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  Sunshine & Whiskey

  Copyright © 2015 by R.L. Griffin

  Cover by Michelle Carroll of Silver Plum Creations

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

  Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher.

  Dedication

  This book is for my sister, Kelei Sabatino. She challenged me to write her a book with rainbows and unicorns. Without her, this book would have never happened. So see Mom, it’s her fault.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Cliche

  Chapter Two: Grey Goose Goes with Everything

  Chapter Three: It’s Not Complicated, Really...

  Chapter Four: Use Your Manners

  Chapter Five: Is Shopping Really Cheaper Than Therapy?

  Chapter Six: Make Sure You Approve the Tags

  Chapter Seven: Sunshine and Fucking Rainbows

  Chapter Eight: Wait…What?

  Chapter Nine: Honesty, is it Always the Best Policy?

  Chapter Ten: Epic Road Trip

  Chapter Eleven: I Quit, I Guess

  Chapter Twelve: Playing with Balls

  Chapter Thirteen: Save the Drama for Your Momma

  Chapter Fourteen: Thor Might be My Favorite Mistake

  Chapter Fifteen: Not Until We’re Lost

  Chapter Sixteen: That’s My Kind of Night

  Chapter Seventeen: Red Whore Boots

  Chapter Eighteen: I’ll Never Look at a Ham Sandwich the Same Again

  Chapter Nineteen: Things I Must Learn

  Chapter Twenty: Hurricanes All Around

  Chapter Twenty-One: That’s not an Expression

  Chapter Twenty-Two: It Doesn’t Work Like That

  Chapter Twenty-Three: One for the Record Books

  Chapter Twenty-Four: You Complete Me

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Who’s the Sexiest Man on Earth?

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Who Does That?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fish Taco

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Attorney-Client Privilege

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Keep Your Vagina in Check

  Chapter Thirty: Failure of the Highest Order

  Chapter Thirty-One: I Must Buy More Underwear

  Chapter Thirty-Two: I’ll Take the Big O Roll

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Cue the Meltdown

  Chapter Thirty-Four: This Meltdown Lasts A While

  Chapter Thirty-Five: It’s Impossible to Pout While Shooping

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Pampered Drunk

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Leggings aren’t Pants

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Best Tip of the Day

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Drunk it is...

  Chapter Forty: Fuck Your Way Through It

  Chapter Forty-One: Sunshine

  Chapter Forty-Two: #Vagfest

  Chapter Forty-Three: Happy Endings are Real

  Chapter Forty-Four: Total Bun

  Chapter Forty-Five: Running Bitch

  Chapter Forty-Six: I Love (Sigh) Ice Cream

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Vagina Time Out

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Sometimes You Just Need Your Sister

  Chapter Forty-Nine: No Blue Waffle for Me

  Chapter Fifty: No Sexting in My Car

  Chapter Fifty-One: Sip and Say What?

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Wunderlust

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Run Like a Warrior

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Working On My Shit

  Two Months Worth of Shit Happens

  Chapter Fifty-Five: I’d Rather Have Whiskey

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Oh The Humanity

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Interpretive Dance

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Nostalgia’s a Dirty Liar

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Epic Love Story

  Chapter Sixty: Well, Ain’t That Some Shit

  Chapter Sixty-One: Game On

  Chapter Sixty-Two: Fucking FEELINGS!!!

  Chapter Sixty-Three: I Love You Anyway

  Chapter Sixty-Four: Wolf Centered

  Chapter Sixty-Five: Scary Shit

  Chapter Sixty-Six: Wine Education?

  Chapter Sixty-Seven: Never Saw It Coming

  Chapter Sixty-Eight: Verbal Diarrhea

  Chapter Sixty-Nine: Last Kiss

  Chapter Seventy: Paint Me a Picture

  Chapter Seventy-One: Omissions Aren’t Really Lies

  Chapter Seventy-Two: Your Mouth

  Chapter Seventy-Three: Merry Fucking Christmas.

  Chapter Seventy-Four: Outdoor Baths are Awesome

  Chapter Seventy-Five: Secret

  Chapter Seventy-Six: The Mysteries of the Big “O”

  Chapter Seventy-Seven: Plan in Effect

  Chapter Seventy-Eight: A Beginning

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Cliché

  “This is fucking typical,” I say as I attempt to scrape off the glob of guacamole I just dropped on my shirt. “Shit,” I mutter because it’s not coming off.

  “Here, try dipping your napkin in water.” Justin offers his napkin.

  I look up at my three colleagues as I wipe with Justin’s napkin to no avail. “Well, I have to go. Now, I have to change before my deposition and all my shit’s at the office.”

  “I’ll cover your lunch, get me later,” Justin says.

  “Thanks.” Appreciation fills my voice and I bolt. I’ve got thirty minutes to get my exhibits and notes for my deposition and hit my house on the way to change.

  Why am I so upset you ask? Because this kind of shit happens to me all the time. Something important is happening and I’m going to do something that makes me late—ruin my shirt, break the heel off my shoe, drop my computer or spill coffee on my brief. I hustle to my car, hoping to make it with enough time to spare to look through my notes one more time.

  By the time I’m driving up Peachtree to my house I’m feeling a little better. If I take only five minutes to change, I’ll have a fifteen minute cushion to prepare once I get to the opposing lawyer’s office. As I pull into my driveway, I’m pulled out of my internal preparations because Chad is home.

  Before you ask, Chad is my live in boyfriend, who is a partner at the law firm where I work. Yep, scandalous. We actually had an affair and he moved in with me after getting caught. Don’t be so quick to judge. He fed me the line about him being separated. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He did get a divorce though, when she found out about me.

  Yes, I’m fully aware that a married man moving in with his mistress sounds like a horrible idea and the movie of the week, but it’s been really great so far. He’s been here almost a year and we’re still in the phase where we have sex constantly and all over the house. It’s too bad I don’t have time for a quickie now.

  I park behind him and take in all of the brick older ranch style house I’m so proud of as I walk up the driveway. I love this house and smile every time I come in. It’s mine. No one helped me buy it, I bought it all by myself. I’ve been fixing it up since I moved in two years ago. That’s right, I’m twenty-seven and bought my first house two years ago.

  I open the door and expect Chad to be eating something in the kitchen, but the kitchen and main room are empty. The keys to his Porsche lay on the coffee table, right in front of my striped catalog ordered couch.

  You’re laughing at me now? Because of the Porsche and the cheating...Just wait.

  I hurry as I walk down the hall to my ro
om. Notice I still call it my room, because it is. I push open the door that’s never closed and time stops.

  You know the feeling when you leave your body and you’re just staring at what happens around you? No, that’s never happened to you. Well, that’s sort of what happens when I walk into my bedroom, with my seven hundred thread count sheets and my perfect duvet cover being ruined by my boyfriend and his secretary. How fucking cliché is that? You’re still laughing? Fuck off.

  He is standing next to the bed with his Brooks Brother pants that I helped him pick out down at his ankles and his shirt and suit coat still on, complete with bow tie. She is bent over my bed and he is pounding into her so hard that the bed creaks with each thrust. He’s so busy he doesn’t even hear me come in or notice me standing here staring at them for what seems to be an hour.

  “Get out,” I manage to say in between the moaning and thudding sounds. My chest of drawers is on the other side of the bed, and I can see all of our reflections in the mirror attached to it. His pained expression, which could be that he was caught mid-act and hadn’t gotten off or he doesn’t know how to handle this situation. I honestly could give a shit which it is. In the mirror I can see her looking at me with a smirk on her face. I’m frozen, I can’t seem to will myself to speak or yell or hit someone. I’m still standing in the doorway of my sanctuary watching this quick fuck.

  I glance down at my very expensive professional black heels to take a second to compose myself. I look back up, she is still smirking and pulls my vibrator out from under her body. Are you serious, you ask? Why yes, I’m dead serious and it’s enough to snap me back into myself. However, I don’t react appropriately, but burst out laughing.

  “I didn’t wash that after my last use.” My laughter fills the silence in the room and Chad’s head whips to where I’m standing. I haven’t really been paying attention to what he’s doing, but the sheer speed of his head turn grabs my attention.

  The secretary is all grins now. I’m not even going to tell you her name because it doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t her it’d be the paralegal, the receptionist, or the waitress. You get the point, just like I am right now.

  Chad’s face is a mask of contradictions and his penis is still hard and he’s wearing a condom and he’s walking toward me. “Megan, listen, baby, we can work this out.”

  “Oh yeah, we can?”

  “Yes,” he says, standing there with his pants at his ankles.

  I know I’m repeating myself, but who walks toward his girlfriend with a condom on and pants at the ankles.

  “How about this? You both have three minutes to get the fuck out of my house. I’m going to change because I have one of the most important depositions of my life, and I can’t go with guacamole on my shirt.”

  Where is this calm coming from? No idea.

  “Baby, come on. Don’t overreact.”

  What a dick, right? Yep, he really says this, to me, while he is standing there with a condom on his dick, his pants around his ankles. The secretary now throws my vibrator on my perfect seven hundred thread count sheets and pulls her dress down from where it was bunched at her waist.

  “Oh, you think this is over reacting?” I take a step toward him for the first time since I’ve been here.

  Chad takes another step toward me.

  I smile. “I think overreacting would be to grab that knife that I cut my cantaloupe with this morning, you know the one that’s still on the kitchen counter, and cut your dick and balls off. Then have them mounted. I think that would be overreacting. I, however, am simply asking you to get your shit, your condom, your whore and never come back.” Ice enters my veins and voice and he knows I’m not fucking around.

  “Megan,” his condescending tone blows the roof off my calm.

  “Chad...” I use the same tone. “If you aren’t gone in,” I look down at my watch, the one he gave me for my birthday, “two minutes now, I’m going to punch myself in the face and then stab you.”

  He stares at me.

  “Heat of passion and all that. I walked in on my live-in boyfriend pounding a bitch in my bedroom, using my dirty vibrator...I don’t think a jury anywhere would convict me. You?” I smirk and cock my head to the side in a question. At that, I turn and walk into my huge walk-in closet and change my shirt. My closet was the main reason why I bought this house. I have no idea if the shirt I’m pulling off the hanger matches my suit. I’m trying to focus, trying to compartmentalize what just happened.

  I look at my phone, I’m running into my cushion.

  “If you make me late to this deposition, I’m telling Richard why,” I yell hopefully to no one.

  Who’s Richard? He is the managing partner of Chad’s and my law firm. He will probably cut off Chad’s dick. Seriously...but only if I’m late to this deposition.

  I finally hear the front door slam and I exhale. Fighting every urge to rip the sheets off my bed, I take a deep breath. I just don’t have time to dwell on the fact my bed is ruined. Do you see how I’m more upset about my bed than Chad? Sounds like I have issues, huh…You’re right, I should feel crushed, but I can’t let that in just yet. I need to rock this deposition. This is the pivotal witness for opposing counsel—I need to rip him a new asshole. Then I will get drunk and burn my ex-boyfriend’s things like Angela Bassett’s character in Waiting to Exhale. What’s that? Oh yeah, I skipped from being devastated to wanting revenge immediately. Sorry about that. No, I’m not sorry.

  I close the door to the scene of the crime and I’m pissed he did this in my house, my fucking bedroom. We never fucked in his house when he was married. Again, I didn’t know he was married. Now I’ll always think about this day when I come into my fabulous-soiled room.

  Walking to my car, I see rivets in my front lawn where my ex-boyfriend drove through the yard. I’m pissed, yet can’t really blame him. I did threaten to punch myself in the face and stab him. You don’t think I would have done it? Oh, I totally would’ve done it and Chad knows it. Then I would have called the cops after stabbing him and possibly her if she hadn’t gone along with my plan.

  I pull my phone from my handbag once I get in my car. I detest my car. What kind of car do I drive, you ask? Well, I drive a BMW, Chad helped me pick it. I wanted a Jetta. I’d selected a color and the leather package. Then he talked me into this black sedan. Seriously, he told me partners at law firms didn’t drive Jettas. He told me I needed to act like I want to be a partner, so that’s what I bought. Why would I let someone talk me into something? Because I’m the smartest dumb person you will ever meet.

  “Cari,” I say when my sister answers the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks immediately.

  Why is this the first thing she asks? Because I don’t call for friendly chats during billable hours, or ever for that matter, but that’s a story for a different time. What are billable hours? That is anytime during the day and sometimes nights and weekends. Did you know that lawyers have to record their time down to one-tenth of an hour? Yes, that’s every six minutes of an hour. Well we do. Now you know why we’re so anal...well one of the reasons.

  “I need you to do me a huge favor.”

  “Okay...” she hedges.

  “Please go to my house, I’m calling to get my locks changed today.”

  “Okay...” Cari is my big sister. She’s six years older than me.

  “Thanks. I’ll text you the time. You can take Jackson, I have toys in the office.”

  “Okay.” She’s smart not to push me right now. Obviously, she knows me very well.

  I sigh. “I’ll tell you later, but I’m on my way to a really important deposition, and I don’t think I’ll be home in time to get it done.”

  “All right, just text me the details.”

  “Thanks, I owe you big time.”

  “I’ll put it on your tab.”

  Of course I have a tab, right? Because I’m sort of an asshole and self absorbed, but aren’t we all? I’m in my twenties, I’m the most importa
nt person to me right now. Not my family, I didn’t see them for three years when I was in law school, well I mean does once a year count? Not Chad, I can find someone else to have sex with, and honestly, he wasn’t all that great, if you know what I mean...hence the dirty vibrator. I digress.

  “Thanks, I know you’ll need something sometime.” She won’t though, she never does. I’m pretty sure she is perfect and perfectly put together all the time. It’s sort of annoying.

  “I’ll stay until you get home, this sounds like something I must hear about as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it,” I comment. Because she will, she hates Chad. She will tell me that she told me so. She will tell me that karma’s a bitch and her mother’s a whore and all that.

  Ten minutes later I have my game face on. I think law school is a good preparer for making you an insane person. To be able to look at a woman who lost her son and ask her why it’s your client’s fault, you have to be emotionless, cold, and calculating. That skill is very useful in personal dramas, too.

  You think I’m a heartless bitch? Listen, I get it. Right now I am, but after I finish this deposition I will go buy a bottle of vodka and cry my eyes out to Matthew Mayfield songs. You haven’t heard of him? Look him up; he will make you feel shit, make you know someone else had their heart ripped out. Then I will burn my sheets that I love because I can’t imagine ever sleeping on them again. I will throw out my vibrator, because...well that’s sort of self explanatory, isn’t it? I don’t fall apart...ever, but I think this may be an exception.

  What? You’re shocked at how I’ve handled this so far? Me too, but I’ve worked my entire life for this deposition. This will allow me to show the partners at my firm that I can be what they need. I can bust balls and take names. I can make them money and win the big cases.

  I’ll break down later.

  I’ll break down later.

  Am I repeating myself? Yes. I’m trying to convince the tears tickling the back of eyes to go away. I’ll let them out later.

  See how I did that?

  I’ll break down later.

  Say it with me. I’ll break down later.

  Chapter Two

  Grey Goose Goes