Cake (2 page)

I sighed, and stretching an arm out of the bath, I reached for and rolled up a plush hand towel into a tube, setting it behind my neck. When I’d been heavy, even the back of my neck had been cushioned with fat. Now that I was thin, I needed the extra cushioning that a nice, expensive, thick towel would give when I wanted to lie back in the tub.

Growing up, I was a skinny kid. It wasn’t until I started going blind in high school that I’d started to put on the weight and grow a nasty personality. I didn’t want anyone to look at me, to see the real me. I was lost in my darkening world, and I hated everyone because I was the only one affected. At least, that was what I thought then, not realizing that my family was affected by my blindness too. I felt so alone and resented that everyone else could go along with their daily tasks when I couldn’t. It was as if the world were picking on me, and my family was leaving me behind in darkness.

The doctors never did come up with an explanation for my failing eyesight or for the fact that at a certain point, it stopped. With thick lenses and very bright light, I could actually get around and function but not enough to avoid the label “seeing impaired” though. But I was able to live on my own, to get around on my own, and to hold down a boring job, because I could see a computer screen if I used a very large font and the room was dark in contrast to the bright computer screen.

“
Ocular Degeneration” and “We have no real explanation as to why it seems to have stopped just this side of your son being completely blind” weren’t good enough explanations for me, but that was the best the specialists could do. I wasn’t comforted to hear their prognosis.

“
Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Xavier, your son’s blindness is beyond medical explanation.” Shrug of white lab coat shoulders.
“Sorry for your luck, kid.”

Sorry, for my sorry excuse for a life? Well, sorry just didn’t cut it, and I was royally pissed about that.

Now that the tub was full, I used my feet to shut the taps off and tried unsuccessfully not to think about that day—that last day that
he
had allowed me to live in the world of sunlight. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. If only I’d done this; if only I’d done that.

If only I’d called in sick the way I’d wanted to that morning, I’d still be a fat, blind punk…with a very bad attitude.

T
wo

Sex Memories

It was my birthday, and the entire day was completely screwed up. There I was, stuck bar hopping for another hour, with three co-workers that I had nothing in common with, barely knew, and all of whom I really didn’t want to get to know any better. To top it off, sometime during the night, I’d gotten the headache back that’d been hovering in my head for the past few weeks, and it was slowly getting worse.

All night we’d been hitting the bars, and when it was finally two in the morning, we’d sunk to the lowest-of-the-low bar in this town. I lost those bastards somewhere in the crowd soon after paying my ten-dollar cover fee. I’d paid theirs too, because they’d claimed that they didn’t have enough money and would pay me back come payday. But just moments later, I noticed they had enough for a round of drinks for themselves. I would have just left them there, if I hadn’t already paid the money to get in.

I guess, technically, it wasn’t my birthday anymore, it being after midnight and all. Screw it. It was supposed to be
my
day, all about me, me, me, and yet, I hadn’t got to do a damned thing I wanted to do. I didn’t even get a piece of the cake Allison had baked for me, because of that damned last-minute meeting I got called into. By the time I got back to the break room, there was only a smidge of icing left on the tray. I’d swiped it onto my finger and sucked it clean, pissed that they hadn’t left me even one lousy piece to eat. But maybe they figured, at two hundred and eighty-nine pounds, I didn’t need any cake. Screw them.

I threw a mental finger at them now as they downed their beers, and my headache increased to a rhythmic, dull throb. All I could think was, “Great, my headache is intensifying, and I have to try and find an ATM to get some cash so I can call a cab and get my tired ass home.”

The swirling lights and the pounding music didn’t help my aching head. I was reduced to squinting even more than usual to see blurry blobs in that dark and dreary little place.

The fact that it was a gay bar we were in was not lost on me. The combination of my short red hair, which I kept to something a smidge longer than a buzz cut, and my general unattractiveness to the female sex, only endeared me more to the hot male cruisers out looking for a hook-up.

Not.
I was blind, not deaf. I heard every disparaging remark and cutting jibe about “that fatso over there”…me. These sorts of barbed comments were the very reason why I stayed the hell home with my delivery menu and my case of beer. Enough was enough. I got up to leave and turned, only to run into someone.

I was about to rip a strip off him for being in my way, but my nose was planted into a firm chest.
Holy moly.
I blinked and looked up, and looked up some more, until I could make out a strong jaw line. The man’s head dipped forward and his features came into focus a bit more.
Hottie to the extreme.
One of his hands curved around my shoulder, holding onto the folds of my neck, while the other was placed on the bar behind me. The headache that had been plaguing me blew away like so much smoke as I stared up into his pretty brown eyes.

My own hands were hanging loosely at my sides, but we were plastered together from my paunchy stomach to his rock-hard abs and groin. He had to be at least six feet five, or maybe six feet six inches tall. His dark brown hair was wavy; he had it pulled loosely back into a ponytail with soft, dark strands hanging down on each side of his face to caress each cheek. God, it was a sexy look. I was surprised when the urge to reach up and touch one of the dangling strands grew in me, but I was afraid that I would get a broken wrist if tubby, disgusting me dared try such a thing.

The plain beige shirt he wore pulled taut across his chest as he moved his arms. Wait…he was hugging me closer to him?

“
What do you think you’re doing?” I squeaked, rather than demanded as I intended to.

He leaned over, and for a moment I was startled, thinking he was going to kiss me. I went rigid in his grasp, and he hesitated, which told me he
had
been going to kiss me. I felt fury rip right through me. It was bad enough to hear the taunting and spiteful comments from those bastards around me, but for this beautiful man to actually come up to me to…

“
Beautiful.”

“
Huh? What was that?”

“
I think you’re beautiful.” His thumb started stroking the back of my neck.

“
What? Are you trying to win a bet or something? Bring the fattest, ugliest man to the party? Been there, done that, not gonna happen ever again, pal.” The memory of that humiliation years ago still stung, and if I were depressed enough, it actually brought tears to my eyes, like now. I blinked rapidly to erase the evidence of my momentary weakness.

He stilled, looking into my eyes as if there weren’t Coke-bottle-thick lenses between us. “You truly believe that?”

“
What’s not to believe? If everyone around you is telling you that, then there must be something to it, Einstein.”

“
Then, Little One, you need to hang out with a better class of people.” He moved his hands away from me, placing them on either side of me, but now I was caught between the bar at my back and this tall, fit, gorgeous man at my front. His firm thigh moved forward, pressing between my own flabby thighs, forcing them to spread, and I glanced up at him in panic as he invaded my personal space. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “You need to hang out with me.”

“
Hey looky, it’s the StayPuff marshmallow man!” Someone in the surrounding crowd was trying to be clever with an old, stale line that I had heard a hundred times. And yet it still hurt every time it was said, as if it were the first. I must have winced.

“
Beautiful…do not listen to them.” It was as if he were trying to hypnotize me with those sweetly whispered words. He turned his gaze away from me to glance over his shoulder, and his tone when he spoke next brooked no argument. “You need to go away before I have to hurt you, and believe me, it would be my pleasure to hurt you, for hurting my friend here. So get lost,
now
!”

Even wearing my Coke-glass thick glasses, in the darkness of the dingy bar, I couldn’t see if my verbal assassin had wisely buggered off, but I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to stand up against that tone of voice.

Big and Tall, as I thought of him, turned back to me, sweeping in and pressing a kiss against my lips. I just stood there like a statue as those insistent lips and that apple-scented breath of his swept me away. I was stunned. I was shocked absolutely numb. I tried to think of why this was happening to me, and why I wasn’t putting up a fight. Number one: I was straight. Number two: he was a guy. Number three: girls didn’t want me kissing them, so why did he want to kiss me? Number a zillion…I’m a short, fat, near blind, red haired geek and not someone tall, dark, and handsome, like him.

His hands were still on the bar. I could feel his biceps brushing my shoulders. There was something wrong with this picture, and it began to make my internal alarm ring loud. I moved to push him away and he countered by pressing his thigh up tight against my crotch. I was lifted off my feet a little. I was too damned heavy to be lifted off my feet, yet here I was, hung off his thigh. And it was obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, unless he let me.

I squeaked again, and he leaned forward, his tongue quickly pushing its way into my opened mouth. He moved one of his huge hands toward my face and in another moment he’d pulled my glasses off. His invading tongue was slipping along mine, and I could taste the lingering essence of a smooth whiskey and smoky apple.

Oh my God, he could kiss.

My hands finally fisted his shirt, and I tried to push him away. I might as well have been pushing at a brick wall. This stranger was going to finish this kiss when
he
decided to finish it and not before.

Twenty-nine years old, and I had barely been out of the box. By the time this brown haired god of lust and desire released his lip lock, I was panting, and the sound of my blood coursing through my veins seemed to be louder than the music still pulsating out on the dance floor. If he pulled his thigh away now, right at this moment, I would simply fall boneless to the floor.

“
Sigmund, you have the most gorgeous green eyes…” His hand came up and he stroked a knuckle down the side of my face.
I couldn’t see squat with my gorgeous green eyes. His features were just this side of being a blurry smudge as I looked up into his face to try and read if he was lying to me or not. “I would love to see me reflected forever in your eyes, Beautiful.” He tucked his bent knuckle up under my chin, pushing me to look up.

“
I’m not beautiful.”

“
Of course you are. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Sigmund.”

“
My name’s not Sigmund.”

“
It is your first name.”

I cursed the men I had come into the bar with. They must have told him.

“
I don’t use it. I’m Edward.”

“
I do not like Edward. I will have to change that to something more suitable.”

That broke whatever lusty web he was weaving around me. I jerked my chin out of his hold. “Listen up. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but I am out of here. I know what I look like. I don’t need some steroid-popping meathead making a mockery out of my lack of experience and looks.”

Holy shit. He picked me up by my shoulders and rammed me hard against the corner wall. I dangled there, helpless. Now, I’m a big man, close to three hundred pounds, yet he picked me up and held me like I was an errant puppy.

“
You are not understanding the situation you are in, my little thief.”

I froze. Thief? He knew my guilty secret? I wiggled to get free, but he just tightened his grip on my collarbone, grinding down on it. I cried out in pain and slumped back against the wall, and fell down a long way to the floor when he suddenly released me. I flinched as his fingertips ran along my brow line.