Read The Romance Novel Book Club for Free Online Page A

kitchen and living room. A dining table was a waste because I needed the space for my drafting table. Not like I entertained much anyways. Playing party host required a gaggle of friends I’d never bothered to acquire. Most of the girls Julie and I hung out with in college moved to various places around the country. We saw them at reunions and not much else.
    My wardrobe came straight from my nighttime comfy collection: Lounge pants and a tank top barely keeping the girls from popping out for a fiesta of their own. I was afflicted with my mother’s ever growing boob disease. I had gained weight last year after losing my job and with the help of Julie, I shed those pounds plus some; yet the boobs remained. Some girls looked at awe at my perky orbs, but to me it meant guys were more interested in talking to my chest than to me.
    I once dated a guy with a boob fetish. Every moment we had alone together his hands stuck to them like magnets . I dumped him after a month. I could only take the ‘let me be your bra for the day’ joke so many times. Wouldn’t that have been professional in a meeting with a client to see some guy standing behind me with his hands supporting my ta-tas. I never saw a woman offering to be a guy’s jock strap to hold his junk all day. That part might be a hell of a drug in bed but nothing I wanted to fondle all day.
    I absent-mindedly picked up my phone as it started ringing. “Patricia speaking.”
    “Hey, Patricia,” Julie drawled like a long lost lover. “I’m at the restaurant, and they have this new pasta thingy with a parmesan cream sauce. Wanna try it, or should I get the usual?”
    “I feel adventurous. Go for it. You bring your jammies so I can see what I’m going to look at in a few years?” I snorted.
    “Oh my god! You just want me for me body,” Julie belted out in a perfect Valley Girl accent. “Oh someone wants to talk to you.”
    “Who?” I sucked in a breath as Matt’s voice filtered through the phone. Keep it cool, girl. Chill.
    “Hey, Patricia. Did I leave my phone there? I haven’t been able to locate it, and the phone company says no one has used it.”
    “Don’t think so.” Like I’d remember after the vat of wine I consumed. “How the hell do you go that long without your cell?”
    “When you have an ex calling to remind you how much better their life is without you. It’s not that hard.”
    He had a point.
    “Let me check the laundry room quick.” I sauntered in, my body feeling like some giddy high school girl talking to the guy she thinks is super keen from her art class. Oh my God, Becky. I totally talked to Matt yesterday on the phone. He’s so dreamy. Maybe he’ll ask me to the prom!
    “Ouch, dammit.” I swore as one of my melons got pinched when I leaned over the washer and dryer to check.
    “You okay?” Matt questioned. I grunted and fumbled, seeing something wedged between the machines.
    “Yeah.” Ugh. “Fine. Just one of the girls playing safety cushion with the dryer.”
    “Girls?”
    Almost there. “Yeah, a guy like you wouldn’t have noticed, but I’ve got an impressive set of knockers. So Julie keeps telling me.” Inch by inch I pulled what appeared to be a cell phone out. I was never sure what I’d find in the crevices of the laundry room. I once found a chocolate bar way past its expiration date. Yes, I was not ashamed to say I ate it. “You’ve got one of those folding Blackberries, right?”
    “That would be it. Okay if I come over after my shift and get it?”
    “Sure. Julie and I should be winding down our evening festivities by then.”
    I said my goodbyes and hung up. The conversation didn’t go as bad as I thought it would. My apartment was still intact without some lava-filled catastrophe. Not that I could muster the courage to talk to him face to face.
    The muses of Matt had to go. I had a weekend with Julie to set into motion. Our self-made tradition and a stress buster for Julie, it relieved the tension