10 Signs You Need to Grovel


 
 
 ALSO BY KELLY SISKIND
 
 Bower Boys Series
 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover
 One Wild Wish Series
 He’s Going Down
 Off-Limits Crush
 36 Hour Date
 Showmen Series
 New Orleans Rush
 Don’t Go Stealing My Heart
 The Beat Match
 The Knockout Rule
 Over the Top Series
 My Perfect Mistake
 A Fine Mess
 Hooked on Trouble
 Stand-Alones
 Chasing Crazy
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 www.kellysiskind.com.
 
 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
 Text copyright © 2023 by Kelly Siskind
 All rights reserved.
 No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
 Published by Montlake, Seattle
 www.apub.com
 Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
 ISBN-13: 9781662505669 (paperback)
 ISBN-13: 9781662505676 (digital)
 Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
 Cover photography by Michelle Lancaster
 Cover images: © sakchai vongsasiripat / Getty Images; © Brian Koprowski / Stocksy United
 
 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS
 
 ONE
 TWO
 THREE
 FOUR
 FIVE
 SIX
 SEVEN
 EIGHT
 NINE
 TEN
 ELEVEN
 TWELVE
 THIRTEEN
 FOURTEEN
 FIFTEEN
 SIXTEEN
 SEVENTEEN
 EIGHTEEN
 NINETEEN
 TWENTY
 TWENTY-ONE
 TWENTY-TWO
 TWENTY-THREE
 TWENTY-FOUR
 TWENTY-FIVE
 TWENTY-SIX
 TWENTY-SEVEN
 TWENTY-EIGHT
 TWENTY-NINE
 THIRTY
 EPILOGUE
 AUTHOR’S NOTE
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
 
 
 
 
 ONE
 
 Death by paper, that’s what my tombstone will read. My fingers are cramping, I have four paper cuts, and if I keep staring down at this uneven mess of folded edges, my neck might fossilize at this torqued angle. The kicker? This origami project was rated for kids age twelve and up.
 “Goddamn it.” I go to crumple the mutant triceratops but fist my hands instead.
 “Language,” Mirielle says, eyeing me over the perfectly folded edges of her velociraptor. “These are virgin ears.”
 There’s nothing virgin about Mirielle Allard’s ears, or any other part of her. She’s a seventy-eight-year-old Black woman who smokes a pack a day, blasts French music from her record player, and dishes about her wild days singing in jazz clubs, where men literally fought each other for her number. But my neighbor loves to bust my chops.
 “My fingers are too thick for this.” I lob the deformed dinosaur into my growing box of unfinished crafts. “I was better at the decoupage.”
 She raises a penciled eyebrow. “This from the savage who threw a tantrum when he couldn’t get pieces of glue and paper off of his hands. Truly, David, you are drôle.”
 “Name’s not David.”
 “Gaspard?”
 “Still wrong.” And I never should’ve told Mirielle I used to be in witness protection or that I’ve been using the alias Daniel Baker for eleven years.
 Unfortunately, she heard me stumble into my place seven months ago, shout a bunch of heartache about the woman I loved and lost, and then punch the wall. Instead of bolting her door, she pushed her tiny self into my open apartment and tended to me. Cleaned up my hand. Bandaged it while humming, showing zero fear in the face of her six-foot-two, long-haired, tattooed neighbor with the permanent scowl.
 Ever since, she’s shown up several times a week with crafts and pastries and stories about her glory days, wearing colorful headscarves and flowy dress-shirt things—apparently, they’re called caftans—while trying to guess what my name used to be before my family got shoved into WITSEC.
 “Are you nervous about seeing your brother today?” She also loves nagging me about unpleasant subjects.
 “Did you receive the yarn I ordered for you?”
 She lifts her chin. “Deflection is a sign of weakness, chéri.”
 I grunt.
 “As is not using your words.” She methodically folds an edge of the paper, her attention flicking to me.
 I scowl at her, but Mirielle doesn’t even blink. Honestly, she could topple a dictator without smudging a stitch of her red lipstick.
 I pick up another piece of origami paper, ready to try for serenity again, but my eyes stutter on the impressionist-style brushstrokes filling the page. My throat pinches. My heart rate picks up. If the woman I once loved hadn’t studied art history, I wouldn’t know impressionist art from cubist. Sadie was always flipping through her art textbooks, lying on her stomach while I’d kiss a line down her neck, lift up her shirt, lick those sexy dimples above her ass.
 “Quit it,” she said one night, laughing, trying to shake me off.
 I gave her side a playful nip. “You taste too good, Sprite.”
 She shivered on a breathy sigh. “Quit calling me Sprite.”
 “Quit being so little and cute, and I’ll quit calling you Sprite.”
 She shoved her books off the bed and tackled me, giving me a hot pout. “I’m sexy and mysterious, not cute.”
 That’s it. The end of that particular memory. Simple and silly.
 Flays me every damn time.
 I rub my temples, unsure whether these relentless memories will ever end.
 My phone rings from the coffee table, and I stiffen. The sight of my youngest brother’s name has the cold pizza I ate this morning threatening to mutiny.
 I haven’t puked since I had the flu at age thirteen. Line up shots, and I’ll drink you under the table. A fifth of whiskey? I won’t even burp. I don’t drink as much as my family seems to think, but my gut is made of the same material as my heart: cold, hard metal. The past week, however, I’ve hovered on queasy, all thanks to today’s impending meet and greet with E. And that Sadie flashback isn’t helping.
 “Answer it,” Mirielle says.
 “I’m meeting E later. There’s no point.”
 “For such a brawny man, you really are quite terrified. Jack,” she