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off.
    “Wait! Gracie, tell me how much you girls spent right now!”
    “It’s no big deal. Susie paid most of it. She has so much money, she doesn’t know what to do with it.”
    People came from miles away to get Susie’s baked goods. Sweets by Susie had made her a very rich woman over the past six years, not to mention her husband’s successful marketing career. “That’s not the point. How much?”
    “One fifty an hour. We booked him for eight hours.”
    “Holy shit! That’s twelve-hundred dollars! Are you crazy?”
    “Nope, not crazy. Crazy would have been paying Joe’s rate. He bills at four hundred an hour, I think.”
    Who the hell is good enough to bill that much money just for the pleasure of their company? I already knew he was going to be too hot for me to pull off being with—the fat girl did not get the hot guy. It simply didn’t happen.
    “Gracie, while I appreciate what you and the girls are trying to do for me, I need you to stop. I know you all want me to be happy, but you have to stop pushing men at me. I’ll find someone when I’m ready.”
    “But that’s the point. You won’t! And we know you don’t want to be alone, but you put out these vibes that say ‘back off’ to any guy within range. So we were thinking that maybe if it was a business arrangement, you’d be more relaxed.”
    “Okay, but then what? I do okay on this ‘date,’ and he falls madly in love with me? Gracie, I know, I know you think I’m a cutie, but I have a mirror. Ask my sisters about me being date material. They’ll tell you the truth.”
    “This isn’t about finding love, Faith. It’s about getting yourself out there. Taking a risk. You need to date. And your sisters will most definitely not tell me the truth, because the truth is that they’re all jealous of your figure and your angelic face. They’re all stick women with horse faces!”
    I had to laugh at that. My thirty-year-old sister, Marge, did have overly large teeth. “I’ll agree with Marge, but what about Dana?”
    “Dana looks sickly, Faith. Don’t you see that? Has your family finally succeeded in brainwashing you? Have you lived here in the land of the plastic people too long? She’s a model. I know she’s successful, but really look at her. She’s weighs, what? One hundred and two pounds, right?”
    “No. She now weighs one hundred and nine. Her agent just put her on a diet last week. I heard every last detail at dinner last weekend.” Dana ate two lettuce leaves and some carrots at that dinner, along with a small scoop of cottage cheese. I don’t agree with her lifestyle, but it still beats being the fat one in the family.
    “Christ, Faith. Do you hear yourself? When was the last time anyone ever said that was a healthy weight for a woman who is five foot ten?”
    “Okay, Gracie. I get your point. Enough.” I could feel my shoulders hunching as we discussed my sisters. As hard as I tried to love myself in my entirety, I fear that I’ll always see the fat girl my mother constantly compared to my perfect sisters. I’ve never quite measured up. No pun intended.
    I could hear Gracie sighing on the other end of the line. “Faith, I love you. Take this Joe person to the wedding. Let him hang all over you and throw him in your family’s face. If not for yourself, then do it for us.”
    I laughed then. Gracie could always make me laugh. “Well, since it’s for you, okay.”
    And that is how I wound up walking into Perfect Ten and laying my eyes on the most exquisite, breathtakingly dazzling specimen of man that ever existed. Trust me when I tell you, there is nothing better to look at in the entire universe than Joe Starling. Unless it’s Joe Starling smiling.

Chapter 6
Joe
    M y smile vanished immediately . “Absolutely not?” I looked myself over from head to toe, making sure everything was in order. Pants zipped? Check. Shirt tucked in? Check. Glancing into the mirror Stan kept in his office for last-minute inspections