Curvy Girls Can't Date Billionaires (The Curvy Girl Club #2) - Kelsie Stelting
One
The worst part about a breakup? Wanting to text them and then realizing you can’t because every moment you shared no longer matters. Especially since the guy I wanted to text was already with another girl—and had been since we’d broken up. That fact was made even worse at 3:45 in the morning.
The only thing that made waking up before the birds any better was a white chocolate mocha and a cinnamon bagel from Seaton Bakery. I waited in the parking lot in my sputtering car while my mom went inside for our breakfast trade. We cleaned their bakery once a week in exchange for free breakfast each day. (Not sure who fared better in that deal.)
I lowered my phone and dropped it in the cupholder, feeling just as tired but much more acutely aware of the ache in my chest. I hated that we were done, but I hated that I needed him even more.
When would I stop wanting to text him? How long would it be before I stopped picking up my phone to call him only to realize I shouldn’t?
They say time heals all wounds, but if it worked this slowly, I needed to find another solution. For now, I’d settle on the delete button. My finger hovered over his contact info, his name with the red, white, and green hearts around it.
The pain in my heart grew stronger, and I hurried to press delete. He was gone from my list. I just wished his name could be gone from my heart as easily.
Through my permanently cracked window, I heard the bakery door clang shut. Mom approached my car carrying two to-go cups and two white paper bags. As she got closer, I opened my door (because the window wouldn’t roll down) and took my breakfast from her. “Thanks, amá.”
“Enjoy, mija.”
With half a smile, I nodded and lifted the cup to see what she’d put on it today. Using a black Sharpie, she’d written, Eres fuerte with a heart for a period. You are strong.
As she went back to her car, I took a sip of the coffee. The sweet flavor immediately made me relax. This would be a longer day than most—especially considering I had to go to school after cleaning what Mom said was a mansion. To be fair, most places felt like mansions compared to our one-bedroom apartment.
After getting into her car, she pulled out of the bakery’s gravel lot. I drove behind her, hearing the rocks crunch and pop under my tires. We started down Emerson Highway until we reached a neighborhood where the houses got bigger and bigger.
Half of me marveled at the homes while the other half resented them. Why did they need so much space? The owners probably weren’t using all those extra rooms to take in foster children or store goods to donate. Just one of those houses could fit my entire extended family, plus some. And yet here we were, cleaning for them, making their lives easier.
Ahead of me, my mom slowed and turned into the beginning of a driveway. I stopped behind her at a security gate like the one Zara had, and she spoke into a speaker box before the wrought iron slid open, revealing a winding driveway lined by sycamore trees. Even in the pale light, I could make out the leaves’ faded hues of orange, yellow, and red.
At the end of the drive was the biggest mansion of all. A massive fountain spurted water in front of what had to be at least twenty thousand square feet of gleaming windows and perfectly landscaped accents.
Mom had warned me the day before that this house belonged to an Emerson Academy family. I just hoped whoever owned it didn’t have a student in my class. That they had kids in elementary school and I’d never have to face them at the Academy. I already caught enough grief for being on scholarship. I didn’t need any more for what Mom and I had to do to get by.
Mom circumvented the driveway that circled toward the front entrance and drove toward a separate garage. The one for servants. We’d cleaned enough rich peoples’ homes to know we weren’t allowed to mar their perfect image with our old clunkers that might leak oil on their pristine cement.
She got out of her car and went to the trunk for our supplies while I swallowed the last sugary drops of my mocha. I’d need all the caffeine I could get my hands on