Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  The seat on the other side of me was suddenly occupied.

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Brant smiled. “You want another drink?”

  “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

  April leaned around my shoulder. “She’s here with Gavin.”

  Brant snorted. “That guy? Not a chance.”

  I couldn’t help the grin that bloomed on my face. “He said I was pretty for a fat girl.”

  “He what?” April’s face darkened to a thundercloud.

  “It’s not a big deal. I told him he was hot for a douchebag. We’re all good.” Except there was still this strange hollow feeling in my chest.

  “With a stage name like Adonis? He’s got douchebag written all over him.” Brant smiled at me. It was a nice smile. “I’ll put Icy Hot on his G-string.”

  Laughing, I said, “No. There’s no need for that. Frankly, when Kieran told him he had to dance if he wanted to come with us, I thought that was punishment enough.”

  “Are you here with him?” Brant asked quietly.

  “No.”

  “So maybe you’ll leave with me? We’ll grab breakfast.”

  I remembered my promise to Kieran and maybe he was right. Brant had never told me I was pretty for a fat girl. He told me I was gorgeous—without any caveats—all the time. He’d asked me out a dozen times, I’d always said no, but he always kept asking.

  “Okay.” I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

  “Great. I’ll see you after the show.” He brushed a kiss against my cheek. That wasn’t any unusual behavior, they all kissed my cheek. And April’s, and Hollie’s, and Rosa’s and…

  “What was that?” April asked when he’d gone.

  The lights came down and a waiter brought us more drinks, and presented April with a birthday tiara which she allowed him to affix on her head.

  “I promised Kieran I’d give Brant a chance.”

  “Well, look at you. I guess you do find the good ones on your own. I still can’t believe Gavin said that to you. I swear, he’s never been that kind of douche in all the years I’ve known him.”

  “He tried to make it up to me. I mean, he’s here. Don’t hold it against him.” I remembered my earlier conversation with Kieran again. “He can’t help who he’s attracted to or not. No one can.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like you’re one of those girls. You know who I mean. The kind who doesn’t take care of themselves. You’re pretty, smart, witty, kind… and your boobs… girl, I kind of hate you for them.”

  I’d always thought that was my one saving grace. My giant breasts. I was lucky because even if I somehow managed to lose the weight, I’d still have boobs. It wasn’t like they were just another roll I’d stuffed into a bra. They were shapely, bouncy, and I had magnificent cleavage.

  As to losing the weight, I’d tried. I still tried. I did yoga, cardio, and weight training. I watched what I ate, counted calories… But having endocrine and autoimmune issues, I’d just kind of given up that my body would ever look the way I wanted.

  At least I had my breasts. And if a woman who looked like April was jealous of them, well, that was saying something. She was traditionally beautiful. If I had to describe her using an actress, I’d say Kate Beckinsale. Who can compete with that? The bitch of it was, she was nice too. April was the whole package.

  I tried to remind myself that I was the whole package too. I really hated feeling this way. I needed to go home and reread some Militant Baker blog posts. My favorite one was about the things no one tells fat girls. It always made me feel better after reading it. It had become a kind of mantra.

  “Are you doing that thing in your head again?” April asked me.

  “No.” I turned to look at her. “Yes.” She knew me too well. It was why she was one of my best friends.

  “Stop it.”

  “I know.” I shrugged. “Consider me done with it. I’m fabulous. You’re fabulous. It’s your birthday and you have a date with Finn McCool.”

  “I do, don’t I?” April exhaled heavily. “Am I crazy?”

  “No.” Actually, I admired her. She saw something she wanted and she reached out and took it. I wished I was that kind of woman. “You’re a total badass.”

  “But I’m really not sure how I’ll ever look Gavin in the face again. This is either going to be really awful or really good.”

  “Just think of it as blackmail material.”

  “Who are we blackmailing?” Hollie piped up as she scooted closer to us.

  “Gavin Woodlawn,” April answered.

  “Oh, really? I’d love to get a bite of him.”

  “He’s here for Claire,” April said.

  “Well, who isn’t? Claire gets everyone.”

  I turned my head sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “You live with Kieran, Brant wants to go out with you and now Gavin is here just to hang out with you. You need to share some of that booty with the rest of us.”

  “You want half?” I sat straight up in my seat and nodded to my backside.

  “I’ve got plenty of that booty myself. You know I meant your harem of beefcake.”

  “Brant just asked me on one date, Gavin is here to make up for something crappy he said, and Kieran and I are just friends.”

  “Please,” Hollie said, holding up her hand. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t thought about just stumbling into the shower while Kieran’s in there. Oops, sorry, I didn’t know you were in here and oh look, we’re both naked.” Then she pantomimed thrusting with her hips.

  “It looks like there’s more of a show down here at table three than anything on stage. How about it, pretty lady? Want to try your hand or your hips on stage tonight?” the MC said and shined a light on our table.

  Hollie wasn’t about to be outdone. “Hell yeah. I owe this birthday girl a lap dance!” She motioned to April and shimmied to rub her boobs against the back of her head.

  “I think that’s something we’d all like to see. But for now, how about all the hens get ready to watch the cocks strut the yard?”

  A cheer went up and the spotlight was back on the stage as the curtain slowly revealed our entertainment for the evening.

  I tried not to look at Kieran. He wasn’t Kieran now, he was Finn McCool. He wasn’t my friend, my roommate, he was a fantasy come to life. That’s what they all were. Which should have made it okay for me to eye fuck him, but it was a trespass.

  And twisted bitch that I was, that made me want to look at him even more. That’s why he put himself on the stage, so it was okay to indulge, right?

  When he winked at me, I realized I wasn’t so different from any of the women here. In fact, I was screwed and not in a good way.

  I wanted Kieran Holt.

  2

  I waited a reasonable amount of time before fleeing upstairs to the roof where the dancers took their breaks. I’d been at the club so often, it was almost like I worked there too. So no one said anything to me when I took the employee stairs.

  The night was warm with a bit of a breeze. I wrapped my arms around myself as I sat on the picnic table and looked out over the city. I’d always loved this view. The bright city lights, the sounds, it was only the pretty things. The bright things. I didn’t have to examine anything too closely, I could just experience it.

  In fact, the top of The Rooster was one of my favorite places.

  I inhaled deeply and tried to avoid thinking about what made me run here to start with.

  Except now that I’d acknowledged it, I couldn’t think about anything but how much I wanted Kieran.

  It was a physical ache.

  How pathetic was that?

  He was sleeping with one of my best friends as a birthday gift. A guy who thought about physicality in those terms certainly wasn’t the guy for me. Only my heart didn’t want to listen.

  The treacherous bitch.

  Everything clicked into place. Kieran was why I hadn’t dated anyone in a year. It was both cathartic and painful to realize the truth of
it.

  I guessed GI Joe was right, knowing really was half the battle. I needed to get him out of my head. It was okay to be his friend, it was okay to think he was handsome or even hot, it was quite another to want to be with him.

  One guy said something crappy to me tonight and it wound me up for hours, what would it be like dating Kieran? They’d all wonder if I was his sugar mama, if I was paying his bills, or what exactly I had over him that might explain why a guy like him would ever date a woman like me.

  A fat woman.

  I closed my eyes. Shit. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I thought I was done with that. I was confident. I was beautiful. I was powerful.

  I repeated these things over and over to myself until I believed them. Or so I thought.

  The woman I wanted to be, if she decided she wanted to be with Kieran, she’d make that happen. But instead, the woman I was just wanted to cauterize it. Cut it out like a cancer.

  Part of me wanted to go back downstairs and swill vodka until I didn’t feel this way anymore. When my face started to go numb, so would my feelings, and most importantly, my insecurities.

  I liked to drown them. They had it coming. My liver would get over it.

  I inhaled and looked back out over the city.

  “Hey, you’re missing Gavin’s set,” Rosa said from the door.

  “Yeah, I’m okay with that.”

  She sat down next to me. “You know, I don’t think he meant it how it sounded.”

  I shrugged. “That’s over and done with. I really don’t care about what he said or how he meant it. Really, I’m fine.” It hurt, to be sure, but I had bigger things to worry about.

  “Then why are you up here by yourself?”

  “Just thinking about a new design for Chubbalicious.” I used that to hide many sins. Whenever I was distracted, or just didn’t want to deal with things, I could plead Chubbalicious.

  “You have to stop working sometime.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can do something that’s fun?”

  “Work is fun.”

  “You don’t have to deal with people at work. You just have to tweak modules and play with the designs.” Rosa admonished.

  “So, you see why I feel like a puppy at a preschool? I’m definitely overstimulated.”

  Rosa smirked. “Overstimulated? At a strip club? Isn’t that the point?”

  I found myself smiling. “I’ll be back down in a little bit.”

  “Promise? Because if you spend the whole night up here, April is going to be pissed.”

  “She wouldn’t notice. She’s got her Finn McCool thing going on.” I waved her off. “But I promise, I’ll be down soon.”

  “Don’t make me come back up here and drag you down. If you do, I’m bringing reinforcements.” Rosa went back through the door.

  I leaned flat on the picnic table and looked up at the sky. That was something about the city that I didn’t like so well. I couldn’t see as many of the stars. It was important to me to see them, to feel wonder when I looked up at the sky. For some reason, it helped me breathe. It made me feel small and insignificant, but kind of magical at the same time.

  “Don’t you just look like a midnight picnic,” Brant said from the door.

  I sat up and smoothed my hands down the bodice and skirt of the dress. “I thought you were getting ready to go on.”

  “I’ve got more important business.”

  My smile came easy. “Really? Like what?”

  “Like you.” He was serious. “I’ve been asking you out forever and now that you finally said yes, I don’t want you to change your mind.”

  “It’s a little early for breakfast then, isn’t it?” The club didn’t close until two and he wouldn’t get out of there until three, so late night truck stop breakfast was one of the only things to do.

  “We can do whatever you want. Dinner. Late movie.”

  Whatever I wanted? My mind blanked. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out with someone, I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do.”

  He shrugged. “Supposed to?” Brant made a face. “Fuck that. How about whatever we want to do?”

  Suddenly, there wasn’t so much pressure to be any certain thing. To do any certain thing. It was just spending time together. That was something that logically I knew, but my social anxiety tried to convince me otherwise.

  I grabbed my phone and texted the girls. Leaving with Brant. Catch you later. Xo

  April wouldn’t care, but she’d want juicy details tomorrow morning. When she could walk. Hell, she’d probably be in my kitchen doing unspeakable things to my Keurig by the time I got up anyway.

  After doing depraved things to my roommate. Damn it, I didn’t want to think about that.

  “So what do you want to do?” I asked.

  “There’s a late evening river cruise.” He checked his watch. “We might just make it. Or we can do the carriage ride on the Plaza.”

  Those were much better options than the standard dinner and a movie gig. “The river cruise sounds fun. Are you sure you want to give up a Saturday night, though?” I knew the weekend was when they made the most money.

  “I can afford a night off. My car’s in the lot.”

  We took a seldom used exit to make our escape. He took my hand to help me down the stairs. His fingers were warm and strong curled around mine. Our hands were about the same size.

  He was shorter than me by four inches, but he wasn’t exactly small. He wasn’t waif-like or slight. He had nice shoulders and guns just like all the guys that worked at The Rooster.

  “Watch that last stair.” He still held my hand and made sure I didn’t trip. And all things being equal, I would have.

  “Thanks.”

  We went out to his car, a classic ‘67 Shelby Mustang. Red. “I’m going to have to take over the parking lot of The Rooster when I do my fashion shoots for Chubbalicious. I want girls on all of these cars wearing my designs.” I was only half teasing. That would make for an awesome spread.

  “I’m game.”

  Inspiration struck. “Dude. I want you and Kieran and maybe a few other guys in the shoot, too.”

  “But you’re not selling men’s clothes.”

  “No, but I’m selling an idea. An idea that women can be sexy no matter their size. And who better to show that than you guys all posed with my models?”

  “Are you going to be in the shoot?”

  “Certainly not. I’m the designer. Not the model.”

  “I’ll pose with you.”

  I laughed. That was crazy. I couldn’t put myself in the campaign. Could I? More importantly, did I want to? I hated pictures of myself more than a double-barreled yeast infection. Even before I’d gotten fat, I hated pictures of me. That’s not to say I didn’t think I was pretty. I was. But I wasn’t photogenic.

  “How about one for you with me, and then you pose with Rosa for the site?”

  “I guess I can work with that.” He grinned. “So are all of your friends posing? April isn’t exactly…”

  I waited to see what word he was going to use.

  “…Chubbalicious.”

  That was about as tactful as he could be. “No, she’s not. She might model some of the shoes because she really wants to be involved.”

  “You can’t say that doesn’t feel good.” He pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the river.

  “What?”

  “Having something that’s just for you. Something that her physicality keeps her from doing.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. I’d admit, it made me happy in a way to be able to say that she was too thin for my line. If she’d put out a clothing line, I’d never even ask to model for her. But even that made me feel shitty.

  “It’s the same for me and Kieran,” Brant confided before I could reply. “He and I have been friends for a long time. Did you know I bench as much as he does, but when he picks up a woman during his act none of them ever wonder if he’s goin
g to be able to hold them up.”

  “And they do with you?”

  He flashed me a look that said I should know better. “You wouldn’t let me pick you up.”

  “I wouldn’t let Kieran pick me up either.”

  “Bullshit. I seem to recall Rosa’s birthday when you got hammered and Kieran carried you to the car.”

  “And he bitched about his back the whole way.”

  “Only because he didn’t want you to struggle and hurt yourself.”

  I pursed my lips. “He could have just said that.”

  “No, he couldn’t have. You were determined to dance that night and you flung yourself off the pole and if he hadn’t caught you…” He shrugged.

  “What? I don’t remember that.” I would never get that drunk.

  “Of course you don’t. You were toasted.” He grinned. “It was a good show, though. You can work that pole.”

  Heat suffused my face. “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not.”

  “From a stripper? Definitely a compliment. Didn’t you wonder why you had all those dollar bills in your bra?”

  “I didn’t have any dollar bills.”

  Brant laughed. “I bet Kieran kept them. That asshole.”

  That meant Kieran had been foraging around in my bra like a squirrel. He’d had his hands on my breasts.

  Oh Jesus, I couldn’t think about that right now. I shouldn’t think about that. I was out with Brant. Brant who was nice, Brant who thought I was beautiful. Brant who didn’t fucking live in my house.

  Change the subject, but don’t be too obvious. “Is Brant your stage name?”

  “No. I’m really just Brant Bowman.”

  “That sounds like a superhero name.”

  “Right? I didn’t see the need to take a stage name.” He snorted. “Adonis. Jesus. That guy.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t see his bit. Especially since he was just there trying to get my digits after being a colossal ass.”

  He slowed the Mustang to a stop in an almost empty lot. “Looks like this is going to be an interesting ride.”

  Brant paid for our fare and we boarded the boat. I only saw one other couple board after us and soon we cruised the river at a leisurely pace.