Page 160 of Heir

He nodded.

I smiled. “He treats me as well as you do.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Good. I wouldn’t want to have to kick my president’s son’s ass.”

I shook my head, giggling.

He frowned at me, then flexed his muscles. “You don’t think I can take him?”

I laughed harder. Blue was built almost as big as Kai. Blue had always been big. It was because I was always by his side that I wasn’t bullied in high school. It didn’t stop the gossip or the rumors, or the girls giggling behind my back. But at least no one had been mean to my face.

He was always my protector.

I wondered if he ever got tired of that.

“What?” he asked, dropping his arms.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I just love you.”

He smiled sweetly at me. “I love you, too, baby girl. Now look at the menu and order up. We’re gonna have a nice lunch, and you’re going to tell the bastard not to keep me from my favorite girl for so long. This is just unacceptable.”

I laughed. “All right.”

I opened the menu and browsed the food selection, resisting the urge to order something with the fewest calories.

I had been doing better. I had done well in Massachusetts, away from her. And when I moved back, things were not as great as they had been when I was across the country, but they weren’t as bad recently.

The urge to count calories and hop on the scale to check my weight often fluctuated. Things could be good for weeks, sometimes even months, before something triggered me down a spiral, and though Kai was good for me—tome—the urge got worse after I slept with him the first night.

He was just so perfect… and I wasn’t.

And there was an insidious voice inside my head that told me I wasn’t good enough for him.

But I was trying, and it helped that I hadn’t talked to Mom in a while. It also helped when Kai fed me. I didn’t know why, but I liked it when he did. Perhaps because the act was so intimate, or perhaps because he wasn’t repulsed by watching me eat.

But while being with him made me want to lose weight, it was also encouraging me to eat more because he wouldn’t be happy with me if I starved.

And I wanted to please him.

The waitress came by, and Blue and I ordered iced teas. Blue ordered a cheeseburger, and I ordered a salmon lunch plate with fries on the side.

Blue seemed surprised by that. Then he leaned back in his seat and smiled as the waitress left with our orders.

“He’s good for you.”

I nodded. “I like to think so.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re happy, Gemma. You deserve it.”

I looked down, my fingers playing with the scratch pattern on the wooden table. “Do you know what’s going on with my mom and uncle?”

When I looked back up again, Blue’s eyes were closed off.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re telling me to do something impossible. How could I not worry about it?”

He shook his head and sighed. “Look, we don’t know where they are. They seem to have disappeared, and there’s no one coming in and out of the house. Not that it matters. They’re weeks away from getting evicted. You should try to push them out of your mind. I know it’s hard, but you should just focus on your own happiness.”

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