The Day the Jerk Started Falling (Jerk #2) Read online

  This may come as a shock, Luck, but I drive the same all the time.

  Your description of my hell-on-wheels, devil-may-care attitude makes it sound colorful, crazy, and, perhaps, even targeted at you and your uptight demeanor, but I can assure you, that day, I paid you no special treatment. The way I left the airport after strapping you into the passenger seat is the way I arrived: on the move, without wasting time, and in full Aussie mode thanks to the Americanization of a sister I missed a fuck of a lot.

  I banged my head to AC/DC, who everyone should know are an Aussie-bred musically talented duo of brothers—in case you ever try to snub them like you do the rest of my music, little fire—shut the ignition, and the engine went straight to auxiliary so the music could live on as I dressed.

  As you know—as I’m sure everyone bloody well knows at this point—our outfits and their contrast were quite the point of contention on the day we met.

  You may think my choice was strategic like yours, or that I was commenting on your aesthetic with a mind to my own, but I can assure you, I was not.

  In fact, getting dressed that morning was about the equivalent of grabbing blindly in a dark room.

  Only I wasn’t blind, and the room was my Jeep.

  Fishing around in the back seat for a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I tossed fabric around like a clown performing an act.

  Boardies.

  Wet suit.

  More boardies.

  Bra.

  [laughs]

  Ah, sorry, Luck. But it’s true. The blue, lacy, 34DD number was a stowaway among my soldiers, and if I’m honest, I’ve no idea how she got there.

  I’m not exactly fantastic about cleaning out my car, so there was no telling how long she’d been hanging around—it could have been from some sheila I’d fucked two years ago.

  [laughs again]

  Sorry, love, but it’s the truth. And as you know, the point of this bloody podcast is that—to tell you the truth. To lay it all out there.

  So, after a brief inspection led by my dastardly male hormones, I tossed the ridiculous bra aside and got back to digging.

  Three old towels, another wet suit, and a tank top later, I hit the jackpot.

  An outfit you’ll recognize as dirty, old cargo shorts and my favorite Surf Arsen tee.

  [sighs]

  If I’d only known how much my absolute ignorance of any and all fashion was about to change. Arguments about thongs—not flip-flops, but thongs—and stilettos, and designer wear… Good God, love. You’re a fashion tornado.

  Anyway, June mornings in Sydney could be chilly, but that day showed promise of warming up nicely.

  With a mind to your virgin status—to the country, little fire; I can assure you I had no notion that you were an actual virgin or otherwise—I thought of my own likes and came to a quick conclusion about what my sister’s best mate might enjoy as her introduction to Australia.

  I imagined, by the time I made it back outside with you, it’d be the perfect weather for cruising the coast with the top off.

  [laughs]

  Good thinking, huh?

  Quickly, after shucking my towel, I pulled my shorts up over my bare ass and my shirt over my chest and went to work on the snaps on the soft top of my Jeep.

  My old girl, Lottie, as I’d affectionately named her, undressed quickly and efficiently, and I couldn’t help but smile as I shoved the canvas in the trunk and headed for the entrance of the airport.

  For the first time in a year, I believed myself to be on time, but my attention to detail and rules was sometimes lacking. I didn’t like to keep a schedule, I didn’t necessarily try to keep a schedule, and I had no idea of the schedule someone else undoubtedly expected to be kept.

  Within a hundred feet of the entrance, I dug in my pocket for the phone I’d remembered, by some miracle, to deposit there before leaving the Jeep—just after switching off the auxiliary and saving the battery—and scrolled through a dozen unread messages until I got to the one from Allie with your info.

  Lucky Wright, she’d written, arriving just after eight a.m. and expecting your presence in baggage claim.

  The formality of Allie’s email was almost cute, in that greatly annoying way that you women use to micromanage, of course, but easy enough to scroll through as I looked within the contents for any other pertinent information.

  From your podcast, I feel confident in saying that she’d used that…what did you call it? Girl Scout mom style?

  Well, let’s just say I feel confident that she was under the influence of the same hormones when she wrote both sets of instructions.

  My shoulder rocked as it hit something solid but malleable, and a squeak sounded from down below. I sidestepped immediately from the tiny woman I’d nearly run over and apologized.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to steamroll you there. Wasn’t paying attention.”

  She smiled as she took me in, the line between her brows that’d formed into a near scowl faded with ease, and her blue eyes perked noticeably with interest.

  I haven’t won any awards for my looks, but I don’t fancy myself an ugly bloke. A little charm and a subtle wink have saved me from a more thorough examination plenty of times.

  “Oh,” she blushed, turning to follow me with her eyes as I kept walking toward the automatic door. She threw her sleek blond hair over her shoulder with a flick. “No problem.”

  I smirked to myself and strode into the climate-controlled glass bridge that led from the garage to the main terminal without looking back.

  Just like always, I knew where any further interaction with the petite blond would go, and as enjoyable as a romp in the back seat of Lottie sounded, I knew better than to let my sister down without earning a few brownie points first.

  Allie Arsen—I refuse to call her by her bloody husband Sam’s awful and boring last name—was a forgiving, vibrant woman. But only to a point. She didn’t mind if I fucked up every now and then, but she wouldn’t take well to me leaving her best mate to fend for herself in the Australian wild just to get my rocks off.

  Of that, I was certain.

  [laughs]

  And I have to admit…I’m pretty thankful for that now, Luck. Talking to you about all of this shit directly is hard enough as it is. Having to recount the fact that I stopped and shagged some other sheila probably would have made it a teensy bit harder.

  [sighs and pauses]

  For early morning, the ceramic tiled halls in the ticketing area were rather crowded, so I kept my head low and weaved my way to the moving staircase headed down to baggage claim.

  When I descended into an even thicker crowd at the bottom, I started to wonder at the execution of Allie’s plan.

  I had the same level of information that you did, and finding you was starting to seem like an impossibility.

  Sure, I stood a few inches above the rest of the crowd, making it easier to survey the contents for a woman whose description Allie had failed to provide, but unless you were a descendant of the Amazon, I feared you wouldn’t stand a chance to sort me from the masses.

  An idea niggled as I surveyed my surroundings and landed fortuitously on the baggage claim customer service office. A young brunette sat perched behind the counter, a bored rumple of air leaving through a cute purse in her lips.

  Like a heat-seeking missile, I zeroed in on the target and headed toward her.

  “G’day,” I greeted as I entered the little glass-enclosed room.

  My good mood was certainly a change of pace from the angry, weary travelers she normally found herself comforting on the loss of their luggage, and I could see the effect the new energy had as it transformed her face.

  From bored to playful in an instant.

  “G’day,” she mirrored. “What can I do for you today, sir? Is there a problem with your luggage?”

  “No…” I worked hard to find the glint of her name tag and tack on her name for good measure. “Ceila.”

  She blushed at just the
use of her name, and I became fascinated by the rosy color. Would that blush spread across her whole creamy body as I said rude things to her?

  [clears throat]

  Ahem. In my defense, Luck, I’d yet to meet you. Still, you should know, I’m currently regretting my decision to leave this part of the story in, so I’m going to do my best to get through it relatively quickly for both of our sakes. I mean, it’s not like I fucked her on the airport floor, but I wouldn’t say it paints me in the best light possible.

  Anyway, I pouted dramatically and sidled up to the counter, and the rhythm of her breathing sped up. “I’m really only here to ask a favor.”

  “Yes?” she managed before a subtle clear of her slender throat.

  [sighs]

  Why, oh why, do you women have to make the chase so fun? Honestly, it’s your whole lot’s fault I hadn’t found the motivation to settle down up until that point.

  I was a little sad to release that one back into the wild without toying a little more, but in the name of expediency, I got down to the task at hand.

  Making a sign for your arrival.

  The corners of her lips turned downward at the disappointing request for nothing more than a marker and a piece of paper, and a sick thud in my gut punished me. What a waste of such good groundwork.

  “Sure,” she murmured, sliding open a drawer with ease and procuring the items I’d requested.

  Still attuned at least slightly to your arrival, I turned briefly to survey the crowd outside our box and scanned the contents for a lost American.

  None stood out.

  And, as I know now, that meant you weren’t there. Because, baby…you stand out. Trust me on this. The insight your podcast gave into your head was wonderful and powerful, and sometimes, altogether startling.

  I mean…do you really not know you’re a knockout? Baby, you are. There’s a reason blokes chase you from sunup to sundown, and if nothing else, I hope, at the end of this whole thing, you know that.

  [pause]

  When I turned back to accept the paper, I smiled at the weight.

  More than one sheet filled the stack between my fingers, and I had a good feeling the page on the bottom wasn’t blank.

  “Thanks, Ceila,” I charmed. “Hope to see you again soon, love.”

  She nodded her agreement, and I made my exit. I had no desire to linger enough to make it awkward.

  Removing the extra sheet from below the blank one—a sheet that, sure enough, contained a name and a number—I leaned against one of the poles in the center of the room and spelled out the letters as neatly as I could in my usually messy scrawl.

  When the ink dried and with no American flights displayed on the claim’s call board, I folded the paper into fourths and shoved it into my pocket for safekeeping.

  Bloody hell. Was I actually early?

  Grabbing my phone, I scrolled back to Allie’s email and read through the info again. According to the time listed, your flight should have landed nearly an hour earlier. Even with a trip through customs and all it entailed, you still should have been waiting for me when I arrived.

  Suspicious, I moved from the email to the internet and typed in the flight number in search of its status.

  The results populated quickly enough; I’d been duped.

  Allie, the little pisser, had told me an arrival time nearly an hour ahead of the real one.

  [sighs]

  You can stop laughing, love. I know you’re enjoying knowing that you weren’t the only one left to wait in the airport that day.

  However, if you’re looking to point the blame game, you should turn it right around and point it at the little prankster herself.

  She’s the reason I was there long enough for a crowd to find me in the first place.

  See, fifteen minutes into the wait, I started to get bored.

  As someone who’s pretty much always moving, doing—experiencing—standing still as the world moved on around me seemed almost criminal.

  Thankfully, a young, vibrant woman with a white cast on her arm brought me right back into the fray.

  Big, purple, and shiny plastic, her bag arrived as she settled into her haunches and prepared for battle. I watched, riveted, as she took to wrestling it like Steve Irwin would a croc, battling valiantly to try to free it from the clutches of the carousel. The crowd looked on, jumping out of the way when necessary, as she ran after it without regard for the other passengers and kept up the one-armed fight.

  Before I knew it, my legs were in motion, desperate to help the cute blond—something I was horrified no one else had felt necessary to do—and put her out of her misery.

  The crowd moved and jammed, and effectively blocked, I had no choice.

  With a skip and a jump, I launched my thong-encased feet onto the moving metal conveyor and rode the wave one playful jump at a time.

  An older woman gasped, but by and large, the crowd seemed charmed, if a little caught off guard, by my antics.

  A short three-second jog and I had the wild purple croc in my grasp.

  Shocked, the woman released her one-handed grip as I pulled the bag away and climbed down with ease.

  Security approached, a hard scowl on the older gentleman’s face making him look a little like Elmer Fudd, and I did my best to camouflage my laugh as I jerked an indicative head to her cast and the bag and winked.

  The line of his brow eased as the cute little injured woman’s mouth rolled out a steady stream of word vomit.

  “Oh my God, thank you so much. I was trying to grab it, thinking it would be easy enough with just one hand, but hell, I apparently packed everything, including the kitchen sink. It’s like an ordained miracle that I didn’t have to pay overweight charges on that thing.”

  The bright yellow overweight tag tickled at my hand, and I smiled down into her adorably innocent face with a laugh. “I think you might want to check your bill, doll. The tag you’re talking about is giving my hand a poke as we speak.”

  “What? It’s overweight? How in the hell didn’t I notice that?”

  A deep throat cleared as a clean-cut gentleman who clearly belonged to the woman sidled up next to us and removed the bag smoothly from my hand. I wasn’t sure how he managed it, but somehow, it was both claiming and gracious at once.

  I made a mental note to figure out how the fuck to seem that chivalrous and manly at the same time.

  [laughs]

  I don’t know that I’ve gotten it quite figured it out yet…have I, love?

  “I told you to wait for me to get the bag, baby,” my new idol said lovingly, and her face curled up in a pout I could tell sealed his fate. I wasn’t sure what it was about her, but I had a feeling this was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to things he gladly put up with when it came to his girlfriend.

  Her casted hand came up as she wiped a chunk of wayward hair from her face, and the monstrous diamond proving I was almost right glinted in the fluorescent lights. She was his wife, not his girlfriend.

  “I thought I could handle it,” she said, and he laughed.

  “Yeah. I know you did. And normally, you could. It’s okay, though, if a ski accident slows you down.”

  Turning to me with a gentlemanly proffer of his hand, he smiled. “Thanks for helping my wife.”

  A bold, undeniable, claiming statement meant to assure I kept my philandering to myself. Of course, the irony here is that, for the first time in a while, the thought of what it’d be like to shag her hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  In the interest of earning myself a few points, I’m going to suggest that maybe this was my mind’s subliminal subconscious preparation for your arrival.

  [laughs]

  Seems reasonable, no?

  I begged off, acknowledging the simplicity of my gesture by making sure I didn’t stand and watch his wife struggle.

  It couldn’t have taken me more than a few words to convey my point, but apparently, a few words to this little American were more than enough.
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  “Oh my God, your accent is the best,” she cooed. “Why on earth did it take us so long to come to Australia, Kline?”

  Kline, apparently, sighed. “No idea, baby.”

  He had an idea. I could tell, from carefully crafted bro language, he had exactly the idea, and she was the root of it.

  If only you’d been that easy to impress, Luck.

  Excusing myself politely, I stepped to the side and right into a group of young guys whose eyes resembled saucers.

  Recognition, apparently, had found me.

  “Uh…excuse us,” a mop-headed blond started. “But are you Oliver Arsen?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. “Guilty.”

  “Duuuude.”

  “Shit!”

  Nervous laughter took up half of the air in the airport as the group of three tried and failed to get their shit together following my revelation.

  A tightness took hold in my chest, my instinctual reaction to all things fame, but I squashed it down with practiced ease.

  These were the fans I actually liked. The real, the raw, the surfer dudes from whatever local hole they’d learned to thrash on with a thirst for more and more waves.

  I took the reins as it became increasingly clear I needed to if a conversation was ever to occur.

  “I take it you surf?”

  “Uh, yeah,” the blond spokesperson of the group hooted. “Not like you, but fuck yeah. We’ve been dreaming up this trip for years, but we never thought… Dude! Oliver Arsen in the airport!”

  I laughed at how ridiculous of a concept that was for them. As though I lived in the ocean and slept in the waves.

  I mean, I would have loved that, but the reality was, as you know, thanks to my company and the tour, I spent a fuckton of time in airports and on planes.