“Ellis, boss lady, darling?” Belinda called to her.
“Hmm?” Ellis was so lost in her silly thoughts, the voice barely registered.
“Don’t hmm me, missy. What the hell was that all about?”
“What?” Ellis turned around to face her friend. Cherri had gone behind the counter and appeared to be busy folding scarves but was grinning ear-to-ear. Belinda, the bolder of the two, placed her hands on her substantial hips and stared Ellis down.
“You were flirting with the hot cop!” Belinda accused her. “And judging by the way you two were mentally undressing each other I take it you are not strangers.”
“We certainly were not mentally undressing each other,” Ellis protested as an image of a naked Mike entered her head. “At least I wasn’t undressing him.”
“You were staring at his crotch!” Belinda screeched.
Busted. Shit.
She had hoped Mike was the only one who had noticed. In fact, she had all but forgotten about her two friends standing beside her. Mike Edwards made her lose all kinds of sense. It was the Boom. Okay, so maybe she had been kind of sort of flirting with Mike, but it was only a little. A very teensy amount. It was surreal seeing her former crush walk back in to her life. Especially now that she was so different.
“Well, I guess it’s a game we were playing.” Ellis sighed and deposited herself in one of the comfy armchairs she kept in the store for tired shoppers. “Mike isn’t interested in me. He never was. He doesn’t even remember me.”
“We were there,” the soft-spoken Cherri put in. “He looked very interested to me, and if he didn’t remember you before he surely won’t forget you now.”
Ellis waved her hand. “You’re exaggerating. Mike’s the kind of guy who wears a NO FAT CHICKS ALLOWED T-shirt.”
“Wait a minute.” Belinda sat on the ottoman in front of Ellis’s chair. “Back up. What do you mean he was never interested in you? How exactly do you know this man?”
Belinda was her best friend in the whole world but she had never told her about Mike. She had been in San Francisco at the time, and Ellis’s crush on him seemed so insignificant.
“We use to live on the same block four years ago. I would see him every morning at the newsstand buying a paper and cup of coffee, flirting with the girl at the counter. I thought he was so … I don’t know … Hot. Charming. Dreamy.” She sighed heavily, thinking back to that time in her life she’d rather forget.
“Of course I also saw him with a bevy of big-breasted women every weekend and thought he was way out of my league. But like an idiot, I told Dina about him. Three weeks later she introduced him to me as her boyfriend. And if that wasn’t a big enough knife in the gut, she always had him meet her at my apartment when they went out on dates. She claimed she lived too far away. I’d rather think she was still punishing me for being born.”
“Why did you put up with that shit, Ellis?” Belinda frowned. “I would have kicked Dina’s ass from here to Connecticut.”
She shrugged. “I should have. If it was anybody else I would have, but my sister and I … I can’t explain our relationship. Sometimes she was my best friend but sometimes I wondered where I could dispose of her body without getting caught.”
“That’s a little dark and twisted,” Cherri said.
“That’s Dina and me.”
“Yeah,” Belinda said. “You’re both crazier than a Walmart on Black Friday. Now get back to you and Detective Hottie.”
“Him.” She nodded. “Right. At first Mike would just pick her up at my place. But after a few times Dina started inviting him over for dinner or to watch a movie. Part of me wanted to kick them out but part of me was a little fascinated with their relationship. Both Mike and Dina are gorgeous, but other than that they didn’t seem to have much in common. They barely even spoke, and that caused me to think that Mike was suffering from SHG syndrome.”
“What’s that?” Cherri’s expression could only be described as horrified.
“Oh, you don’t know about SHG syndrome?” Belinda said. “SHG. Stupid Hot Guy. A guy who could grace the cover of magazines but couldn’t beat a first-grader in a spelling bee.”
“Yeah, Mike exhibited all the signs but he ended up surprising me. One time Dina bailed on him and instead of leaving, he came over to talk to me and I realized that he wasn’t lacking brain cells at all. The guy is smart. We talked all night, about his family and politics and food and everything that came to our minds, and when we finally ran out of things to say he cupped my face in his hands and gave me the softest, sweetest kiss that I had ever had. And my little crush bloomed into full-blown infatuation.”
“How sweet,” Cherri moaned.
Belinda, being less sentimental, rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, it was sweet then, but a couple of nights later he showed up at my Passed the Bar Exam Party with Dina and walked right by me like I didn’t exist. And then there was Dina. She was all over him that night, cramming her tongue down his throat at every opportunity. I tried to ignore it and worry about my guests, but when they disappeared I knew something was up.”
Belinda’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve never been a big fan of your sister, but don’t tell me she did what I think she did.”
“That’s right.” Ellis nodded. “I found them in my bedroom on my bed.” When Cherri groaned, Ellis shook her head. “Mike was just in his Calvins and getting very personal with my sister’s unmentionables. And to top it all off, Dina, my only sister, had the nerve to tell me to get out.”
“Whoa,” Cherri said.
“Whoa, is right.” Ellis shook her head. “I literally went bananas. It was my party and my bedroom and Dina had been pulling crap like that our whole freaking lives. And then there was Mike. For some reason I thought he was different so when he acted like every other guy in the world I felt betrayed. Of course I started yelling. Actually, yelling is an understatement; I think they heard me in Chinatown.” Ellis covered her face with her hands, remembering that night. “It was ugly. All of my guests left, and when Mike tried to mediate I threw his clothes at him and told him to get the hell out.” She looked up at her friends. “That was four years ago and so when I met Mike in Hot Lava Java last week I was sure he would remember me as the crazy fat chick who lost her shit at her own party. But he doesn’t know who I am. He has no clue!”
“Wow.” Belinda said. “Self-centered son of a bitch.”
“Right?” Ellis laughed glad her friends understood her. “And now that he’s in Durant I feel it’s my duty to make him pay for being an asshole four years ago.”
“Totally understandable,” Cherri agreed.
“What happened between you and Dina after that?” Belinda asked.
Ellis sighed. “We stopped talking for a very long time. Things still aren’t right between us. But that’s not the entire reason we don’t talk. It was just the final straw in a long line of things Dina did that made me want to move to a convent. There was the time she showed my underwear to her friends and told them that they didn’t make little girl panties in my size so they had to get them from the grandma store. There was also the time she walked out in a bikini in front of my first real date. On purpose. And then proceeded to show him the routine her dance class was working on. After seeing Dina’s tight, perfect, size-six body stretching in all types of naughty positions he only wanted to come over to drool over my hot sister.”
“Oh, Ellis.” Cherri shook her head. “That’s so sad.”
Ellis shrugged. “That’s life with Dina.”
The little bell rang over the door and three new customers walked in. Ellis stood up and greeted them with a smile while Cherri and Belinda returned to their posts. The time to think about Mike and the past was over. She had work to do. “Welcome to Size Me Up. How can I help you?”
Chapter Four
Why Men Secretly Love Fat Girls
1. Better cooks.
2. Not picky eaters on dates.
3. More cushin’ for the pu
shin’. (My fav and bow chicka wow wow!)
4. Always warm on a cold night.
Biologically men are wired to like a girl with big hips, a soft behind, and a small waist. Go to a museum and check out the paintings from a few hundred years ago. Does the girl in the picture look more like Adele or Jennifer Aniston?
The next morning Ellis arrived at her shop a little before nine o’clock, wondering what adventures the day would bring. Besides the robbery and the reappearance of Detective Hot Pants the day before, Phillipa had called. She had somehow found out about the crime on St. Lucy Street in record time and wasn’t happy about it. “Nobody ever got robbed when you were a lawyer,” Phillipa pointed out, which wasn’t exactly true. One of Ellis’s former clients was the mastermind of an elaborate Ponzi scheme, but Ellis wisely kept her mouth shut.
After Ellis spent an hour on the phone with her mother and reassured her that she had personally spoken to the detective in charge, Phillipa let the subject drop. By the end of the day Ellis was exhausted—but the good news was she had gained three new customers, one of whom decided she needed a brand-new wardrobe. If business kept going like that Ellis might be able to take home a small paycheck this month.
Maybe I’ll be able to buy real food this month. KFC, here I come!
Ellis opened the shop every morning and most days stayed well after closing. But she preferred the quiet of the morning. It was then she was most productive. Today was no different. She updated her blog, tidied the storeroom, and wiped all the fingerprints off the huge glass display case where she kept the jewelry. Today in addition to her normal routine she placed the twenty-six-inch expandable metal baton Phillipa had bought her when she moved to Manhattan in the drawer under the cash register. She hadn’t told her mother, but the robbery of Mrs. Underwood’s shop made Ellis nervous. Durant was her safe childhood hometown. People didn’t even lock their doors at night. Ellis had come back here to get away from all the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, to feel safe again.
“I read your blog today.”
Holy shit. She also left Manhattan to get away from him.
Ellis looked up to see her ex-boyfriend Jack Toomey standing just inside the doorway. Her stomach dropped. Jack was a beautiful man. And she was the dumb-ass who had taken one look at his dazzling blue eyes and lean body in an expensive suit and fallen hard. He was a lawyer like her. Smart, ambitious, and in the beginning more charming than a bag full of snake oil salesmen. She’d had a hard time believing that he wanted somebody like her. Somebody who was overweight and wore glasses and had been able to recite the Emancipation Proclamation since she was ten years old. But he made her feel beautiful, and after a long line of losers he seemed like the perfect guy. So perfect that she ignored all the signs that he was the wrong man for her.
She never thought he would step foot in her store. It had been six months since she’d walked away. Six months since she’d decided she was worth more than what he thought.
“It’s funny. I had no idea you could write.”
He looked around her store, taking it all in with that assessing eye that sometimes made her feel self-conscious. For a moment she wondered what he thought about the place she poured her soul into. But she hated herself for thinking that. His opinion no longer mattered to her.
“I have nothing to say to you, Jack.” She made herself busy by rearranging the earrings in her display case, hoping the ground would swallow him. It didn’t. He moved closer, stopping directly in front of her.
“I think there is a lot left to say, Ellis.” Jack placed his hand on her newly cleaned display case, leaving his grimy fingerprints all over it. “Please look at me.”
Bastard.
She did look up, not because he asked her to but because she wanted him to know that she was no longer cowed by him. “I think you made everything perfectly clear the night I left.”
“Please, Ellis.” He placed his warm hand over hers, and when that contact wasn’t enough he walked around the counter and set both hands on her shoulders. “I know I made mistakes in our relationship. But I want to make up for them. Please hear me out.” He folded his arms around her and buried his face in the crook of her neck.
She shut her eyes, holding her body as rigid as possible, but part of her brain couldn’t help but notice that his touch didn’t feel as repulsive as she had hoped. He was warm and familiar and he smelled expensive. He was her first love and he used to hold her like this when they began dating. She used to think his arms around her was the best feeling in the world.
Their lives together hadn’t been all bad. In fact a small part of her couldn’t truly hate him because he had shown her some of the best times in her life. But she wouldn’t get sucked in again. Because he was also the man who treated her like shit. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”
He took a step back, seeming surprised at her words. He should be. She wasn’t the same woman he had met. The one who tried her hardest to put his happiness before hers. She had given up a piece of herself for this man. She wouldn’t do that ever again.
“Okay.” He held his hands up in defense. “I’m sorry. I just want to talk to you.”
“Only employees are allowed on this side of the counter.”
He nodded and returned to the other side. It was then she took a breath. His nearness was suffocating. His nearness made it hard to breathe.
“You drove all the way up here. Talk.”
“I want you back,” he said in a rush. “I never wanted you to leave. You know that.”
“You never wanted me to leave?” She laughed humorlessly. “Could have fooled me. You spent the last six months of our relationship going out of your way to make me feel like I was unworthy of you.”
He shook his head, running both of his hands through his hair. It was something he only did when he was nervous. “I was going through something, Ellis and I need you to understand that. I needed you to see me through it.”
She inhaled harshly. “Are you blaming me for the breakup?”
“No but—” He shook his head. “No, of course not, but can you honestly tell me that you were the same person I met when we broke up?”
“No,” she answered easily. “Maybe I do have some fault in this. I thought you wanted me to grow as a person. I thought the man I loved would have wanted me to succeed. I never thought you expected me to spend my entire life catering to you.”
“I didn’t! But your career was moving so quickly, and there I was at the same firm for ten years and constantly being passed over for partner. I didn’t know how to handle being with a woman who was litigating billion-dollar cases.”
“You didn’t try to handle it. You didn’t try to talk to me. Instead you kept putting me down and degrading me and I was stupid enough to let it happen because I thought it was my fault you weren’t happy.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Listen, Ellis, I don’t know how to explain what happened. I just know that I want you back. The past six months have been miserable without you.”
“Good. Now you know how I felt when I was with you.”
“I know you’re upset. I know you need more time, but I still love you. I think we can work this out.”
“You still love me? You said horrible things to me. You cheated on me—”
“I never cheated on you!”
“I saw you with her. In my house. Don’t feed me some bullshit about you two were working. What kind of lawyer works with his paralegal over a candlelight dinner? What kind of work were you doing with her lips on your neck?”
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Well, just because you didn’t fuck her doesn’t mean you weren’t cheating.”
He flinched, stunned by her profanity. “It was wrong but I did it to send you a message. To show you that if you didn’t appreciate me, I could find another woman who would.”
“Oh, you sent a message all right. It was loud and clear and it was telling me to get the hell away from you.”
Jack shut his eyes for a
moment. “I’ve screwed this up. I know you need more time but I’m not going to stop, Ellis. I went through some stuff but it’s over now. You know we belong together. You know you were meant to be a lawyer. This little store. This move back to Durant is just a phase, and I’m not going to stop until I make you see that.”
“Get out!”
Little store? Just a phase? He still had no clue when it came to her and she wasn’t about to waste her breath explaining it to him. Maybe she should thank him, because without his betrayal she would have never been brave enough to go after her dreams.
“Fine. I’ll go, but it won’t be forever.”
*
Her chest was still heaving twenty minutes later. She couldn’t believe he wanted her back. Just when she was finally over him, just when her self-esteem returned, he came back to turn her world upside down. She tried to push him out of her mind as she went back to work. But the words asshole, and shithead, and butt face wanted to pour from her mouth like she had some kind of man-hating Tourette’s syndrome.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Belinda called to her. She quickly made her way around the counter and grasped Ellis’s shoulder. “Ellis what happened? Did we get robbed? Are you hurt?” She looked around the shop, seeing that everything was in its place.
“Jack” was all she said.
“What?” Belinda frowned. “If you tell me Jack was here I’m going to scream.”
“He was.” Ellis nodded.
“Where’s my knife?” Belinda let go of her to rummage through the drawer. “Oh these will work nicely!” She held up a pair of heavy-duty box-cutting scissors. “I bet you I could cut his balls off with these. Slimy bastard.” Belinda continued to mumble. “I can’t believe he had the nerve to show up here after what he did to you.”
Belinda knew every sordid detail of her life with Jack. It was Belinda she went to after she broke up with him. Belinda knew every harsh word he had said to her, things she couldn’t even bring herself to tell her mother, because she was embarrassed that she had let it go on for so long. It was Belinda who’d given her the strength to open this store.
Dangerous Curves Ahead: A Perfect Fit Novel Page 4
