He blushed. “It’s a calendar I’m working on for the football team fundraiser.”
“And who is that?” He was hot, to be sure.
“Fain.”
“That’s his first name?”
“James Dean Fain.”
“Oh Christ, even his name is hot.” I looked back and forth from Ryan to the picture. “You like him?”
“Like is kind of a tame word. Obsessed is more like. If he’d just let me see his damn tattoo…”
“You couldn’t just, you know, ask to see it?”
Ryan raised a brow. “His standard response to anything is ‘fuck you’ so I rather imagine that’s what he’d say if I asked to see it. And it’s on his back. It’s like a phoenix wrapping its wings around some kind of brand. I just need to see it.”
“Well, if you get any pictures, let me know.”
“You’re really easy to talk to, Claire.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I laughed and tried not to feel a hollow echo because that’s exactly what Kieran had said to me the day we met.
“Ryan Wells. Who knew?” A petite girl leaned on his shoulder and he snapped the tablet cover closed.
“Who knew what?”
“That you’re a chubby chaser. I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t go out with me, but now I know.” She looked up at me. “No offense. You’re BBW hot all the way.”
I arched a brow. “Yeah, none taken.”
I was surprised that I meant it. I didn’t care what she thought of me and I was chubby. Why should the truth be an insult?
“No, Bex. It’s not because I’m a ‘chubby chaser’, it’s because you’re a bitch.”
She took his barb in stride. “Hmm. I guess there is that.” She grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the table. “I’m Rebecca, by the way. Only this tool calls me Bex.”
“I kind of like it.” I shrugged. “It fits you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t tell if that’s an insult or not.”
“No offense,” I added with a smirk.
Bex grinned. “Fair enough. I like you. What’s your name?”
Ryan interrupted. “This is Claire Howard.”
“Oh! The Chubbalicious girl.” She turned toward me. “You need to put that on a shirt. Pink, black lettering.”
“Chubbalicious girl?”
She nodded, serious. “I’d wear it.”
“But you’re not…”
“So?” She grabbed my hand like we were fast friends. “You have to tell me where you got the guys.”
“What guys?”
“In the shoot. I saw a couple pictures.”
Jealousy surged, but I tamped it down with ruthless precision. I’d decided not to feel that anymore, so I just wasn’t going to. I was done. “Actually, they all work at The Rooster.”
“The strip club?” Her voice pitched higher.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So, which one of them are you fucking?” She didn’t even bother to try and keep her voice down. I liked how brassy and forward she was. She seemed to mock everyone equally.
“None.”
She lifted a brow in a universally recognized motion of calling bullshit.
“Now. None now.” I grinned.
“What happened?” Ryan asked. “The big guy?”
I felt on display, but they didn’t seem to be asking because there was any malice.
“Come on, I told you my dark secret,” Ryan prodded.
“Wait, you have secrets? Why am I just now hearing this?” Bex demanded.
“That’s why they’re secrets, blondie.”
“Fine.” She wrinkled her nose. “So, what happened? The tall one looks like a cheater. Is that what happened?”
“Kind of. He was my roommate and—” I proceeded to spill the whole sordid tale. I only kind of knew Ryan, and I’d just met Bex. It was crazy that I was spilling my guts so readily, but it was cathartic. It was like vomiting with the flu. You knew it was going to suck, it tasted bad coming up, maybe even burned, but after it was out, you felt better.
Bex’s eyes kept getting wider. She choked on her coffee when I got to the part where I’d slept with Brant and Kieran at the same time.
“You’re my hero.” She nodded.
I laughed. “Yeah, not so much.”
“No, really. Do you not realize what you’ve done?”
“Screwed up my life?”
“You’re living in the fire, not watching it burn to nothing.”
“Bex here is afraid she’s going to miss something, so she does everything. And everyone.”
“Shut up.” She sniffed.
“Do you deny it?” he asked.
“I wasn’t trying to deny it. I just told you to shut up.”
From the look on her face, I suddenly felt like I needed to tuck her under my wing like a mama bird. “Hey, nothing wrong with taking what you want.”
“Thanks for saying so. I’ve been called a slut more than once.”
“Of course you have. You’re a woman who is comfortable in her own sexuality. That necessarily means you must be labeled, categorized, and filed away for everyone’s safety.”
That felt profound to me. I’d been guilty of it too, of doing it to myself, my friends—I thought of Brant. I’d thought somehow he couldn’t possibly make me happy because he was shorter than me.
But really, happiness? That was my choice. Being with him felt good. I hadn’t really given him a chance, I’d just kept pining for Kieran.
I’d even labeled myself fat.
Chubbalicious. That was a label too, literally and figuratively, and I needed to make it a good one.
“You look like someone just turned on a light you didn’t know was off,” Bex said.
“Something like that.”
“So, show me what you have of this website so far.”
“No peeking.” I wasn’t quite that enlightened. All I had were a couple pictures, I wasn’t ready for the layout and I sure as hell wasn’t going to use those pics of me.
“Come on, I’m dying to see what you do with them,” Ryan nudged.
“I’ll let you both see a mock up. When it’s ready. And not before.”
Bex crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. So back to earlier discussion, what are you going to do about your living situation? Are you really going to sell the house?”
I was terrified to sell the house, so that was probably the right thing to do. I couldn’t keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting the outcome to be different.
“Yes, I think I am.”
“I could use a roommate,” Bex said. “It’s kind of lonely.”
“Says you with your penthouse view.” Ryan rolled his eyes.
“I don’t think I can afford penthouse rent.”
Bex shrugged. “I’d really just like the company. Daddy’s dime.”
I didn’t know her. This was crazy. Absolutely crazy. But I wouldn’t have to deal with Kieran while he tried to find somewhere new to live, I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing April or whoever else he wanted to bring home in the interim.
It would be a clean break.
“When can I come see it?”
“Now? Come on, Ryan. Drive us,” Bex ordered.
“Bossy much?” He put his things away.
“Oh, you like it. If I wasn’t here to give you a healthy dose of crap, who would?”
“Why would you think dosing fecal matter is healthy?” Ryan curled his lip.
“This is why we don’t date.” She rolled her eyes.
“I thought it was because I never said yes?”
“Whatever.” She waved her hand and I followed her outside to Ryan’s car.
My stomach twisted up in knots. Was I really going to do this? I hadn’t committed to anything. I could still say no.
But I knew I was going to say yes with that certain surety that you have when you see a cop and know he’s going to give you a ticket. You see it coming, but it’s too
late to put on the brakes.
Although, I guess that’s not the best analogy because I don’t want to put on the brakes. I want to have an adventure. I want to have a new me. A me who is finally comfortable in her skin.
I’d held on to that house with both hands because I wasn’t really holding on to the house, I was holding on to my mother. It was time to let all of that go. How could I have any adventures, how could I see a new path for my life if I was anchored there?
It was kismet that just as I’d decided I wanted to do this that an opportunity presented itself. There would always be reasons why I shouldn’t do something, so I was going to jump.
Unless of course the whole penthouse thing was a joke and she really lived in a crack alley.
As it turned out, she lived down on the Plaza, and it was indeed a penthouse. While I was looking around the interior, I couldn’t believe my good luck.
“Are you kidding me? You’d just… let me live here?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Why not?”
“I…yes.” I nodded. “Yes.”
“Yeah? Great! When do you want to move in?”
“Uh, two weeks?” I could give Kieran a month to find somewhere else to live. And if I was honest with myself, which I’d try to do more of lately, it would be so much easier for my heart to forget him if I didn’t have to see him every day. Or reminders of him.
I guess it was a little scorched earth, but why not? I’d always held so tightly to everything before. I could just let go and it would be so much better for all of us.
My phone buzzed in my bag. It was a text from Rosa: WTF?
Yeah, I guess that about summed it up. I guess April was trying to play the friend break up game I’d already said I wasn’t doing. I didn’t know what to say.
As I was staring at it, she texted again: Stop staring at your phone and call me.
I laughed. “Can you give me a sec? I need to take this.”
“Sure,” Bex said.
I wandered back to the bedroom with the glorious view that was going to be mine. Then I dialed. “Hey.”
“So, what the actual fuck is going on? Kieran is moving in with Gavin of all the fucking people. Really? That’s just… I can’t…April isn’t talking to Gavin or Kieran. Or me.”
“I didn’t want it to be like this.”
“What did she do?”
“Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was me.”
“Whatever. Of course it was her.”
“She slept with Kieran.”
“I thought that was a been there, done that, got the t-shirt kind of thing?”
“Yeah. Well, we’d decided to—” What had we decided? “Things took a different turn between Kieran and I.”
“A wrong turn?”
“Definitely a wrong turn.”
“At least tell me the sex was good.”
“It was very good.”
“Better than Brant?”
The question startled me, slapped me in the face like a bucket of ice. “Actually, no.”
“Now that is news. How did Brant take it?”
“Well, we decided to be friends. Kieran, on the other hand, says he can’t be just friends with me and I told him to move out.”
“He’s a fucking asshole and so is April. She just wanted what you had. It didn’t have anything to do with wanting anything from Kieran. She was just jealous.”
“Isn’t she your friend?”
Rosa snorted. “No, she’s one of those women who just becomes part of the group, but you’re really okay without her. She never had anything nice to say. She was fun to drink with and when I’m feeling mean-girl, she’s a good time. But if push came to shove, I wouldn’t trust her. Now I see that I’m right not to.”
I swallowed and decided to bite the bullet and tell her what I’d decided about the house. “I’m selling the house.”
“Good.”
“Really?”
“What, did you expect me to tell you not to? No way. You’ll have more money to live on while Chubbalicious takes off. And it will take off, I know it will.”
I could fucking cry. I couldn’t believe I’d been so willing to let this relationship go just to get away from April. Rosa believed in me. More importantly, she embodied everything I wanted for Chubbalicious. She believed in herself.
“I think I love you.”
“Bitch, you better.” She laughed.
“So what’s happening with you and Gavin?”
“Nothing. He was a good time, but I don’t want to date him. I think he and April would actually be very good together.”
“Was he a dick?”
“Not exactly. He’s ready to be forty.”
“What does that mean?” I snorted.
“He wants the yard, the dog, the fucking Volvo and he wants it now. I’m twenty-two. I want to backpack across Europe, I want to take classes just to take them. I want to quit my job just because I fucking can and not worry about my 401K or what kind of roses to send to the bosses wife. I want to write a book, I want to do everything.”
“That makes sense. There are some things more important than money.”
“So if you sell the house, are you moving to crack central or Volvo land?” she asked.
“Beamer land, actually. Ryan’s friend is looking for a roommate and the rent is unbeatable.” Couldn’t go wrong with free.
“Look at you, getting all fancy.”
I looked out onto the carefully planned “outside living area” and I realized I could watch the stars by the pool, swim in the glow of the downtown lights.
“You can come be fancy with me. I’m moving in two weeks.”
“Does Kieran know you’re selling the house?”
“No, and I don’t want to tell him either.”
“Okay. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”
“How’s Hollie?”
“April is so pissed at her too. She’s been spending all of her time with Austin.”
“Good for her. He’s really nice.” I was happy for her.
“I’ll catch her up on everything when she falls back to earth. I think they’ve decided to move in together too.”
“That’s fast.” I hadn’t expected that. Especially not with Austin’s daughter.
“Insta-family.” I could hear the shrug in Rosa’s voice. “But they’re stupid for each other, so I’m not going to poo-poo it.”
I laughed. “I love how you can say fuck and still legitimately use the term ‘poo-poo’ in a sentence.”
“That’s just how I roll.”
“I’m at the new digs right now, so I should probably go. They’re waiting on me. You’re going to like my new roomie, I think.”
“I bring you a housewarming pressie.”
“Dinner party by the pool.”
“That’s all you had to say.”
“Thanks, Rosa.”
“Anytime. Catch you soon.”
I hung up and looked around my new kingdom, feeling like maybe I’d finally taken a right turn.
16
When I got home, Kieran was gone.
It was as if he’d never been there—at least as far as physical traces of him. He didn’t leave anything in his bathroom, no stray cake of soap, no towel hanging over the shower. His room was empty and barren. The bed he’d slept on was there, but it had been there when he moved in. There were no sheets, just the bare mattress perched on the rails.
Even the kitchen… his coffee cup was gone.
Seeing only one cup turned upside down next to the coffee maker, that was what did it. That was what drove it home.
It started as a tickle in my nose, like a bug squirming up toward my brain. My eyes watered, but I couldn’t breathe. It was like I was drowning in this wave of loss. I curled up on the bare mattress and bawled.
I’d never sleep in this bed with him again, I’d never curl up against him on the couch to binge watch some series, but even as I sobbed, I realized we’d probably never do those
things again together anyway. The us that did those things was dead and gone.
I splayed my hand over the mattress. He’d slept here, but I thought of all the other women who’d been on this bed before me. I wasn’t special. If he’d been notching his bedpost to count his numbers, this thing would have been on toothpicks they’d have been whittled down so far.
What the hell did it even matter?
I was disgusted with myself for feeling all this pain. I mourned him like he was dead. He would still be here if I wanted him to be, and I didn’t.
I decided to give myself another hour. An hour to lay here, an hour to miss him, an hour to mourn all that could have been. Then I was done with it. I managed a few shaky breaths and set the alarm on my phone.
No more tears fell, but I let myself miss him. I remembered how his arms felt around me, the way he smelled, the way he touched me, and then it went sour again. So I turned my thoughts to what it was like before we’d become more to each other. It occurred to me again that all of his cock of the walk attitude was just posturing, just like me. That made me hurt for him. If I could’ve taken that away from him, I would have. If I’d seen it sooner, I’d have known that our demons were too similar to ever play together nicely.
As I lay there, I found myself missing Brant, too. I wanted to call him and tell him about my decision to sell the house. I wanted to talk to him about Chubbalicious. I wanted to talk to him about the quality of life of flea larvae in Guam—I just wanted to hear his voice.
My fingers closed around my phone, and he’d indicated I could call him, but if he really was ready to talk to me, wouldn’t he have sent a text, called, smoke signals, something?
I thought about how hard he’d pursued me, and how I’d rushed into sex with him too. If I hadn’t slept with either of them, I wondered where I’d be. Certainly not where I was, and I’d have never known what it was like to have two insanely hot men who wanted me. If I hadn’t experienced proof of it with all of my senses for myself, I never would have believed it.
When the alarm went off, I swiped to turn it off with a shaking finger. I knew that it wouldn’t be so easy to turn off missing either of them, and I didn’t suppose I had to. I wasn’t in charge of that, but I’d allowed myself the grief. At least for Kieran, so I dried my eyes and grabbed my laptop again.
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 71