Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“See!” Mac says as if Walker's opinion is the end-all-be-all of opinions.
"There is more to food than sauce and lumps of raw dough," I growl.
"You take that back!" Mac snaps, sounding like a child arguing with a sibling. "You expect people to eat escargot and crap like that. The only people in town willing to eat that mess are junior high boys on a dare."
My eyes widen. I don't know that it would've hurt worse if he'd actually slapped me in the face. "Mac Hammer!"
I swear the man grins around the mouth of his beer bottle before draining the damn thing and asking for another.
Walker gets him another beer, looking grateful when the door opens to a group of rowdy college guys.
I sip my drink, considering I might need to get out of here after just one because my irritation has done nothing but triple since I walked in here.
Hearing Mac mention he was drunk when he left that message reminds me of the summer before my junior year in high school.
Mac was drunk then, too.
More times than I'm comfortable admitting, I've closed my eyes and let the taste of whiskey on his lips take over every thought.
Does that make me wrong? Have I felt this mild hatred for him all these years because when school started back that fall, and he was senior, he passed me in the hallways like I didn't exist, like those seven minutes in heaven at that party never happened?
I felt invisible. I considered that he regretted it, but I never once thought he didn't even remember it. Did I take advantage of him?
The idea of it makes my stomach turn. I think it has more to do with that consideration than the exorbitant amount of gazpacho I ate out of spite when I got home from the failed attempt at getting a true catering job at Mrs. LeBlanc's house.
I sit and stew, ignoring him entirely as I do a little soul-searching in the glass of whiskey and cola.
How can he not remember something that was so life-changing for me?
I probably could've been considered a prime candidate for institutionalization for how many times I wrote his and my name in my notebooks and how many times I wrote Riley Hammer. Maybe all teen girls do that with their high school crush.
I just knew when the new year started, he was going to make it known that he liked me too.
I never considered that he'd walk right past me as if I didn't exist. It was the biggest blow to my ego, so of course I internalized it.
I considered he regretted it, that he only kissed me in that closet because the bottle linked us together. He hadn't been crossing his fingers the entire time it was spinning like I had been. I should've known when he gave me a simple dip of his head, walking toward the closet, with his friends giving him a hard time, that he was only doing it because he didn't want to be called names.
I figured I was good enough to kiss, good enough to run his hand up my side, barely skimming the bottom curve of my left breast, but not good enough to face me in the light.
I blamed the chubbiness around my middle, those fifteen extra pounds that the other girls didn't seem to struggle with.
I fought to lose that extra layer, so sure he'd tuck me into his side on that first day of school, and I wanted to fit there perfectly.
But instead of even lowering his eyes to mine, he held a hand in the air, shouted one of his friend's names, and walked right past me as if he had never even seen me.
After realizing I wasn't going to spend my junior year and inevitably the rest of my life as Riley Hammer, those fifteen extra pounds turned into twenty.
Now, it's been so long since I got on the scale that there's not a single chance in the world that Mac Hammer would look twice at a woman like me.
I wouldn't say I have self-esteem issues, but certain men have certain preferences, and from the looks of Mac Hammer in his work clothes, massive arms testing the limits of his t-shirt, I'm not the type of woman he'd ever go looking for.
And I have to be okay with that.
What I don't have to be okay with is being disrespected, so for the first time in as long as I can remember, I choose the low road.
"So you're an alcoholic, huh?"
Chapter 4
Mac
My jaw ticks as I push the beer bottle a few inches further from my hand.
The last thing I want people to start thinking is that I'm becoming the town drunk. Small towns are notorious for spreading rumors and gossip.
I turn to face Riley, shifting on my barstool so I can get a good look at her.