Page 21 of Mr. February

“Spit it out,” he said gently.

“What?” Jenny asked.

“It’s clear you’ve got something on your mind. Instead of torturing yourself with it, just go ahead and ask.”

“Will you tell me about Suzanne?” she blurted about and then gasped at her own audacity.

Wade groaned internally but kept a placid expression on his face. “Of course, I should have expected that.”

“Because women are so nosy?” she sniped.

Wade snorted. “Kyle is the biggest gossip in our office. He’s just not a jerk about it and doesn’t share things that would hurt anybody. And I asked you for help, so it makes sense that you’d want to know what you’re getting into. I just don’t like talking about her.”

Wade tossed her a wry smile before he returned his attention to the road.

“It doesn’t reflect well on me,” he muttered.

“Oh,” she said softly. “I can understand that. My ex isn’t a good person, either. If I’m being fair, he might be an okay person to someone else, I guess, but he was an absolute shit bag of a boyfriend.”

A surprised laugh burst out of him as Jenny continued.

“I don’t like talking about him, either, but since I’m putting you on the spot, I’ll share, too.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Even though he wanted to know more about her and her shitty ex, he didn’t want to damage the tentative friendship they had.

“Thanks. That’s probably why I feel okay sharing with you. You may have noticed that he wasn’t very nice to me,” she said miserably. “When we first started dating, he wasn’t like that. He was very charming, funny, said and did all the right things, took me on fun adventures. More than that, he made me feel special.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wade saw Jenny look down at her clasped hands as she twisted them in her lap.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be an overweight woman. Everyone is always judging you. Always, no matter what you do. They think the only thing you do is eat. They act like you don’t have feelings or can’t hear the crass things they say or see the nasty expressions they get on their face when they look at you.”

She let out a painful laugh. “I hate cooking, and I love being active. While I love eating, it’s just one of a million things I enjoy. But when you’re fat, no one believes you. Yes, I eat a lot, but I also work out every day. I go to the gym, I do yoga, Pilates, swimming, weightlifting, pretty much anything I enjoy. But most people, including guys I’ve dated, still treat me like food is the only thing I think about.”

Another awkward laugh escaped, and Jenny smoothed down her hair. “I’m not expecting sympathy. I just wanted you to understand why I let someone like Chad treat me that way. He wasn’t like that at first.”

She collected herself, and Wade strained to hear her voice.

“The first few months we dated, it was great. Our, um, intimate life wasn’t much to write home about, but he seemed to like me. He even took me to see his family at Thanksgiving. It was awesome. They’re wonderful people, and we got along very well. I was so happy that I made excuses for what came next.”

“Did he… did he hurt you?” Wade held his breath as he waited for her answer.

“Not physically, no.”

Jenny cleared her throat and wrapped her hands around her center as she gazed out the window.

“But right after we returned from seeing his family at Thanksgiving, he began acting different. He blatantly disrespected me, bullied me, insulted me to my face with fake concern. ‘Are you sure you need to eat that? I don’t want you to get heartburn and need to leave early.’”

She blew out a disgusted breath, but Wade knew something worse was on the horizon.

“You might have seen him at the holiday party,” she said.

Wade felt her gaze on him, so he glanced in her direction. Damn, she was pretty. He was brought back to their conversation when he took in her tense body language.

What did she ask? Oh, yeah. He nodded reluctantly; he saw her ex that night.

“It was humiliating and cruel,” Jenny said to the window. “He hit on Gloria right in front of me and made rude remarks about my weight all night and tried to pass them off as being drunk. Which he was, but he’d never acted like that before.”

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