Fair enough.
I force down my worries and flash him a smile. “What do you know about me? Other than what your grandfather said.” I put my finger on my chin. “What was it he said again? I can’t remember. I know he left out irresistible, but that one is already pretty obvious…”
“I remember exactly what he said.” His voice is cold.
I throw his words back in his face and smirk. “Enlighten me.”
“He said you were charming.”
“I am charming…”
“Polite.”
“I’m that too…”
“Genuine.”
“Fake isn’t even in my vocabulary.”
“And my favorite.” His eyes sweep over me. Not slow. Not hot. But quick. Callous. He’s about to say something to hurt my feelings. I brace myself for it.
“He thinks you could actually pass as a lady.”
“Jake…” Cam warns, but Jake ignores him.
“Now my Grandfather’s definition of a lady is a woman with class, which you most definitely do not have. A woman of beauty…I’ll be generous and give you a six on that. A woman who has achieved success.”
“I’m successful!” I snap in my defense. “I’ve accomplished something millions of people only dream about.”
“Setting a bag of dog shit on fire doesn’t count, sweetheart.”
I bite my cheek to keep from screaming at him. Or kissing him because he called me sweetheart. Even if it was in an indignant way. But that’s just my crazy hormones talking. Truth is, the previous dig at my writing career and now his blatant disregard of it hurts my feelings.
Back in my hometown, I’m infamous for being the eccentric, mischievous daughter of the estranged, sorrowful lady who creates wood art and bakes the best lemon pie in six counties. When I was crowned queen at the Watermelon Festival my senior year in high school, people congratulated me and my mom for months. They figured that would be my greatest achievement. I mean, what more did a girl like me have to offer the world after being born out of wedlock, ditched by a sperm donor while still in the womb and raised like a heathen by a single woman who had turned down every advance from every available—and some unavailable—man in town?
I knew what the blue haired ladies said about my mother during the beauty shop discussion held every Saturday. I’d witnessed her name on the prayer list at church on Sunday morning. I’d heard them bless her heart for having such a nuisance as a child more times than I could count. Eyes might roll when I walked into a room, but daggers were thrown at my mother’s back every time she walked out of one.
After high school, I enrolled in a local junior college. I’d exceeded the expectations of my small town, though I wasn’t trying to, and because they didn’t have anything bad to say about me, the gossip died down. The reprieve lasted until what will forever be known as The Big Break-up that happened my final semester of my second year in college.
With six hours shy of an associate’s degree under my belt, a broken heart and that fucking Watermelon Queen trophy on the mantel in the living room serving as a constant reminder that the unspoken words of I told you so lingered behind every set of lips in Mt. Olive, Mississippi, I decided to write a book.
For my mom.
For me.
For the right to stick my middle finger up at every blue-haired old lady in town so they’d have something to really pray about.
So I did.
And three years later I still do—flip off the old ladies, that is. But I do it behind their backs because the Senior Citizen Center donated the money for a big billboard with my picture on it at the city limits that reads, “Welcome to Mt. Olive. Home of Bestselling Author, Penelope Hart.”
Gotta love a small town.
What I’d do to be there now eating a slice of my mom’s lemon pie. Watching Jeopardy and not having the question to a single answer. Instead I’m eight hundred miles away. Sitting on a couch that costs more than my Chevy. Eyes locked with a man who I thought was my That Guy.
He blurs in my vision and I blink the moisture from my eyes before tears can pool. The urge to cry is strong. I want to sob. Break down. Let go. But I can’t. I refuse to be weakened by this man’s words. If he threw me through a window or rammed my head through the T.V. screen, then yes—I’d cry. But shed a tear over hurt feelings?
Never.
And what happens when we don’t process our feelings? We lash out using a different emotion. Mine is anger. Or at least that’s what my anger management coach says.
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
“You seem to keep forgetting that you broke into my fucking house.”
I roll my eyes. “Are you not tired of saying that yet? Geeze, you’ve said it like, forty times today.”