Page 1 of Falling for the Forward

CHAPTER ONE

Suki

I open my apartment door,groaning when I see a massive box addressed to “Naughty by Nature” sitting on the ground. After closing the door, I sigh and hang my head, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“More dildos?” my best friend Mara asks absently from the couch.

I sigh heavily and press my back to the door. “I just wanted a relaxing day off. I need to do laundry and I wanted to catch up onSurvivor. Now we have to haul another superheavy box to the storage place and I’ll be thinking about how much I hate Tyler the entire time.”

“You do have impeccably bad taste in men.” She closes the law textbook she’s reading and takes off her glasses. “Let’s just get it done. We can pick up Starbies on the way home.”

I nod, knowing not even a vanilla bean Frap with extra caramel and whipped cream will lessen my urge to hunt down my ex-boyfriend. He left the country almost three months ago, ditching not only me but also his debts. That means I--the naivegirlfriend who cosigned on a massive loan for his new adult toy business--lost my life savings and now have creditors after me.

Mara helps me drag the box into the apartment. When she pulls a box cutter out of her pocket, I pinch my brows together in a disgruntled look.

“Why waste time opening it? We know it’s yet another one of Tyler’s obnoxious organic sex toys that I’ll spend the rest of my life paying for.”

She shrugs. “We’re going to have to sell this stuff at some point to help get you out of debt. We need to know what we’ve got.”

I flop onto my favorite worn-out recliner, waiting for Mara’s one-woman comedy routine to start. She’s been my greatest ally since I split with Tyler, but sometimes I’m not in the mood to laugh about Naughty by Nature. Today is one of those days.

“Holy hell, that’s a lot of butt plugs!” She reaches into the box and pulls out a large neon-green plug.

“The Alien Invader,” I murmur. “The company told Tyler the materials were on back order and it would take a long time to fulfill it.”

She bursts out laughing. “The Alien Invader? I don’t care what it’s made of, no one wants their bungholeinvaded.”

“I told him that.”

She’s still laughing. Mara even does the little snort thing she always does when she’s laughing so hard she’s about to pee.

“Did he seriously think people care whether their dildos and butt plus are nontoxic and BPA-free? It’s not something I’ve ever cared about.”

I don’t respond because we’ve had this conversation several times. I thought Tyler’s Stanford business degree meant he had good business sense. He sold me on his all-natural adult toy business over dinner at a tapas place one night, telling me it had the potential to make us seven figures a year within five years.

Us.That was what really did me in. I’m twenty-six, and when my boyfriend of more than three years started mentioningusandthe future, I got heart eyes and lost all sense of reason.

What a fool I was. I can’t even bring myself to tell anyone but Mara about the financial grave I dug for myself. Not even my family knows. I’m working two jobs to keep up with the loan payments and not starve, and even though I’m broke as hell, I’ll keep doing it as long as I have to.

Anything to spare me the humiliation of admitting I didn’t just get dumped by a man I thought was in love with me. But I’m also going to be paying off his debts for the next twenty years while he’s probably wining and dining his next victim.

“So you’re still likingthe new job?” Mara asks on the drive home from my rented storage bay, where we dumped off the box of Alien Invaders.

“I love it. The girls keep me so busy that ten hours a day feels like about three. And they’ve gotten used to me, I think.” I’m in my third week as a nanny for Carter Stanton, a pro hockey player for the Cleveland Crush. When I signed up at the nanny agency a month ago because I hated my boring office job, I never imagined I’d be hired the next week to take care of three little girls who lost their mother unexpectedly last month.

“Has your boss gotten any friendlier?”

I laugh because “friendly” isn’t a word I’d ever use to describe Carter. He’s gruff, relaying the essential information I’ll need every day before leaving for practice or a game with barely even a goodbye to the girls.

“No, but I don’t see much of him. I just leave when he gets home, like I do when the weekend nanny gets there.”

I usually waitress at a local sports bar on the weekends, but the bar is closed for the owner’s vacation, so I have a rare weekend off.

Mara scowls. “Those poor kids. Their mom died and they got shipped across the country to live with an uncle who brings in strangers to take care of them.”

I shrug. “He can’t help his work schedule. And the agency vets nannies thoroughly. I had to have five references and a background check.”

“I looked him up online. He’s hot, but he seems like an asshole.”

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