Big Girl Panties

by Stephanie Evanovich

  The internal battle of grief versus guilt raged within her for countless months to follow, allowing her to come to terms with neither. The presence in her house that prevented her from selling it was his ghost, languishing and all-knowing of her inner struggle, reminding her of how she’d failed him. His spirit refused to help her because it knew the truth.

  Logan had called her amazing the night he came to her house to save her from eating herself into a coma. Holly wondered just how amazing Logan Montgomery would think she was if he knew those cold hard facts. He would likely tell her that she had received the ultimate payback for consenting to marry a man under false pretenses and then emotionally deserting him in his final hours. And he’d be right. Karma had bitten her on her big fat ass. She swallowed the tears of self-pity that threatened and shook herself as she walked through the Kings Stadium parking lot.

  Holly slowed her pace when she caught sight of him, taking a minute to privately watch him from afar. Logan was wearing carpenter-style jean shorts and a blindingly white hoodie with what she assumed was a Kings T-shirt underneath, and spotless white sneakers to match. Of course he wasn’t wearing a cap, she mused. It would be unheard of for him to muss up his hair. All in all, he reminded her more of an Abercrombie and Fitch model than a guy going to a ball game. How the hell does he do it? she wondered. How hell does he manage to always look like a million bucks, no matter how casually he’s dressed? The singular adjective that kept popping into Holly’s mind was “beautiful.” Logan was actually beautiful while remaining wholly masculine.

  He was standing on the sidewalk, casually playing with his BlackBerry, the late-afternoon sun glinting off his shiny thick hair. While his head was down, the outline of his profile was nothing short of incredible, with his straight nose and square chin. Holly counted no less than five women who openly gaped as they neared him, several unable to resist looking back after they passed in the hopes he would look up. Several men did, too. Logan was oblivious to it all and kept his attention on his phone, with the occasional scout-around to see if she was coming. When he spied her, he grinned, and with one more push of a button on his phone, he stuck it into one of his pockets. It was showtime.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She smiled up at him as she approached.

  “Come on, let’s go have some fun,” he replied, grinning back. “I already picked up the tickets.”

  They casually made their way through the stadium’s front gates and began weaving through the maze of fans toward the field level. The Walkers had purchased both an indoor and an outdoor box, so that when their families came to watch, they didn’t have to worry about the weather. Chase also enjoyed hosting the families of some of the special-needs children from his favorite charities. Amanda disliked sitting in the seats designated for the players’ wives or girlfriends. When they were dating, Chase was sure she was doing it just to tick him off, until he found out she was also a not-so-secret Bleacher Creature and had two foul balls to prove it. Although she alluded to it, he could never get her to confirm if one of those balls was hit by him. She rarely sat upstairs in the luxury suite, and since it was a beautifully cool midsummer evening, Logan wasn’t surprised to find that the tickets waiting for him were ten rows up from the first-base line.

  Once the surprise at seeing Holly wore off, Amanda liked her immediately. Logan had been right when he said Holly wasn’t his type, and that was okay with her. Amanda had gotten used to trying to make conversation with Logan’s dates. They were always long, tall drinks of water, phony high-maintenance types who tried too hard to ingratiate themselves to Amanda. They giggled too much, wore too little, and bragged too often. And blond—they were nearly always blondes.

  Holly wore almost no makeup, save a little mascara and lip balm. Her dark red hair was pulled back with a headband and she wore jeans with a cotton button-down shirt and loafers. It was painfully obvious Holly hadn’t bothered to buy any new clothes since her now forty-five-pound weight loss, so it was hard to discern the details of her shape with her shirt practically swallowing her. Amanda felt like jumping for joy. Surely it meant something that this woman had entered Logan’s life.

  It took Holly a while to get comfortable with Amanda. After all, Amanda was a pseudocelebrity, and her husband was a bona fide one. Amanda confirmed the superstar wouldn’t be meeting up with them until after the game. That was a good thing. It would give Holly some time to get acclimated to the situation. Luckily Amanda was laid-back and cheerful, and instead of inundating Holly with questions, she opted for teaching Holly all about baseball. Holly already knew the basics but took advantage of the opportunity to sit back and let Amanda do all the talking. Amanda was down-to-earth, without any of the pretentiousness Holly had been afraid she might encounter. She refrained from name-dropping and ignored the fact that half the people in the stadium were wearing her last name on the backs of their jerseys and T-shirts. The only indication of who Amanda really was came right before her husband was introduced and ran onto the field. Seated between Amanda and Logan, Holly noticed Amanda suddenly stop her chatter, and with a shy smile, she turned her attention to the field. And then they announced his name and the nearly packed stadium broke out into a deafening roar.

  Seeing Chase Walker in person for the first time, there were two things that instantly came to Holly’s mind. One: that Chase looked like an adorable little boy, with eyes so piercing and bright, she could see them clearly from her seat. It was impossible not to see them when the first thing he did after high-fiving his fellow Kings players and taking his place was to look in the direction of his wife and smile at her. Two: he was a giant, dwarfing most of the men who stood in line with him as the introductions continued. He was muscle on muscle, with a barrel chest and stocky thighs that reminded her of her own, only his didn’t jiggle when he ran. It was an intriguing combination, and Holly found it impossible to look away from him. He was an imposing figure to say the least, even with his seemingly perpetual easygoing smile. As soon as “The Star-Spangled Banner” was over and the teams went into their respective dugouts, Amanda went back to telling Holly all the ins and outs of the game. Between them, they had a great time watching, even keeping up and filling out the scorecard—all but ignoring Logan, which seemed fine by him. They stopped keeping the book when it became apparent that the Kings were going to lose, even though Chase didn’t have a bad outing. When it was over, the three of them waited in the clubhouse for Chase to join them, and he appeared a half hour later. The little boy was gone, replaced by a sandy-haired, perfectly groomed, exceptionally handsome gentleman.

  Immediately after kissing his wife and greeting Logan, Chase extended his monstrous and multiskilled hand to Holly and thanked her for coming. He apologized for not making her first Kings experience a winning one. Luckily, he was pulled away by a reporter and Holly was spared having to respond.

  When Chase returned several minutes later, Amanda suggested they go out for a bite to eat, someplace quieter, away from the baseball crowd.

  Chase instantly admitted he was starving.

  They ended up at a local sushi bar, and Holly actually had a good time, once she got past the intimidation of meeting the Golden Boy and the flood of attention that followed them as soon as he was recognized. And to Chase’s credit, he made sure she did get past it, showing a genuine interest in her. He knew Toronto, courtesy of the countless road trips the Kings took there, and asked Holly to expand on some of the things he knew about her old hometown. He even complimented the color of her hair, referring to it exotically as “cinnamon” and making her blush.

  This didn’t go unnoticed by Logan. He felt a pang of something he refused to label as jealousy, which only made him more uneasy. There was just no need for it, no matter how much blushing Holly did. Chase had always been a notorious charmer and had been making women blush since the day Logan met him, including most of Logan’s previous girlfriends. It also was no secret that Walker preferred his women with meat on their bones. But he wa
s only interested in his wife’s bones, and despite the charisma he couldn’t turn off, he had no desire to stray. Besides, Logan had no stake in Holly, other than a professional one. In the end, Logan decided what he was feeling wasn’t jealousy at all, but indigestion from a hot dog he consumed during the third inning.

  The more relaxed Holly got, the chattier she became. Conversation flowed freely and heated up when Amanda and Holly took the opportunity to gang up on Logan about what a rigid borderline-dictator he was on the job.

  “Oh my gosh,” Amanda giggled, practically bouncing up and down in her chair with energy. “Do you ever check out his face while he counts your reps? So intense and serious. He looks like a math professor!”

  “It’s called focus, Amanda. You should try it sometime,” Logan shot back.

  Holly chimed in. “Amanda, how about when you’re just finishing a set, and he sort of yells, ‘You got this!’? He usually does it when I’m on an incline bench doing a chest press with a forty-pound barbell over my head. Thank God he’s spotting, ’cause it’s so startling I almost drop the weight onto my throat.”

  “Et tu, Brute?” Logan sighed at Holly, smiling and shaking his head.

  Amanda continued. “Ever tell him something hurts? After he calls you a wimp, he makes sure every exercise incorporates just the part of the body you had the nerve to complain about.”

  “Holly never complains. That distinction is entirely yours, Mrs. Walker,” Logan replied. “And quite frankly, even I’m not sure how to work around the body part called ‘everything.’ ”

  “I don’t know what either one of you is talking about. Dude is a total punk. After I’m done working out with him, I feel like I’ve just taken a nap,” Chase commented drily, in macho loyalty.

  Logan threw his head back and laughed. He was proud to take the ribbing. “I’ll remember that next time I hear your hamstring pop.”

  When they parted ways at the end of the night, Holly thanked everyone for a wonderful time and Amanda immediately invited her to another game as her guest. Holly eagerly accepted and they exchanged numbers. Logan’s lips formed a tight line. He had the nagging feeling Amanda was not convinced that Holly was just a client. He worried he may have made a colossal mistake in introducing them. And if Amanda was making plans to take it to the next level, he didn’t know where the hell that level was, or worse yet, how to stifle it. Still, he said nothing.

  Holly’s one step from delightful, don’t you think?” It was really more of a statement than a question.

  “It isn’t going to work, you know.” Chase got right to the point, hours later, exhausted from postplay with his wife in addition to the game itself. He pulled her to him, her naked back snug against his torso, and wrapped his arm around her.

  “What do you mean?” Amanda asked, sounding remarkably innocent.

  “You know very well what I mean. Stop meddling.” His baritone rumbled a stern warning next to her ear, and a chill went up her spine.

  “You’re starting to sound like Ricky Ricardo. What’s next? I’m going to have some esplainin’ to do?” She wiggled in against his thighs, fitting to his mold. “Don’t worry, Ricky, I won’t try to get into the show.”

  Chase ran his large hand the length of Amanda’s thigh to a still-warm round globe and caressed. “That’s pretty funny. I remember that show. That Lucy would do some wacky stuff. And we both know what happened to her when Ricky had enough of her nonsense.” He gave her a halfhearted, loving smack and she gave him an enchanting giggle before he returned to his point. “The girl is very nice, cute even,” Chase said. “But if you insist on doing this, someone is going to get hurt. And it’s going to be her. This one’s a client for Logan, nothing more.”

  But Amanda was unfazed and gave Chase a little tsk-tsk from her half of his pillow.

  “Am I going to have to explain about vehicles to you again?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, woman?” Chase yawned, losing interest as soon as she used the word “explain.”

  “You don’t see it. Logan doesn’t see it, although he certainly should. He and I believe in a lot of the same principles when it comes to cosmic wheels and karma and such; you know that. Holly probably doesn’t even see it. But I do. Oh, I do. All the women he’s ever introduced us to have been these walking, talking carbon-copy bombshells. He exchanges them as soon as he tires of them, which I assume is right after he sleeps with them, or once they manage to string a sentence together.”

  “You were the one who made him bring her along. And you sound almost jealous. Is there something I need to worry about?” Chase possessively tightened his arm around her, more out of habit than concern.

  “Of course not, silly. I’m just trying to illustrate for you the higher forces at work here. He meets her on a plane coming back from a trip he didn’t really need to be on. He just happens to take her on as a client, even though last I heard, he’s been turning down new clients for a year, no matter what your name is or what team you play for. Not to mention, I can’t even remember the last time he entertained the thought of training a woman, yet suddenly he’s running to her house in the middle of the night on a phone call. He calls her his ‘ugly duckling’ and somehow makes it sound like a term of endearment.”

  “He calls all the women he trains ugly ducklings.” Chase yawned again, unmoved and unimpressed.

  Amanda’s eyes grew wide. “I beg your pardon? He called me an ugly duckling?” she demanded hotly.

  Chase released a small chuckle and kissed the top of her head, deliberately neglecting to outright confirm or deny. “Well now, that would be lunacy. It’s a stupid figure of speech, a motivator. Not the best, I’ll be the first to admit. He likes to get to the swan part. He’s got a thing about birds, I guess. He used to tell me I was a phoenix rising from the ashes. Can we get some sleep now, please?”

  “There is a huge difference between those two comparisons, don’t you think? One is a mythical sacred firebird, the other an ostracized misfit.” She stiffened in his arms, becoming increasingly bothered with each justification her husband made. If Chase thought she was going to let him go to sleep at this particular juncture, he needed to think again.

  “He once called Roger Clemens a penguin.” Chase yawned again and made the effort to appease her. “That’s hardly flattering. Or was it a lemming? That’s not even a bird, is it? I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I told you I agree that it’s stupid.”

  “You’re damn right it’s stupid. But even if he does say it, does believe it, what in heaven’s name is he waiting for? To start showing her off, I mean. You saw her tonight. Her clothes don’t even fit. And I’m not even talking about just a little loose. It looked like two of her could’ve fit in those jeans.”

  “Now he’s supposed to be her personal shopper?” Chase retorted.

  “No, of course not. But he should be encouraging her to unveil herself. Unless of course he has some hidden reason for wanting her to stay all covered up. Especially if, as he says and as you agree, he has no personal stake in any of this. Wouldn’t it help her self-esteem and his own cause to show the world how much she’s progressed? For crying out loud, did you see that shirt? You couldn’t even tell if she had boobs hiding under there.”

  “There were definitely boobs,” was the sleepy burble. “She’s probably not thin enough for him yet. Good night, love.”

  “Excuse me? What the fuck do you mean by that?” Amanda sat up now, fully awake and completely perturbed. She didn’t want to believe her friend would deny chemistry on that basis alone. And that her husband would so casually condone it. Chase opened both eyes but remained on his pillow, his tone now humorless.

  “Amanda Walker, what’s gotten into you? You know I hate the F-word. You’re a lady, not a sailor on shore leave. And you are getting way too involved in this. It’s none of our business what type of women Logan likes or the fashion statements his clients make. Now, I am bushed, and I really want to get some sleep. Come bac
k here.”

  But Amanda refused to lie back down, incensed that somehow her own fuller figure might be viewed as substandard by Logan or anyone else. Crossing her arms, she continued to fume. “I can’t believe you and I would be friends with someone who refers to women in terms of ugly birds until he waves his magic wand over them. Not thin enough? What a hateful thing to say. Forget me. Why would you be friends with someone so superficial—”

  “That’s it.” Chase growled and sat up, giving no further warning. Taking his wife’s arm, he sent her over his lap with a forceful tug. Despite her one word of protest—“No!”—his strong square hand came down, initiating her second spanking of the night, only this one was for the sake of his sanity and not their mutual pleasure. Amanda felt the difference in his delivery immediately as he peppered her bottom with firm, well-placed swats, indicating he meant business. He fired off a quick scolding—he was no longer interested in analyzing the shortcomings of his friends and was tired of her fussing. As soon as he heard her frustrated acquiescence and tearful plea for him to stop, he helped her sit up beside him. She promptly lay back down, presented him with her back, and scooted over to her side of the king-sized bed, indulging in an offended pout.