Autumn Adventure (Summer Unplugged #6) Read Online Free PDF Page A

what you think? Even now, when we’re married and made vows to each other and are having a kid together, you really think that I would just walk away from all of that just because you gained weight?”
    I nod. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t.”
    He sighs and shakes his head. “I love you too much for that and I wish you knew it.”
    I sigh, too, although mine is out of resentment for myself and not over Jace. “I know you mean well, babe. But I know what other girls think about you. There are so many girls out there who are way hotter than I’ll ever be. It puts a lot of pressure on me to stay good enough for you. Sure, I can get fat now with the baby but once he’s born I’ll have to bust my ass to get hot for you again. It’s just a lot to worry about. I know you don’t mean to ever leave me, but you might think twice about that when the time comes.”
    Jace takes a long sip of his drink and then reaches across the table with his fork and steals a bite of my hotcakes. “Have you ever seen my mom in a bathing suit?”
    “You know I haven’t,” I say, recalling the one and only time I met his parents a few months ago, if you don’t count the wedding. No one was wearing swimwear at our wedding. “What’s your point?”
    “One day I’m sure we’ll all go swimming together,” he says. “Probably next summer since they’ll be begging to hang out with their grandkid. You’ll see her in a bathing suit and you’ll probably wonder what everyone else, including me, wonders.”
    “What’s that?” I ask, afraid to know the answer. Jace’s mom isn’t a supermodel, but for a middle-aged woman, she’s not ugly either. She’s neither fat nor skinny, but a nice average size. But if she’s anything like my mom, she will refuse to be seen in a bathing suit in public.
    “She used to be morbidly obese,” Jace says, knocking all of my ideas out of the water. That is the last thing I expected him to say.
    “Seriously?” I blurt out.
    He nods. “For like, my whole childhood. All she ever did was complain about being fat and gross and I grew up thinking that’s how all women were. I didn’t think my mom was gross, but she pretty much convinced me she was with how much she said it.”
    “What happened?” I ask. I barely know the woman but now I’m dying to know her story.
    “So Dad was always gone on business and I was always on a dirt bike, so our family barely had any quality time together. But one day we were all free on the same weekend because my race had rained out, so Mom planned this family BBQ dinner thing and said I could invite some friends over to go swimming. So anyhow, everyone was swimming except my mom because she refused to be seen in a bathing suit, but we were all having fun.” Jace smiles as he recalls the memory and I see him for the first time as a little kid in my mind. He continues, “Dad was getting pretty drunk, because he can’t grill unless he’s drinking and they were grilling a ton of food. At one point, I was walking inside to go pee and I overheard my parents talking. I don’t think they had any idea I was in the next room. Dad told her she should go swim and enjoy the water and she said no because the last bathing suit she bought was a size thirty and she didn’t think it fit her anymore. And then Dad said ‘You know you were a size two when we first met’ and I was like oh shit, this is it. Dad’s about to be murdered.”
    Jace stops to laugh and shake his head. My eyes are almost bugging out of my head and I urge him to go on. “Well? She obviously didn’t murder him, so what happened?”
    Jace shrugs. “My dad said something that’s never left me. He said, ‘The funny thing is that over the last twenty years, you’ve only gotten more beautiful.’”
    Chills fill my arms. How could anyone say that and mean it? As if reading my mind, Jace says, “I believed it, too. My dad always looked at my mom like she was some kind of princess. He taught me what love