Muffin Top

Lucy dropped her voice to a very un-Lucy-like level of quiet and gave her friends the lowdown on what had happened at Marino’s the other night. They sat with their heads close together, paintings all but ignored, during the entire story, letting loose with a few heartfelt mumbles about what a total jerk the salad guy was and quiet agreement from Fallon that her brother should never be set loose with power tools if the goal was to build something rather than cut someone out of a wrecked car.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tess asked once story time ended.

No. Not in the least. In fact, it was beginning to feel like a very, very bad idea, going by the cadre of nervous butterflies doing the Watusi in her stomach. “It’ll be fine. He’s going as my fake date and giant-sized-asshole deflector.”

Gina tapped the end of her paintbrush on the tip of her pronounced nose. Thankfully it was the non-paint-covered end. “You’ll be in the car with Frankie—alone—for two days?”

“A day and a half, really.” Of being squashed in her Toyota Prius with a man who had the ability to melt women’s panties with a smile. Of course, he wouldn’t melt her panties because they were bigger than those of his usual targets—let’s face it, they were much bigger—and made of steel, which was what happened when one had crushed on the wrong kind of guy and been burned, hurt, or ignored too many times to ever do it again. “Eighteen hours to be exact.”

“Oh, that changes everything,” Fallon said, all but rolling her eyes at Lucy. “Look, I love my brother, but just be careful.”

“He’s a sweetheart,” Gina said, always the one to stick up for the underdog.

Fallon snorted loud enough to draw Larry’s glare again. “No, he’s a man-whore. I love my brother to death, but that doesn’t change who he is. He can’t commit.”

“Maybe Lucy will change him,” Gina said, her voice going all soft and loopy. “A road trip is so romantic.”

And that is what happened when a woman fell; she started believing that it was possible for everyone. But that was not what Frankie had in mind. Sure, they’d had fun, but she knew how to spot attraction in the opposite sex, and Frankie definitely didn’t see her that way. She was a size twenty in a size zero world. She was smart, healthy, motivated, and ambitious, but that didn’t change the way people looked at her and the assumptions they made based on her size. Time to nip Gina’s pie-in-the-sky dreams for her road trip now.

“It’s twelve hundred miles spread out over two days. It’ll be eating fast food in the car, a night in a cheap hotel, and probably a speeding ticket or two,” Lucy said. “Romantic is the last thing it’s gonna be.”

Even if she couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like.

…

Poker night at the house Frankie shared with his twin Finn was serious business—when it came to beer and bragging rights. The betting was limited to pocket change, and the jokers were always wild. He, Finn, and Ford were already two hands in when Fallon came through the door after a long shift in the ER, still wearing those god-awful clog shoes and a surly expression on her usual makeup-free face.

“Are you insane?” she asked without any other form of greeting. “You can’t take Lucy Kavanagh to her high school reunion  .”

Frankie flinched. The brotherly shit-talking around the table stopped in an instant.

Fuck-nutters.

He’d been hoping to get out of town before anyone in the Hartigan clan found out about his plans in order to avoid a trip to Judgementville, population his pain-in-the-butt sister Fallon. With a family as into each other’s business as theirs was, he should have known the chances of getting away clean were somewhere between null and never gonna happen.

Frankie dropped his cards on the table, face up—at least he had a whole lotta nothing in his hand anyway. Finn laid down his cards, and Ford gathered them all up and started shuffling. Both of his brothers looked from Fallon to him, shit-eating grins on their faces, ready for the show—all his suddenly mute brothers were missing was the popcorn. Smug jerks.

There really wasn’t a point in denying his plans. “Why not?”

“Because she’s my friend.” Fallon yanked out a chair, put her jar of quarters on the table, and sat down.

Non sequitur alert. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Frankie, I love you,” she said as Ford started dealing. “But you can’t make Lucy part of your ever-changing harem. She’s not like your other women. She’ll take it personally. You may not realize it, but under that eats-nails-for-breakfast persona is a total softie.”