Page 59 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
Firstly, I have to thank my amazing agent, Rebecca Friedman, who co-pilots with boundless energy and kindness.
A resounding thank you to my heroic editor, Scott Saunders, who cleans up tenses and straightens out straggly subplots with the patience of a saint—and to the rest of the Waterhouse team: Meredith Wild, Robyn Lee, Jennifer Becker, Yvonne Ellis, Haley Byrd, Kurt Vachon, Jonathan Mac, and Jesse Kench. And my eternal gratitude and awe go to Amber Maxwell for creating a gorgeous-as-heck cover for Ireland and all her curves!
An especially deep and humble thanks are owed to Julie Murphy, who spent long, late hours talking over plot points and characterization with me, as well as helping me catalog Channing Tatum’s and Adam Driver’s best physical attributes.
To Ashley Lindemann, Serena McDonald, Candi Kane, and Melissa Gaston for their tireless toil and love! To the Snatches and other authors who make working in this bananas industry possible—especially Tess and Natalie, who keep plenty of beer and sparkling water in their house for me, and any author who has tolerated my lust for dance parties on a retreat: thank you. I owe the Kiawah crew a special shout-out for plot help and, in particular, Ally C for helping me with the nitty-gritty details of Kansas farming.
Loving and margarita-soaked thanks to the Jarrett girls—Aunt Paula, Aunt Jan, and my own Grandma Sandra—the farm girls in my own family!
And finally, I have to thank you, the reader. Thank you for going on this journey with me and Ireland!
Don’t miss any Misadventures!
Misadventures with a Book Boyfriend
March 2019
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Excerpt from Misadventures with a Book Boyfriend
I was Oliver Connely, for Christ’s sake! A household name—especially if the house had women living in it. For the past decade, my face had been plastered on billboards and buildings around the world and every magazine cover from GQ to Esquire. I’d walked for top designers in Milan, Paris, and New York. I was at the top of my modeling game.
But today?
Today I could barely pay my rent.
I’d heard of the proverbial “wall” from others in the industry but smugly laughed it off, never believing it would happen to me. After all, I was the most sought-after model of my generation. But my twenty-seventh birthday loomed like a dark cloud on the horizon, and the blustery wind that blew in before the storm took all the modeling jobs out to sea with it.
And now I was the guy scraping together change to pay his fucking cell phone bill.
Well, my agent, Harrison Firestein, might not be calling, but my favorite lounge chair at the pool in my condo complex certainly was. I’d been setting up shop there a few times a week to perfect my tan, relax, and forget about the stress in my life.
Since I actually was expecting a call from Harrison, I made sure my phone was charged and then grabbed my backpack and strolled across the complex to the pool.
I usually had most of the place to myself during the week. Everyone in Southern California was so health conscious and worried about wrinkles that sun worshipping had fallen prey to self-tanners and fake ’n bake salons. But I’d grown up in rural Iowa, where the summer was barely a quarter of the year and not a decent four-fifths. I hadn’t yet given up appreciation for how the sun warmed my skin and gave me a sense of peace like nothing else in my regular routine.
I usually worked out five days a week, but I took an extra day off this week because—honestly?—I just wasn’t that into it. It was so much easier for me to get motivated when I knew I had a shoot coming up or a show to walk. Since my phone had been unusually silent, I lacked the drive to hit the weights. Where were the job offers from Harrison?
The pool was particularly busy, and I questioned if I’d mistaken today for a weekday when it was actually a weekend.
No. Definitely not.
Skye Delaney, my best friend and amazing roommate, had been out the door at five thirty this morning like she was every workday without fail. Her punctuality used to annoy me, but I’d learned to admire her for her dedication to her career. I might not like the asshole she worked for, but she loved what she did and made a great wage doing it.
We’d been best friends since sophomore year at UCLA, and she’d been my rock when my family abandoned me for dropping out—and also through the crazy ride of my modeling career. It probably looked like we should’ve just hooked up and called it done. Been there. Tried that. We had less sexual chemistry than the leads in a bad rom-com. We could laugh about it now, but at the time, it was a disaster.
As I surveyed the crowd at the pool, a vacant lounge chair near the deep end called to me from across the deck. Three little shithead kids were screaming “Polo” in the shallow end while one of their pal
s turned in haphazard circles randomly shouting “Marco” to coax out their clap backs. Who was the sadistic bastard that came up with that game in the first place? I sent up a mental thank you to the ingenious creator of the AirPods in my backpack that were about to drown out the racket.
A cluster of empty chairs just a few feet from mine could pose a potential problem if those kids took a break and decided to camp out there, but a quick scan of the rest of the pool-goers yielded a view of their mothers across the deck. Two were absentmindedly watching the game in the water; the other two were huddled together, obviously talking about something they didn’t want the others to hear.
