Page 11 of Grin and Bear It

This was the moment when he would glance up, then jerk himself to his feet, a look of frank appreciation in his eyes as he took in an outfit that wasn’t flannel PJs for once. This was the moment when I’d see those dark depths of his eyes flare with heat, burning for me. What I wasn’t expecting was a look of pure shock on his face as I came to stand by his table, his mouth falling open as a small frown formed.

“Ellie?” His eyes darted furtively around the room, as if worried someone might see us. Yeah, this was not what I’d been expecting. “What’re you doing here?”

“What?”

I’d felt like a candle wick before, but now it was as though I’d been transformed into cold, hard, stodgy wax, dense but somehow brittle too.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked again, getting to his feet and ushering me away from the table. “We weren’t hooking up tonight.”

“Are you serious right now?” I resisted his efforts to move me away from the table, like he was escorting me away from the scene of a crime. I fished out my phone and produced piece of evidence A. “You invited me here.”

“Invited?” The disbelief in his voice was the first nail in the coffin of my fragile happiness. I glanced around me, seeing that we had a little bit of an audience. “I wouldn’t invite you…”

My eyes locked with his, all cool fracturing as mine narrowed.

“What did you just say?”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “You’re making a scene.”

I planted my feet hard into the ground and that was one thing I’d always liked about being plus sized. While my dating prospects would have been improved if I was doll-sized, no one was picking me up and moving me out of the way now, not unless I wanted them to. I shook off the hand he put on my arm, watching his eyes drop down to the cleavage on display in the sheer top before he collected himself.

“There’s been a mistake,” he said in his best ‘be reasonable’ voice. “I like spending time with you, Ellie.”

“Fucking me, you mean,” I shot back. “You like fucking me.”

“There’s obviously been a mistake.” He was trying, I had to give him that, his hands thrown up as if to ward me off.

“So you didn’t…” I lifted my phone in an exaggerated action, making sure I quoted him verbatim, “…want to taste me? I wasn’t supposed to wear something hot?”

Derek blinked, and I watched as his eyes grew round as he realised just what he’d done. He’d sent the text alright, he just hadn’t intended to send it to me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to look at his messages and, as I looked at the screen, that’s when I saw what the problem was.

I wasn’t El, or Eleanor or even Ellie in his address book. At the top of our message stream, where my name should be, was a small photograph. Not of my face, my smile or even my eyes, just my tits. It looked like he’d taken the shot when I was asleep, my bare breasts mounded on top of each other, squished into cleavage by my sleeping arm.

“Right.” I stared him in the eyes, feeling too hot and then too cold. “You thought you were messaging someone else. Someone else with big tits.”

“Ellie—”

I silenced him with a shake of my head.

“I don’t care. We don’t have anything exclusive going on.” Those were the right words, but my tone was all shaky. I took a step backwards from him, then another. “I’ll let you get back to it then. Maybe you can call the girl…”

But right as I was about to give the prick an out, I remembered something. My eyes jerked up and bore into his.

“What did you mean when you said you wouldn’t invite me…?”

And that’s when the whole of Diablo came into sharp focus.

This wasn’t for me.

I wasn’t the kind of girl he brought to fancy places like this. I wasn’t the one Derek would dress up for. I was sure the meals from the Thai place up the road were just as good as the food here, but it was the theatre of Diablo that was missing from Siam Takeaway. This was a place to see, but also to be seen, and I was willing to bet that the girl Derek really wanted to taste didn’t look anything like me.

I stared at him for a moment, really looking at him, seeing him just as clearly as the surroundings of Diablo. Beautiful brown eyes, but look at that weak chin. Longish brown hair that felt like silk between my fingers, but was it ever in need of a good wash. Broad shoulders that, with the suit coat, helped draw the eye away from a body that was just as imperfect as mine. And then, as if to confirm my suspicions, a couple approached us.

“D-man!” A tanned and well-muscled guy approached, thrusting out a hand for Derek to take. He did so, and the two of them performed the kind of primitive male greeting ritual that a lot of guys seemed to insist on. “So who’s this?” Tanned guy looked me up and down, the smile turning to a sneer as he took in my outfit, the beautiful woman at his side mimicking his expression. “Your little sister or something?”

Tanned guy searched Derek’s face more closely than he ever had before, I was willing to bet, looking for some character flaw or other reason to justify me being in their proximity.

But I just wanted out of there, so I did them both a favour.

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