Page 1 of Good Girl

1

CHARLOTTE

“It’s fuckingridiculous!” came the indignant yell from my best friend, muffled slightly by the stall door. “I mean, does he have any idea how much work it takes for me to look this good, and he can’t even be bothered to—ugh!”

Her irritated words ended in a frustrated growl and something solid hit the side of the stall door. I had to assume it was her hand and nothing else.

“I know,” I offered gently. “Are you sure you don’t want me to give him a call?”

“No!” Haley screeched. “Don’t be stupid, Charlotte. What good would calling him do?”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and turned back to the full mirror display on the opposite wall. Apparently, talking to your boyfriend about his lack of effort was the worst thing you could do when you were frustrated aboutexactlythat.

“Alright, I’m sorry.” I leaned against the counter and gently dabbed at the light pink gloss I had applied to my lips. It wasn’t my color, not really. In fact, nothing about standing in a dirty club bathroom at two a.m. was my scene, but Haley had insisted that I couldn’t back out this time. I had missed her birthday night out, after all, and it was only fair I made it up to her by being her wing woman all evening since she had to deal with my constant, boringnegativity, as she put it, toward anything social.

This just... wasn’t me. Crowds, loud music, and drinks that cost half a week’s wages at any decent job—I just couldn’t. Everything about this place, from the alcohol to the drugs and the sex, went against how I had been raised and what I had grown into as a person.

Clubbing was not for me. Everything about being here was like smearing myself in a second skin ofsweat, and I already struggled with that, being a bigger girl in a boiling hot place like this.

“Seriously, Charlotte.” The stall door behind me swung open, and Haley stomped out with her silver tube dress riding high around her hips as she wrestled herself back into a neon pink thong. I politely averted my eyes.

“I know you mean well, but you honestly have no clue what you’re talking about.” Haley stepped out of the stall and shimmied her dress down over the small bubble swell of her ass, then she joined me at the mirror and snatched my mascara tube right out of my fingers.

Irritation rose, but I swallowed it down. Haley was having a difficult time tonight, so who was I to judge?

“I’m not completely clueless about boys,” I replied. “Jonathan was—”

“Jonathan hardly counts,” Haley interrupted, and she fluttered her eyelashes as she dabbed more mascara on the lengthy curls framing her eyes. “You never fucked him, right?”

Silence fell, and the gaggle of skinny girls at the far end of the bathroom all turned to look at the two of us. I could see them in my peripheral vision, huddled together in the mirror like lionesses waiting to see what thefatgirlrevealed about her ex.

Jonathan Hughes was my ex, if exes from high school even counted. My mother had adored him, but to me, he was nothing but a bully who only wanted to get in the pants of the good little church girl. I’d dated him to make my mother happy, something that was incredibly rare after my father passed, but I had dumped him as soon as I started college. That was supposed to be the beginning of my fresh start, but standing here in this bathroom with my best friend staring me down and girls laughing behind my back... I might as well still be in high school.

“No,” I replied as heat flushed across my cheeks, “but that’s not the point...”

Trailing off, the gaggle of hens burst into peals of laughter and poured out of the bathroom as Haley finished applying mascara and leaned away from the mirror. Her pretty red lips pulled into a cool smile.

“Exactly. And until you’ve seen exactly what a man can do with a cock, you won’t ever understand how they work.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” I muttered, and the warmth in my cheeks flared hotter. In the mirror, they shone back at me like two rosy apples. My gut twisted as Haley draped one elegant arm over my shoulders and tucked me in closer to her narrow frame.

“Oh, sweetie, once you have a man by the dick, everything else comes easy. If you weren’t a virgin, you really would understand that more,” she tutted softly. Haley smiled brightly then and tipped the mascara back in my direction. I took it slowly, and my fingers trembled slightly as Haley began running her fingers through my long, wavy blonde hair.

“You really should have worn your hair up or something to hide that chin. It’s basically nature’s facelift,” Haley murmured, “and didn’t I tell you teal was not your color?”

She stepped away to wash her hands, and I dropped my gaze to the teal ruffled blouse I had chosen for this evening. Combined with simple black pants, I had tried to go for something that was elegant as well as to minimize my large waistline and massive chest. No one had told meblackwas a bad color for clubbing.

“Come on, darling!” Haley’s voice was back to being chipper as she reappeared by my side. “If Paul can’t recognize how fuckinghothis girlfriend is, then I guess I’ll just find someone who can appreciate me. You’re goody-two-shoes enough for the both of us!”

Her excitement was infectious as she grabbed my hand, and I had only a few seconds to stuff my makeup back into my purse before I was dragged back out into the thrumming nightlife of Club Tango.

Haley wove through the crowd with expert ease, and I followed, although less graciously. Being a bigger girl, the polite parting of the sea that occurred in a nightclub just wasn’t enough, and raising your voice over the thrumming music to sayexcuse mewas near impossible. By the time I had pushed my way through to Haley, she was draped in some man’s arms like a feather boa.

“Charlotte.” She giggled, her eyes sparkling from the neon lights overhead. “Where did you go?”

The heat and noise were overwhelming, so much so that voicing how I couldn’tweaveas effectively as her was pointless. Instead, I shrugged, earning a laugh from her as the crowd melted in around us.

Deep bass music filled the air and vibrated so powerfully through the floor that I could taste the vibrations on the back of my tongue. Neon lights danced overhead amid swirls of smoke, and glitter launched from canons on the sidelines. Each breath was filled with the stink of sweat and the overly sweet mix of a hundred different perfumes and aftershaves.

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