Chapter 4
Eric stepped closer. He was taller and a good deal bulkier than the teacher, and most men—in Eric’s experience—were intimidated by his size. He was well inside the client’s personal space. “Hey, Mr. Richardson,” he said, smelling the man’s Italian cologne.
Richardson looked up, met Eric’s gaze while somehow managing to look as if he wasn’t craning his neck, an interesting feat. Eric was used to people taking a step back in order to take in his entire six-foot-four frame.
“Well, Mister Hopkins,” the professor said, “how very pleasant to see you again.” He lifted his phone from his jacket pocket, glanced at the screen, touched it briefly, and smiled.
“Ya know you’re not s’posed to be out here, sir,” Eric said. “It ain’t safe, it makes the boys nervous, and nothin’ gets done with a client pokin’ about. If ya want your house finished, I gotta ask ya to stay away from the site unless we’re doin’ inspections.” Eric did his best to loom over the shorter man, without picturing what he’d rather be doing; stripping off that suit jacket, throwing the tie to one side, running his hands over that gleaming ebony skin, feeling the crisp crinkle of the professor’s close-cut hair, tasting the…
Enough!
“You quite mistake the matter, Eric, if I may call you Eric?” the professor said, his academia accent sending ripples of desire down Eric’s spine. “You believe I wish to see my house constructed, to walk alone, bare feet on my custom-installed slate floors. To stare out at the forest and fields from my bay window, thinking of nothing but the books in my library, or spending an evening soaking in the jetted tub next to the fireplace?”
Oh fuck me, I’m going to die here. Eric envisioned the entirety of the neatly painted scene, wrapped up in the unobtainable bow of being able to share those moments with him.
“Sir?” On his hip, Eric’s phone vibrated. He ignored it. Texts or Facebook or email. It would wait.
“Please, call me Temple,” the professor said, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he grinned.
That shook Eric out of his pleasantly torturous daydream. “Temple? Your name is Temple?”
The wry tip of Temple’s eyebrow was quite fetching, as well as the sarcastic smirk. “It even says so on my business cards.”
“Sorry, just—”
“Never you mind,” Temple said. “One doesn’t have an unusual name without growing a very thick skin about it. If nothing else, one tends to be remarkable and remembered.”
“Ya don’t need a fancy name for that, professor,” Eric said. He relented, took a step back, and a deep breath. “Think you’re pretty memorable without it.”
“Indeed?” Temple’s eyebrow shot up even higher on that smooth, chocolate forehead. “Well, that’s promising, as I have a different reason for wishing, so often, to be over-seeing the construction. Perhaps even, of delaying it.”
“What are ya talkin’ about?” Eric asked. He felt like he was swimming in unfamiliar waters, shapes and bodies moving in the unseen depths below him. He glanced away, looking at the empty road, the quiet construction site.
“You should check your phone, Eric. I believe you have a message waiting for you.”
“Huh?” Eric snatched the phone off his clip—how the hell had?—oh. Oh, God. Damn
Grindr: MyBodyisUrTemple sent a message.
“I believe you left your locator on, while you were at work. More than once.” Temple lifted both eyebrows, his light brown eyes filled with a question and an invitation.
“Oh.”
“So you see where I might want to delay the construction?”
Eric grinned. “Maybe I should hurry it along…that jetted tub sounds awesome.”Fat Girls Don’t Ask by Elizabeth L. Brooks
“Fat girls,” Christina said, “are great dates, if you’re not too squeamish. Contrary to popular assumption, it’s not expensive to take us to dinner, because we’re far too self-conscious to eat much when someone else is watching. And if you take us to do something active, you’re pretty well guaranteed to come out looking good by comparison.”
She withdrew as she spoke—a thinner person would have pulled their knees in to their chest, wrapped their arms around their shins—but Christina was too fat for that, so she just turned away. “We never ask if something looks good on us, or God forbid, whether you think we’re pretty, because we don’t know if it would be worse to know you were lying or to actually hear the truth.”
She could almost feel Jackson’s gaze on her. Was he looking at the way her skin rolled at her waist, the stretch marks on her hip, the uneven texture of her thighs? She shuddered, but defiantly refused to pull the sheet up to cover her nakedness. “And we’re great in bed,” she continued, relentless despite the tears that were rolling down her cheeks, “because we’re so pathetically grateful that you’re willing to touch us at all, we’ll do everything you want, barely ask for anything at all.”
“Chris—”
“See? Plenty of reasons to date fat girls,” she overrode him. She’d started out even-toned, but her voice was beginning to spiral up into hysteria. “I just don’t know why you’d want to date mewhen there are plenty of other desperate—” Her voice broke, and she gave up, buried her face in the pillow to muffle the sobs that she could no longer suppress.