Can't Always Get What You Want Read online

  Can’t Always Get What You Want is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2015 by Chelsey Krause

  Excerpt from Once Loved by Cecy Robson copyright © 2015 by Cecy Robson, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Once Loved by Cecy Robson. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 9781101883624

  Cover design: Caroline Teagle

  Cover photograph: © Image Source/Getty Images

  www.readloveswept.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Start Me Up

  Chapter 2: It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll (but I Like It)

  Chapter 3: Dear Doctor

  Chapter 4: Sympathy for the Devil

  Chapter 5: Gimme Shelter

  Chapter 6: Brown Sugar

  Chapter 7: Mixed Emotions

  Chapter 8: Tattoo You

  Chapter 9: No Expectations

  Chapter 10: She’s a Rainbow

  Chapter 11: Honky Tonk Women

  Chapter 12: Neighbours

  Chapter 13: Sad Sad Sad

  Chapter 14: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

  Chapter 15: Beast of Burden

  Chapter 16: Sweethearts Together

  Chapter 17: Street Fighting Man

  Chapter 18: Let’s Spend the Night Together

  Chapter 19: We Were Falling in Love

  Chapter 20: Worried About You

  Chapter 21: Doom and Gloom

  Chapter 22: Paint It Black

  Chapter 23: Little Red Rooster

  Chapter 24: Stupid Girl

  Chapter 25: Indian Girl

  Chapter 26: Bitch

  Chapter 27: No Use in Crying

  Chapter 28: Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

  Chapter 29: Dirty Work

  Chapter 30: Under My Thumb

  Chapter 31: Jigsaw Puzzle

  Chapter 32: Time Is on My Side

  Chapter 33: Waiting on a Friend

  Chapter 34: Back to Zero

  Chapter 35: Hand of Fate

  Chapter 36: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

  Chapter 37: The Last Time

  Chapter 38: It’s All Over Now

  Epilogue: Aftermath

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Once Loved

  Chapter 1

  Start Me Up

  I hate running shoes. They are the ugliest (albeit, functional) piece of clothing ever worn by mankind. Oh, and wearing pajama pants in public. I cringe when I see people trudging through the grocery store aisles, shopping in their ducky-print pajama bottoms.

  And what do I choose for a career?

  Nursing.

  My job requires runners. And not just any runners—the nastiest, matronly, most I’ll-never-have-sex-again shoes ever invented.

  And scrubs, which, let’s face it, are basically pajamas.

  What was I thinking?

  Ding. Ding. DING.

  Oh, how I love call bells.

  “Can I help you?” I ask into the intercom.

  “My dick is bleeding.”

  I choke back a surprised laugh.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You don’t think I’d be sure if my own penis were bleeding? Damn it, you’re all idiots. I have half a mind—”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  It’s Mr. Donaldson again. It’s the seventy-fourth time he’s rung his call bell since noon. Well, maybe more like the eighth. But it feels like seventy-four.

  I walk to the end of the hall and peek into his bathroom. He’s standing by the toilet, turned away from me. Yellow pajama bottoms and a soaked adult diaper are pooled at his feet.

  “Hi, Mr. Donaldson, what seems to be the trouble?” I ask.

  “I’ve pissed my pants,” he says. “And there’s blood in my underwear.”

  I squat close to the ground and shuffle myself a bit closer to his legs.

  “That’s okay. I’ll help you get cleaned up,” I say soothingly. “If you could just lift this foot, I can slip off—”

  He whirls around, bringing his private region a little too close to my face for comfort. My nose curls up at the powerful scent of old urine.

  “Just look at this,” he moans, lifting his member for my inspection. “Where’s the blood coming from?”

  Thank God for gloves.

  I look over his man parts, looking for any sign of damage. How long has he been incontinent for? He’s a new admit, and hasn’t allowed anyone to help him with personal care yet.

  Ah, there’s the culprit.

  “Mr. Donaldson, your testicles are excoriated.”

  “What?”

  I hear shuffling beyond the closed bathroom door, and several female voices blending together.

  “Your testicles. They’re quite red, and I see a few tears…”

  “Wilbur? Where are you?”

  “We’re in here,” I reply. “Just helping him get cleaned up.”

  “Speak English, lady!” he says tersely. “Excori-what? And what are ‘tessicles’?”

  “Testicles. You know, your privates,” I say quietly.

  “Oh! You mean my balls?” he yells.

  “Balls?” I hear a woman’s voice repeat outside. “What’s going on in there?”

  “Well, I—”

  Before I have a chance to explain, the door is pulled wide open. An older lady with chunky gray hair looks down at me, kneeling in front of her husband.

  Who is naked from the waist down.

  This looks bad. Very bad.

  I quickly stand, and clear my throat.

  “Hi, I’m Sophie, Mr. Donaldson’s nurse. And you must be…”

  “His wife,” she replies shortly. “What’s this all about?”

  “Oh, right. Well, he had some concerns about…”

  “Myrna? Come look at this. My dick is bleeding.”

  I suddenly realize that the door is wide open, and that his guests have a full view of Mr. Donaldson in all his glory.

  “I was just about to get him cleaned up,” I explain, while closing the door halfway. “Actually,” I add quietly to his wife, “his testicles look very inflamed, and I think I could see several tears. Could be the source of his bleeding. It’s quite common for someone with incontinence issues to have skin problems. How long has he been—”

  “My husband is not incontinent. And what were you doing, kneeling on the floor like that?”

  I’m beginning to feel a bit light-headed. This cannot be happening.

  “Umm, he’s had a bit of an accident. I was just helping him get new pants on…” I lean toward the bathroom sink to pick up some washcloths, an incontinence pad, and new pajama bottoms.

  She snatches the bundle from my hands. “I’ll do it. You can go now.”

  Once I’m in the hallway, I rake my hands over my face.

  How did that just happen?

  Ginny, another nurse on staff, walks
by. Gin is the best. Nothing ever ruffles her. She’s always calm, poised, and professional.

  Bet she’s never been suspected of servicing patients.

  As I pass the front desk at the end of my shift, I see Mrs. Donaldson talking heatedly to the charge nurse.

  I overhear bits of the conversation.

  “Unprofessional…on her knees…don’t want that nurse around him again…”

  Ugh.

  On the bright side, I won’t have Mr. Donaldson as a patient again.

  —

  I’m crashing at my best friend Samira’s house tonight. We’ve been friends for forever. She works on a pediatric unit, while I work in acute care and casually in ER.

  Samira greets me at the door, smiling. She has the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen, dark skin, and expressive brown eyes framed by black, chunky glasses.

  “I wasn’t sure you were coming over at all. You’re late for our date with Don Draper,” she says.

  “And miss the glamour of 1960s advertising? Never.”

  I toss my purse and coat onto a kitchen chair. “Has your mom sent over any more butter chicken?”

  I start digging through her fridge before she has a chance to answer. And I find what I’m looking for. Cracking open the plastic container, I smell the contents of delicious chicken in a curry and tomato gravy.

  “If I had one last meal to eat before I died, this would be it,” I say, putting a hand to my forehead and fluttering my eyelashes. “Do you think your mom will ever share her recipe with me?”

  “Are you kidding? She won’t even tell me.”

  —

  Two hours later, we’ve finished two episodes of Mad Men, one container of delicious butter chicken, and half a pizza.

  “I can’t believe you chose Pizza 73 over your mother’s cooking.”

  Samira laughs, and gets up to refill our drinks.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Samira mumbles through a mouthful of pizza, “I can’t make it to the Jagger Bombs concert.”

  “What?” I shout back.

  The Jagger Bombs are a Rolling Stones tribute band. And I love the Rolling Stones. I’ve been talking about this for months.

  “I was really looking forward to this. What happened?”

  “Narayan is taking me out tomorrow night. I think he’s going to propose.”

  “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “When his grandma was visiting last week, he asked me to meet her.”

  Wow. I’m not even dating Narayan, and even I know how important his grandma’s opinion is to his family.

  “So, what do I do with my extra ticket?” I ask.

  “Well, I was thinking…”

  “Yes?”

  “That you should go with Brett.”

  “Brett who?”

  “Oh, come on! You know Brett! He’s Narayan’s business partner.”

  “No, I don’t know Brett. I’ve heard about Brett. Big difference.”

  “Well, maybe you could ask him to go with you. Narayan and I can vouch for him! He’s single, cute, and apparently he likes the Rolling Stones too,” she says, nudging my ribs.

  “Then wouldn’t it be like a date? With someone I’ve never met?”

  “Yes! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  I roll my eyes. “So fun. What are my other options?”

  “Well, either you go alone, or you ask Joel to go with you.”

  I shudder at the thought. Joel is the last guy I dated. He was funny, charming, and good-looking. He took me to expensive restaurants, a lot of movies, and seemed to fit in well with my friends.

  I thought he might be long-term boyfriend material until he decided to show me his house. It looked normal enough at first, until he showed me his bedroom.

  I have never seen so much pink in one space.

  Pink walls. Pink carpets. Pink curtains. And full of Barbie dolls. Every Barbie imaginable, from floor to ceiling. His bed had Barbie sheets, pillows, and comforters. The Barbie mansion was prominently displayed in one corner of the room, with dolls strewn haphazardly around its perimeter.

  “Whoopsie!” he said, laughing. “I’ve been a bad boy, and didn’t pick up my toys.” He turned to me and asked seductively, “Want to play?”

  I made up an excuse about working early the next day and needing to go. I think I broke several traffic laws on the drive home.

  “No to Joel,” I say sternly. I reflect for a moment. “I suppose going on my own would be kind of pathetic?”

  Samira nods. “Not to mention wasteful, since you have a perfectly good ticket that someone should use.”

  “What if I brought Alex?”

  Alex is my aunt, and is perhaps the coolest person on the planet. She’s a mechanic and drives a black muscle car. And, she loves classic rock.

  She would be the perfect replacement date.

  “Alex probably would enjoy the concert,” Samira admits. “But you should consider taking someone new. Besides your family and me, who do you hang out with?”

  “I don’t want to meet anyone new,” I say.

  Samira’s smile droops.

  “I know,” she says quietly. “But you’re going to have to get back out there sometime. It’s been five years.”

  She needn’t have reminded me.

  I remember every day.

  “I have tried dating. I put myself out there, and what do I find? Guys like Joel.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to pressure you. Just looking at options.”

  She smiles, but I can tell she’s disappointed. I tip my head back and look skyward.

  “Fine,” I relent. “If you vouch for Brett, then I’m sure he’s a good guy.”

  Samira’s smile couldn’t be any brighter. Damn perfect teeth. If I didn’t love my best friend so much, I’d resent her for being so beautiful.

  “So that’s a yes? You’ll ask him to go to the concert?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you’ll really like him.”

  “Do you have any pictures of him? I mean, since he and Narayan are business partners and all?”

  “Hmm…” she says, flipping through her iPhone. “Nope, can’t find any.”

  “Well, what about Facebook? Maybe he’ll have some pictures on there.”

  We manage to find a Facebook page for Narett Construction, but the only photos are either company logos or a large group shot from which Brett is conveniently missing.

  “Are you sure Brett even exists?”

  “No, no, he’s real,” Samira says.

  She scrolls through her phone’s contact list.

  “Here’s his number. Why don’t you give him a call, and see if he’s interested?”

  I smirk. “In me or the concert?”

  “Both?”

  “Okay, give me his number.”

  Samira and I jump onto the couch and sit with our legs tucked under us. Clutching pillows to our chests, she watches as I hesitantly dial his cell number. I feel like we’re prank-calling someone.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited. It’s not every day that you ask someone you haven’t met before on a date.

  He picks up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” a deep masculine voice says.

  “Erm, hello. Is this Brett? Brett Nicholson?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “My name is Sophie. I’m friends with Samira and Narayan.”

  He pauses for a moment.

  “Sure, I think I’ve heard Samira mention you.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been best friends for forever.”

  Awkward pause.

  “Anyway, this might sound weird since you don’t know me, but are you free tomorrow night?”

  I hear a surprised chuckle.

  “Okay…” he says.

  “I have an extra ticket to see the Jagger Bombs. They’re a Rolling Stones tribute band playing at Hawrelak Park. Sam was supposed to go with me, but she’s ditching me for Narayan.” I laugh, shooting Sam a mock dirty loo
k.

  She’s clutching a pillow to her chest and looking at me with a face-splitting grin. You’d think we were still thirteen, talking to our first boy on the phone.

  “The Jagger Bombs?” he asks, sounding amused.

  “Yes. The Jagger Bombs. Their music is fantastic, and Sam suggested I take you. She said you’re a Rolling Stones fan?”

  “Who isn’t?” he replies.

  “Exactly!” I laugh. “So, the concert is tomorrow night at seven. Would you like to go with me?”

  “Umm, sure. Sophie, right?”

  I laugh. This is so weird.

  “You got it.”

  We agree on a meeting place and describe what we look like. I tell him that I’m about five-two, have light blond hair, and will be wearing a mint green dress. He describes himself as being tall, with dark, sandy blond hair, and will wear a white shirt and ball cap. And that’s that. I have officially arranged my own blind date.

  I turn off my phone, and notice Samira gaping at me.

  “I can’t believe he actually agreed to it,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Brett hates meeting new people, almost as much as you do. It’s so out of character for him. He must’ve liked the way you sounded over the phone,” she says.

  “Yeah, because I have such a sexy voice,” I say, making my voice husky.

  “I think you’ll like him, Sophie,” Samira says, while turning Mad Men back on.

  Ha. Fat chance.

  I’m so over men.

  Chapter 2

  It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll (but I Like It)

  It’s about a twenty-minute drive from Samira’s house to mine. We both live on the south side of Edmonton. She’s in a newer area, while I live in an older, (ahem) more mature area.

  I love my little house, an old bungalow that I bought last year.

  It used to have olive green shag carpet.