Skinny Bitch in Love (13 page)

“Oh shit, now we have to tell Duncan we helped her realize she doesn’t want to be with him,” Sara whispered.

Damn. We didn’t bother finishing our drinks. Eva wanted to flirt with the too-young-for-her guy doing shots on the other side of the bar, but I reminded her that he was good-looking, which went against her new plan.

“Good point,” she said as we headed around the bar.

I was about to pull open the door when I froze.

Zach. Walking outside, his arm around a very attractive red-haired woman in thigh-high boots.

Out of town till Thursday or Friday. Right.

Well, shit.

I flung open Ocean 88’s door to confront Zach, but three tipsy blondes in identical outfits (minidresses and stilettos) walked in, the last one checking her phone in the doorway. I took a step back, mentally and physically. “I think these chicks just saved me from making a total ass of myself.”

“No, I would have grabbed you before you made it out the door,” Sara said as we headed in the opposite direction Zach and the redhead had gone. “What were you going to say to him? ‘Oh, so you’re
away
on business, are you? And who’s this?’ ”

“Shit, shit, shit,” I said. “He
told
me he was seeing other people. And he just made it crystal clear. I have to forget he exists.”

Sara looked at me like I was nuts. “Or you could just go with the flow, Clem. You’re seeing Alexander. Sort of.”

“Not really. I must have been insane,” I said. “Me and a guy who’s opening a steakhouse. Who puts dead deer on his signs. Who
lives
for steak. I can’t believe I thought something was actually happening between us.”

“Maybe because he took a six-hour drive round-trip to a hospital so you could get to your dad right away?” Sara said.
“And then paid for your family’s hotel rooms? And then texted to ask if your dad was okay?”

Yeah, no kidding. “Don’t remind me.”

“He’s been acting like your boyfriend, Clem,” Sara said. “I totally get why you’re upset. But you can’t confront him for doing what he
said
he’s doing.”

“I think she should chase the fucker down and karate chop him in the balls,” Eva said, turning around to peer down Ocean Avenue. “If you run, you can probably find him, Clem. Even in those crazy sandals. Wail him good for me.”

“Wow, remind me that I really don’t ever want to piss you off,” Sara said to Eva. “Also, Clem, how many times have you been out walking with Ty and he puts his arm around you because you just said something funny. Or because you got fired. Maybe Zach is madly in love with you and that chick is just a bud. You never know.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “Sara, you’re sweet. Really. So sweet I might puke. But give me a fucking break.”

“I’m just saying that chasing the guy down and confronting him over nothing isn’t a good idea,” Sara said. “And trust me, when
I’m
the voice of reason, you know you should listen. It doesn’t happen often.”

“But—” I started to say.

But shit. Sara was right. In the space of a minute, I’d gone from kind of stupidly crushed to being pissed at myself for being stupid again. The guy was a player. Period. A player with some redeeming qualities, but a player.

We walked down Ocean Avenue for a while, but when the
zillionth hand-in-hand couple passed us, annoying us with their coupledom, Sara upped her chin at Freddy’s, a favorite little jazz bar. I shrugged and we went inside. The place was half-crowded. We sat at a round table, and Sara ordered us three dirty martinis.

I stared at the edamame in the silver bowl on the table. Dammit. What was this? How could I be so disappointed over a guy I was an idiot for liking in the first place?

“I’m gonna give it to you straight, Clem,” Eva said, sipping her drink. She nabbed the waitress and ordered tapas. “Zach Jeffries is a zillionaire who makes
L.A. Magazine
’s most eligible bachelors list every year. He can have any woman he wants. You’re a challenge, so he’s interested. But if you’re expecting him to be your boyfriend—an exclusive boyfriend—you’re a dumbass.”

“Comforting, Eva,” Sara said.

“No, honest,” I said. “Necessary honesty. I need to hear this.” And I need to back the hell off of expecting anything from Zach.

“Damn,” Sara said. “I like Zach.”

Yeah, me, too.

Chapter 9

The next morning, while I was making banana/chocolate-chip waffles and thinking of ways to exorcise Zach Jeffries from my mind, like imagining him gnawing on bloody steak, my phone pinged with a text from him.

Back in SM. Dinner Saturday night? I’ll cook. (Something you’ll actually eat, too.) Z

Damn. I put down the phone and stirred the batter so hard a glob landed on the wall. Now he wasn’t gnawing anything. Beagle at his knee, he was standing in his kitchen, handing me his homemade guacamole. Looking like Zach, absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah. Hold up.
Back in Santa Monica:
no kidding.

My phone pinged with another text. Don’t look, I told myself, popping a chocolate chip into my mouth. Do not look.

I looked.

I have news, too. Z

Let’s see. You have a new love interest? A redhead. You’re getting married after a whirlwind weekend love affair. Or maybe this: I’m as bad for you as you thought I was. Like corn syrup.

“Mmm,” Sara said as she came into the kitchen with her hair in some crazy bun on top of her head. “The smell of those waffles woke me up. Hope you made me some.”

I slid two on a plate and handed it to her, and we sat down at the table. I wrapped my hands around my mug of spiced green tea and told her about Zach’s texts. “He has news, he says.”

“He’s really an alien?”

“That’s not news,” I said, smiling for the first time since last night.

“Fuck. Fuckety fuckety fuck. Okay. Moving on. He’s who I thought, nothing more, nothing less. Moving. On.”

Sara made her “Yeah, I see that” face at me. “Sorry, Clem.”

She got my mind off Zach by telling me she was damned sure she’d get another callback for the Attractive Friend commercial today. Hell, yeah, she would. Sara was always incredibly awesome, but ever since she became a Skinny Bitch, she’d begun developing a kind of confidence that went beyond talk—it was
real
. She ate her last bite of waffles then went into her room to practice making “friend smiles” in the mirror for the callback. And the more I sat there, looking through the living room window at that dead deer sign, I kept thinking about Zach, walking past Ocean 88 with that woman. Over and over
and over. The happy expression on his face. The way his arm was around her shoulder.

I needed to get the hell out of the apartment, go breathe some air, take a long stomp, and maybe do some hot yoga on the way back. I grabbed my bag and clomped downstairs, and because I couldn’t think straight, I walked left instead of right, the huge dead deer sign staring me in the face.

The more I stared up at that gross sign, the more I imagined Zach eating that bloody steak. Stealing my perfect dream location for Clementine’s No Crap Café. Messing with my up-until-then very well-guarded piece of crap heart. Ben had managed to crush me, and I wasn’t walking eyes wide open into another episode of “Clementine Gets Smashed.”

He took my perfect location—so it was time to find another. Another place to keep the dream going, anyway. I walked up Montana, looking in the storefronts. A bakery. A coffee lounge. More yoga. Used books. The dancing Laundromat that blasted music and had a dance floor, seriously, between the washers’ and dryers’ sections. Every kind of restaurant—Indian, bar and grill, Mexican, Italian, Thai. Frozen yogurt. Between Flo’s Fro Yo and a tae kwon do dojo was an empty spot with a sign—FOR LEASE. Former fifteen-table restaurant. Small outdoor dining area in back. I pressed my face against the glass and peered in. Fugly now, but with paint, Ty’s interior design skills, Sara’s elbow grease, and my ideas, this would be perfect for Clementine’s No Crap Café.

I want this more than I’ll ever want you, Jeffries,
I said to myself.

Although if I were really honest, they had been kind of neck and neck for a while there.

I peered in again, mentally decorating the place. The walls, the floor, the rugs, the kind of tables. The waitstaff’s uniforms. The flowers for the garden dining area.

Clementine’s No-Crap Café, you are mine.

The sound of drills and banging woke me up at the crack of hell the next morning. Barely eight o’clock. I trudged to the window and shoved aside the gauzy curtains. Two huge guys in hard hats came out of The Silver Steer and lit up cancer sticks and started jabbering. I would have yelled down at them to shut it, but the drilling started up again from inside the restaurant. Assholes. I closed the window and crawled back under the covers, but my phone rang a second later.

My sister. She was on her way to her second meeting of the day, which sounded horrid, but wanted me to know she’d just spoken to our parents and that my dad was getting stronger every day. Also, my brother, Kale, and his longtime girlfriend, also a marine biologist, were “taking a break” and he was miserable, and I should give him a call and send him my family-famed peanut butter chocolate chip cookies to cheer him up. She asked way too many questions about how my Skinny Bitch business was going, and I was barely awake, so I said Sara was calling me and tried to fall back asleep. But the phone rang two minutes later. No one wanted me to sleep.

Not my sister again. This time: the sexy British accent of Alexander Orr.

“Hey,” I said. “You didn’t even wake me up.”

“Good, because I have a huge favor to ask and wouldn’t want you already pissed enough at me to tell me to sod off.”

I turned over onto my stomach, trying to imagine Alexander Orr naked and eating strawberries. Or red grapes. I could imagine that. I wondered what he was like in bed. Which made me wonder what Zach would be like in bed. Shit. “What kind of favor?”

“As I said, huge and a pain in the arse. My awesome cousin Sabine is getting married tonight—she’s eloping here, getting married at the pier, and I’m hosting the party at my place. The wedding cupcakes are my gift, but I have no time to make them myself without serious help, and I need forty-five
Dr. Who
cupcakes—you know that sci-fi TV show about the time-traveling alien bloke? The cupcakes have to be dairy-free and gluten-free. And I need them by six o’clock. Tell me you bake.”

“Dr. Who cupcakes. And high-maintenance Dr. Who cupcakes at that. Seriously?”

“Seriously. Five different designs. I’d do it myself, but I have a staff meeting at Fresh this morning, and then I’m attending a science fair thing at Jesse’s school, and then we’re doing wedding party pictures before the ceremony at 4:30. I’m bloody screwed. And the Dr. Who designs are pretty elaborate.”

“Well, you’re in luck. Because not only am I a kick-ass baker, but I’m free today. I’m all yours.”

He was quiet for a moment, and I thought he might say,
Well, not really
or
I wish,
but he said, “Uh, the thing is, I kind of can’t pay you. In money, anyway.”

“What time?”

“Seriously? Clem, you’re brilliant. My only time to work on them is between one and three, so could we make it at one?”

“I’ll be there,” I told him. Dr. Who cupcakes. I’d have to make an extra one for Sara who loved that show. And Seamus, too. And Kale. Dr. Who cupcakes would definitely cheer him up.

Wedding cupcakes. Theme wedding cupcakes, no less. Even though the idea of love and happily ever after made me want to punch something at the moment.