Chapter 1
Urgh.
Early mornings suck.
I don't want to be awake yet. I just want to go back to sleep in my nice warm bed, and ignore the shit I know I have to do today.
But can't do that. I have to get ready and leave.
Groan.
I'd love to just forget about this stupid party, but unfortunately one of my besties has made it clear it's a mandatory meeting of the girls. It's never an actual party, more like group public intoxication and humiliation with me playing the responsible mother hen to a pack of wild, childlike, Barbie dolls.
Eye roll.
I love her, but she's doing my head in. We've been friends for years, I really don't need to be roped into seeing her other friends, that I don't know or care for, for overpriced drinks and gossip. I'm not a gossip person, and I'd rather drink at home sitting on my back patio with citronella candles and mosquito coils, wrapped in my fluffy robe and wearing slippers.
But she is one of my best friends, one of the two, and I guess I should go and show my face at least.
I get out of bed and start moving.
COFFEEEEE! Sweet mana of the gods!
I leave my bedroom to the heavenly smell of coffee, making a beeline for the kitchen. My housemate must be making some.
"Hey Jay, you doing coffees babe?" I yell into the kitchen. I round the corner to find someone in my kitchen, who is definitely not my 5"6 housemate Jay. Whoever this is, their easily 6"3 or taller, have long, curly, black hair brushed back over their shoulders coming to the middle of their back. Whoever this is, they're clearly never missed a gym session. The tight boxer briefs wrapped around him like a second skin leave little to the imagination, even from behind. His back and shoulder muscles flex as he reaches up into the cabinet to grab coffee mugs. I can't stop the involuntary guffaw that escapes me when he moves to grab them.
He freezes and turns around to see me, and damn....
He looks like he stepped off a movie set as a double for Tom Hiddleston. It's uncanny and my jaw drops. He blushes. Actually fucking blushes.
"Uhh, hey. I'm Aurelia," I say. Trying to at least speak up and make this a little less awkward. He surges forward to shake my hand.
"I'm Brett," he says quickly, smiling at me, still blushing, and just getting more handsome to me by the second.
I hear the telltale scuff of Jay's ugg boots coming down the hallway.
"Oh hey Aurey," Jay says grinning at me. Looking very much like the cat that got the cream. His face might as well be split in half. He's come out wrapped in his fluffy blue robe and ugg boots. His hair is clearly still mussed from his extracurricular activities, and I can see a few hickies around his neck that are definitely new.
"Soooo..... Clearly someone had some fun with Loki last night," I say smirking at my housemate and best friend. He has a habit of bringing home hot men from the clubs and parading them through the townhouse, trying to convince me I'm missing out. I'm not. I hate clubbing. I'm not the kind of woman to go and hook up randomly. Crowds of drunken idiots is not my scene. I love him enough to join him occasionally and play wing woman, but I come home happily alone while Jay brings home every cute guy he can find.
"Please tell me there's enough coffee in that percolator for me too. We never do the good stuff," I say to Brett, who looks at me like a deer in headlights. He just nods and turns back around and grabs a third mug from the cabinet.
Jay comes to stand beside me and openly oogles Bretts ass, grinning from ear to ear. Clearly happy with his newest conquest. I just roll my eyes and wander off to grab my own robe to hand to Tynan.
I hand it to him as I come back out, and he swaps me the robe for the coffee. He swirls the purple fluffy robe around himself, and ties it, nodding a thank you to me. I swig some coffee to test it, Jay must've told him how I like it while I was gone. Pleased with it, I make my way back to my room.
I set the coffee on top of my dresser and start rummaging through the clothes cluttering my bedroom floor. Jay calls it my floordrobe. I find some deep blue jeans in the corner, they're still clean enough. I grab a black fitted peplum tank top, and a crossover bra with some strapping across the chest. It's not the most practical for a chest like mine, but it's comfortable and black, so it should blend in. Some zip up black high-top sneakers, that look like boots, and I'm good. I add some blush to my cheeks, some mascara and eyeliner, then red lipstick.
I check myself out in the mirror.
"Yep, that'll work," I say to myself out loud. I grab the coffee and swig down the rest of it. It wasn't a big coffee, but it was strong, and sweet. Perfect for before I head out to day drink with Hayden and her snooty girlfriends.
I wander down to the open plan living space. Jay and Brett are sitting together on the couch watching something on TV. I grab my little black pleather backpack, throwing my lipstick and eyeliner in, checking that my purse is still in there. I zip it up and throw it on before I stride over to where Jay will see me. I fake a cough and do a mini spin, showing him the fit and checking for approval.
"Damn Aurey, who you trying to fuck," he says smirking and nodding at me. Always my biggest cheerleader, and the one to make me feel good about whatever I'm wearing, but also the first to tell me if it looks horrendous.
"I'm going to lunch with Hayden and her stuck up friends. She requested I wear something 'presentable" I air quote the 'presentable'. Jay scowls at the mention of Hayden. He hates her with a passion. He's never told me what she did exactly, but since a party where I introduced her to him, he hates her, and she reciprocates.
"Why are you friends with that bitch?" He asks me, it's not the first time he's asked me that, it won't be the last.
"I've known her my whole life Jay. Since we were like 6. We've always been friends. I can't just ditch her because you hate her," I say, feeling my face drop. Hayden and I have always been in each others life. Our dads were friends and neighbors, so we got put together a lot, she was the only friend I really had. Now as adults, it just feels weird to not include her or be included by her. After 25 years of being friends, it's hard to just move on from her, no matter how different we are or how toxic she can be.
Hayden isn't the greatest friend, but she's still a friend, and I was raised to be loyal, even when things get tough. You stand by who has your back, even when shit isn't easy. Despite how she is now, she tried when we were kids. She'd leave her window unlocked for me to sneak through when things were really bad at home. I stand by my friends.
"I have to go" I say quietly before I turn and grab my keys as I head out the door. The good mood I was in dampened by the attitude from Jay. Hating that I just backed down. Every time I bring up Hayden, he reacts badly, it always ruins any good mood I may have been in. The pub isn't too far away from my house, so walking it is. It's only a five minute walk. I hate trying to park my SUV in the city anyway. It's too big for where I live, but I like my car.
As I walk up to the pub, I can already hear Hayden's too loud laughter on the outdoor deck. At least I know where to head. I turn the corner on the deck and there she is. Her and her other friends are all decked out in dresses and heels, looking like a casual bachelorette party. They're all laughing too loud and judging by the empty glasses on the table, they're at least a few drinks in. I spot a tray full of empty shot glasses too.
Oh shit. Not shots.
When Hayden does shots she gets a little nasty, a little messy, and a whole new level of unpleasant. I'm suddenly very aware of how different I am to the other women, and I know Hayden will point that shit out.
I wonder if I could escape before they notice me....
I turn to leave, hoping to avoid the onslaught of judgement and criticism that always comes with Hayden drinking around her friends. As I turn I see a flash of dark before I get knocked on my butt by someone trying to turn around the corner. They grunt at me and someone tries to help me up, but there's no point in their help. They'll just end up on the floor with my chunky ass. I get up off the floor and turn apologize to then, but I can't figure out who I knocked into, and no one is volunteering to say they're the one. The sound of my voice clearly got Hayden's attention though.
"Ohmigod Bitch, where are you going" I hear her squeal loudly behind me. Least she didn't see me on the floor, I guess. I turn around, unable to control the grimace on my face at the pitch of her shrieks.
Prepare for bitchiness people, it's about to be a shitty day.
I don't even get a word in before she starts on me.
"Where have you been, you're so fucking late. And what the hell are you wearing? I said presentable bitch, not whore with pants. Your tits are out" she lays it out. I'm not late, I'm early for the time she told me. I won't point that out though. There's no point. If I wore the dresses her and her friends wear, they'd just look obscene on me. They always go for short and tight, and on me they'd be shorter, not even covering my ass. It'd be obscene.
I walk over to her, head hanging already, preparing for the rest.
I hear one of her friends start in.
"Why does she have straps over her chest, she looks like she's wearing a harness under her clothes. Like one of those slutty ones people wear to x rated clubs". I snort a laugh and roll my eyes. Like she'd even know what people wear into those clubs. She wouldn't be caught dead near one, let alone in one. The one that said it, is a tall blonde, too thin to be healthy. I can almost see the bones in her arms. She looks like she sucked a lemon. The one beside her, another skinny judgmental blonde, looks less pinched, but no less horrid. She just sniggers at sour patch barbie.
Oh great. Pack mentality. They'll all just get worse.
The way they escalate and encourage each other to be horrible, honestly scares me sometimes, like they all share a thought process, sometimes like they all share a brain. I don't think any of them have ever been nice to me. They're all Hayden's model friends, and I'm definitely no model. They're all tall, thin and tanned to perfection. Looking like they stepped off a runway to be here. Always perfect. Always horrible to me. I'm nothing like them. I'm shorter, at 5"5, and the difference between them and I shows. They're all tall at 5"10 to 6"1. It makes their judgmental shit worse, because they're literally looking down their surgically perfected noses at me. I'm chubby, well fat, if I'm honest. I have curves, they're just everywhere. I'm good at covering up and making myself look less like a balloon, but standing with them, it's always obvious. They'd all be 70kgs or less. I'm easily 140 on my good days. I take care of myself, I go for walks, but nothing is ever enough, and the weight never moves. So I cover up the bits that make me hate my body, and I carry on.
"Ree Ree, you've put on weight".
