says as she reaches out to help steady me.

  “I live upstairs,” I slur.

  “Oh lord, you’ll be lucky to make it two steps without tripping over your own feet with the state you’re in.”

  She’s so close to me now, she’s holding onto my arm like I’m a baby who needs the help to sit up.

  I grin up at her. She’s really pretty and she smells so good.

  “You’re hot.”

  She shakes her head at me and laughs. “And surprisingly enough, you’re still drunk.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” I drawl.

  “Drowning your sorrows?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “People don’t usually celebrate alone, so…”

  I blink my eyes together hard a few times. Everything is getting even blurrier.

  “I need bed,” I announce as I try to get to my feet.

  “Truer words have never been spoken,” she mumbles as she tries her best to help me stand.

  “Go out the front,” I tell her as the room really starts to spin. “Locks... on… its… own.”

  I take a step and it doesn’t go well; the ground feels like it’s trying to suck me in. I wonder if maybe I should let it.

  “I’ll be gine.” I chuckle at myself. “I started to say good and then changed to fine.”

  “Oh, for the love of God,” she mutters. “C’mon, I’ll help you get upstairs.”

  “Knew you couldn’t resist tryna get me into bed.” I try to wink at her, but I don’t think it works.

  “Oh yeah, you’re totally irresistible right now,” she says as she drapes my arm over her shoulders and supports far more of my weight than she should. “Where are we heading, dreamboat?”

  I point at the staircase on the far side of the room, and she huffs out
a breath.

  “Of course we are.”

  I open and shut my mouth a few times. My tongue feels fuzzy.

  “Lizzie…”

  “Katie,” she corrects me as we amble across the room.

  “No, no, Lizzie,” I ramble.

  “Katie,” she repeats. “My name is Katie.”

  “No, Lizzie,” I say again. “Not even a little bit.”

  I bury my face in her dark curly hair and breathe in deeply.

  That’s the last thing I remember.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Katie

  “Hey, Tillie, it’s me,” I say in a hushed voice.

  “Katie, where the fuck are you, girl? We lost you at the bar.”

  I can hear a club in the background. It’s only early in Tillie’s world. She’ll be out for hours yet, hunting for eligible bachelors.

  “I’m still at the bar.”

  “Did you meet a guy?” she asks excitedly.

  “Not in the way you’d like to imagine.” I roll my eyes as I glance at the very drunk male sprawled out across his bed. “I got stuck on the phone with Juliet and when I came out the whole place was shut down. There was just this wasted dude left drinking at the bar.”

  I can almost hear her eyes rolling through the phone. “So, let me guess, you’re taking care of him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You and your morals.” She sighs. “Give him a bucket and come meet us for a dance,” she pleads.

  We both know she’s wasting her breath. I won’t be going anywhere until morning.

  My silence is enough of an answer for her.

  She sighs. “Send me a snap of him so I’ll have something to show the police if he wakes up and murders you.”

  He’s so drunk right now I know he couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to, but I do her one better and send her a picture of the driver’s license I pulled out of his pocket before putting him to bed.

  The drunk dreamboat has a name. And a hot name at that. Jackson Matthews.

  “Done,” I announce with a tap of my screen.

  “Night, girl. Have fun on puke duty.”

  “Text me when you get home,” I say.

  “Will do.” She giggles before the line goes dead.

  He lets out a loud snore from the bed, and I shake my head in amusement.

  I wander around the room looking at his stuff. I know it’s rude but given I’m likely to deal with his spew some time during the next few hours, I figure a snoop is the least of what I’m owed.

  He’s got a whole stack of empty frames on one of his dressers, and dirty clothes and crap scattered all over the floor.

  If I wasn’t convinced he was single before, I would be now. He might have called me Lizzie about half a dozen times, but it’s pretty clear there hasn’t been a woman in this room for quite some time – if ever.

  I find the bathroom down the hall and clean the makeup off my face and strip the tight, red dress from my body.

  It feels weird to walk into his room in my underwear, but I know damn well that he’s not going to be conscious for a long, long while.

  I rummage around in his drawers until I find a t-shirt that will do for a nightie and slip it over my head.

  I climb in the bed and do my best to shove him over enough so I have space to lie down.

  There’s no way I’m going to be able to get him under the covers, so I grab the rug off the end of the bed and drape it over him instead.

  I’ve got a towel and a bucket set up right next to the bed, and if he doesn’t need it at some point, I’ll be shocked. The guy is totally wasted.

  I check again that he’s still lying on his side in a safe position before flicking off the light and closing my eyes.

  ***

  I wake to the sound of retching and the stench of vomit. I groan and feel around for the light switch on the wall above my head.

  I blink against the bright light and look over to see that he’s getting most of it in the bucket.

  I hop out of bed and pad down the hall to where I saw the kitchen earlier.

  I fill up two glasses of water and rummage around in the cupboards and drawers until I find some pain killers – he’s going to need them in the morning.

  By the time I get back to the bedroom, he’s passed out again, and on his back, so I roll him onto his side and take away the bucket of stink and the dirty towel.

  I can’t believe I’m cleaning up a stranger’s vomit, but I know damn well that I won’t be getting any more sleep if I don’t do something about this smell. Plus, he’s a super-hot stranger, so somehow, I manage to convince myself that it’s not so bad.

  I flush it down the toilet and rinse the bucket. I grab another clean towel and set everything back up again in case he decides he needs to go another round.

  I take a sip of my own water after I climb back into his bed. I might not be anywhere near as drunk as he is, but I had the better part of a bottle of wine with dinner, plus the cocktails at the bar after, so I might be needing some of those pain killers myself if morning ever comes.

  He groans in his sleep and I can feel him reaching around under the covers.

  His hand finds my bare leg and rubs it slowly up and down.

  I should push it away, I know I should, but I kind of like it. It’s big and warm and gentle.

  I close my eyes again as his hand stills on my leg and let sleep take me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jackson

  I creep out of the bathroom as quietly as I can and wince at the sight of the mess in front of me.

  There’s shit everywhere, and this poor woman, whoever the hell she is, has likely seen it all – I’ve literally aired all my dirty laundry.

  I try to kick a path clear as I make my way back to the bed.

  I look in the bucket, expecting to find it full of spew, and I’m shocked to see that it’s empty and clean.

  I definitely puked last night. The stench coming from my breath when I woke up assured me of that.

  I study the woman who is breathing lightly in her sleep.

  She’s wearing one of my t-shirts and her red dress is thrown over the chair in the corner, her heels and other girly crap are there too.

  I feel like a total ass. I don’t have the faintest idea who she is, let alone if anything happened between us last night.

  I hope like hell I didn’t fuck her – she’s stunning and obviously kind hearted if she has in fact emptied my spew bucket – I’d hate to think that I touched her when I was barely conscious.

  If you’re going to be inside a woman that looks like that, you want to be able to remember it.

  I sit down on the edge of the bed and chuckle quietly at the glass of water and the pain killers that are waiting on the bedside table for me.

  I pop a couple and swallow them down gratefully. I got myself into one hell of a state last night if my pounding head and memory blanks are any indication.

  I wrack my brain, trying to think what the fuck happened last night. I remember being alone – we closed up and I sent everyone home, so I can’t figure out how this dark-haired goddess has found her way into my bed.

  I recall a flash of the room spinning and someone calling me ‘dreamboat’, but I can’t fill in the blanks… and there’s a hell of a lot of them.

  I’ve really got to stop fucking drinking like this.

  I lie back down and roll over so I’m facing the stranger in my bed.

  I run my finger over her cheek and she moves a little in her sleep.

  She’s beautiful.

  “Hey… wake up,” I say. Jesus. I don’t even know her name. I’m a god damn embarrassment.

  I rub my hand up and down her shoulder and arm and watch as her eyes start to sleepily open and shut.

  Finally, they open all the way and focus on my face.

  She’s got the darkest brown eyes. They’re so close to black, I’ve never seen anything like it.

  “Good morning, Jackson Matthews,” she says with
a yawn.

  I stare at her sheepishly and she giggles. “Katie,” she prompts.

  “Katie,” I repeat, and it seems vaguely familiar to me.

  “How’s the head?” she asks.

  “It’s been better.”

  “I bet it has.”

  She doesn’t seem embarrassed, or eager to escape, and I can’t figure any of this out.

  We stare at one another in silence before I remember I own a pair of balls and that it’s about time I used them to figure out the sad state of affairs that is my life.

  “I’m a little vague on the details of last night…” I say, embarrassment colouring my voice.

  “That’s not surprising...” she replies coyly.

  “Did we…” I clear my throat awkwardly. “Did we… ah… did we have sex?”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “No, Casanova, we did not.”

  Thank fuck for that.

  “Did I kiss you?” I wince.

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t mean to sound like a prick… but what exactly are you doing here then?”

  This is a new low for me. I’m mortified with myself right now.

  She doesn’t seem to mind though, in fact she laughs lightly.

  “You were drunk. I helped you upstairs and put you to bed. I couldn’t leave you here in the state you were in.”

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I’m seriously ashamed. “I vomited, didn’t I?”

  She nods solemnly. “Did you have pasta for dinner by any chance?”

  I can feel my cheeks heating now. She giggles again in response to my obvious embarrassment.

  I appreciate her help, I really do, but it’s not right. She’s a beautiful woman, and not all men have the same set of morals I do. She could have got herself into serious trouble coming into a stranger’s bed like this.