Page 27 of Arse Over Irish Teacup
“Four husbands … Know what?”
Whether it was Beth’s drunken talking or his drunken listening, either way Aidan had a feeling this was going to be amusing.
“Behind my back people call me Bethany Spinster. Know why? Because no man wants me.” Aidan’s fresh drink arrived, delivered quietly and without any fuss by a short brunette. “I don’t know why. I’m nice and I’m cute enough, right?”
Aidan didn’t reply, only drank. Not because he didn’t agree but because he recognized a hornet’s nest when he saw one.
“Although, the last guy I dated asked me to lose weight.”
Aidan’s blood pressure rose at the thought of Beth being treated so badly. As the Irish would say, what a feckin’ eejit!
“Maybe I am a little thick in the middle—one time, I went on a diet and nearly crashed my car through a McDonald’s. Rice cakes just aren’t for me—but what’s wrong with that? Nobody wants to hold onto a little stick figure, anyway. I mean I’m no Cindy Crawford?—”
Aidan put down his glass. “Cindy Crawford?”
“Hey, she still looks hot.”
He couldn’t disagree with that.
“One time Lauren and I went to a spa. You know, a fat farm only with a fancy name? They fed us rabbit food, made us meditate and every day we took an ‘invigorating’ walk through nature.”
“Was it more like running through the woods starving with your pants on fire?”
“Exactly! I wanted to die before that week was over. I don’t get it. A criminal who lies, cheats, and steals is forgiven everything but if you’re carrying a few extra pounds, you may as well be run out of the country on the first barge leaving port.” Beth shoved a whole cracker with cheese in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Gram used to say the Lord asks many things of us. He does not require calorie counting.”
Aidan had to admit that Gram sounded like an interesting woman.
“People are so superficial. When it’s all said and done, all life is about is how we lived, how we treated others. Were you kind? Were you helpful?”
He couldn’t disagree with that. Kind and helpful had once been words used to describe him but not anymore. That was troublesome.
With the food now gone, Beth laid her head back and went quiet. Long enough that he assumed her rant was done and she would soon be asleep. Which meant he would be left alone with his self-loathing. Now, there was a scary thought.
ChapterTwelve
Nope!Wrong again. Aidan was beginning to see a pattern here.
Beth fired up once again and came straight out of left field.
“What’s with all the stupid abbreviations? Doesn’t anyone speak normally anymore? Use your words! Why should I give any of my time to a man who can’t even buy a vowel? And don’t get me started on that eggplant thingy.”
“Emoji’s.”
“Those! And since when did sending a picture of your privates translate to ‘you’re my one and only?’ Whatever happened to sending flowers? When did sending a dirty picture become the language of love?”
“People don’t care about love anymore. They confuse love with sex. They only care about sex.”
Beth paused a moment and lost her train of thought. “Where was I?”
Aidan propped his chin on his fist, settling in. “Eggplants.”
No, that wasn’t it, was it? Things were turning foggy in her brain. “You know, I’m probably going to be a spinster my whole life. I should start getting cats. I can be the crazy cat lady and I’ll keep living and the cats will keep dying and then I’ll get those little paw print things in the clay the vet gives you and then have a wall—no, a whole room of pet paw prints because I keep living and they keep dying and nobody wants me and I can’t have just one cat. Oh, good gracious, no! We?—”
We? How many of her were in there?
“… must have at least four. Maybe even six! And if you got six why not ten? And after that why not a baker’s dozen?”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
