Sexy and Funny, Hilarious Erotic Romance Bundle (46 page)

“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” she said. “He came over and you ate scrambled eggs. Then Shayla got weird and jealous, and said he was fake. You and the hunk went for a drive to Dolphin Falls, and then shit got real when you had sex in his fancy car.”

“Mother!”

“Petra. I may be twice your age, but I know what goes on at Dolphin Falls. And don’t forget, my generation invented the concept of
shit getting real
.”

“I feel like I’m being really stupid. He can’t possibly like me as much as he says he does, can he?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because I’m a regular person, and he’s Dalton Deangelo.”

“He’s still human.” There was a paused as she talked to Kyle for a minute.

“I should let you go,” I said. “Maybe I’m over-thinking this.”

“Is the problem that you still have feelings for Adrian Storm?”

“Hah! Not in a million years.”

“Mm-hmm. That’s not what I heard from his mother. From what I understand, you were flirting with him, inviting him upstairs to see your old bedroom.”

“Gross! Mother!”

“Then go for the TV fellow. At least he’s not bankrupt. Apparently Adrian had his fancy sports car taken away, so now he’s got nothing.”

“Don’t sound so disgusted. I’ve got the same amount of
nothing
as Adrian. I work at a bookstore for what amounts to minimum wage based on the number of hours, and I’m still paying off my credit card for a cuckoo clock I bought three months ago in an online auction.”

“We all live in houses of our own construction.”

“You live in a house bought by… some movie star who rogered you.”

“Exactly,” she said.

I howled in exasperation. I hated it when she got philosophical, but more than that, I hated it when she was right.

My phone beeped with a dying battery. “Running out of juice, Mom. I should let you go.”

“Date this movie star for a while,” she said. “And then when Adrian is on the upswing, maybe give him a shot. There’s no rush. You’re only twenty-two. Have some fun, will you?”

We said goodbye and I ended the call, feeling a tiny bit more normal after a typical conversation with my mother.

For the rest of the night, I vegged on the couch, alternating between TV and books. I forgot to plug my phone in, so it sat mutely on my bed while all my friends sent me text messages and left voicemails I didn’t know about.

I ate dinner in blissful ignorance as my mailbox filled up.

I went to bed, feeling confused and ambivalent about seeing Dalton again, but I slept soundly, still ignorant of what awaited me the next day.

On Sunday morning, Shayla tapped timidly at my bedroom door.

With my face still in my pillow, I waved in the general direction of my closet. “Help yourself. Wear whatever you want.”

Sounding really concerned, she said, “How are you feeling, really?”

I sat up, on high alert. “What did you hear?”

She gave me a patronizing look. “Everything.”

“You talked to my mother?”

“Not yet. Should I?”

My skin felt clammy. Something really bad had happened, and Shayla knew, but I didn’t. I reached for my cell phone, but it was cold and dead.

She said, “How are you? Really?”

“Shayla, my phone’s kaput. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be upset about right now. Would you please break it to me gently?”

“There are half-naked photos of you all over the internet.”

Every sweat gland in my body pumped its guts out. The world went dark, pulling into a pinhole of light. My mouth watered. The sweet relief of passing out, however, did not come. I was still sitting in my bed, in drenched pajamas, my roommate giving me her best concerned look, mixed with a touch of her I-told-you-so look.

“Show me,” I said.

She pulled up something on her phone and handed it to me. I fully expected to see hidden-camera images of me trespassing in the hot spring, or even images of me transferring naked to the back seat of Dalton’s car.

Instead, there was a video clip of big-haired Brooke Summer interviewing me on my front steps. I had to watch it three times to figure out what the hell I was seeing.

Brooke: “I understand you’re sleeping with Dalton Deangelo. How would you describe sex with him?”

Cut to me, with my blond hair mussed up from recent sex: “Yes. It’s very nice, if you like that sort of thing.”

My reaction to this video clip was complicated. I was angry at that c-word for tricking me, but I was also pleased to be getting a few minutes of fame for something other than running a successful pledge drive for the local library.

Again, the universe was hinting that I might actually be a wild and crazy girl.

“Whatever,” I said to Shayla. “That’s not too bad.”

She shook her head. “There’s more.”

My stomach dove into my other organs. Now here would come the nude photos in the hot spring.

Shayla fiddled with her phone for a second, then handed it back, sucking in air between her gritted teeth.

“Um, this could be worse,” she said. “You look cute.”

On her phone, I found photos of a girl in brown trousers and a lacy bra, no shirt, standing on a stepladder and installing a light fixture. It took several views of the same images for me to reconcile that it was me, inside the bookstore.

“Cute, right?” she said.

“This is it?” The text that accompanied the photos said I was
linked to
Dalton Deangelo, but didn’t even say I was dating him. “This is nothing,” I said.

“That’s the spirit!” Shayla said. “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but nasty words will never hurt us.”

Words? I hadn’t read any nasty words. I’d just been scanning in a panic, then relieved by how tame the photos were, compared to the eyeful they could have gotten.

I shouldn’t have read the text below. I should have stopped after one cruel nickname, but I didn’t.

Horrible internet comments.

About me.

One of the posts had a whole list of awful names for me, as well as a poll. People were voting on a nickname for me.

In third place was Porky Peaches.

Second-most popular was Peachalicious.

And leading the polls was… Peaches by the Pounds.

I’d been called names before, and while most of these were new ones, the feeling in my heart wasn’t a unique experience. I’d been to this heartbreak rodeo before.

I was used to some people being disgusted with me. I knew that if I wore a short skirt, some dipshit ugly asswad would sneer at me like I’d ruined their appetite with my dimpled thighs.

What I wasn’t accustomed to, as I’d never been
linked to
a popular movie star, was the raw anger.

As I read through the anonymous internet comments, a part of me died. Perhaps it was the last shreds of my youthful naivete. Or my faith in humanity. Either way, it died.

I fell back on the bed. If this had been a comedic moment in my always-wacky life, I would have tugged one of my pillows across my face and growled into it hysterically.

Instead, I stared at the ceiling and silently began to weep. Not just about this time, but every time people had been cruel. Despite the wet tears, my eyes felt hot and dry. When I caught my breath, the ragged sobs began.

Bless her heart, Shayla knew just what to do.

She didn’t argue with me about how bad I ought to be feeling, but she did take away my phone and laptop so I couldn’t jump further down the black hole of reading more posts and comments.

I cycled through the emotional stages rapidly, with the bargaining stage lasting only about an hour.

During the anger stage, we planned out revenge on Brooke Summer. Shayla had been seeing her dining at the restaurant she managed, and had already given her full-fat milk in her latte instead of skim a few times. And that was before the fake interview with me, just for being a c-word.

I started to feel better, and then got hit with another wave of what felt like… everything. It wasn’t fair. I pushed Shayla out of my bedroom, locked the door, and buried myself under my blankets. Barely able to breathe, I sobbed.

I’d come so far in the last few years, with my body image. I’d come to accept that I’d never have a thigh gap—that triangle of space between the upper legs that skinny girls have. I had a healthy body that functioned well, and took me places, and even gave me pleasure. I enjoyed my curves, and was only a little self-conscious about certain views while nude—something even my skinny girlfriends said they felt, too.

On bad days, I accepted myself; on good days, I even loved how I looked, and how I rocked certain outfits, like my red leather pencil skirt.

Now these strangers had taken this little bit of progress away from me. The hurt was fresh and raw, like no years had passed, and I was fifteen again, a victim of the disconnection between me and my body.

I stopped breathing, but the pain still found me.

Late Sunday afternoon, I emerged from my bedroom on shaky legs. After a longish hot shower (as long as our water tank would allow), I felt better. Not great, but better.

I joined Shayla downstairs, and we ordered pizza for dinner. We swivelled the couch in the front room around so we could watch the window for the delivery guy’s arrival.

“I’m going to phone Dalton,” I said. “Gimme my phone.”

It was fully charged, but Shayla took a minute to clear through the alerts from our friends about the crap they’d seen online. She stayed next to me as I called Dalton, insisting she wasn’t being nosy, but had to stay so I didn’t read horrible things.

I frowned at her as Dalton’s line rang and rang, then went to voicemail. I tried him three times, getting voicemail each time.

I left a message. “This is Peaches Monroe calling for Dalton Deangelo. I’m sorry I ran off yesterday. I didn’t mean to be so flakey, but… things got a little intense there. I don’t know how long you’re in town, but I do want to see you again. I… um… I like you. Bye.”

After I hung up, I stared into Shayla’s amber eyes for clues. Had I sounded desperate? Needy? Clingy? And all those horrible things people say about girls, just because we have feelings?

“He’ll call,” Shayla said.

“No, he won’t. He doesn’t want to be photographed with Miss Porky Poundcake.”

“I need to confess something.”

I crossed my arms and waited. Her tone frightened me.

She continued, “I was a little jealous of all the attention you were getting. Yesterday, when the news crew was on the front lawn, I knew they were there, and I answered the door like that on purpose. Dressed in almost nothing.”

She put her face in both hands.

“Why would you do that?”

“I’m a terrible person,” she sobbed between her fingers. “I put on makeup before I answered the door.”

I bit my lower lip, fighting back the urge to laugh.

“You put on makeup, but not pants?” I asked.

She nodded, her face still in her hands.

“You thought this was your chance to get fifteen minutes of fame?”

More nodding, still sobbing.

I patted her knee. “Hang in there. I’m sure if you keep doing stupid stuff, you’ll get your chance to have strangers vote on mean nicknames for you.”

She sniffed. “You think?”