Table of Contents
Quit Bein’ Ugly
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Titles by Lani Lynn Vale
About the Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
Catch up on the rest of the series
Copyright © 2020 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Sometimes you eat the cookie. Sometimes you don’t. Today I ate the cookie.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak- Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing
Cover Me Darling- Cover Artist
My mom- Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred twenty-one times.
Kendra, Laura, Kathy, Mindy, Lisa, Penney, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
Quit Bein’ Ugly
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You
Join the Club
Any Day Now
Say It Ain’t So
Officially Over It
Nobody Knows
Depends Who’s Asking
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Souls Chapel Revenants MC
Repeat Offender
Conjugal Visits
Jailbait
Doin’ a Dime
Inmate of the Month
Kitty Kitty
Gen Pop
Shakedown
Standalones:
Somethin’ About That Boy
About the Book
There’s a crush, and then there are the type of feelings that Croft Cruisie evokes from a person.
He’s everything that any straight woman would want: tall, handsome, charismatic, muscular, and sweet.
At least, Carmichael thought he was sweet, until he brings another woman to the gym she owns with her brother, on the night that’s to be their first date, and lets her know in a quick and painful, non-verbal way that her feelings are not reciprocated.
Fast forward six months, and she’s still trying to move on from the rejection.
It doesn’t help that the jerk moves in next door to her, and that she has to see him workout shirtless every single day.
How can a woman get over a silly crush when that silly crush won’t so much as give her room to breathe?
• • •
Croft doesn’t know what happened.
One day he was supposed to go on a date with the girl that wouldn’t leave his thoughts for even a second, and the next she’s avoiding him like the plague.
No matter how hard he tries—and admittedly, it isn’t all that hard due to the biggest case of his career taking over his life—he can’t get her to tell him what he did wrong. She refuses to give him a second chance.
At least, not until he’s nearly killed in front of the courthouse, that is.
The moment he sees his chance, he pounces. Or, more literally, he limps.
But the limping is what draws Carmichael in. The Southern charm that was instilled in him since birth will be what gets her to stay.
That’s his plan, anyway.
Funny thing about plans… they never seem to work out how you expect them to.
PROLOGUE
The path to inner peace begins with four words: not my fuckin’ problem.
-Carmichael’s secret thoughts
CARMICHAEL
I was really fucking giddy.
Like, so much so that I was practically bouncing my way through my day.
Tonight, I would be going out on a date with Croft, and I literally coul
d not contain my excitement.
“What’s with that look on your face, girl?” Raleigh, my good friend and a fellow teacher, asked.
I looked over at her.
Not even the shitty kids that I’d just had to deal with could ruin my high.
“I have a date.” I paused. “With your brother.”
Raleigh made a disgusted face. “Gross.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up the stack of tests that I would need to take home and grade tonight.
“I’m excited,” I said and looked at her. “This isn’t going to make things weird between us, is it?”
She snorted. “No. Not unless you decide to kick him to the curb because of who his sister is.”
I scoffed. “I like you more than him. If he made me choose between the two of you, you’d win hands down.”
Raleigh fist-pumped the air. “Score!”
We laughed as we walked out to the parking lot together. “Are you going to the gym tonight?”
She was already shaking her head. “No, tonight Ezra and I have a date for the first time since two-a-days started. We are going out to eat and grabbing some drinks one final time before practice and school officially starts. That means that I have to go get my toes done and my lady parts waxed before I go.”
I wished I could go do that.
But I had to teach a class tonight before my date with Croft.
“That sounds heavenly,” I admitted. “What sounds even better is the idea of getting my toes done and having a pampering day. I don’t think my toes have seen my favorite nail salon in months.”
“You should go with Camryn and me some time,” she urged. “We’re always down for pedicures.”
After making plans to meet the next time that she needed them done, we went our separate ways.
My drive to the gym was short.
Gun Barrel, Texas wasn’t a huge town. But, on one side was the school, and the opposite side was the gym that I co-owned with my brother, Flint.
Flint, who was going on his own date tonight and had begged and pleaded for me to cover the class so he could take his girl out. I’d agreed before I’d agreed to the date with Croft, so I was not reneging on the deal.
Plus, it would get me a couple of slices of cake from my favorite place in town that was only open to the people that made reservations months in advance.
Arriving at the gym, I made quick work of changing out of my work clothes and changing into a pair of tight booty shorts, ones that were extra bright pink and sparkly, and a cut-off t-shirt that showed off my toned arms but didn’t hug my slightly pudgy belly too tightly.
I was just pulling out the equipment that we would need to use when the gym started to fill up with our patrons that came at this particular time.
I was so busy with getting everything ready for the workout that at first I hadn’t noticed that Croft had arrived.
I might have noticed if he’d arrived alone and gone to his regular spot.
But he hadn’t arrived alone.
He’d arrived with a woman.
A woman that was practically clinging to his side, looking intimidated.
I frowned as I saw her place her hand on his arm to get his attention. Once she had it, she didn’t take it off. She left it there with a small smile on her face as she leaned into him and said something.
Something angry and ugly reared its head inside of me, and I realized that it was jealousy.
He was my Croft, not hers!
I quickly turned away, busying myself with pulling out the kettle bells.
It was when I was picking up the fourth one and a half pood kettlebell—yes, you read that right, pood—that he finally made his way over to me.
With her scampering at his heels like a well-trained dog.
“Carmichael,” Croft said as he grinned at me. “How was your day at work?”
Before I could answer, the girl that was stuck to Croft’s ass said, “Croft. It’s rude not to introduce me.”
I felt my eye twitch.
“Oh, shit, sorry, darlin’.” Croft gestured at me. “This is Carmichael. She and her brother own this gym. She’s a local teacher at the high school. Carmichael, this is Karen. Karen is new to our firm and our city, so I thought I’d bring her around and show her all the good places.”
Karen.
What a fitting name.
That was the name from hell. Also, it was the name that some of the funniest memes were using.
“Hi, Karen.” I held out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She looked at my hand and wrinkled up her nose.
I looked down to see that there was chalk on my outstretched hand.
“Oh, sorry,” I said as I wiped my hand on my shirt then once again held it out to her. “That’s going to be a usual thing, though, if you continue to work out here. Chalk’s kind of a necessity.”
“I don’t really do the whole sweating thing all that much,” she said, still ignoring my hand so I dropped it. “I just really wanted to come with Croft here. He’s so fun.”
Croft gave me an apologetic look that clearly said, “Sorry.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Well, if you work out, you’re going to sweat. It’s inevitable.”
“Oh, I don’t sweat.” Karen shook her head.
My eyes once again went from Karen to Croft, and I gave him a bug-eyed look before saying, “Well, that’s cool.”
I didn’t believe her.
Either she didn’t sweat because she didn’t work hard, or she didn’t sweat because there was something wrong with her.
I was hoping for the ‘something wrong’ thing.
That would make my day better at this point.
“Do you need any help?” Croft asked.
I pointed to the last two kettle bells.
“If you can grab those.” I gestured to them. “And put them on the floor somewhere, that’d be great.”
Croft did as asked, leaving me with Karen.
I went to the whiteboard and started writing down the warmup while Karen admired the man that I was going out on a date with later that night.
“God, he is so sexy,” she cooed. “Oh, Croft! Look at your muscles!”
“Oh, Croft,” I mimicked to the whiteboard. “Look at your muscles.”
“Did you say something?” Croft asked as he came up to my side.
“No, nothing,” I replied.
I ignored him and went back to work, finishing up writing the warmup and then talking to the various other people that came into the gym to work out with me today.
“All right, everyone!” I called out once it was time for class to start. “Everyone grab a foam roller and spread out!”
Of course, everyone spread out and followed directions. Everyone but Karen that was.
She pulled up a spot directly next to Croft, who had a long wingspan and was sure to whack her if he stretched out fully and sat down.
Her short shorts rode up, showing off her legs.
But her legs weren’t muscular or anything. They were skinny, yes. But they had no meat to them. There was muscle, but only the amount of muscle that you would get walking and having good genetics.
I looked down at my own legs and grimaced.
My legs were muscled.
They were big.
I had a sizable ass and even more sizable quads.
The short pink shorts that I was wearing had ridden up, exposing the white of my legs that rarely saw sun.
I didn’t bother to pull them down.
This morning as I was exiting the house, I’d grabbed these on the fly, remembering that I would need them. Only, they were too short and they rode up, and I hadn’t realized that I disliked this particular pair until I’d put them on not too long ago when it was too late.
I pulled my shirt away from my body, wishing that I’d worn something cute and pink that showed off my breasts like Karen’s sporty top.
Ins
tead, I was wearing a t-shirt that I was pretty sure used to be Flint’s in high school. It was a crop top now, having been cut off right at hip level. The shirt sleeves had also been cut off, the arms going down to almost where I’d cut the shirt off at hip level.
The black shirt itself said ‘Letourneau Soccer Camp’ on it in faded blue lettering.
My sports bra was pretty cute, though. It was bright blue and had white flowers on it. I’d gotten it at Victoria’s Secret a few days ago on sale, and I’d been excited to wear it for Croft, and he wasn’t even fucking paying attention to me.
The rat.
He was talking to Karen as he showed her how to roll out her quads and ass.
I turned my gaze away and focused on Schultz.
Schultz was one of my brother’s fellow officers. He worked for Gun Barrel Police Department as well and was as cute as could be.
Sadly, I couldn’t focus on him because all my eyes saw was Croft.
“How’re the legs feeling today?” I asked him, tapping his foam roller with my tennis-shoed foot.
He grimaced.
“Awful,” he grumbled. “The decision to go up on my weight seemed good at the time. Now? Not so much. I thought this getting into shape thing was going to be great. That I’d feel better. But all it’s done was show me how to live sore.”
I laughed.
“That’s true,” I agreed. “One would think that by working out that we would be less sore than we are. But seriously, I’ve been doing CrossFit for years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever not been sore.”
I turned slightly and showed him my thigh, which had a bruise along the top right where my shorts rose. I even had to lift my shorts up a bit to show him the angry bruise.
“This is from hang cleans yesterday,” I said.
There was a curse that caused me to look over at Croft to see him narrowing his eyes in our direction.
I was just about to move away from Schultz when Karen touched his arm and brought his attention to her own scrawny-ass legs.
I could fucking bench press her.
The heifer.
I turned back to Schultz to see him bringing up his own shorts to show off his bruises from yesterday.
We were laughing by the time I moved them to the rowers.