Heartsick & Lipsticks, page 1
HEARTSICK & LIPSTICKS
SHAWNA RENAE
Heartsick & Lipsticks
by Shawna Renae
Shawna Renae © 2023
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.
This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.
Cover and Book Design by Wildcat Dezigns
Rev. 1.0
CONTENTS
1. Nick
2. Skye
3. Nick
4. Skye
5. Nick
6. Skye
7. Nick
8. Skye
9. Nick
10. Skye
11. Nick
12. Skye
13. Nick
14. Skye
15. Nick
16. Skye
17. Nick
18. Skye
19. Nick
20. Skye
21. Nick
22. Skye
23. Nick
24. Skye
25. Nick
26. Skye
27. Nick
28. Skye
29. Nick
30. Skye
31. Nick
32. Skye
33. Nick
34. Skye
35. Nick
36. Skye
37. Nick
38. Skye
39. Nick
40. Skye
41. Nick
42. Skye
43. Nick
44. Skye
45. Nick
46. Skye
47. Nick
48. Skye
49. Nick
50. Skye
51. Nick
Epilogue
Coming Soon
About the Author
Also by Shawna Renae
1
NICK
“Prison? You’re going to prison?!” Jada Jones, my executive assistant, repeated over the phone in disbelief.
Her shock at my current destination was not at all surprising. Jada knew everything about my life: schedule, finances, personal, and private. Good, bad, and ugly, she was apprised and aware of it all. Well, almost all.
There was a big portion of my life that I’d kept secret from everyone except the two men who I considered brothers, Alex Vaughn and Maddox Cruz. The three of us grew up in the foster care system and met in a group home when I was thirteen, Alex was eleven, and Maddox was nine. We had been thick as thieves since. They were the only people who knew the truth about my past.
“Yes. And I need a favor.” I’d tried to handle all the arrangements on my own but I hit a snag.
“Is there a body you need buried? Firearm disposed of? If so, I need a raise.” Jada was kidding, sort of.
She had worked for me for over a decade and was ride or die. If push came to shove, I believe she would help me hide a body. But I would never ask her to do that. I had Alex and Maddox as my in-case-of-homicidal-emergency for things like that.
My Tesla SUV gripped the road as I continued the ascent up the hill toward the federal penitentiary. The pavement wound between majestic redwoods as I headed to the prison where I spent three months of my life. But here’s the thing: I have never been convicted of a crime. I’ve never been arrested or charged with any offense.
The most trouble I’ve ever been in was getting caught with Bethany Saunders in a compromising position—her up against the wall and me inside of her—my senior year of high school in the home ec lab. I argued we were taking our assignment of being a couple and caring for an egg very seriously, but we still ended up being suspended and having twenty hours of Saturday school.
So how was it that I’d spent three months in prison? I was born there. At the time, my mother was on trial for killing my father. She hadn’t been convicted of the offense yet, and there was a program in the prison that allowed women to care for their infants for several months after birth.
After that, I was taken away and became a ward of the state. Growing up, I was never given any information about my family or past. When I aged out of the system, I was finally given access to my medical history. That’s when I found out where my mother was and my origin story.
I know that ‘origin story’ sounds a little grandiose, like I’m some sort of superhero or something. But, hey, if the cape fits...
I came from nothing. Literally. I was born behind bars in prison; if that’s not starting at the bottom, I’m not sure what is. I spent my life being shuttled from one place to another with nothing but a trash bag to carry all of my earthly belongings, which wasn’t much. I lived in over a hundred foster homes before I finally ended up in a group home at thirteen. That’s where I spent the rest of my teen years before legally becoming an adult. On my eighteenth birthday, I got the ol’ heave ho from all government assistance, leaving me with access to my records but no family, housing, or support.
Once I learned the truth about my past, I went to visit my mother in the same facility I was driving to now. The face-to-face meeting did not go as I’d planned. After half an hour, she cut the visit short and then took me off the visitor’s list completely. Never one to give up or be detoured, I came back up to see her a half dozen times over a few months but was turned away by the guard each and every time. After that, when people asked about my parents, I told them they were both dead. Because to me, they were. At least until a month ago.
Jada knew all about my childhood, just not anything about my mother.
“My mother is being medically paroled into my custody on compassionate release. She is in the last stages of congestive heart failure and has less than six months to live. I am moving her in with me, and I want round the clock hospice care, which I thought I’d taken care of. But I just got off the phone with the service I’d hired, and one of the night nurses fell through. They are trying to replace her, but I want to make sure that it is done. I need someone to be at my home tonight at 8 p.m. I’ll forward you the information and my contact person at Complete Care, her name is Sonja. If they are unable to find someone, I need you to contact another in-home care company today.”
I’d researched and found the best of the best, but since they were apparently experiencing a staffing crisis, I wasn’t so sure that they could retain that distinction.
The line was silent, which was very unlike Jada. I’d never met a woman who was more cognizant of her time. She didn’t do long pauses. She spoke rapidly and succinctly, not wasting a word or second on frivolous communication.
“Your mother?” Jada repeated. “I thought… I thought she was dead."
“She’s been incarcerated my entire life. She shot and killed my father in his sleep when she was seven months pregnant with me. I only met her once, a week after I turned eighteen. After that, I never spoke to her or saw her again.”
“That’s the only contact you’ve had with her?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re almost forty.”
I wasn’t sure why that was relevant. “I know.”
“I just… I don’t… How did I not…?”
As I passed the sign on the side of the road that said the prison was the next exit, I wrapped up the call. “We can talk about this later. Right now, I need you to follow up on the—”
“Right. I’m so sorry. Send me the information and I will take care of it.”
“Thanks.” I reached out to disconnect the call.
Before I was able to, I heard her softly say my name. “Nick?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
No. At this moment, I felt anything but okay. I had no idea if I’d made the right decision by taking my mother into my home. It wasn’t me or her that I was worried about. It was my six-year-old daughter, Bella. I was a single father and had sole custody of her. She could be traumatized by this.
Over the past month, I’d spoken to a dozen child psychologists who were all at the top of their field, and each one assured me that there was a healthy way to navigate the very unique situation I was in. They explained that there could be a lot of learning opportunities in this if I handled it correctly.
I still wasn’t totally convinced. If at any point I felt that this living arrangement was becoming detrimental to her, then I would place my mother in a nursing home. There was no wiggle room on that. I’d already found a place and secured a room for her.
My head kept telling me that she should go there from the start. But another part of me, my gut, the instinct that I’d lived my entire life following, told me that bringing her into my home was the right thing to do. Normally, I trusted my gut. But in this case, I wasn’t so sure.
“I’m fine,” I lied, then disconnected the call.
I’d known this day was coming for weeks, but now that it was actually here, I felt entirely unprepared. That was not a feeling I was used to.
My brain never stopped analyzing situations and considering every possible outcome. If my internal thoughts were a search engine, I would constantly have forty pages open. My mind was never quiet; it was never calm, and I liked it that way.
I was always ten steps ahead. Always. Things did not take me by surprise. Never caught me off guard. I considered every possible outcome for any scenario and how I would handle myself in each case. I was in control.
In therapy, I learned that was a coping mechanism for my life. In my early development, I had no control over anything. Not my environment, my school, or the people I was surrounded by. At any moment, my entire life could change. In the blink of an eye, I was forced to change homes, schools, teachers, and friends.
As an adult, I’d worked hard to have stability. To never be in a situation where I had to rely on someone else. I had zero expectations of people because I’d found that was the only way not to be disappointed.
This situation was completely out of my control. There were too many variables. I had prepared to the best of my ability, but in reality, I was going in blind. There wasn’t really a blueprint for how to navigate this.
The dashboard lit up, and I answered the call coming through and saw that it was Ariel, a producer at the media company I owned. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, but I knew if I ignored her call, she’d just keep ringing me.
I answered. “I’m in the hills; I might lose the signal.”
“The numbers are in. Duel is number two!” she exclaimed excitedly.
I’d recently started a podcast called Duel Point of View. The format was simple; it was a he said/she said call-in show where my cohost, Selena Grace, and I doled out advice on everything from romantic relationships, friendships, careers, to home renovations. Nine times out of ten, we disagreed on the answer, which was what made the show entertaining.
I’d completely forgotten that the rankings for the first quarter were being released today. Hearing that I’d forgotten was unsettling. I was usually on top of things like that, but the past few weeks I’ve been distracted.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Okay? Thanks? Nick… It’s number two.”
Number two was not number one, and in the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, “If you’re not first, you’re last.”
I never celebrated mediocrity. What was the point of doing something if you weren’t going to be the best and come in first? The standard I held myself to was the secret to my success. It was how I’d started as an intern at a local radio station at fifteen and owned that same station by the age of thirty. It was how I’d built a media empire and had a net worth in the billions by the age of forty.
But I was also the leader of this ship and responsible for keeping the morale of the crew high. My staff all worked their asses off; it wasn’t their fault I’d failed.
“That’s amazing! Everyone’s worked so hard.”
“Yes, we did.”
The emphasis she placed on the word ‘we’ did not have the desired effect. I had an incredible team of people around me, but I’d learned at a very young age that I was on my own. It was a lesson I carried with me as an adult.
“I’m gonna lose the signal. I’ll call you back.”
I disconnected the call as I turned into the parking lot outside the prison. The last time I’d come here, I’d had to take the bus because I was only eighteen years old and hadn’t had my driver’s license or a car. I worked part-time at the radio station and part-time as a security guard. I was, for all intents and purposes, homeless. After aging out, I spent a year couch surfing with friends. I didn’t have a dime to my name, and the only people I considered family were the men I still considered brothers, who were just sixteen and fourteen at the time.
Now, over twenty years later, I was pulling up in my Tesla SUV. I was a self-made billionaire and media mogul. I owned a beautiful, multimillion dollar home in one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in San Francisco. I was a father to an incredible six-year-old who was my pride and joy.
So why did I suddenly feel like that scared, worthless, unlovable eighteen-year-old again?
Was that the reason I’d agreed to take responsibility for my mother?
Was it so I could show her the man I’d become?
I had no idea. I was just going with my gut.
Before I got out of the car, I forwarded the info on the hospice care home to Jada. Once I’d handed it off, I knew that was one thing off my plate. She would take care of it.
My head felt like it wasn’t attached to my body as I made my way up to the visitor’s entrance of the prison. I noticed the ambulance I’d hired to transport my mother was already there. It was parked beside a loading dock. I’d been alerted by text that it had arrived about ten minutes before me and had already checked in through the appropriate channels.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion as I went through the security check before being told to take a seat in the waiting room. I lowered myself onto a blue plastic chair and took in my surroundings. The facility wasn’t exactly how I remembered it. There had been some renovations—new flooring, new paint, new furniture—but it smelled the same. The combined aroma of the musty scent and cleaning supplies was unique, and it instantly transported me back to the first and only time I’d seen my mother. She was not what I’d expected. With long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and porcelain skin, she looked so young and innocent. At the time, she would have been thirty-six, but I remember thinking that she looked like she was in her twenties.
“Nicholas Locke.”
Hearing my name called snapped me out of my memory. When I stood, the guard who had just called my name smiled, and her cheeks flushed on her olive skin. On the way down a long hall, she glanced up at me through thick, inky lashes. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Chris Hemsworth?”
Yes. I got Hemsworth or Brad Pitt on an almost daily basis.
She tilted her head to one side. “Or no, maybe it’s Brad Pitt.”
Or both.
If this were any other situation, I’d reply by asking her if anyone ever told her that she looked like Jessica Alba, because she did. Then I’d probably follow up by telling her that I’d always thought Thor, who was played by Chris Hemsworth, and Storm, a role reprised by Jessica Alba, would make a cute couple.
Flirting was my default mode. It had always come naturally to me. It was like breathing. I loved women of all shapes, colors, and sizes, but I’d always had a soft spot for a brunette with curves, and this CO fit that bill to a T. But today, I barely noticed how attractive Officer Storm was and had no desire to engage in flirtatious small talk.
I responded with a flat, “Sometimes.”
There was no more talk of celebrity lookalikes as we continued down the hall, stopping at the last door on the right.
“Come in. Sit down,” the woman behind the desk instructed without looking up from her computer screen as her fingers flew across the keyboard.
I lowered into a chair across from her as she typed away not sparing me a glance. She wore thick black-rimmed glasses that covered half of her face and wore her black hair in a short bob. After a minute or so, she stopped typing and turned her attention toward me.
“Hi Nick, I’m Mona Campbell,” she introduced herself. I recognized her name from the emails we’d been exchanging. When I’d read those emails, I’d never envisioned they were being sent by Edna, the character who made the superhero suits in the movie The Incredibles.
