Ankle Deep in Sugar Read online

  Ankle Deep in Sugar

  Rocklyn Ryder

  Magpie Press

  Copyright © 2019 Rocklyn Ryder

  All rights reserved worldwide

  No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

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  Ankle Deep in Sugar

  A Taste of Sugar Romance

  by

  Rocklyn Ryder

  Rachel

  I'm buying knock-off Nyquil at the dollar store for fuck sake.

  Another sneezing fit hits me and I shrug apologetically at the woman scowling at me as she hurries to the next aisle to avoid catching my plague.

  I should get some tissues too, but I really don't have an extra dollar for them.

  So I take my $1.00 cold medicine to the counter and hand over $1.13 to the clerk. In change. Two quarters, four dimes, two nickels, and 13 pennies.

  He gives me a cold stare and hands me back one of the pennies.

  Oops. That one's Canadian.

  I dig in the bottom of my purse and find another nickel.

  He rolls his eyes and hands me back some of my pennies. I don't bother to count them. I just want my fake Nyquil.

  And to escape.

  Frankly, I'm too sick to give a shit whether the guy working at the dollar store is judging me. I'll feel like shit about it when I don't feel like shit.

  Then I'll probably cry about it. Because the guy working at the dollar store is right-- I'm more pathetic than the guy working at the dollar store.

  My life is really that bad.

  Where ever rock bottom was, I passed it a long time ago.

  Rock bottom is about 12 floors above me now.

  Rock bottom was where I was 2 years ago, when I lost my job, my house, and my dog all in the same year.

  Rock bottom was where I was before I even lost my last resort backup plan because Mom got remarried and decided to sell her house to buy a motor coach to spend the rest of her life touring North America with her new husband.

  Rock bottom was where I was before my best friend politely "suggested" I start looking for a new place to stay because her husband thought 2 months was long enough for me to be sleeping on their couch.

  Rock bottom was where I before I crashed my car into the center divider on the freeway at 65 miles an hour because I got stung by a hornet that was hellbent on escaping the cab through my collar bone.

  Yes, I am allergic, thank you.

  Yes, I did spend 16 hours in the emergency room-- because of the wasp thing. I was, miraculously, uninjured in the rollover. As were-- even more miraculously-- all the other people on the freeway at the time.

  Yes, my car was totaled. Yes, it did get impounded. Yes, I was billed for damages to the freeway abutment and yes, I did have insurance-- liability only.

  Yes. I am totally fucked.

  Wiping my nose on the sleeve of my shirt, I head up the street-- on foot, because I can't afford to replace my car-- and do my best not to look like a homeless person who's living in a run-down hotel as I make my way back to the run-down hotel I'm living in.

  My reflection in the mirrored closet door catches my eye when I turn around after locking all 3 locks on the door.

  I look like hell.

  My hair hasn't been washed in 2 days and I didn't put much effort into combing it before clipping it up in a messy fray for my hike to the store. Even if I had put makeup on, it wouldn't have done any good. My nose is red and chapped from blowing it with the hotel's cheap toilet paper and my eyes are so puffy they're practically invisible on my face.

  I'm wearing pajamas with a thrift store hoodie thrown over them and the pajama pants are halfway tucked into my Ugg boots.

  I look exactly like homeless woman living in a cheap hotel.

  With $250 Ugg boots on.

  Because I couldn't convince myself to sell all my nice stuff in the series of yard sales that heralded the beginning of the end when I was still desperately clinging to the idea that I might be able to save my house from foreclosure.

  When the office closed down, I had some money in savings. Of course I did. I'm a responsible adult. I was prepared for a "rainy day."

  Unfortunately, my "rainy day" ended up being a monsoon.

  I was not prepared for a monsoon.

  The not-Nyquil tastes like men's after-shave, making me double check the label. The stuff swears it's cold medicine, so I chug it straight from the bottle and chase it with a can of generic ginger ale that I bought from the same dollar store 3 days ago when I first woke up with the sore throat.

  Laying down and pulling the polyester bed cover over me, I prop my head up with enough pillows to keep me breathing and reach for the TV remote.

  Soup would be good.

  I eye the microwave sitting on top of the mini-fridge skeptically and will it to produce a bowl of steaming hot, homemade chicken noodle soup like my ex's mother used to make in big batches and then give to me to keep in the freezer for the cold and flu season.

  Unfortunately, even if the Force was strong with me and I could telekinetically will the microwave to do my bidding-- the best I'd get is a Styrofoam cup of freeze-dried ramen noodles. Which, frankly, I'd be perfectly thrilled with, as long as someone else made them and brought them to me.

  Judy's chicken soup calls to me from the reaches of my memory and I wonder what Greg is doing now? Did he ever end up marrying that girl he was dating the last time I ran into him?

  What was that? Like, 8 years ago?

  Is his mom making soup for his wife now? Are there several one quart jars of frozen soup in some other woman's freezer now, waiting to chase away sniffles and sneezes from a tribe of grand children?

  I should have married Greg. He was a good guy. Employed, reliable, good family...great soup. Being married to him wouldn't have sucked. Probably.

  Everything on TV is either boring or stupid, or else I'm just sick and miserable and feeling sorry for myself.

  Mom got remarried. She met Pete online and they got married and they both sold their houses to buy that fancy RV and hit the road.

  I don't know if Pete's her dream guy, but she seems happy. And she's not alone, which is what she said was important to her.

  And Trish, she seems happy with Adam. A couple of kids, a house in a nice neighborhood, family vacations...a reasonably comfortable sofa.

  I wasn't ready to get married. I had a college degree, a good job, my own house, and a nice car. I didn't mind being alone. I wasn't going to settle for anything less than the fairy tale.

  Look where that got me.

  A husband would have been handy when the scandal blew up and Dr. Emerson got arrested.

  If I had a husband, I'd have had someone in my corner when rumors started to fly.

  If I had a husband then maybe his income would have meant being able to keep the house from going into foreclosure when no one in town would hire me because everyone thought I must have known the good doctor was scre
wing one of his teenage patients.

  If I had a husband I'd have someone to bring me soup.

  My hand reaches for my cell phone on the side table next to the bed and I squint at the brightness of the screen in the dimness of the hotel room where I haven't bothered to turn on a light since the sun set.

  Husband....find a husband...get married quick...

  Nope, nope, and double nope. I mentally cross off every website that the search lists. Not gonna sign up to be a mail order bride, can't afford a match-maker, don't have time for a dating service, and the idea is to find a man who can take care of me, not the other way around so good luck getting that green card, dude-from-El Salvador.

  Besides, getting married isn't going to solve my problems. I'm not going to be sick forever and then I'll be perfectly happy getting my own soup again. And I've never been the type to be comfortable letting a man take care of me.

  My eyes roll up to the ceiling where the 1970's acoustical pop-corn coating is stained a tobacco brown color from where the roof has leaked at some point. I hope the leak has been fixed, seeing as how the water stain is directly above the bed and all.

  I'm not going to need soup forever, and I won't need help forever.

  It'd be a pretty lousy thing to do, marrying someone just because I'm in over my head right now.

  What I need is a man who understands that this is temporary. One of those guys who gets off on rescuing damsels in distress.

  My fingers keep scrolling through the results of my search but I don't need a husband.

  I need a sugar daddy.

  Colter

  It's not a Starbucks, but it gets the job done, I guess.

  The coffee shop isn't in the best part of town but the java is good, the WiFi is fast, and I scored one of the leather chairs near the gas fireplace.

  It's as good a place as any to stop for a break on my drive back from Reno. I could have taken the plane but I like the drive, and the new BMW needed a chance to run.

  While I'm scrolling through my business email, I catch a glimpse of the website on the computer of the woman sitting next to me.

  It's hard not to see it, especially as close as I am to her.

  The graphics contain a lot of bright pinks and hearts and-- sugar bowls.

  I frown, feeling guilty for reading over her shoulder as she types, but my curiosity has the best of me.

  It doesn't take much effort to figure out that it's a service where one can find a sugar daddy.

  She's filling out a profile, looking for a sugar daddy of her own, apparently.

  If I had better manners I'd keep my eyes on my own screen. It's not like I don't have things that need done.

  On the other hand, it's not like I have anything that needs done right now.

  So I give in to my curiosity-- showing just enough manners to not be obvious-- and read her profile as she writes it. And deletes it. And writes it again. And deletes it again.

  By the time she has one good paragraph that she seems satisfied with, I've learned that Rachel is 35 years old. That she has a college degree in business administration and she used to work as an office manager for a chiropractor. Her boss got caught having an affair with an underage patient, lost his practice, and Miss Rachel with the chestnut hair who drinks hot green tea lattes with a shot of raspberry syrup and no whip cream, lost not just her job, but her reputation in her community and was unable to find work in the small town she used to live in.

  Most of that got deleted and rewritten multiple times. She also considers sharing that she lost her home to foreclosure as a result, that she moved to Reno to live with a friend but had to leave the job she'd found there when she wasn't able to get a place of her own due to bad credit.

  Apparently she ended up here after some internet research revealed a hotel in town where she could stay long term on the cheap.

  I think about the strip of run-down motor lodges bordering the railroad tracks that I passed when I left the highway in search of caffeine and WiFi.

  Based on what I can tell, Rachel-- assuming she's using her real name on her profile-- is too clean, too educated, and too sober to be living in one of those dumps-- even though she does appear to be feeling a bit under the weather at the moment.

  Rachel ultimately changes her approach entirely, opting to go with a positive spin instead of a sob story. Her final profile merely says that she's looking for someone to help with living expenses while she works on her career and that she's available to relocate as she currently does not have a permanent address.

  It's probably a good profile for the site she's on, I think. I mean, what do I know, right? I never even knew there were websites where you could get a sugar daddy but I'm thinking most of those guys are probably more interested in the party girl type than the damsel in distress routine.

  I try to look busy by scrolling through my phone but secretly I'm watching Rachel as she takes a long sip from her tea, drops her head into her palm with a heavy sigh, and finally hits "submit" on her profile.

  Now that Rachel's finished her task, she packs up her stuff and heads for the door, leaving me behind before I can think of an opening line that doesn't out me.

  She probably cleans up pretty good, but right now she looks like she needs to be in bed having someone bring her soup. Her nose is red and her lips are chapped and she seems to have an endless supply of tissue in her coat pocket to deal with her sniffles and what sounds like the remnants of a nasty cough.

  She's petite, maybe 5'2", with a cute figure that could use a few more pounds balancing it out. Her hair is a dark brown held up in a messy twist with a plastic clip making it impossible to tell how long it is.

  Obviously she's sick. Probably at the tail end of whatever it was, but something about her catches my attention.

  Maybe it's the way she carries herself with pride even as she shuffles through the door in pajama pants and her sheepskin boots after closing down her laptop.

  Outside the coffee shop she stops to drain her tea and drops the cup into the trash bin before heading off across the parking lot on foot.

  As I head back to my car, ready to get back on the road, I can't help but watch her. She's still walking, crossing the road with her laptop clutched protectively under her arm and following the tracks through the dirt lot to one of those seedy motels.

  Something tugs at my gut as I watch her disappear from view.

  Sugarmesweet dot com. I write it down as soon as I get in my car. Rachel.

  Rachel

  I had no idea I could be this nervous.

  When I was in the fourth grade I got caught letting Jimmy Boyd copy answers off my spelling test. Mrs. Higgins sent me to the principle's office and I had to sit in front of him and listen while he called my mom and told her what happened.

  Up till today, waiting in the principal's office for my mother to come pick me up from school that day was the most nervous I'd ever been in my life-- making myself crazy for the rest of the day, wondering what my parents were going to do to punish me when I got home.

  Of course, they didn't come up with anything nearly as terrible as my 10 year old imagination had concocted. I got grounded for a week and had to do an extra credit assignment for Mrs. Higgins. But I'd never done anything against the rules before, let alone gotten caught doing it, so I really managed to make myself crazy in those few hours.

  This? This is worse. Way worse.

  Since arriving, I've almost puked twice and considered making a run for it pretty much every 20 seconds.

  I don't have a car though, and the bus won't be back for another hour.

  Realizing that I literally had to take the bus to get to a date to meet a guy who might want to be my sugar daddy is sobering. My nerves dissipate like magic and I'm suddenly the kind of calm that Zen masters strive for.

  It is what it is.

  The monthly rate at the hotel is going up and I'm already making ends meet by the skin of my teeth. And ends are only meeting because there aren't many bi
lls left to cover after the implosion. My unemployment is about to run out and I don't even have a car to sleep in if I get kicked out of the hotel.

  This sugar daddy thing is the last stop between me and a homeless shelter.

  Hopefully, this guy is as nice in person as he seems on the phone.

  I square my shoulders, take a deep breath-- here goes nothing, I think-- and open the door.

  We don't have any really nice places in town. The best I could suggest was the China Sun. It's decent Chinese in a building that was originally the local jailhouse and it's the only place I could think of that has cloth napkins. Which is pretty much my personal dividing line between "nice" restaurants and casual.

  I'm just grateful that Colter agreed to come meet me on my turf.

  Well. I guess it's as close to turf as I have these days. After all, it's not like this is my hometown. Hell, the only reason I ended up here was because it had the cheapest monthly hotel rate.

  Maybe I should have taken him up on his offer to fly me down to Vegas. He was going to pay for my air fare, put me up in one of the nice places on the strip, wine me, dine me, and take me gambling.

  At least, that's what he said, but all I could think of was that I'd be completely at his mercy and if he turned out to be a creeper, I might not get home.

  Again, I survey the China Sun and what passes as the "good" side of town out the window that looks like it hasn't had a good cleaning since the Reagan years.

  I am so stupid. I think. I could have had at least one great weekend in Vegas on someone else's dime. And if I ended up stuck in Vegas? I can't think of how that would be worse. Hell. Maybe I could at least find a damn job in Vegas.

  Which is actually the plan now, I guess.

  That's when I spot him. At a table in the back room that's usually reserved for large parties, as if any place in Bridgestone hosts many large parties. On a Wednesday afternoon, however, the room-- as well as most of the entire place-- is vacant.