Suit

Book 4: A 44 Chapters Novel

by BB Easton

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance

Synopsis

With Netflix adapting BB's 44 Chapters About Men series into a hilarious, heart-warming story of how BB finally got over her bad-boy phase and found a true happily ever after

"Since when are you into guys in ties? You only like guys who look like they rob guys in ties. At gunpoint."

It was true. By 2003, my type had been well-established. There might as well have been a giant sign on my heart that said, "Good Guys Need Not Apply."

Which is exactly why I had to friend-zone Ken Easton. The man was a former football star, smelled like fresh laundry instead of stale cigarettes, and had more ties in his closet than tattoos on his knuckles. Pssh. Bor-ing.

But the more I got to know my hunky study buddy, the more questions I came away with. Questions like: Why doesn't he date? Why does he avoid human touch? Why does he hate all things fun and wonderful? The psychology student in me became obsessed with getting inside Ken's head, while the spoiled brat in me became obsessed with getting inside his heart.

In 2003, I found the one thing I love more than bad boys...

A good challenge.

Release date: November 19, 2019

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

My ass might have been parked on Jason’s swanky leather sofa, but my mind was on the empty apartment across the parking lot. The one I used to call home. The one I’d shared with my rock-star boyfriend, Hans, until I found him in bed with one of my best friends. The one I’d trashed on my way out the door, taking everything that wasn’t nailed down with me.

Okay, I might have taken some of the nailed down stuff, too.

It had been six weeks since the breakup from hell, and even though I wasn’t quite ready to revisit the scene of one of the worst days of my life, my friend and former neighbor, Jason, was having a Super Bowl party, and I needed a fucking drink.

Jason lived in the newest, tallest, fanciest building in the Midtown Village apartment complex. His unit had stainless steel appliances. Mine had Formica countertops and an apocalyptic ant infestation. During the months I’d spent pacing my vinyl floor and wondering where the fuck my live-in boyfriend was, Jason’s place had become my home away from home. His friends had become my friends. And his plush Italian leather sofa—frequented by beer-drinking boys, double-malt scotch–drinking men, and a certain Gatorade-drinking guy—was a far more comfortable place to pout than my empty apartment.

Jason plopped down next to me on his sofa and threw his arm around my shoulders. He smelled like designer aftershave, and his crisp khakis barely creased when he rested his left ankle on his right knee.

“I missed you, girl.”

Jason was only three years older than me, but he was already pulling down six figures a year at an IT firm and dealing recreational drugs on the weekend “to raise capital for his start-up.” I, on the other hand, was an impoverished college student who still wore wifebeaters and combat boots like the ’90s hadn’t ended three years ago, worked a part-time job at Macy’s, and couldn’t even get my shit together enough to maintain a hairstyle. While I’d been busy trying not to have a nervous breakdown those last few weeks, my once-fierce platinum-blonde pixie cut had grown into something resembling a fluffy two-tone mushroom.

“I know, man. I missed you, too. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Thanks for coming. I thought it was gonna take a goddamn miracle to get you back here.”

I giggled. “You can’t say goddamn and miracle in the same sentence. It makes no fuckin’ sense.”

“You make no fuckin’ sense,” Jason sassed back, shaking his head from side to side.

“Ooooh…burrrrn.” I rolled my eyes as he downed the contents of his glass in one swallow.

“I’ma go get a refill. You need anything?”

“Nah, I’m good.” I smiled, sipping my Johnnie Walker Red or Blue or Black or whatever the hell color he’d given me.

I had just settled in for a long night of staring at the TV, fighting off his yuppie friends’ blatant sexual advances, and pretending like I knew jack shit about football when something by the door caught my eye.

No, not something.

Someone.

Time slowed down.

An invisible wind machine roared to life.

And Jason’s newest arrival waltzed in with the grace of a Grecian god.

Or perhaps a fallen angel, considering his wardrobe.

Jason’s mystery guest was tall and lean and dressed in black from head to toe.

He shrugged off his black wool coat and draped it over an armless chair in the entryway. He shoved the rolled-up sleeves of his black button-up shirt a little higher above his elbows, exposing two well-defined forearms. His shirt was tucked into a pair of black slacks that looked soft, not starched, and hung casually low on his hips. And, as he turned and glided toward the living room, he reached up and loosened the knot on a stylish, skinny black tie. Above that tie, I was pleased to discover a jawline that rivaled Captain America’s, cheekbones for days, and short light-brown hair that flipped up in the front effortlessly.

He looked like a bad boy with a good job and a great body, and I was definitely in the market for one of those.

I canceled my pity party, slurped the drool back into my face, and formulated a plan. I was either going to fall onto the floor at his feet and fake a seizure or pretend to be choking so that maybe he’d give me the Heimlich maneuver. Either way, I was positive that it would end with him thinking he’d saved my life and us forming an instant, unbreakable bond.

I was about to make a dive for it when I heard Allen, one of the regulars at Jason’s apartment, shout, “Ken!”

I looked around.

Ken?

Ken wasn’t at the party. I would know. Ken was my Gatorade-drinking, athletic-wear-wearing, smart-ass-comment-making, kind-of-cute-if-you’re-into-clean-cut-jocks—which I most definitely was not—sometimes study buddy. He wasn’t—

My mouth fell open as Allen bounded into the living room, his bowl cut and big glasses bouncing on his head as he charged toward Jason’s newest arrival with his arms outstretched. “Bring it in, bro!”

With a last-minute duck and lean, Mark McGrath-in-a-tie completely evaded Allen’s attempt to tackle-hug him, smirking as his stocky four-eyed friend nearly crashed into the coffee table.

Oh my fucking God. It’s Ken.

I suddenly had no idea how to act, what to do. Ken was my pal. I should have at least been able to say, What’s up?, but I just sat there, hiding in plain sight, waiting for more signs of Ken-ness.

He’d already avoided human contact like a ninja.

Very Ken.

He walked into the kitchen and pulled a Gatorade out of Jason’s fridge.

Super Ken.

And when that GQ-looking motherfucker turned and looked out over the living room, he smirked…at me.

Sooooo Ken.

I leaned forward and sighed with dreamy hearts in my eyes before I remembered that I was supposed to smile or…something.

There was nowhere on the couch for him to sit, so my first instinct was to get up. I was going to go over there and talk to him. I could do that, right? We were friends.

I stood and took three steps across the living room before I panicked and made a sudden right-hand turn, bolting out the back door onto the balcony. In January. With no jacket.

Like a fucking moron.

The vibe outside was totally different. White party lights hung from the ceiling, and the local alternative rock radio station was playing on Jason’s outdoor speakers. Whereas inside, it was loud and bright and warm and chaotic, outside, it was dark and cold and still and melodic. A brooding song by Linkin Park was just ending, so I curled up on Jason’s cushy outdoor love seat, lit a cigarette from the pack in my pocket, and enjoyed the moment as much as I could while slowly dying of hypothermia.

The moment didn’t last long. Within the first three seconds of hearing the next song, I was already considering throwing myself off the balcony. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I’d committed to sitting outside in the freezing cold, staring at the apartment across the parking lot where my entire life had gone to shit, the universe thought it would be absolutely hilarious to make me listen to “Falling Star” by Phantom Limb—the song Hans had written for me when we first started dating.

It had been their first and only radio single. Phantom Limb had been dropped from their record label soon after we broke up due to low album sales, but that didn’t stop the local radio stations from playing “Falling Star” every fucking hour on the hour.

With nowhere else to go, I sighed and surrendered to my fate.

As I listened to the lyrics, really listened to them, it was as if I were hearing the song for the first time. It didn’t make me sad. In fact, it made me giggle. And then laugh. And then cover my own mouth to shut myself up so that I could listen some more.

“Falling Star” wasn’t some epic tale of fated destinies and true love, like I’d made it out to be in my mind. It was about a girl who was meant for bigger things than her lover. He’d tried to keep her small, but in the end, she exploded into a supernova, leaving him in the dust.

“You like this song?”

I jumped, my hand still clasped over my mouth, and turned to see Mark McKen closing the door behind him. He was wearing his coat and carrying mine.

A smile split my face wide open. I didn’t know who I was happier to see—Ken or my coat.

Handing over my shiny maroon flight jacket, Ken said, “It’s kinda whiny, don’t you think?”

I burst out laughing as I pulled my coat on like a blanket. “It’s whiny as shit!” I cackled.

I scooted over to make room for Ken on the love seat, but he retreated to the opposite side of the balcony, just like always.

Never too close.

“So, what’s your favorite band?” I asked, taking a drag from my cigarette as if I wasn’t in danger of losing my fingers to frostbite.

“Sublime,” Ken answered without missing a beat.

Snort. “Sublime? Shut the fuck up.”

“What’s wrong with Sublime?”

He was serious?

“Nothing!” I backpedaled. “They’re awesome.”

“Then, what is it?” Ken arched a brow and leaned against the balcony railing, enjoying watching me squirm.

I enjoyed watching him watching me squirm.

“Um, literally all they sing about is drinkin’ forties and smokin’ weed.”

“And child prostitution,” Ken deadpanned.

“Oh, right.” I giggled. “How could I forget about ‘Wrong Way’?”

“I don’t know. It’s basically the greatest song ever.”

“Hey,” I said, distracted yet again by his appearance, “I like your outfit. Why’re you so dressed up?”

God, I hope that didn’t sound as creepy as it felt.

“I had to work. I’m usually off on Sundays, but a buncha assholes called out because of the Super Bowl, so I had to go in for a while.”

“Guess that’s the problem with being the boss, huh?”

Ken was the general manager of a movie theater, but he refused to let me come see any movies for free because I’d called him an asshole one time.

“Yeah, especially when all your employees are fucking teenagers.” Ken smirked. “No offense.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed, throwing a pillow at him from Jason’s love seat. “I haven’t been a teenager in months.”

I had terrible aim, but Ken reached out and caught the projectile before it flew over the railing. The movement was so effortless I think he could have done it in his sleep. Ken smiled and cocked his arm back as if he were about to bean me with it, but as soon as I squealed and covered my face, he gently tossed the pillow onto my lap.

Asshole.

Lowering my hands, I tried to give him an eat shit and die look, but one corner of my mouth wouldn’t quite cooperate. It kept pulling up instead of down.

“You should try out for Cirque du Soleil with those skills.” I rolled my eyes, pretending not to be as impressed with his former football-star reflexes as I was. “Then, you wouldn’t have to work with teenagers anymore.”

“Yeah, just carnies who don’t speak English,” Ken quipped.

“Excuse me? Those people are performance artists, sir.”

Ken regarded me for a minute with a semi-smile and then asked, “Have you been?”

“What? To Cirque du Soleil?” I could hear the pitch of my voice already beginning to rise. “Oh my God, it’s, like, my favorite thing ever. I leave there, and I just feel so…I don’t know…stupid? Or uncreative or something. The stuff they do, the things they imagine, it’s just…gah. Have you been?”

Ken watched my fangirling in amusement, then shook his head.

I gasped. I audibly gasped. “Oh my God, Ken! You would love it! You love art and music and Europe—I mean, you don’t love them, obviously, because you love nothing, but—” Ken grinned at my usual jab. It was a joke but a truthful one. That fucker didn’t feel strongly about anything, except for avoiding fun. “It’s all of those things but better! They come every spring! You should go!”

“Maybe I’ll check it out.” Ken’s face suggested that he was not going to check it out.

“Oh my God,” I groaned, the Johnnie Walker in my bloodstream making itself heard. I pointed the red-hot tip of my cigarette right at his smirking face. “You’re not gonna go because it costs money!”

Ken laughed, really laughed, and I wanted to hold the sound above my head like a trophy.

“I forgot I was talking to a future psychologist.” He chuckled.

“Listen, buddy, you’re gonna go even if I have to pay for it myself.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Wait. What?

Ken and I fell into a strange silence just as “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed began to play.

“Oh, Jesus. Speaking of whiny rock stars.” I hopped off the love seat and took a few steps toward Ken to flick my cigarette butt into the parking lot below. “C’mon.” I grabbed him by the lapel of his structured wool coat; it was the closest thing to touching him that I thought he would allow. “I can’t handle this shit.”

Ken came willingly as I dragged him back into the apartment, and I made a mental note.

Weird about hugs. Does not mind being dragged around like a dog on a leash. Interesting.

As soon as Jason saw us walk in, he barreled over as if there’d been a goddamn emergency. “Ken! Ken!” He stopped right in front of us, huffing and puffing. “What’s your last name, bro?”

It was a bizarre question to ask someone out of the blue, but as soon as Jason had uttered it, I realized that I wanted to know the answer with the same degree of urgency. Every cell in my body leaned forward and listened as if Ken were about to tell us the winning lottery numbers. As if he’d discovered the recipe for calorie-free beer. As if whatever came out of his mouth next, no matter how unfortunate or unpronounceable or lacking in vowels it might be, would one day be my last name, too.

“Easton,” he said.

Easton, I thought. I like that.

“So, was it weird, being back at Jason’s?” Juliet, my best friend since middle school, was sitting in the salon chair next to mine. Half of her head looked like she’d stuck her finger in a light socket while the other half had already been woven into long, skinny black braids. She’d basically staged a style intervention to get me to come with her, and now that I was there, nobody knew what the fuck to do with my frizzy mop.

“What about a pixie? We could just cut all this off,” the elegant, slender man standing behind me suggested with the flick of his bracelet-adorned wrist.

I looked into the mirror at the poor bastard assigned to me and sighed. “I just grew out my last pixie. I kinda want to do something different.”

His face fell.

Juliet put a hand next to her mouth and whispered loud enough for the entire salon to hear, “She just went through a bad breakup.”

“Say no more.” He winked. “Revenge hair. I love it.”

I turned back toward Juliet, remembering her initial question. “Yeah, it was super weird being back. Seeing my old apartment…but then Ken showed up, and—”

“I know! What about a Gwyneth Paltrow/Sliding Doors thing?” my stylist asked, gripping the hair on the back of my head in both hands. “We could take all this off”—he tugged—“and do a long, swoopy side bang in the front.”

“I had that cut, too,” I said with a shrug. “I was thinking I might want to keep some length this time.”

André—I don’t remember his name, but he looked like an André—grimaced at my request.

“You should go darker,” Juliet’s stylist suggested. She was rocking some effortlessly messy dreadlocks that had been dyed a deep reddish purple.

“Ooh, I like your color!”

“Oh my God, yes!” André exclaimed. “Burgundy. It would be perfect with your redheaded complexion. I’m seeing a sleek, angled burgundy bob. Like a sexy secret agent.”

“I don’t think her hair does sleek.” Juliet snickered.

“Oh, it’ll do whatever I tell it to, honey.”

I glanced from stylist to stylist and then shrugged. “Okay.”

André went to go mix the color, and Juliet pinned me with a knowing grin.

“What?” I snapped.

“You called him Ken.”

“So? That’s his name.”

“You used to call him Pajama Guy.”

“Well, that was back when he wore pajamas all the time.”

Juliet laughed through her nose. “Those were workout clothes, dumbass.”

If Jason was the brother I never had, then Juliet was definitely the bitchy, older sister.

I folded my arms across my chest. “Whatever. I have pants with drawstring waistbands, too. I got them in the pajama section at Target because they’re fucking pajamas.”

Now Juliet and her stylist were both snickering. “So, if he’s not Pajama Guy anymore, what does he wear now?”

I huffed and glanced at the mirror in front of me, telepathically imploring my stylist to hurry up at the color-mixing station. “I don’t know. Not pajamas. Like…a tie.”

Juliet’s face flipped from amused to confused in an instant. “A tie? Since when are you into guys in ties? You only like guys who look like they rob guys in ties. At gunpoint.”

I didn’t want to, but I laughed. “I know, okay? I know! But you didn’t see him. It wasn’t like a normal tie ensemble. It was…I don’t know…edgy.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“He could be your rebound guy!”

“No. Ken? He’s so not my type. He doesn’t drink or smoke or have tattoos or anything. He’s probably never even been arrested.”

Juliet’s stylist chuckled. “Girrrl, you need a new type.”

Juliet looked up at her. “What she needs is a rebound. Everybody knows the best way to get over a man is to get a new man.”

“And new haaaair!” André returned with a bowl full of purple goo and abruptly swiveled my chair away from Juliet, severing our conversation.

As he worked his magic, my thoughts kept drifting to Ken. I had to admit, the only time in the last six weeks that I hadn’t spent reliving every traumatic detail of my breakup with Hans were the few moments I spent with Ken the night before.

But could I actually date him? I mean, it was Pajama Guy. We had nothing in common. And besides, I barely knew him. Okay, so I knew most of his friends and where he worked and that he had gone to the same high school as me and that he’d quit the football team because he refused to be yelled at by the coaches. I also knew that he’d been backpacking through Europe and been to all my bucket-list museums and already knew more about Egyptian art history than I did when he offered to help me study for my midterms. And I was very aware of the fact that Kenneth Easton didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs or eat chocolate or celebrate holidays or acknowledge birthdays or hug or do committed relationships or even say, God bless you, when someone sneezed because he was a stubborn, joyless atheist.

So, why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?

Three hours later, Juliet had a headful of long, tight black braids; I had a sleek, angled burgundy bob; and everyone in the salon was probably dying of cancer, thanks to the number of chemicals it had taken to tame my frizz.

Juliet and I hugged goodbye in the parking lot and hopped into our separate cars—mine a ten-year-old black Mustang hatchback that I used to race for money before I was even old enough to buy cigarettes, hers a hand-me-down minivan her mom had given her when she got knocked up by her drug-dealing boyfriend at the age of sixteen.

Ah, the good old days.

Now, we were just a couple of stressed-out, single women who spent all our free time working to put ourselves through college.

But at least our hair looked amazing.

Juliet and I pulled out of the salon parking lot in unison, matching smiles on our faces and Camel Lights between our fingertips. She turned right onto the highway, heading back toward her mom’s house where she lived with her four-year-old son. I turned left, heading back toward the opium. . .