technically after lunch even though I’d only been up for two hours), and pulled a tub of cookie dough ice cream from the freezer. As I shut the freezer door I came face to face with the jeans. Talk about being torn. In the end I compromised and took a small bowl from the cupboard and put a measly two scoops in it. Ice cream and wine, now that’s my kind of lunch.
Another glass of wine and another scoop of ice cream later, I picked up my phone but couldn’t bring myself to call Jay. I opened my messages.
R eally sorry I had to cancel today, can I make it up to you with dinner at my house on Friday? Maybe we can take up where we left off.
M y thumb hit send before my brain had the chance to chicken out. I threw my phone onto the sofa and downed the rest of my wine with a shaking hand.
My phone beeped moments after it hit the cushion, and my heart leapt.
S ounds good , but I can’t do this week. How about a week from Saturday? J
A nything as long as you do me, Jay. I wonder how he’d react if I sent him a text like that? Maybe I should text him a shot of my tits. No, that idea is so far beyond my reality it isn’t even funny. But then, so is having a man like Jay interested in me. And I canceled on him! I am an idiot!
W orks for me , see you at 6
I didn’t want to wait until eight. Hell, I hoped to be undressed by that time.
10
“ M orning Abbie ,” Sam said as I slung my purse onto my chair for yet another week of working for Calvin.
“Hey.”
“So, how was it?”
As I filled her in, her facial expressions reflected the roller coaster I had ridden over the weekend and ended with hope. Hope for Saturday. Though she, like Jenny, thought I should pursue a real relationship with him. Neither of them had been betrayed the way Matt had betrayed me. Jenny always tried to insist that she’d been betrayed by an ex, and that somehow I should see that as the same. Yeah, like a little infidelity can begin to compare.
“Abbie, can I see you in my office?” Calvin asked.
I snarled my lip at Sam, making her laugh as I stood to follow Calvin into his office. Calvin sat as his desk and looked at me with disgust. At that moment I decided Jenny was right, I did have to get out of this job. Though more for my sanity at having to deal with Calvin than for any extra money.
And I had to get out before Calvin fired me. This was going to be a long week. After talking at me about some new report he was concocting in his pea sized brain, I left his office. That’s thirty minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
My phone beeped, and I pulled it out of my purse.
S cored two tickets to the game tonight, up for it? J
O n a work night ? Oh well, it was Monday so technically I haven’t seen him since last week. And I’m not going to see him this coming weekend so I wouldn’t see him at all this week. That’s not too intense.
W ould love to
I hit send and I swung my chair around kicking my legs.
“What’s up with you?” Sam asked.
“Jay is taking me to the game tonight.”
“What game?”
“Dunno. Don’t care either.” I struggled to contain the enormous smile on my face.
The second the clock hit five, I stood. I’d already put my sneakers on ten minutes before, and watched the seconds tick until I could leave without incurring Calvin’s wrath.
* * *
O nce home , I ripped off my work clothes, had a short shower to rinse off my pits and bits and stood in front of my closet. I overheard some co-workers about ‘the game’ tonight, I tuned into their conversation and gathered it was basketball. A sport I knew zero about. Not that it mattered, I’m always up for a new experience but it would be nice to know what sort of clothes I should wear.
In the end I opted for tight-fitting jeans. Tight from my fatness, not style. And a navy long-sleeved blouse The hem sat mid-way over my ass and the billowy front showed off