Then they’d laughed, thinking they were hilarious.
Okay, it was safe to say that not only weren’t my sisters and I close, I kinda didn’t like them, as in really didn’t like them.
But for me, hearing what they said, that was it. The final straw.
That was when I made my decision, my vow, that the next time I saw Lucas Stark and if he hugged me or touched me, no one who was looking at us would think it was sick, gross or throw up a little at the sight of us.
That was why I didn’t take his calls and go out and get drunk with him like I promised I would.
Instead I went and found a personal trainer, had a mortifying fitness test, was put on a program, dumped all the shit food out of my house and started reading Self and Shape magazines religiously. I lost twenty pounds in the first month (water weight), the next fifty-five were a lot harder. My trainer changed my program every six weeks and drilled me like a Nazi. His name was Riley, he was always tan (not sunbed tan, he’s outside a lot, even in the winter). He had blond hair, brown eyes and a great body and he told me I was going to be his Mona Lisa. I wasn’t going for Mona Lisa, I was going for Jennifer Aniston but I decided not to share that with Riley.
Riley was a good guy, though likely a total jerk to his girlfriends, how was I to know? Regardless, I didn’t want to let him or myself down. I was dedicated and motivated and living, cycling, treadmilling, stair climbing, ab curling and weight training for the day when Luke saw me again.
Though it didn’t turn out like I’d planned. Mainly because, even with partial bombshell status, I became an ass**le-magnet and realized it wasn’t just Sissy, Marilyn, Sofia and Mom’s bad taste it men. It was just that men weren’t worth the effort.
So by the time I was ready for Luke, mentally and physically prepared to seek him out, I’d gone off men. I made a new vow that I was dedicated to just as much as fitness.
I was never going to get tangled up with a man again, no matter who, no matter what.
* * * * *
After Noah cleaned me out, Sissy and I went to Pandora’s Box on Broadway, I stocked up and got myself a rabbit vibrator and a smooth, sleek silver one (so I could have variety) and enough batteries to last a year. Once I got them home, out of their boxes and loaded up with batteries, I vowed ever-lasting fidelity to my vibrators.
That was that.
Seriously.
The end.
So there I was, now a dedicated, bitter spinster with revenge on my mind. Not revenge for myself but for Sissy and every other woman who’d been f**ked over by a shithead guy.
* * * * *
I stopped cleaving at the cucumber, tossed it into a bowl with the arugula I’d already nearly annihilated and had started on the onion when the phone rang.
I threw down the cleaver and picked up the phone.
“Yo,” I said.
“Yo, yourself,” Sissy said to me. “How’d it go with Luke?”
I could hear the anticipation in her voice. She thought he’d fall in love with me on sight and put a ring on my finger within the hour. She loved me and thought I was funny and cool, what could I say? It sucked to disappoint her.
“Not good, I didn’t ask him. I’m going it alone,” I tried to make it short and sweet.
Silence for a beat and then, “What do you mean, not good?”
“I mean, not good,” I decided maybe I shouldn’t tell her right now about how it actually went. She had enough on her plate and anyway, I wasn’t ready to relive it. “I think he’s kinda pissed that I didn’t return his calls after his father’s funeral.”
“You should have called him,” Sissy told me and she’d told me this before, like, five dozen times.
“Too late now. Anyway, we go ahead with the plan as it was, just without Luke. I’ll go to your house tonight.”
Sissy hesitated. “I’d be a lot more comfortable if you had Luke with you.”
“That isn’t gonna happen.”
“Okay, then maybe you can call Riley. I think he has a bit of a crush on you, now that you’re hot. Maybe he’ll go with you.”