Beachwood Bay 04 - Untamed Hearts

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    “I forgot,” Garrett tells me, when I head on back to the bar after taking another round of orders. “Mail came for you, I left it in the office.”
    “Thanks.” I go check it out when there’s a lull in the crowd. The envelope is propped on the messy desk with my name printed in neat black type.
    Charleston postmark.
    I stop, my heart suddenly clenching in my chest. The letter is slim, weighing next to nothing, and before I can get caught up in wondering whether that’s good news or bad, I rip it open and pull out the single sheet of paper.
    Dear Miss Ray,
    Thank you for your interest in our company. We regret to inform you…
    The words blur with a sudden sting of tears. I angrily swipe them away, crumpling the letter into a ball and hurling it to the ground before I can read another word.
    I don’t need to. They’re all the same.
    I’ve been secretly applying for internships for months now, sending out my portfolio to every designer and clothing line I can find. I’m not crazy, I know the best I can hope for is a basic assistant gig––fetching coffees and running fabric samples––but that’s just fine with me. Anything to get my foot in the door, and start working my way up to one day designing my own line. But every single application comes back with the same, impersonal letter. Sure, they’re polite, but after reading the first dozen, I got the message written between the lines: you’re not good enough. You don’t have the skills, or the qualifications, or the fancy fashion school credentials to even get a foot in the door.
    We don’t want you.
    “Bad news?” Garrett’s voice makes me jump. I turn to find him in the doorway, watching me with a concerned look on his face.
    I swallow back the sting of disappointment. “It’s nothing,” I tell him.
    “You sure?” Garrett’s eyes are soft, “Because—”
    “I said, I’m fine!” I snap. “At least, I would be if you could stop being such a broken man-whore and keep a damn waitress in this place!”
    I storm past him, but not so fast that I don’t see the flicker of hurt on his face. It’s too late to take it back, so I just add the guilt to the whole mess of emotions I’m carrying, heavy and sharp like a steel knife blade in my gut.
    My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I pull it out, glad for the distraction.

    hey sexy. c u later?

    It’s from Trey, a guy I’ve been hooking up with these past couple of weeks. We met in a bar a couple of towns over. One drink led to another until we closed out the night in the backseat of his beat-up old Chevy. It’s turned into a regular late night thing, my one good distraction to take my mind off another long night of nothing here at the bar.
    And tonight, I sure as hell need distracting.
    sure , I text back, and a moment later, his reply flashes up.

    already hard 4 u.

    Real romantic.
    I tuck my phone away with a small grin. Trey and his dirty talk have done the trick; now my latest rejection letter is just another in the stack, one more thing to forget about and move on from.
    I take a deep breath, and remind myself: I’m the one in control. All those fancy fashion lines may not want me, but I can get Trey panting with nothing but a wink and a flash of red lace from under my tank top. Out there in the world, I may be nothing, but put me in a room full of guys with one thing on their minds, and they’ll want me.
    They’re always going to want me for that.
    I sweep aside my disappointment and head back out to the bar, adding a swing to my hips and some strut to my stride in my chunky lace-up boots. Garrett gives me another look of concern so I just flash him a fake smile and keep moving, loading up my tray with waters and going to bus some empty tables in back.
    You’ve got this, Brit. You’ll be just fine.
    I see a new group enter the bar: an older couple, and their daughter, a pretty blonde about my age. I grab a stack of menus, about to go over to welcome them, when the door swings open again.
    Trey.
    Despite myself, I smile. I guess he couldn’t wait until I finished my shift. He’s dressed up, I notice: a button-down shirt, good jeans, cleanly shaven. The last few times we met, it was a late-night thing: sweaty and disheveled after a long day at work. We both know I’m a sure thing either way, but it’s nice he made the effort for me. Guys never do.
    “Hey you,” I call out, but he doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t even look in my direction. Instead, he walks