Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) Read Online Free PDF Page A

away.
    “ Pageants.”
    “ Huh?”
    “ I was one of those creepy
pageant babies.”
    “ Oh Christ.”
    Zoe grimaced but laughed. “My mom was a
receptionist somewhere and a coworker told her to enter me into
pageants when she brought me to work one day. So she did. I was
like, two years old. But I won the first one I entered. Grand
prize. Two hundred bones.”
    “ Big time.”
    Zoe splashed him. “That was a hundred
dollars for every year I was alive. That’s pretty impressive for a
baby.”
    “ Were you one of those
babies who wore blue eyeshadow and had like, a bodybuilder spray
tan?”
    “ Oh yeah,
buddy.”
    Gavin shuddered. “So disturbed right
now.”
    Zoe giggled. “Don’t worry. Once I got old
enough I started throwing shit fits about having to take like,
smiling lessons or walking lessons or whatever. And I turned into
the Hulk every time I saw a can of hairspray. I ended up sabotaging
myself at this one huge pageant. Got on stage and totally just
started trashing the place. Knocking over mic stands, taking my
shoes off and throwing them into the audience. I’m pretty sure I
ripped out my hair extensions too. I was five.”
    Gavin howled. “You sound like you were a
rabid freaking five-year-old.”
    “ I think I was possessed.
I weighed like forty pounds but I tore that stage
apart.”
    “ Badass. Five-year-old me
would’ve wifed you in a heartbeat.”
    Zoe could feel her eyes crinkling with her
wide smile. “Can you imagine if you and I ever had kids?”
    “ Oh, Jesus,” Gavin
responded before she could even feel weird about the fact that
she’d just mentioned having kids when the thought had never
previously crossed her mind in any form. “They’d be insane. We’d
need to keep horse tranquilizers around the house.”
    “ Scratching
posts.”
    Gavin coughed on his laughter. As it wound
down, he tilted his head to the side. “Hold on a second. You didn’t
tell me how you landed in L.A.”
    “ Oh.” Zoe cleared her
throat. “Well, my mom saw the kind of money that pageants earned
and since I basically got myself blacklisted from that world, she
started bringing me to these open calls for modeling agencies. And
signing with those led to a few commercials, some TV episodes and
then suddenly, we had enough money to move to L.A. My mom knew
there were better jobs for me there and when I was ten, she brought
me to the ‘Outta This World’ audition. And the rest is
history.”
    “ Ah.” Gavin nodded.
“Ten-year-old breadwinner.”
    “ Yup.”
    “ And here I am, twenty-two
and living off his parents’ credit cards.”
    “ Shut up.”
    “ So, where’s your mom at
now?”
    “ Oh. Um. She has her own
place in Santa Monica but she’s living with a boyfriend right now.
Outside of Vegas.” She nodded, stretching her lips into a “yeah, I
know” type smile. “Kind of wonder why I bought her her own house
sometimes when she’d rather live in some dude’s crappy apartment in
Vegas or Phoenix or wherever the boyfriend-of-the-moment’s from.”
Clearing her throat again, Zoe gathered herself before she could
get too riled up. “Basically, we’re best friends when she’s single.
And when she’s not, I don’t hear much from her. I get to find out
what she’s been up to through her credit card bills.”
    “ Which you pay,” Gavin
deducted with a squint.
    “ Yes.”
    “ You’re always going
to?”
    “ If I can afford it, why
not? She’s family. I wouldn’t be here without her. I love her. I
just question a lot of her decisions.”
    Gavin nodded as he studied her. She found
the frown between his brows so incredibly handsome that she could
hardly pay attention to how serious he looked. “You… “ He tried to
find his phrasing. “You’re a fucking woman, you know that?”
    She burst into a giggle. “I mean I know that
but what the hell do you mean by it?”
    Awe glimmered in Gavin’s
green eyes. “You’re strong as shit. You’re independent. You’re
beautiful inside