Bliss Read online

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  this book is dedicated to everyone and anyone out there trying to find their bliss. dream big and never give up … live the life you love.

  acknowledgments

  We want to thank the people closest to us in our lives; though we would love to list you all, we would need a whole chapter to do it! To our families: thank you for putting up with us and always having our backs. We love you.

  For the rest of our friends and family, you know who you are. Your unwavering support never goes unnoticed and we are thankful to have you all in our lives. A special thanks to everyone who helped us shape the book into what it has become: DD, SC, Mark, Bunny, and to our co-writer Val, thank you. Taking so many ideas and stories and pouring them onto pages while making sense of it all is not for the faint of heart and we thank you all so very much, for guiding us.

  This book is about finding our bliss. So it is only appropriate to send a huge thanks to everyone and anyone who has crossed our paths and made an impact big or small, positive or negative. Cutting us down taught us to build ourselves back up. Sharing a laugh in the middle of a storm taught us humility. And endless support when we needed it most taught us to trust and love. You have made us who we are and we thank each and every one of you. Impacting another person’s life usually goes untold or unnoticed and this is an acknowledgment to all of you: thank you.

  And as Shay’s dad always says: “The world is your oyster.”

  Hey fans, I know you want to read our book (thank you), but this novel deals with some mature topics, so if you’re under eighteen, talk to your parents first!

  prologue

  Let’s get lost.

  That was their goal for the night. Demi had just gotten her license, and they decided to drive around Vancouver in her dad’s Mercedes without a plan. Windows down, wind in their hair, music blasting: freedom. This was what it was all about. Getting lost in their own world in their own city. You can’t really know a city until you’re hopelessly lost in it.

  The almost-summer night was clear and full of stars, and just warm enough to keep the windows open. They all smoked then—it was the coolest thing to do, right?—and laughed at how they must have looked, cruising down the road, a big car with three arms straight out the windows.

  They headed downtown. They were too young to get into any of the cool bars and clubs, but were drawn to them anyway. The three friends gawked at the college kids and the beautiful people lined up outside. Seventeen was a frustrating age. They were so close to real life, but not quite there yet.

  Demi headed south, over the Lions Gate Bridge, through Stanley Park, and made a detour into English Bay, where local hipsters and tourists sat on logs on the beach to smoke weed or cigarettes. The girls sat on the rocks, listened to the waves, and smoked without worrying about the smell. In the distance, they could make out yacht lights and the sound of the newest dance track—Bob Sinclar’s “World, Hold On”—bouncing across the water.

  “Party cruises,” said Demi. “House music. Hot guys. Tons of booze. Three hours of fun.” Demi was the most petite of the three of them—she bristled when Sophia or Leandra called her cute—with bright hazel eyes, a tiny dot of a nose, petal pink lips, and soft chestnut hair that she usually wore in a pony. She looked sweet and innocent, until she opened her mouth.

  “We should go on one!” said Leandra, the self-acknowledged sexiest of the trio, with lusciously shaped long limbs; high, hard melon boobs; bouncy, aggressively blond waves (they all agreed she went too light this time); and upturned green cat eyes that made strong men weak and smart boys stupid.

  “Can we bring Jesse?” asked Sophia, gorgeous and exotic, mixed race (Irish and Filipona), tall, with nearly black thick hair, a killer smile, bottomless dark eyes, olive skin, and born-that-way grace. When she walked, or sat, or just stood there, people stared at her. Jesse was her boyfriend. Even on the rare night they weren’t together, he was always on her mind. Demi and Leandra, who were currently single, spent so much time together they were like a couple themselves.

  “If only we could just hop on one of those yachts and get out of here,” said Demi. They were all ready for high school to end, and real life to begin.

  “And go where?” asked Leandra. “What place on Earth could possibly be more exciting than Vancouver?”

  The girls all howled with laughter at that one.

  “Wherever we go, we’ll go together,” said Demi, throwing an arm around Leandra.

  “Travel is definitely on my list. And Jesse’s,” said Sophia. “But you guys know what my number-one priority is.” The others nodded. Sophia had wanted to be an actor since forever. Her parents were on the fence about her dream. They were in business, and thought acting was a major gamble. “But being successful and traveling go together,” she said. “When I’m a Bond girl, for instance, I’ll have to shoot in Tokyo, Milan, and Dubai.”

  “Exactly,” said Demi. “I’ll meet you in whatever city and be your ‘normal person’ friend. Every celeb needs one.”

  “I’ll retire in Tuscany. But during my Oscar and Emmy years, we’ll maintain a Hollywood base so I can drive my white Range Rover to lunch at Il Pastasio in Beverly Hills.” Sophia followed a lot of travel bloggers on Instagram. She knew the hot spots in LA. “You guys can come, I guess. But only if you don’t give me shit about my taking a thousand pictures. It’s not a choice. It’s a need.”

  “It’s your addiction,” said Demi.

  “It is,” said Sophia, whipping out her phone and started snapping.

  “Okay! Enough!”

  “One more!”

  They started laughing hysterically, and fell onto the sand. Sophia stood over Demi and Leandra, shooting away. “Stop!” Demi was laughing so hard, she didn’t making a sound.

  “I’m going to miss this when I move to New York,” said Leandra. “Or Washington, D.C. I’m torn. Do I want a Wall Street husband and live in a penthouse on Park Avenue, or should I marry a senator, and live in a town house on Dupont Circle? Decisions, decisions.”

  “That’s your dream? Marrying a douche bag who’ll dump you for a younger model in ten years, leaving you to raise the brats by yourself?” asked Demi, grinning.

  “A rich and powerful douche bag. And don’t worry. I’ll get a good settlement in the divorce.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  “What about you, Demi?” asked Sophia. “What’s the five-year plan?”

  “Are we doing a college interview now?”

  “Quit stalling.”

  “I definitely want to be successful, not sure how. While I figure out what I want to do, I’ll just hang out in Leandra’s town house, mooching off her rich husband.”

  “We’ll find you space, like in a closet somewhere.”

  “I can mooch off Sophia and Jesse, too, or be the hired caretaker of their villa in Tuscany.”

  Leandra smiled. “Glad we’ve got it all figured out.�
��

  The girls laughed on cue, but this whole conversation was making them a bit anxious. Longing for their lives to begin didn’t mean they weren’t scared shitless about it.

  “We can have whatever we want, you realize,” said Sophia. “All we have to do is stay positive and never give up.”

  Demi barked a laugh. “Right.”

  “No, it’s true,” said Leandra. “Don’t you read all those quote boxes on Insta?”

  “You mean, ‘Breathe it all in,’” she said sarcastically, and then took a deep inhale of her cigarette. “‘And love it all out’?” The smoke streamed out.

  Sophia said, “More like, ‘Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.’”

  “Who said that?” asked Demi. “The woman who wrote The Bullshit? I mean, The Secret?”

  “What’s the alternative? Blow off bliss, live a boring life, get old and bitter, living alone with eight cats?”

  “So the choice is ‘follow your bliss,’ or ‘die alone, with cat drool on your chin,’” said Demi.

  “Yes,” said Sophia. “So why not go for it?”

  Why not?

  They decided “Why not?” would be their mantra for life. “Let’s make a pact,” said Leandra. “We promise to keep each other on track, follow our bliss, and love, honor, and cherish our friendship, from this day forward.”

  “Is this a pact, or a vow?” asked Sophia.

  “Both.”

  “To bliss,” said Demi. “And making out with men, getting drunk, and having the time of our lives.”

  Four Years Later …

  1

  that’s one way to beat meat

  As soon as she got home, Demi noticed James’s suitcase by the door. He wasn’t supposed to get back from his bank conference in New York until later that night. She reached for her phone to check for a text and panicked to find the phone missing. Then she remembered she left it at the office. (Typical. She misplaced it every hour.) James probably caught an earlier flight to surprise her. The irony was, she came home early from work to surprise him with a special dinner to celebrate their three-year anniversary. It had been two days ago. James never remembered stuff like that, but she didn’t care. Sophia always said it mattered, that the thought counted, that James took her for granted, and that Demi turned a blind eye to it. Demi’s attitude was more casual. Why find faults if everything was fine?

  “James?” she called out. No response. He must have dropped off his suitcase and gone right back out, probably to his office. He busted his ass at work.

  Demi brought the grocery bags into the kitchen and unloaded the ingredients for a decadent osso buco with a mushroom risotto. She’d never made it before. What if she fucked up and it tasted like garbage on a warm day? “Shut up, it’s going to be fine!” she told herself.

  Braising the veal would take a few hours, so she hoped he would stay out for a while. She smiled at the thought of him coming through the door, saying “Something smells good!” and rushing into the kitchen to gather her up in his arms, lick the cute smudge of flour off her nose, and then kiss her like he’d been gone a year. The reunions made his trips bearable.

  Demi loaded the veggies into the nearly empty fridge. She didn’t cook for herself when James was away. Her joy of cooking was in watching people savor her food, especially James. When he took the first bite, he usually gave her over-the-top praise—“Oh, my god, this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten!” She tried to outdo herself each meal, and had become a pretty good cook in the last few years. They still went out to restaurants. Yaletown, their neighborhood, was the epicenter of Vancouver’s foodie culture. But James preferred her home cooking to trendy gastronomy or fusion artisanal whatever. Plus, when they went out, he ran into a hundred people, and they would end up staying out all night.

  “You could do this for a living,” he said once while savoring her baked spring salmon. “I love you for your cooking and taking care of me.”

  “I thought you loved me for my woo-woo,” she joked, pointing at her crotch.

  “That, too. Why do you think I stick around?”

  Demi told the story to Sophia in Toronto via Skype. “Aww, he loves you for your vag,” said Sophia. “That’s so sweet.” It wasn’t a compliment. Like most of Demi’s friends, Sophia wasn’t on Team James. A couple of years ago when she came back to Vancouver for the holidays, the three of them went out on New Year’s Eve. There was a misunderstanding. James thought he was touching Demi’s leg under the table and accidentally groped Sophia’s. They were all hammered and it was an honest, harmless mistake on his part. Sophia got it wrong about his intentions.

  Demi shook that memory away to focus on the task at hand. She put the bundle from the butcher on the counter and unfolded the waxed brown paper to inspect the two round, red veal shanks with rings of marrow-packed thighbone at the center. Each piece cost $99. James had money, so Demi didn’t worry about splurging on this kind of thing. He paid for everything else, and indulged her on weekend trips, clothes, bags. If she wanted a big-ticket item—shoes or a piece of jewelry—she’d clip a photo of it on the fridge. When he got drunk, he’d buy it for her. Some of her friends made fun of her for catering to him, like some throwback Stepford wife, but they didn’t get it. James lived to please her. If her friends were inside the relationship instead of mocking it from the outside, they’d know. She remembered how she used to judge Leandra for wanting exactly the life she’d ended up creating for herself (one exception: James was not a douche bag). If she and Leandra were still friends, they’d laugh about it.

  First step in the recipe: dredging the veal. The flour canister was in the cabinet above the counter that separated the kitchen and the living room. As she reached for it, she noticed movement in the other room.

  James appeared, like a ghost. His back to her, he stood in front of the rolling bar caddy by the TV. Demi opened her mouth to say something, but then ducked out of view, her body pancaked against the fridge so he wouldn’t see her. He must have come out of the bedroom and gone straight to the bar. She peeked again.

  He was bare-assed naked.

  * * *

  She watched him pour a scotch. He drank it straight down, refilled his glass, swayed, bumped into the TV, and then stumbled down the hall toward the bedroom. No wonder he hadn’t heard her come in. He was wasted, and probably half conscious. It was three P.M. She knew his habits all too well. He self-medicated a lot. It was starting to be a problem between them. His drinking was her parents’ (both sets) number two complaint about James, second only to their twelve-year age difference (he was thirty-three; Demi was twenty-one). The two times Demi brought James to dinner, her dad’s killer glare would haven driven anyone to drink.

  So what to do? Cook dinner while he slept it off? Or … Demi grinned. No, she’d lull him out of an inebriated half dream with a proper homecoming. Quietly, she undressed. It was a warm June in Vancouver, so she wasn’t wearing much and stripping took seconds. Off with her clothes! Starting with her brand-new studded Valentino flats, followed by her Vince jersey tank dress and BCBG loose shawl/jacket thing. Demi liked to dress casual and cool—nothing too fussy. Her hair, blown shiny and straight, tickled her bare back. She left on the bra and panties. They were brand new, a matched silken set, green to match her eyes. The bra jacked her boobs up to her collarbone. They were among her favorite body parts, and she wasn’t afraid to show them off. The undies were booty shorts with lace trim. Cute, but she could do better. She’d tape some lingerie photos to the fridge. Demi had buffed, waxed, and polished for tonight. Every inch of her skin was smooth and hairless. She’d been to see the waxing lady, a Russian who called her vag “cookie.” Demi once sent a photo of a Brazilian in progress to Sophia, with the caption: “Endangered beaver.” She and Sophia always sent crazy photos back and forth. It was their thing.

  Heart pounding with excitement, Demi kicked aside her puddle of clothes, padded out of the kitchen and down the carpeted hal
lway to the bedroom. A glimpse inside confirmed that James was in bed, the sheet covering his lower half, the sheet pitched like a tent. He was perpetually hard. Demi couldn’t suppress a giggle. James’s muscular chest was exposed in all its glory. She could see one of the tattoos from his hockey days in university. Hockey players were her weakness.

  “What’re you doing?” James slurred. “Get your ass in here.”

  Busted. He heard her. She could still make a dramatic entrance, though. Flinging the bedroom door open, she stepped into the room and said, “Welcome home!”

  James’s jaw hit the floor just as she hoped it would, but his eyes went wonky. He looked kind of horrified—or just massively fucked up?

  Movement drew her eye toward the bathroom door. A person was coming out of there? Who the fuck could that be? Then, to her astonishment, a girl appeared on the threshold.

  “It’s not what you think,” said James.

  “Oh, shit,” said the girl.

  Demi looked from James to the girl, then back again. His head rolled to one side, too wasted to work up an appropriate shame face. The girl just stood there like this happened every day, which made Demi’s blood turn to ice. The girl was like a teenage version of Demi, but with longer legs and bigger tits. Her bra was black, a tacky mesh lace with rhinestone hearts around the nipples. The panties were black, too, with a rhinestone arrow over the crotch and the word “FLIRT!” in script.

  “I’m not really into threesomes,” said the girl.

  Demi would have said the same, except she was incapable of speech.

  “You’re the girlfriend? James told me about you on the plane.” She had a Slavic accent. “I am Svetland. Nice to meet you.”

  “You met on the flight?” croaked Demi.

  In her head, Demi was screaming and beating the living shit out of James, but her body and mouth didn’t move. What happened here? He got on a plane and grabbed some tacky model to bring back to their apartment while she was at work? This cheesy fembot was supposed to be an afternoon quickie for him that she would never know about?