Page 85 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

“Next.”

A beautiful woman toting a clipboard looked the lot of us over with a jaundiced eye. It landed on me and stayed there as she frowned slightly.

“Mandie Miller,” my sister said, handing over her invitation. The girls did the same and the woman gave them a cursory look before handing them back.

“And you?”

Her perfectly plucked eyebrow rose slowly as she looked me up and down.

I’d put on a nice dress and makeup, but it looked like it wasn’t enough. The woman’s face hardened, as if preparing herself for an onslaught of bullshit from me.

“This is my sister,” Mandie explained.

“I don’t have a sister on the list.” The woman didn’t even consult the clipboard. “You’ll need?—”

“No, but I’m down for a plus one.” My sister spent a lot of her time being a goofy idiot, but when it came to door bitches, no one was going to intimidate her. “You can check the list.”

No please or can you, the door bitch seemed to sense she’d met her equal and then looked down the list again before placing a tick beside Mandie’s name.

“So you do. Enjoy the launch.”

“Ooh, this looks pretty,” Gwen said, staring at all the fairy lights that had been strung up across the market grounds.

“So who was it?” Mandie was not to be deterred. “Was it one, two…?” She stared into my eyes, but spoke over me when I tried to answer. “Three? Was it three?”

“I need to move out of the apartment,” I said, stroking my forehead. “We need our own space.”

“So you can have orgies in your own home, I get it.” Mandie shrugged. “So?—”

“I’m going to get a boba tea,” Gwen said, not paying attention to any of this. “Tash?”

“Grab me a mango tea.” Natasha handed over some cash. “I think I’m gonna need to arbitrate here.”

“Garrett and I went to puppy yoga,” I told Mandie. “It was so cute. Some of them tried to pull his compression tights off and I saw… not-so-little Garrett. We did some downward dog and then went back to his place for some more practice. Rhett was there and?—”

“He’s the firefighter?” Mandie asked. I nodded, watching her grin fade. “The one that was supposed to take you to yoga?”

“Um, yeah.” I shook my head. “He got sent home to rest after fighting fires all night, and I guess we woke him up.” I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. “Didn’t seem too stressed about it, though. Quite the opposite.” It felt like I was fighting to keep the memories of what happened today back and right now I gave in to it. My cheeks had to be burning bright red as I stared at the ground and saw them, not the crushed grass. “So yeah, I was with the firefighter, Rhett, and the m… Garrett. It was amazing, and all four of us are going out for dinner tomorrow night. Five, if you include the dog.”

So why wasn’t my sister happy for me?

“Oh.”

Watching Mandie blink, then try to smile and fail dispelled the warm fuzzies almost immediately. Natasha was looking anywhere but at us. The second hand embarrassment was like a knife stabbing into my heart.

“Oh?” I stepped forward. “Oh? Weren’t you the one that was telling me to go out there and try new things? I did.” My smile threatened to return. “A few, actually.”

“Right, but doesn’t it bother you?”

The careful way Mandie spoke had my spine stiffening. It felt like people were doing that my entire life, talking to me as if they had to get the sock puppets out to explain stuff like I was five.

“Having multiple orgasms with two hot guys is supposed to bother me?” I turned to Natasha, hoping a third, neutral party would intervene, but she just watched this all unfold, palpably uncomfortable.

“Having guys space on you when they plan a date.”

Mandie said that real quietly, but it felt like a punch to the gut nonetheless.

“He didn’t space.” Why the hell was my voice rising? “Rhett was?—”

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