Fat (12 page)

“This is why I don’t date.”

“Really? You’re going to go there?” I shook my head. “Dancing is your job. Fucking is a choice.”

“That pays well. What does it matter if it’s Finn and not me?”

“Where shall I start? The part where you stick your dick in people you don’t know and then you want to fuck me without a condom?” Dear God, I had to get tested. I swallowed hard. “Or the part where you being with another woman hurts me. It doesn’t matter if it’s Finn or Kieran. It’s still you.”

“Give up
Chubbalicious
, then.”

“Why?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s really not.”

“Because dancing and pleasure aren’t viable careers, right?” he snapped.

“That’s not what I said. I didn’t ask you to stop dancing. That’s not illegal. Whoring yourself is.”

“So now I’m a whore?”

“You said so yourself.” I wasn’t backing down from this, even though I knew what that meant. As soon as I’d gotten Kieran, I’d lost him, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I wasn’t going to say I was done so he could go cry to himself about how horrible women were and about how no one understood him. I understood him better than he understood himself.

“I don’t want to fight with you and I’m not trying to hurt you. But that’s where I stand. Why don’t we both think about where we’re going and where we want to be and talk about it later?”

“I’ve got a call tonight and I’m taking it.”

My nose prickled like I’d been punched and I knew I was about to cry. “Be sure that’s what you want to do.”

I went to my room and closed the door. I had to fight not to slam it, but instead, I gently clicked the lock into place with shaking hands. I melted into my quilt without letting the tears fall.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I didn’t come out of my room for the rest of the day. I tried to work on
Chubbalicious
, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I got an email from Ryan, the photographer, with all of the images attached. Hollie and Rosa looked great. I didn’t even want to look at mine and I shouldn’t have.

Everyone said I looked so good at the shoot, that I was so hot, but all I could see was my double chin. Or my ass looked too wide, my thighs to fat, and the rolls around my middle were disgusting. I hated the sight of myself and I kind of wanted to gouge everyone’s eyes out who’d ever seen this picture or who ever would.

This was in Ryan’s portfolio. He was going to show that to people.

They wouldn’t hire you
.

No, they wouldn’t hire me to sleep with anyone.

I slammed the lid on my laptop closed.

Kieran didn’t love me. He was with me because he thought my self-esteem was bad enough that I’d put up with whatever he wanted to do and I’d never leave him. I wasn’t a threat to his fear of abandonment because he didn’t think I could get anyone else.

This thing with Brant, he just wanted to prove I still belonged to him.

In that moment, for all that I loved Kieran, I kind of hated him, too.

I’d read all the self-help books about loving myself, about not allowing myself to feel inferior, that I had to give permission to let other people’s comments and actions elicit any reaction from me.

But I wasn’t ice or stone. I was just a fat girl trying to fake until she made it.

My phone rang and when I saw it was April, I swiped to reject the call. She called back and I rejected it again and turned my phone off. I just couldn’t deal with her shit. I had my own to worry about. I get that she was hurt by what happened with Kieran, but she knew what she was getting into.

I guess I should have too.

I didn’t know how long I lay there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the numbness to give way to something else. It never did.

Not even when another loud banging commenced on the door. I ignored it until a short time later, there was a tap on my window. Someone was really determined.

“Fuck off.”

“It’s me,” Brant said.

I went to the window and opened the blinds, then pushed up the glass. I saw it was creeping on dawn. Purple and orange tendrils streaked the sky. I’d lay there in my own misery and stewed all night. How pathetic was that?

And Kieran hadn’t come home.

It was the mother of all battles to keep my expression neutral as the realization washed over me.

“What’s up?”

“Can you let us in? Kieran lost his keys.”

I raised a brow. Part of me wanted to say fuck him. He could come home when he dug them out of whatever skank he’d left them in, but I didn’t get to be angry. He’d been honest with me.

“Why isn’t Kieran tap-tapping on my window?”

Brant looked as if he was ashamed for Kieran. “God, Claire. I didn’t even want to bring him home. I told him to crash on my couch, but he…” Brant just kept shaking his head.

“How drunk is he?”

“You’re not going to let him in?”

I sighed and pulled my robe more tightly around my waist. “I’ll be there in a second.” I closed the window.

Brant and Austin dragged him inside, and he stumbled. He wasn’t quite ready to pass out, but he was close.

“You mad, baby?” he slurred.

“You guys know where his room is.” I turned to go back to my own room.

“What’s going on?” Brant asked.

“I can’t.” I shrugged. “Just no.”

“I didn’t go,” Kieran mumbled. “I didn’t go.” Brant and Austin hauled him into his room and got him settled.

I wanted to go back to my room and stew some more, but that wasn’t going to help anything.

“Thanks for bringing him home.”

Austin looked back and forth between me and Brant and said, “Yeah, anytime. I’m just going to wait outside.”

Brant nodded and waited until the door closed behind him before he said anything. “What did you fight about?”

“I’m not doing this with you.”

“Why not?” He seemed so sincere.

“You said you’d call.” As if I had any right to be mad about anything.

“Oh, Claire. We both know that you and I are done. I knew that when we invited Kieran to join. Remember? I told you this was coming. I didn’t need to call you after to have you tell me that you and Kieran were together.”

“But we’re not. Not really.”

“I gathered. He was a fucking wreck tonight. He didn’t dance.”

“What did he do?”

Brant looked uncomfortable.

“Never mind.”

“I’m not going to carry tales because I don’t know what happened. April came to see him.”

If any more sharp things stabbed my heart, all I’d have left in my chest was applesauce. A ton of questions bloomed rancid on my tongue, but I didn’t say any of them. I wasn’t going to grill Brant and put him in the middle of it.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Did you get the pictures back yet from the shoot?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Hollie’s and Rosa’s are just what I wanted.”

“What about yours?”

“We shall never speak of them again.” I managed a weak smile.

“I’d like one. One of you and me?”

“I’ll just forward the email, if you promise not to put it on Facebook.”

“No, it’s just for me.”

I nodded. We stood there in awkward silence for almost a full minute.

“I should go.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“When I said I’d miss you, I meant it.” He kissed my cheek and his lips were warm, his scent safe.

“I know. I miss you, too.”

“You’ve got my number.”

“Yeah, see, if a guy says he’s going to call and doesn’t, that’s not usually a cue to me that I should text.”

“I was giving you time. I still am.”

“Time for what?”

“To be with Kieran without feeling guilty. Without worrying about hurting me or how you’re going to break it off. I took care of that.”

“How did you know I would? Why do you and Kieran both think you get to choose how I feel about anything?”

Brant sighed. “Do you think I would choose for you to be with him? I sure as shit didn’t choose that. But when I left, if I’d said, that was a good time, but if you want to be my girl, Kieran has to go back to his own room, what would have happened there?”

I bit my lip.

“I don’t want to be your second choice, Claire. I deserve better than that and so do you.”

He was wrong. I didn’t deserve better, but maybe he did.

“Then why did you set all this up?”

“Because I want you to be happy.”

It seemed like such an easy thing—happiness. Something made of light and bubbles, but it wasn’t. It was complicated and heavy, like a brick.

“I want you to be happy too.” I did. I didn’t want to hurt him, but if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to give him up either.

For all that I wanted it to be about me, it couldn’t just be about me.

“I know.” His voice was strained.

“Then why does this hurt?” I blurted. I should have kept it to myself, let it fester with everything else.

“Because I’m something different than Kieran. Because you’re looking at what he did tonight and you’re thinking I’d never do that to you. And you’re right, I wouldn’t, but I’m not the one you’re in love with. He is.”

I looked back at his closed bedroom door. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“I do. You’re feeling lost and betrayed.”

My gaze wandered down to my hands. “You’re right. I feel so betrayed and I don’t even know what happened.”

“Do you trust Kieran to tell you the truth about what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s important.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I keep waiting for you to ask me what I saw, but I don’t think you’re going to. I’m glad.”

“I wouldn’t put you in that position.”

He nodded. “Take care of you, okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “You too.”

I watched him leave and I wondered if maybe I’d screwed up. Well, I knew I’d screwed things up, I just wasn’t sure what the fallout would be yet. I never should’ve crossed the line with Kieran. He was something better left as an unrequited fantasy. Then we’d still be friends. All of us would still be friends.

Only, I didn’t miss April.

I didn’t want to be her friend.

It was nice not having her voice in concert with the voice in my head taking little digs at me all the time.

But I still wanted to be Kieran’s friend. I wanted to have that part of him no one else did and I was pretty sure I’d lost it.

Or worse, maybe it had just lost its luster. He wasn’t some sex god to me anymore, neither was he that guy just needing the right woman, that guy who could be fixed. The one I’d warned April that he wasn’t in the beginning.

He was Kieran, the keeper of my heart and he’d twisted it and torn it in half.

The sound of retching echoed from his bathroom and I looked up at the ceiling, half hoping there’d be some kind of cheat sheet with all the answers taped up to the crown molding.

I could leave him there—I should.

But I wouldn’t.

“Pussy,” I muttered to myself.

I braved opening his door and creeping into the bathroom. It stank of rye whiskey and stale smoke, and aftershave. He was on the floor with his head leaned back against the mint green tile on the wall. It was ugly as shit—the wall, not him—even drunk and acting the wrung out bastard, he was still beautiful as sin.

I ran a washcloth under the cool water from the tap and crouched down next to him to sponge his heated forehead.

I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. This was condoning his behavior. It was setting the standard for how he’d treat me. He’d done God knew what with God knew who and I wasn’t screaming, crying, or throwing things. I wasn’t even ignoring him. I was coddling him, petting him and offering him comfort.

I agreed with my earlier assessment of myself: pussy.

His hand closed over mine. “It’s too much,” he mumbled.

“What is?” I eased his hand back down into his lap and continued to administer to him.

“This. You. I wanted to prove to myself and to you that you’d leave.”

“Why?”

He opened his eyes, dark and turbulent—gorgeous in his suffering. “Because anyone I love leaves. I fuck it up.”

I cupped his cheek. “So, you fucked it up on purpose?”

He turned his head away from me, looked at everything but me.

“I see.” I stood, wet the cloth some more and then drew it to the back of his neck and up on his forehead again.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could survive it.”

“I was with you until that part, slugger.” My voice was a whisper. “You can survive anything.”

His fingers circled my wrist. “Not losing you. I can’t.” His exhale deflated him. “I don’t want to.”

“So what did you do, Kieran?”

He didn’t speak.

“You told me you were going to take that client. If all you did was what you said you were going to do, I can’t fault you for that.”

He cut a sharp glance in my direction.

“I didn’t say I could live with the arrangement and be with you, but I won’t fault you for your honesty.”

“It wasn’t her.”

“But you did sleep with someone else.” Each word was a bullet. “I don’t need you to tell me anymore.”

“Please.”

“Please what? Please take your confession like I’m your priest? Please forgive you? Please what?” I hissed and dropped the cloth.

“Take my confession. Absolve me of my sins. Forgive me.”

“Your sins are your own and I don’t want to hear it. You can wear that weight alone. I don’t want to know. In fact, I need not to. I don’t want to see a picture of her, I don’t want to imagine what it was like—the two of you together. What you were thinking about her, if you thought about me, if I matter to you. If I’m as pretty as she is. If she’s skinny and if that’s why you wanted to fuck her instead of me. No, I don’t want it.”

Even though I already knew that it was April he’d been with. If he didn’t speak it aloud, I could pretend it wasn’t true. It was still all circumstantial until it spewed out of his mouth like that gallon of rye he’d drank and the stench would hang in the air just the same.

I hated her in that moment. I hated her so much I could taste it like the coppery tang of blood on my tongue.

“I don’t want it either and it’s rotten, Claire. Rotten and sour.”

“Whatever you did isn’t something that happened to you. It’s something that you did all on your own. You did it, you chose to do it. No one had a gun to your head.”