Single Wide Female: The Bucket List Mega Bundle - 24 Books (Books #1-24) (2 page)

“Stop it, Max.” I sighed and shook my head as I turned away from him. Only then did I spot the black leotard and tights still lying on the bed. I felt a rush of horror flood me. If Max saw them, he’d be full of questions that I didn’t want to answer.

“Stop what?” he asked as he leaned back on the bed. His hand came to rest just beside the tights. “I’m just curious. You haven’t had a date in a while.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.” I reached past him to nudge the leotard away from where he was sitting. Sometimes having a man for a best friend was not ideal. “I’ve had plenty of dates. You don’t know everything there is to know about me.”

Of course I hadn’t had
any
dates lately, but Max didn’t need to know that. As confident as I was in my beauty, it would appear that being big and beautiful hadn’t translated to a man tripping head-over-heels in love with me—not yet anyways—a fact that was beginning to make me slightly nervous. At thirty-two, my clock wasn’t quite ticking just yet, but I did feel that I was ready to fall in love.

“Then tell me,” Max said, jolting me out of my thoughts. “Are you keeping secrets from me?”

“Secrets?” I laughed a little at the idea. In the fourteen years that Max and I had been friends I had never been able to keep a secret from him. But this time I was determined to do it. My dignity depended on it.

I sat down on the bed next to him and slid my hand casually back across the bedspread toward the tights and leotard, now behind him on the bed.

“So are you saving yourself for me, is that it?” he asked and met my eyes.

Chapter 2

With Max sitting so close I could feel the heat of the outside of his thigh pressed against my jeans. I tried to keep my breathing steady as I looked into his eyes. I knew that he was joking. I’d seen the women he dated, and they did
not
look like me. But he was always lavishing me with praise, as if I was just as beautiful. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure if he was teasing me or being serious, but he never put me down.

“I’m going to a class,” I said quietly, snatching up my black leotard and tights.

“What kind of class?” He leaned back on my bed, placing his hands behind him.

“Sort of a dance class,” I said, thankful that I’d gotten the leotard out of the way before he could spot it.

“What’s this?” Max sat up with a piece of paper in his hand.

I thought nothing of it at first, until I realized what it was.

“Max, give me that!”

My heart was pounding. I so did not want to deal with telling him about this right now. But he was already reading it.

“Pole dancing,” he read out loud. “Why is this highlighted and surrounded by stars?” He glanced up at me as I lunged across the bed, grabbing the list out of his hand.

“Mine!” I said just a little too loudly, and he laughed.

“Is that the dance class? Pole dancing?” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me.

“Maybe,” I said, tucking the list into my pocket.

“So that’s what the leotard is for.” He had a mischievous grin on his face, and I was annoyed that he’d seen the outfit despite my best efforts to get it out of his eyesight. “Put it on. Let me see you in it.”

“No way, Max.” And he was not going to convince me otherwise. “Some things are private.”

He was quiet for a few seconds as he looked at me intently. “Even from me?”

Oh, definitely from you
, I thought.

“This has nothing to do with you, Max, so wipe that pout off your face. It’s not happening.” I got up from the bed, leotard in hand. “The only people that are going to see me in this are the teacher and the other students in the class.”

“Well, where can I sign up?”

I laughed and threw my leotard at him. “Only if you try this on first.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Not my style, Sam. But I think you’ll look fantastic in it. I dare you to wear just that to class. Don’t cover yourself up so much.”

“I know, I know, I’ve lost so much weight, I should be proud, blah, blah, blah,” I said, walking across the room towards the mirror. I
had
lost about seventy pounds over the past year, leaving me at my new svelte size of one hundred and eighty pounds.

“No, Sammy,” he said and sat forward a bit on the bed. “You should be proud no matter what you weigh, because you’re gorgeous. Nothing can change that.”

I smiled at him in the mirror and he smiled back. He always knew just what to say to make me feel better.

“So are you going to do it?” he asked, his smile turning devilish. “Just the tights and the leotard, nothing else.”

“Maybe. But you won’t find out because you’re not going!”

“Fine.” He threw himself backwards on my bed, silent for several seconds.

I wondered what he was thinking, as there was nothing particularly interesting about the ceiling that he seemed to be studying so intently.

“So what’s the paper for?” he asked. “I noticed it’s like a list.”

“None of your business,” I said, turning back to the mirror, trying to look as casual as possible.

“So many secrets.” He frowned and stared at my reflection. “I thought I was your best friend.”

Max was very good at laying on the guilt trip, but I didn’t have time for any of it at the moment.

“Best
guy
friend.” I smiled at him. “That means you don’t get to be in on
some
secrets. You should be grateful for that,” I added with a laugh.

“I’m not grateful at all. That’s just discrimination,” he said, and I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed genuinely upset. “I thought you were more evolved than that.”

“Nope, I’m not more evolved than that,” I said and turned to face him. “Now get off my bed, get out of my apartment, and go fix some computers.”

He wiped his hand over his eyes and mouth and shook his head. “That is
not
what I do.”

I knew what was coming next and I really didn’t have time for it.

“Would you like me to explain it again?” he asked.

“No, please don’t.” I laughed and shook my head.

Max had tried several times to explain his high-tech job to me, but I still didn’t quite get it.

“I think you should quit your tinkering and come back to the Fluff and Stuff.”

“Ah, the good old Fluff and Stuff,” Max said with a slight shake of his head. “The only laundromat where I can wash my boxers and buy a box of junk.”

“Like you wear boxers.” I winked at him.

It was Max’s turn to blush a little.

“And it’s not junk, it’s unique one-of-a-kind items,” I said, always quick to defend the job that had come to mean a lot to me over the years. “I love the Fluff and Stuff. You used to love it too.”

“Right, while I was still in college, studying for my
real
job.”

His words stung a little and took me by surprise. I frowned as I turned away from him.

“It’s real enough to me,” I said quietly.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quickly. “I just meant—you know—when we started working there, we were both just out of high school. It was a college gig for both of us.”

“But you finished college and I couldn’t pick a major,” I said and shook my head, annoyed at where the conversation was headed. I started to push Max towards the door. “I have to get to class.”

Max turned to face me. “Sam, please. You know I didn’t mean anything by it.”

I looked back at him and couldn’t help but smile. His obvious concern for my feelings
was
touching.

“I know you didn’t, Max. Besides, I’m the manager now, and that’s much more important than fixing computers,” I said with a shrug.

“Sam, that is
not
what I do.”

“Well, whatever you do”—I waved my hand towards the door of my apartment—“go do it, so I can get ready for class.”

“Remember, just the leotard!” he hollered over his shoulder, and I could hear him laughing as he walked away.

Chapter 3

I waited until I heard the door close and then checked to be sure he was gone. As soon as it was safe, I jumped onto the bed where he had been lying, pretending he was still there next to me.

“Oh, Max, I’ll wear anything for you,” I said in my sexiest voice patting the bed beside me lightly. I snuggled a pillow close, pretending it was Max I was hugging.

Bang! I jumped when I heard a loud sound against the window by my bed.

I looked up to see Max’s face on the other side of the glass.

“Just the leotard!” he said, laughing as he turned to walk away.

I groaned and pushed my face into the pillow, hoping he hadn’t seen me acting so strange. I really needed to curb my silliness if I had any hopes of landing Max—or any man, for that matter.

As I lay there, I thought about what he’d said. He did have a valid point, actually. I had a right to walk around town in my leotard if I felt like it. I should be proud of my body, in all of its beauty. The more I thought it through, I started to think that maybe not covering myself up would be a good way to reinforce my confidence.

That was a big part of what the list was all about. It was a bucket list of sorts that I’d started when I was still at my heaviest weight. It was a list of all the things I wanted to do when I was thinner
and
feeling more confident about myself.

The first big change I’d made hadn’t been officially on the list, but when I entered “one-derland”—with a weigh-in that week of one hundred ninety-eight pounds—I knew that I had to celebrate by doing something big. I’d been thinking of bleaching my mousy brown hair for years, never quite sure that I could pull it off. That very next weekend, I came out of the salon feeling like a new woman—a blonde who was ready to start having way more fun than I’d been having.

So far, a few months later, I was still waiting for the fun factor to
really
kick in, but I didn’t regret my new look, and it helped me to realize that I didn’t need to wait to achieve some fantastic goal number before I started attacking some of these list items. I was ready to start living my new life—parts of which were now written down on the list—sooner rather than later.

The first
official
item on my bucket list was learning to pole dance, which was what led me to the leotard and tights in the first place. I thought there was nothing more seductive than a woman who could move and shake her body in just the right way, so I’d called a local gym and signed up for the class that I’d seen advertised. No questions asked, not giving myself a chance—so far—to back out.

I shed my jeans—noticing again how much easier they were to take on and off these days—and pulled on my tights, followed by the leotard. The tights were sheer and just a little thicker than pantyhose. The leotard was solid black. I had considered the one with the sparkles, but I didn’t want to come across as too flashy on my first day—or too much like a third grader. I smiled, already recognizing that I just
was
a bit silly, no use denying it.

I left my apartment knowing deep down that there would be a lot more happening at this class than just learning to dance. I did not, in fact, cover myself up, and with one last deep breath, I set out down the sidewalk proudly with my head held high. I was taking back my power as a sexy, beautiful woman. I was demonstrating that I could be comfortable and happy with my body, and this pole dancing class was going to count for my daily exercise too. So check and check!

It was a bit colder than I’d expected outside. As I walked down the sidewalk, I crossed my arms over my chest just in case the new sports bra I’d gotten on sale wasn’t carrying its end of the bargain. No need to give the neighbors a show. I’d already offended my neighbor next door just this week with my lack of knowledge about anything related to social media. How was I supposed to know that it was rude to write notes to her on her Facebook wall?

I noticed, as I walked, how
unnoticed
I was. At first, this calmed my rattled nerves. Then I started to get a little irritated. Here I was, a fairly attractive woman, walking down the block in just a leotard and tights, and no one even glanced in my direction. Everyone appeared too busy to even bother to notice a nearly naked crazy lady—well, I wasn’t exactly crazy, but they didn’t know this. I tried not to be offended, but really, the way I was dressed deserved a second glance.

“Would you like a sample?”

A tray was shoved directly in front of me as I was walking along the sidewalk.

I stared down at the assortment of bakery treats. There were small brownies, cookies, and what looked like a tiny slice of chocolate mousse cake.

“No, thank you.”

I continued walking forward slowly as I looked up at the man holding the tray. My heart skipped a beat. He was handsome in a very conventional way.

“It’s free,” he said, seemingly determined to tempt me further.

“No, I shouldn’t,” I said quickly and tried to step around him. He was wearing an apron that displayed a nearby bakery’s name. I knew he was only doing his job, but waving that brownie in my face was downright cruel.

Of course I could always just duck into the bakery for a bit instead of going to the class. No one would ever know.

I sighed and shook my head.
I
would know.

“No, thank you. I’m on my way to a class,” I said, while trying to move around the man.

For some odd reason he stepped at the same time as I did and in the same direction. I caught my foot on his foot and we both began to stumble. I grabbed his arm to try to steady myself, and in doing so, tipped the tray of bakery items. I got my footing, but the pastries went flying.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m just in a rush to get to this pole dancing class—”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized what I’d said. I had just told this perfect stranger, who was trying to force-feed me brownies, that I was rushing off to dance on a pole.

He looked up at me with a sly smile as he collected the sweets that had fallen to the ground. “Well, you wouldn’t want to be late for that, would you?” He grinned.

I stared down at him, perplexed. I wasn’t sure if he was teasing me or agreeing with me. Either way, I had a class to get to. I had “just said no” to the brownies and I was proud of myself for that.