Drunk Dialing My Enemy (Curvy Boss Babes of Wild Bronco #1)

1. Katie

KATIE

“Hello?”

Against my better judgement, I’ve somehow found myself on the phone with Darren. As in my ex-crush, Darren. My first love, Darren.

A man that I now hate.

His deep voice sounds thick with sleep. Despite the inconvenient hour, he doesn’t sound annoyed to be speaking with me.

Which is weird. Normally, he’s always annoyed to be speaking with me.

See, as much as I hate Darren, he hates me right back. Why we ever kissed, I will never know.

Sometimes I wonder if the kiss was a dare. You know, dare ya to kiss the fat girl and make her think you like her. Ha ha!

It’s the kind of thing that high school jocks would do. But not something I ever thought Darren would do.

I used to think he was different.

The single tequila shot that I had hours ago seems to be working overtime tonight. That’s how I found myself on the phone with Darren at all. That, and Heather’s taunting.

“When are you going to have a bachelorette party of your own? You’re always the bridesmaid at these things. Pretty sure you’ll be the last single girl left!”

After she said this, I had to get up and hide in the bathroom.

Her comment only hurt me so bad because it felt true. Not only am I one of the only singles left in our group of friends — though, I’m not so sure that Heather is a true friend — I haven’t even had sex yet.

Yeah. That’s right. I’m a twenty-four year old virgin. Between this and the fact that I’m plus sized, not a conventionally thin hourglass shape, sometimes I feel a pariah in the dating scene.

And the only man I’ve ever loved, acts like I don’t exist. And when he’s not acting like I don’t exist, he’s being an asshole to me.

“Katie? Are you still there?”

My name sounds weird on his lips. I stare at the stall door.

The bathrooms in this bar are wallpapered with old country music posters.

A young Reba McEntire is currently grinning at me, oblivious to my situation.

I stare at her poofy hair. It’s absolutely gigantic, teased and permed to be nearly double the size of her head.

Once upon a time, that was the standard of beauty. Just like centuries ago, my rolls and cellulite would have been depicted in oil paintings, an homage to the ideal feminine form.

Shit just isn’t fair.

“Katie?”

“Why are you not growling at me?” I ask him. My tongue feels buzzy in my mouth.

“Growling?”

“Yeah. Normally when we talk, you’re all like -” I lower my voice, doing my best impression of Darren’s grumpy growl. “- Hey Katie. You’ve had a stack of packages on the porch for over three hours. That’s unacceptable. And tell your customers to stop parking in the grass. They’re ruining the sod.”

“That supposed to be me?”

“You couldn’t tell?”

”Sounds more like a constipated Oscar the Grouch.”

My worst enemy just made a joke. A funny one. The laugh escapes my lips before I can stop it.

Damn. This isn’t how this call was supposed to go. Darren was supposed to pick up the phone and be mad at me for waking him up at this hour. After he got all mad about that, I was going to tell him to go to hell.

But he’s ruining it by being all…nice.

“Just so you know, that leaking pipe you fixed was leaking again this morning,” I say. “So I fixed it myself this time and guess what? No more leak. I fixed it and you didn’t. Girl power! Ha!”

For some reason, this sounded a lot cooler in my head than it did aloud. I cringe.

“Katie, are you drunk?”

“Duct tape,” I continue.

“What?”

“I fixed it with duct tape,” I clarify. “Bet you’ve never even thought of that. Well, I did. Now you can’t raise my rent.”

“Katie, I won’t raise your rent for calling me when you need a repair done,” Darren says. “It’s the landlord’s job to maintain the property. You can call me whenever you need. Also, do not fix a pipe with duct tape. Or anything else for that matter.”

I roll my eyes.

Darren was never meant to be my landlord.

When I set up my plus-sized clothing boutique, an old woman named Mrs. Hayes owned the building.

But then she passed away, the building went up for auction, and before I could secure the financing to buy it myself, Darren freaking Baker swept in and bought it with a pile of cash.

Now he owns the building and I make my rent checks out to him. And every time I need something to do with the building, I have to pick up the phone and call a man who once crushed my heart beneath his boot like it meant nothing.

“I only taped it until I can get a repairman to come out,” I say defensively.

“I am the repairman!”

“There it is!” I exclaim, bouncing up and down a little. “The growl! The Darren growl!”

“I do not growl.”

“You did it again.”

“Katie, are you drunk? Where are you?”

There he goes again, sounding all concerned about me.

Well, I’m not drunk. At least, I don’t think so. I had one shot of tequila at the start of tonight, which was hours ago. Since then, I’ve just been drinking strawberry lemonade while the rest of the girls drink alcohol.

I don’t mind being the sober friend – it’s good to have one among every group of girls, just to look out.

Except I don’t feel sober. Actually, I feel like I’m getting drunker by the minute.

“By the way,” I continue. “Just so you know? That kiss was super dumb. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

I cringe again at my own words. Why did I think that would sound cool?

Darren pauses before he answers. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and deep. It sends chills up my spine.

“If you don’t think about it anymore, why are you bringing it up?” he asks. “That was almost eight years ago.”

Was it really? Eight years?

I do the math, counting back to my sixteenth birthday. The day that Darren kissed me under the stars and my whole damn world turned upside down.

“Because I know you still think about it,” I tell him.

“You do?”

His voice is hardly a whisper, and I have to strain to hear him over the loud music playing over the speakers.

“You think about how funny it was, playing that prank on me,” I say. “You knew that I was in love with you. You thought it was funny, right? Just like you think it’s funny to buy my building out from under me.”

“I didn’t think it was funny, I just -”

“But the joke is on you,” I continue, emboldened by Reba’s scarlet, sassy smile.

“Because one day I’m going to live happily ever after .

And I’m going to buy a different building.

A better one with a better bridge. And then I’m going to find my husband and lose my virginity and have a million babies and probably some cats and dogs, too. ”

“Katie, you’re slurring your words,” Darren says sternly. “Where are you?”

Click.