He was right.
But what he didn’t know was that I’d made a vow last night.
Today would be my last day of eating like crap. It would be the last day that I put anything in my body that wasn’t healthy for me for at least the next few months while I trained my ass off for the Spartan Texas Race that I’d signed up for as a spur of the moment decision last night.
I’d been lying in my bed, feeling sorry for myself, and had seen the ad for it on my timeline on my social media page as I’d been scrolling through all of my friends’ happy lives.
Since I baked cakes for a living and made my living practically by word of mouth through social media, I spent a lot of time on there looking for ideas as well as promoting the hell out of myself.
And when I’d seen that in my timeline, I’d remembered when I’d gone to the race with Mal last year.
We’d already been having troubles by that point, so when I’d expressed interest in wanting to go to that, he’d practically laughed in my face and told me that I couldn’t do it.
Therefore, when I saw it again last night, I’d made a rash decision and signed up even though I knew that it would likely take everything I had to give to even finish the race, let alone rock at it.
Which was also why, when I saw the boot camp right underneath it, which happened to have a couple of ex-military guys helping run it that would ‘get me ready for the race,’ I’d signed both me and my best friend up for it.
Though, she didn’t know that fun fact just yet.
I had a plan to meet her after lunch to discuss it with her.
However, she’d been applying for a job and was running late.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I did mention it to him.”
I knew what his next words would be without even having to think outside the box. He was so predictable.
Which he told me and confirmed my guess of what would come out of his mouth moments later.
“You do know, right, that you won’t do well at it?” he asked bluntly.
I wanted to punch him in the dick.
“I know that I signed up for a boot camp that would help me accomplish my goal of finishing,” I said patiently, not wanting to create a scene.
This was my favorite restaurant, and I wanted to be able to come back to this place after everything was all said and done with the man and the bitch standing in front of me.
“Well, good luck with that,” Marjorie sneered. “Me and Mal are running it together this year. I can’t wait.”
Wonderful.
On one of the biggest days of my life, I’d have to see them.
Yay.
“That’s cool.” I picked up my chip and shoved it into my mouth.
“You’re not going to get anywhere eating like that, though.” He shook his head. “I thought you told Dad that you didn’t have any money? If you don’t have any money, how exactly are you able to come out to eat and buy shit like that?”
I sighed. “I was given a gift card.”
By his father, sure, but it was a gift card nonetheless.
He’d been given it by one of his clients and had then given it to me because a little hole in the wall wasn’t Malloy’s cup of tea. Malloy’s tastes were more refined… and they leaned toward two-hundred-dollar steaks and not ten-dollar hamburgers.
“Show her the checks,” Marjorie whispered.
I gritted my teeth at her obnoxious voice.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “She’ll really like them.”
There he went with the checks again.
Little motherfucker.
God, what did I ever see in him?
Seriously, I couldn’t see an ounce of the man that I thought I’d fallen in love with.
I sighed. “How about you just show me them now and give the anticipation a rest.”
He took great pride in pulling out his pocketbook, flipping it open, and showing me the new checks he’d be sending me each month.
They were a picture of Mal and Marjorie, kissing, with Marjorie holding her hand up to the camera with my ring on her finger.
My. Ring.
My.
Motherfucking.
Cocksucking.
Ring.
A family heirloom.
I was literally going to kill him.
Right then and there.
Followed shortly by her.
I eyed the steak knife that’d been rolled up in my napkin with my fork, then Marjorie’s finger.
The sad thing was, I seriously considered it.
Seriously.
If I didn’t need my job, I’d seriously consider chopping her finger off just to get it.
“You do realize, correct,” I said softly, “that that was my grandmother’s ring. That was worn by every single female in my family for the last four hundred and twenty years.”
I’d lost the wedding ring in the shuffle.
Though, I knew I didn’t lose it.
I had suspected Mal had done something with it when he’d moved out, and apparently, he had.
Apparently, he’d given it to his new woman.
I wanted to seriously kill them both.
My hand curled around the steak knife in my hand, and I had to have a constant ‘don’t kill him’ mantra in my head as he smiled as if he’d pulled one over on me.
Someone slipped into the seat beside me, but I was so freakin’ mad that I didn’t even register who it was.
I was too busy telling myself that the color orange wasn’t a good look on redheads.
Chapter 2
According to Google, I can eat seven donuts a day if I don’t drink a Coke.
-Maybe you shouldn’t always trust what you read on the internet.
Callum
I watched her from across the restaurant. I had been for the last thirty minutes.
I’d clocked her the moment she walked in the door and had been openly staring at her ever since.
“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress, a cute little blonde that couldn’t be more than eighteen, asked.
I glanced at her and shook my head. “No.”
Her smile dimmed, and I remembered to tack on a, “Thanks, though.”
Her smile renewed, she walked away, heading straight for the table with the beautiful redhead.
I had a special thing for redheads. My sister was a redhead when she was a baby. Not that I had a thing for my sister or anything like that, but she held a special place in my heart, and I’d always found myself gravitating toward them. In fact, my first girlfriend in eighth grade had been a redhead.
The rest of them had been blondes with big tits, but that didn’t negate the fact that my heart always wanted to go for the fiery ones. The ones that were trouble. Big, big trouble.
And the one sitting in the booth all by herself three tables down from mine?
She really looked like she was trouble.
The kind of trouble that made you fall in love with them and you lived happily ever after with kind of trouble.
I dropped my eyes back down to the paperback I was reading and waited patiently for my food to come out. And while I did that, I certainly did not look up and find myself staring at a certain redhead.