Glitter on the Web

by Ginger Voight

  Everyone was still trying to piece together our relationship, which sprang up out of nowhere like a weed in the sidewalk. We remained a top news story, particularly since I was the first big girl that the Big Girl-loving crooner had ever actually dated. Their curiosity was insatiable.

  “If we can use it to our advantage, I say let them follow. Throw them bones here and there. Nugget by nugget, they’ll keep us in the news, which keeps me on the charts.”

  I thought about the day I had planned for us. I hated to bring the press into it, but he was right. I could definitely use it to my advantage, and that had nothing whatsoever to do with Eli. He wasn’t the only one who could use press anymore. Finally I shrugged. “Let them watch.”

  Eli grinned and gunned the motor, heading straight for the Hollywood Hills.

  Most of my gang had already arrived to the park by the time we got there. I directed Eli to park beside the funky VW bug that Clem had painted a deep, royal purple. There were bumper stickers all over it, my favorite of which was, “If you’re going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair first.”

  It was Clementine to a T.

  Eli snickered when he saw it. “I can’t wait to see who that car belongs to.”

  I spotted my bestie, who was already warming up with Antoine. She wore shorts and a cami, and she didn’t give a fuck what anyone had to say about it. I pointed her out, and it made Eli chuckle even more.

  “That does not surprise me at all.”

  “Listen,” I said as I grabbed his sleeve. “That’s my best friend. And there isn’t enough money in your bank account to buy the right to be mean to her. You hear me?”

  He held up his hands. “I’ll be on my best behavior. I promise.”

  “I mean it,” I reiterated.

  “Okay.”

  I held up my finger in his face. “Falsetto,” I reminded.

  “Fine. Got it. Sheesh.”

  “Okay,” I said before I finally got out of the car. Both Antoine and Clem headed our way. I sent another cautionary glance to Eli, who adopted a smile a mile wide for my friends as they approached.

  I made the introductions. “Antoine, Clem, this is Eli.”

  Clem held out a hand, but Eli wasn’t having it. “We’re way beyond that,” he said as he grabbed her in a big bear hug. She sent me a confused glance, which I returned. “Any friends of Carly’s are friends of mine,” he said as he reached to hug Antoine as well. “Although you're going to have to let me in on this secret shindig because Carly hasn’t told me a thing.”

  “We’re playing football,” Clem told him, working hard to piece together my plan so that she could hop on board.

  “Football,” Eli echoed. “Of course.” He took note of the writing on her top. “FFF?”

  “Full-figured Floozies,” she clarified. “It’s our club.”

  It only puzzled him more. “Club?”

  “Yeah, our nightclub. It’s in Hollywood, just a few blocks away from Carly’s place.”

  My eyes widened and I barely concealed the shake of my head. The less he knew about the club the better, especially after our conversation the night before. But the cat was out of the bag.

  Eli smiled. “Is the ‘full-figured’ part a hard and fast rule, or will any kind of floozy do?” He smiled down at me, taking me into his arms and nuzzling my neck for the whole world, or specifically, the paparazzo—who now stood about fifty feet away from us, obscuring himself at a nearby picnic table—to see.

  I could tell by the looks on their faces both of my friends were trying extra hard to process this puzzling turn of events, and they were the select few who knew what was really going on. “It’s an all-inclusive place where people of all sizes, genders, and sexual orientations are welcomed,” Antoine told him. “All you have to do is show up and have fun.”

  “And accept everyone else there doing the same,” I added, since that was the only stipulation FFF ever had.

  Eli poured on the charm. “And here I was hoping there was some kind of initiation process.” He cupped my ass for emphasis. Both my friends sent me a look, but I couldn’t really say or do anything, given that the paparazzo was now about ten feet closer, likely eavesdropping on the conversation.

  “Day’s still young,” was all I would say.

  “I love it,” he replied. “So football, huh? Touch or tackle?”

  Both Antoine and Clem said, “Touch,” while I answered, “Tackle.”

  “Oh, good. Glad we’re all on the same page,” he teased. “But how is this going to work if it’s just the four of us?”

  I grinned. “It’s never just the four of us,” I assured before I pointed to a group doing stretches several yards away.

  We joined the others, who were warming up with some Tai Chi, led by 25-year-old Brandon Hough, one of our FFF regulars. He wasn’t ‘full-figured,’ but he loved the women that were. He set up his whole training program around a larger clientele who wanted to live healthy without all the judgment that screamed from a scale. Like Eli, he was athletic and blessed with golden good looks. Unlike Eli, he didn’t really expect people to worship him because of it. I had dated Brandon for about a month after I got to Los Angeles, and he had always been a perfect gentleman, even when we finally got between the sheets. He was a patient, generous lover who never made me feel like I owed him something just because he deigned to give me attention. We remained friends even though that initial spark never really caught fire. He tended to like older women, like Daisy Meriwether.

  Like me, she hailed from the great state of Texas, San Antonio, to be precise. She had just turned 40 and was enjoying her years as a cougar. Her husband dropped her like a hot potato just before her 36th birthday, trading his near-40-year-old-wife for a couple of twenty-year-old girlfriends. She had never let that get her down. Thanks to a company transfer, she moved to L.A. and never looked back. She wasn’t looking for love, just a lot of good lovin’. That she was a size-14 didn’t stop her. She knew what she wanted, and more importantly, what she deserved, and wasn’t afraid to demand it. People may have called her a slut for her shameless pursuit of pleasure, but she didn’t care. She wanted to sow all those wild oats she had buried when she got married just out of high school. Being a “good girl” and a good wife hadn’t really benefited her in the long run, so she was ready to live life on her own terms. When she found FFF, she knew she’d found home.

  She became sort of the unofficial Mama to all of us at the club. She knew our birthdays, she sent cards and presents, and it wasn’t Christmas Eve until you were eating tamales and tacos from her 1920s West Hollywood bungalow she’d purchased with the divorce settlement.

  Though she never had kids of her own, she’d picked up a couple of strays, including Lisa Pinsky, a 20-something retail associate who found her place in fashion despite being a size-22. She was short and stout, but she could make the T-shirt and jean cutoffs she wore look like they belonged on the cover of a magazine. She helped manage a second-hand store in Hollywood, which catered to every imaginable body type, and was the life of every party.

  So of course Daisy had asked her to move into one of the spare bedrooms. Every day with Lisa was like a slumber party. They added young Randy to their mix shortly after.

  Randy Larson was young and clean cut and fabulously gay. He worked with Lisa at Next to Nothing, and they bonded like siblings even though they were born five years, and a thousand miles, apart.

  Rounding out our motley crew were members of the FFF payroll. This included Randy’s new crush, Joe Gutierrez, the biggest, cuddliest teddy bear you’d ever want to meet. He wore a full beard and a crew cut, and towered over everybody at 6’5. But he was a gentle giant, who—as the head of security for FFF—made sure that everyone’s needs were safely met on a nightly basis.

  Last but not least was our DJ, Lola Fontaine, who was a biracial, bisexual tour de force. She wore her hair in an unapologetic sky-high afro that framed her lovely face, which featured star tattoos just around her eyes. The rest
of her body was likewise inked. She was a walking, talking gallery of modern art, unafraid to reveal quite a bit of her luscious size-12 figure on a regular basis. For the day’s festivities, only a sports bra and some athletic shorts covered the important bits enough to keep her from getting arrested.

  She enjoyed the feeling of the sun shining on her skin, and wasn’t about to curtail her pleasure just because of the biases of other people. These were my people. This was my tribe. And I couldn’t wait for each and every one of them to blow Eli Blake’s narrow little mind.

  I made the introductions, though people like Lisa and Randy didn’t need them. They were big fans of Eli’s music, as was Lola, who played no fewer than five of his songs every single night at the club.

  Daisy didn’t care if he could sing. She liked the way he filled out those skin-tight jeans, and wasn’t afraid to let him know it.

  To his credit, which I did not want to give him, he seemed to roll with it. “So how is this going to work?”

  “You’ve played football?” Clem asked.

  He flashed a smile. “Quarterback for my high school all the way till senior year.”

  I just rolled my eyes, but Clem was intrigued. “This I’d like to see,” she decided. “You can be captain of your team. And,” she glanced around the rest of us until her eyes finally fell upon my eager face. “Carly is captain of the other.”

  Both Eli and I smiled. We liked the sound of that.

  The first order of business was picking teams. Since he won the coin toss, he went first. He picked Clem, probably just to stick it to me. I knew he couldn’t possibly want her for his team, given she was one of the biggest girls present. And of course, after I chose Antoine, he selected Brandon, just for that athletic advantage.

  I picked Lisa, just so she wouldn’t have to be selected last—because I knew if Eli had his way, she would be. Like clockwork, he selected Randy, again focusing on the smallest of the group. It got me madder by the second. It finally got down to Lola and Joe, and once again I took my big guy just to spare him from having a sizeist asshat as a team captain. Fortunately Lola was okay with this. She was already a big fan of Eli’s and didn’t mind anything that put her in direct contact.

  Our teams in place, Eli turned to me. “Game on?” he challenged with that glint in his eyes.

  “Game on,” I said.

  After another coin toss, Eli’s team, hereafter known as the Heartbreakers, got the ball. My team, appropriately named the Ballbusters, huddled together to strategize, ready to do anything and everything from allowing the Heartbreakers to score.

  A fitting metaphor for my whole year, I thought with a smile.

  “He’s going to run the ball,” I told them. “With an ego like his, he’ll want to make the winning play himself, rather than pass it off to anyone, though I’d bet that is what he’ll want us to think. He’ll keep our focus on Brandon so he can slip right by us. But we’re not going to let him.”

  “You want me to cover him?” Antoine asked, but I shook my head.

  “You stay with Brandon. Let him think his strategy is working. Leave the pretty boy to me.”

  I had a lot of frustration to work out after all these months, and I knew just how to do that.

  Just like I predicted, he faked a pass to Brandon. Antoine and Daisy covered him, leaving a straight line between Lisa and me.

  I could tell by the look on his face he thought darting between the two big girls would be a piece of proverbial cake. Lisa, following my directive to leave Eli to me, hung back while I dug deep; mustering every iota of frustration and anger I had ever felt for Eli Blake. I charged for him, flinging myself mid-air to take him down in a full-body tackle that brought us both to the ground with breathless grunts.

  It took us a moment to catch our breath. “Well, well, well,” he murmured as he reevaluated me. “You came to play.”

  “I came to win,” I corrected.

  He easily flipped me onto my back. “So did I,” he informed me before he stole yet another kiss. My eyes were wide as he lifted away. As I rose up, I could see the paparazzo texting something furiously on his phone.

  Always an agenda, I thought with a sneer before I joined my team.

  The next play he really did pass the ball to Brandon. Antoine and Daisy were ready, easily tackling him and forcing a fumble. Daisy recovered and made her run for it, but Eli didn’t let her get very far.

  It was the Ballbusters’ turn to line up their offense, with me as the quarterback. My eyes met Eli’s. His aggravating smirk told me everything I needed to know about his game strategy.

  And of course, when he tackled me, he took me down with the same force I had employed before. I glared at him as he kept me pinned to the ground, just because he could. “Let me up,” I growled.

  “Pay the toll,” he said as he pursed his lips for a kiss. I caught sight of the paparazzo out of the corner of my eye, so I was forced to comply. That it made Eli even smugger just threw more gasoline on my fire.

  But I decided to use it to my advantage. He clearly had something to prove and was determined to keep his focus on me. I informed my crew thusly, and thanks to Antoine’s catlike grace, we scored the first touchdown of the game while I let Eli tackle me again, and didn’t “pay the toll” until my friend spiked the ball.

  Eli grinned at me. “You little vixen, you,” he murmured as his eyes scanned my face.

  I arched an eyebrow. “I thought there was nothing little about me.”

  His eyes trailed across my face and down towards my chest. “More than a mouthful is a waste,” he agreed, before he added, “For little men with little… hands… little minds and limited ways.”

  Of course he’d quote his own damnable song to me. He bent closer to complete the chorus.

  “I know what to do with you. And girl, you know it too. Give me just a taste.”

  I thrust him away and stalked off, leaving him laughing behind me.

  Even more annoying, he managed to score on his very next play, using my own frustration against me. He kept me preoccupied as Clem bulldozed her way all the way to the in-zone.

  By the time I got the ball again, I was ready to go right through Eli to get my own goddamned touchdown. I knew he wouldn’t expect it, so I faked a pass to Antoine, whom his whole team was covering. I tucked the ball under my arm, put my head down and took off right towards Eli, who watched me coming with a victorious gleam in his eye. I knew he wanted to take me down, but I wasn’t about to let him.

  I charged forward, faking right to get around him. Unfortunately he was ready for that, and agile enough to adapt. He threw his whole body on me. I heard the pop in my ankle before I went down, but it took a second for the blinding pain to set in, causing me to cry out and literally drop the ball.

  Eli pounced right on top of it, oblivious at first to my injury. It took Antoine running over for him to get a clue that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

  To his credit, Eli tossed the ball aside and knelt beside me, where Antoine was examining my foot. I gasped the second he tried to move it. Instantly I knew it was bad. “I sprained my ankle, didn’t I?”

  He nodded as he examined my foot, and I gasped as he tested my mobility—of which there was none. “You tore a ligament. I’d bet money on it.”

  “I’ll get her to the hospital,” Eli volunteered at once, but I glared daggers at him.

  “Haven’t you done enough?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he instructed quietly as he nodded off towards the lingering paparazzo shamelessly capturing the whole incident now on video.

  I turned back to Antoine. “Take me to the ER.”

  Before anyone could say anything, Eli easily swept me up into his arms. “I told you. I’m taking you.”

  I wanted to struggle, but I knew I couldn’t. Not under the watchful eye of PING anyway. I gasped from the pain in my foot as he placed me in the passenger side of his car. He was being tender and gentle, but I knew that was more for PING’s
benefit than mine. Clementine knelt down to talk to me through the car window.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Eli climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take good care of her. I promise.”

  I snorted, to indicate what I thought of his promises. Clem patted my arm. She might have volunteered to go with, but Eli’s car was a two-seater. “I’ll call you later,” I assured as we backed out of the parking lot. I rolled up the window just as we exited and made our way down the hill.

  “I hope you’re happy now,” I snapped.

  “Not really, no,” he shot back. “They captured all of that on film. You, coming after me, guns blazing. This is bad.”

  “Not to mention I’m injured,” I reminded.

  He simply shrugged. “You were the one who wanted to play tackle.”

  My jaw dropped open. “Really? You’re going to blame me for this?”

  His eyes briefly met mine. “You set the tone for the game, Carly. Right from the start. You play rough, you risk getting hurt. That’s how it works.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Let’s let a doctor look at you first. Then we’ll talk.”

  I sputtered and fumed all the way to the ER.

  Thanks to his celebrity status, we were ushered back into a private waiting room, to wait our turn behind the other non-critical injuries currently clogging up the hospital ER. An hour ticked painfully by, and my ankle darkened by the minute. It was clearly bruising from my pinkie toe all the way up to my lower calf. Eli smirk fell as he watched, calculating how we were going to handle this new complication.

  “You’re going to have to stay with me,” he decided.

  “No way in hell,” I replied. I was in a lot of pain, but I wasn’t delirious, for fuck’s sake.

  “You can’t stay in your apartment,” he reasoned. “Especially if they put you on crutches.”

  I thought about the narrow stairwell at Ling’s place. It would be a bitch to navigate that steep, dark staircase on crutches, but it was infinitely more preferable to staying at Eli’s place.

  Then it occurred to me that I only had one month left before I had to move out of my apartment, which meant not only would I have to walk up and down those stairs every day, I was going to have to find a way to move what little stuff I had there into a whole new place entirely.