Lunchtime Chronicles: Dine & Dash Read online

  Lunchtime Chronicles

  Xyla Turner

  AZINA MEDIA PUBLICATIONS

  Contents

  Also by Xyla Turner

  Messy Mandy Presents

  1. Bret Holden

  2. Raven Bell

  3. Bret Holden

  4. Raven Bell

  5. Bret Holden

  6. Raven Bell

  7. Bret Holden

  Yummy Sub by Olivia Gaines

  Lady Guardian Chapters

  Trent: Across the Aisle Intro

  Trent: Across the Aisle - Ch. 1

  About the Author

  Also by Xyla Turner

  XYLA’S CONTACT INFORMATION

  AZINA MEDIA PUBLICATIONS

  928 Fulton Street, SUITE 250 Brooklyn, NY 11238-2349

  This is an original publication of AZINA MEDIA PUBLICATIONS.

  Copyright © 2019 AZINA MEDIA PUBLICATIONS. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2019 AZINA MEDIA PUBLICATIONS

  Cover Page by Dar Dixon

  Edited by Cyra Mayell Denura

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized edits.

  All rights reserved.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Xyla Turner

  Lunchtime Chronicles:

  Taste Test

  Mr. Vega

  Me Too Movement:

  Book 1: Carter

  Book 2: Declan

  Across the Aisle Series:

  Book 1: Trent

  Book 2: Duncan

  Book 2.5: Duncan 2.5

  Legion of Guardians Motorcycle Club Series:

  Just Ride: Legion of Guardians MC (1 - eBook & Audio)

  Let’s Ride: Legion of Guardians MC (2)

  Just Right: Legion of Guardians MC (3)

  Just Dream: Legion of Guardians MC (4)

  Dream Ride: Legion of Guardians MC (5)

  Lady Guardians Serial

  Justice: National Chapter - Book 1

  Cut: National Chapter - Book 2

  Goldie: National Chapter - Book 3

  Double XX Series:

  The Chase: Part I & II

  Line of Duty Series:

  10:80: Line of Duty Series

  10-99: Line of Duty Series

  10-24: Line of Duty Series

  Stetson Series:

  By Chance, No Choice: Stetson Series

  Meet Me Halfway: Stetson Series

  Love At All Costs: Stetson Series

  Far Rockaway University Series:

  Love Under Attack: FRU Series

  The F Student

  Bookstore Chronicles Series:

  No Returns: Part I & II

  Bookstore Chronicles III

  Non-Series Book:

  BOMBSHELL

  Across the Tracks

  Power of the Pen

  Extraction

  Cole [eBook & Audio]

  Take A Knee

  Warren

  Always Right

  Messy Mandy Presents

  Lunchtime Chronicles: Dine & Dash

  1

  Bret Holden

  Fifteen years on the job, and what did I have to show for my commitment? A badge, a gun, and an empty house with the ghost of my old dog, Ralph. When they say owners start to look like their dogs, I hoped not, because I just pulled two gray hairs out of my whiskers on my chin, then I looked at the picture of the many gray whiskers old Ralph had. Hopefully, my face wasn’t as droopy the nine-year-old German shepherd. Forty-seven didn’t feel like it should have.

  My brother had been dating this woman for a little while now, and this dude told me that he was going to pop the question to her.

  Pop the fucking question?

  Marriage?

  That was my response, and after I suggested running a full investigation into her past and her parents, he hung up on me. I already had a file on Yadira Rowland. It had been months, and I’d met her, but he claimed he was happy.

  Whatever the fuck that means. “Coy was getting regular pussy” was more like it. Well, he was already getting it consistently as a glorified bachelor. My job was too fucked up just to be sleeping around with anyone. I was a rule follower, and I had no intention of losing my livelihood with some woman who was probably a criminal mastermind that I’d find out about later after the 60 Minutes episode. I could hear the headlines now: “Decorated cop dishonored by the wily ways of a woman of the night” or some bullshit like that.

  That would not be my legacy, so it was just me. My old dog, Ralph, couldn’t disgrace me.

  “Holden, what’s your location?” my radio blasted on my dashboard.

  Sitting in my unmarked car outside the coffee shop was a woman who was sipping on some coffee. Granted, she looked like she had just walked off the runway, with long flowing black hair and a few purple streaks. Her skin was brown but with a bronze tint. Her lashes were long, makeup perfect, and she looked like she was some sort of actress or something. She was staring off into the distance. In a brief moment, I wondered what she was thinking of and who was she thinking about?

  Then she suddenly stood up and walked away, leaving the drink behind on the table. Then the waiter began to call her back, but she kept walking as if she didn’t hear him yelling. I was in my car and heard the man loud and clear.

  Therefore, being the cop that I was, I hopped out of my car and began to jog after the woman.

  “Ma’am,” I called. “Yo?”

  She turned abruptly and looked at me as if I had two heads.

  “Did you not hear the waiter calling for you?” I said as I mirrored her look since I was not the one in the wrong. “Did you pay for your beverage?”

  “What?” she asked. “Who are you?”

  Her voice was smooth and had a southern accent, maybe placing her near the Mason-Dixon line.

  “My name is Officer Holden, and I asked you a question.” I was losing my patience at having to explain myself.

  I turned and gestured toward the waiter who looked equally confused too. “He was calling you. You kept going as if you were trying to dine and dash,” I clarified with the rising eyebrow moving up.

  The woman looked around as if she was searching for someone.

  “Alex, get this guy outta here!” She flicked her wrist as if I were a bug to be crushed.

  Oh, fuck that.

  Before I could even speak, some guy came up behind me, causing me to back up, turn, and grab at my holster.

  “Hold up, hold up!” The guy put both hands in the air. “I think this is all a big misunderstanding.”

  “It’s about to be if you do not back your ass up.” I was now barking orders.

  He obeyed but continued to talk.

  “Officer, we are filming . . .” he tried to explain, but the woman was rolling her eyes. “Look, I have papers that show that we are filming. She’s an actress. These people are actors.”

  “Show me these papers,” I nodded at him but carefully kept my hand on my holster with the clip pulled to the side because I didn’t know what the fuck was happening, but he produced a group of folded pages and toss
ed them to me.

  After looking them over briefly, I relaxed and said, “But what I don’t see is a permit for this place.”

  They all looked at each other with knowing facial expressions that read they didn’t have shit to produce.

  “So a no-name actress and y’all are wannabe filmmakers filming with no permits?” I clarified.

  “Asshole,” the woman hissed as she looked at the ground.

  “Yeah, that’s me. Now scoot and get some permits.” I barked.

  The woman huffed and said as she passed me, “One day, you’ll see me in lights, and I hope you remember this.”

  I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. She was tall, probably around five feet, eight-or-so inches with four-inch heels. I was six feet and three inches, so I was looking down when a whiff of her intoxicating perfume infiltrated my system and almost caused it to crash.

  “When you get up there in lights, you should think of the person who wanted to make sure it was legit and maybe keep the people that manage your shit on the up and up,” I advised. “Instead of being a child and getting upset with me. Tell those fuckers to get their shit together. Nobody wants a two-bit actress who doesn’t know the business.”

  Then I let her go and walked away. Yeah, she was fucking beautiful but probably a bit of a brat, and that was shit I didn’t need.

  That meant more cereal for dinner, meat lovers probably, and the gotdamn depressing-ass news as an evening.

  It was good like this, though.

  No fuss, no muss.

  No drama.

  No feisty woman whose perfume I could still smell as if she were present.

  No.

  It was only me.

  2

  Raven Bell

  Walking back to my car, I felt like I was a little kid. No one chastised me. For one, I didn’t allow it, and two, I was a grown-ass woman. Ambitious, a little too forward, maybe, but I was still grown, and that officer was a fucking jerk. He didn’t have to speak to me in that manner, and I had a good mind to let him know that.

  Well, I had a good mind, but when he pointed out that I was basically being screwed by the production crew, I’m like, really. They called him all types of names, but I quit. If I wanted to be taken seriously in the industry, I needed this. It was a requirement for things to be right, or else I would be the laughing stock and singing the blues of “coulda, shoulda, woulda’s.” Nobody liked that woman—the woman who could have been a star but hooked up with the wrong people. Then my big breakout would not be Unsung but Unact.

  Since I was little, I wanted to be an actress. I used to dress up, play with my dolls, and act out entire scenes that I made up in my head. My mom called me eccentric, Pop-Pop called me talented, and my brother just called me dumb. Mom said it was his term of endearment for me since he was the little brother. Now, he served as my media manager, so when I texted him about the shit that happened today, he would be pissed, no doubt, but would make it sound good on social media. That was not my forte, and I saw so many famous people’s disasters when they decided to “be themselves” on social media—from saying the N-word to pulling up old jokes from over twenty years ago. I wanted nothing to do with that life.

  On my way home, I planned out what I would do. I texted my manager, Pete, to let him know that I was no longer on that project and that I needed to get some more auditions. He knew I didn’t want to be typecast, but I had only been in local films and shit that didn’t really get a lot of buzz—except for the commercial for Viagress. I was desperate for a job, and boy, did they get me one. All I had to do was rub my hand up a hot guy’s chest and whisper, “Hmm, Viagress.”

  I was still shaking my own damn head.

  By the time I made it back to my apartment, I saw that there was a text from my agent. He was upset about me quitting but said that the lack of a permit was something that happened all the time. However, the way that cop said what he said, I was afraid that I believed him more than any of these fools. He had nothing to gain or lose by sharing that information, but still.

  The next day, I went to an audition, and to my surprise, I landed the role. It was my first audition, where I knew the company was legit. I was playing a smart black woman in the scene.

  Filming started next week, and I planned to be there bright and early. We were told that we would be needed for four weeks and for eight hours a day or longer. This was rather unusual, since most actors and actresses did their scenes and left. However, there would be no complaints from me, since that meant a steady paycheck.

  For lunch, there was a bistro around the corner that had high ratings and reviews, so that would be my ideal choice for the day. On my first day, as I was nearing the restaurant, I heard a familiar gruff voice.

  “Sir, that’s foolhardy. If you step your toe onto that street while the light is red, you are jaywalking. I saw you walking, and I told you to stop, but you kept prancing your ass across the street. Now you can prance and pay that ticket,” he barked.

  I nearly choked, and it was not on laughter but the absurdity and rudeness he was bringing to the matter. The noise in the back of my throat must have caught his attention because he ripped off the ticket and stuffed it into the guy’s chest pocket and started walking toward me.

  “Fancy seeing you here, Princess,” he called. “Something funny?”

  “Nothing is funny about your rudeness,” I shared with him and kept moving toward the bistro, where he followed me inside.

  Oh great.

  “Rude? Me?” He scoffed as if I said something preposterous. “Not a characteristic most describe me as.”

  This had me fully turning around as I looked him in the eye. My heels didn’t put us on eye level, but I was close. With a slight tilt of my head, I smirked and said, “Lies. I’ve had a total of two interactions with you, and you’ve been rude as hell both times.”

  “Then maybe you should have more interactions with me, Princess.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’re biased.”

  “About?” I crossed my fingers.

  “Men in authority?” he mused and waved over a waiter. “Older men? Men who will not build up that little princess castle around you but knock that bitch down so you can see a real King. Maybe that’s your bias. You want your make-believe world, and that’s just not this.”

  Fuck.

  Here he was again with his gruff persona and coming in like a man on a mission. What the fuck was he doing here anyway? I was just getting some lunch. However, the awareness that I was in the presence of a man—a real one—would not leave me. It caused me to be sassy, wanton, and flippant—like I knew this man and could take liberties that I knew he would match and up the ante.

  “Are you that King?” I looked up at him under my lashes.

  “Fuck no!” He shook his head in disgust. “Who has time for that shit? I damn sure don’t. I’m talking about you.”

  He shifted his focus to the woman behind me and said, “Two.”

  She was the waitress whose eyes were glued on the man in a fitted shirt, that outlined his muscles, and jacket and with a badge around his neck. It was sexy, but that permanent snare on his lips was too much to take. He was doing things that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Yeah, I agree. I couldn’t see you saving princesses,” I told him as I followed the waitress, who began to pucker her lips.

  Bitch.

  Who would do that?

  Homewreckers.

  “So, you’re just crashing my lunch?” I tried to get onto safer topics, rather than trigger the jealous streak that I never felt.

  This man’s voice made my nipples stand at attention. He was rude as fuck, and I swear my pussy ached if I had to describe it. On the first day, I was so offended by his tone, but I didn’t really feel the desire. Now, it was there, plus some. That mystery, the intrigue around him. What made him so gruff? I’m sure the job had a lot to do with it. However, I was curious about the mystery man.

  “A man has gotta eat,” he respond
ed while sitting down at the table after I took my seat. “So, you still working with those scammers?”

  “No,” I told him as I put my head down in embarrassment. “I didn’t say it, but thank you for that bit of advice.”

  When I looked at him, I saw that he was looking at me with this unexplainable expression.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” He cleared his throat. “The name is Bret Holden.”

  “I’m Raven Bell,” I replied.

  “You know what you want, Princess Bell?” He asked.

  I finally picked up the menu to browse the salad section because that was all I could really eat during the set. My nerves were no good during the shooting of the scenes, so I ate very little.

  “Yes, do you?” I asked.

  He nodded but continued to peruse the menu. While he did that, I was able to get a better look at the man. He had gray streaks on the side of his head, probably putting him in his late forties. He looked just as weary as his attitude. The man had no fucks to give, which was something that made him attractive. There was nothing freer than just being who you were. I think that is what made me attractive to acting—because I could be anyone at any time. I could just put on another persona and be that person in a different circle. It felt freeing but often lonely. Taking on all the characters always left little time for me to be me—except now. I was who I was with this guy who had zero fucks.