Page 31 of Just the Tipsy
“Then you’re in the right place.” He threads his fingers through mine again and we walk over to the food.
For a relatively small town, they have a ridiculous number of restaurants and food trucks. They even printed off a mini map of all the available food.
“Where do we even start?” I ask, looking at the map. “I don’t know what I want to eat or what’s good.”
“I know the catfish nuggets are popular every year if you want to start somewhere.” He puts a hand on my back and gently guides me out of the flow of foot traffic before people bump into me.
“I’ve never had catfish, so let’s do that. What’s it taste like?” I check the map and find the catfish nugget booth.
“Like catfish.” He laughs and we start toward the booth. “I honestly don’t know how to describe it. It’s a white fish. Salty. Crispy. Really damn good.”
We reach the booth when the line is short, and in a few moments, we have a paper tray of little golden balls of fish and perfectly cooked fries. We find a standing table and he pushes the food toward me. Sadie lays down at our feet.
He hands me a fork after I snap a picture of the food, his body and hands in the frame.
“Mind if I post this?” I show him the photo and he nods. “Thanks.”
“Try it first.” Waylon offers me the fork after I’m done posting.
I spear a nugget and lift it to my mouth. It smells good, like fish but not in a bad way. Waylon keeps his eyes on me while I pop it into my mouth.
“Oh, that’s really good,” I say, holding a hand in front of my mouth so he doesn’t see me chewing. “Wow.”
“Yeah?” He smiles and snags a nugget for himself. “Does it live up to your dreams?”
“Considering I never even thought of catfish until today, no. But in terms of fried food, absolutely.” I snort and take a fry. “The modeling bubble I was in made the world feel weirdly small. I got to eat at some of the best restaurants in the world, but everything was very regimented. I had to keep my body at a very specific size.”
I take another nugget, savoring the saltiness and the texture. How did I live without fried food? I like to eat pretty healthy, but in the past, any indulgent foods stressed me out. It meant being pinched and prodded, or the clothes not fitting the way the designer intended.
I dunk two fries into our ketchup and savor those too. I’m glad to leave that part of my life in the past forever. Something so simple as catfish nuggets shouldn’t make me feel so free but they do.
“That sounds really hard. I can’t imagine it.” He shakes his head. “I think that would ruin all the other perks, like the travel to cool places.”
“Yeah, it did.” I shrug. “But now I can eat whatever and it feels really good. No more worrying if some assistant will tell me she wished she could reshape my ass. To my face.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Someone said that to you?”
“Yeah, not that weird to me. But definitely weird to others.”
The disbelief on Waylon’s face almost makes me laugh. “I wonder how they can live with such wrong opinions.”
Okay, I can’t hold back a laugh at that. “Well, thank you.”
I’ve never thought my ass was anything special — if anything, it was an inconvenience for my job — but I’m glad he likes it.
“So you’re opening a spa with your best friend after this instead of going back to modeling??” he asks after taking a few fries.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, as if saying it louder will somehow curse me. “We’re planning on opening it in New York since she already lives there and I like it there.”
“That sounds cool. I don’t know anything about spas, but I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
His complete confidence in me is completely unwarranted, but I appreciate it. So far it’s only him and Kaitlyn who have encouraged me. Not that my parents are actively discouragingme, but whenever I bring it up, they want to dive in and help with things I can do myself.
“You’re sweet,” I say instead of telling him all that.
He shrugs. “Just saying what I think.”
The easiness of this — both the conversation and the silence in between — should be throwing up red flags for me. I never, ever get along with people this quickly and easily, aside from Kaitlyn. And the fact that it’s Waylon, the guy I have a little sex pact with, feels like I’m walking into the beginning of a problem.
