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Bambi?
“Good to meet you er—Bambi.” Eva gestured to the table. “Are you joining us?”
Paige felt her stomach lurch. Meeting Jake’s date in passing was one thing, but watching Jake laughing with her over dinner was something else entirely.
Please don’t join us.
“I can’t.” Bambi gave them an apologetic look. “I have a shoot tomorrow and just breathing in the fumes of that garlic bread will make me bloat. I really have to watch what I eat. I so envy you all not having to care about your size.”
It took all Paige’s willpower not to glance down and check she hadn’t turned into a whale. “You’re a model?”
“You’re right,” Eva interrupted. “We are lucky because this garlic bread is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. You’re sure you wouldn’t like to try it?” She pushed the plate under Bambi’s nose and gave an evil smile. “It’s truly delicious. Yummy scrummy. Romano’s garlic bread is the stuff of legends around here, as is the pizza.”
“I’m a raw vegan.” Bambi backed away, as if afraid that the mere mention of the word pizza might be enough to make her gain weight. “I haven’t eaten carbs in forever, and if I took one bite of that pizza I’d eat the whole thing like I was starving. It was good meeting you guys. Jake? Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” He was still looking at Paige. “I’m glad everything is going well, but if you need help, call me.”
“Thanks.” Over her dead body. Her pizza-loving, sex-starved body.
With a last look at Paige, Jake followed Bambi to the door.
Frankie leaned out of her seat and studied the other woman’s butt curiously. “Ready for what, do you think? She can’t have energy for much. And someone needs to tell her that like isn’t a conjunction.”
Eva leaned out, too. “I’ve seen bigger toothpicks. You’re much prettier, Paige.”
“We’re not in competition.”
Except that it felt as if they were.
Why did she compare herself with every woman Jake dated? Why did she do that?
Frankie finished her salad. “Raw vegan. Where does pizza fit in that?”
“It doesn’t.” Eva shuddered. “I’m all for healthy eating, but not denial. It’s a medically proven fact that when you can’t have something, you crave it all the more.”
Paige pushed her salad around the bowl. Was that why she’d never been able to cure herself of her attraction to Jake?
Denied him, she just wanted him more.
If she’d been allowed to binge, maybe she would have been cured a long time ago.
“I can’t imagine Jake enjoying a night out with an organic vegan.” Miserable, she speared a salad leaf. “Jake is the twenty-first-century equivalent of Tyrannosaurus rex. He can’t get through the week without devouring at least one big fat j
uicy steak. There have been times when I’ve wondered why Maria doesn’t just serve him up a live cow with a knife and fork.”
Frankie turned back to her food. “I will never in a million years understand men. What does he see in her?”
“If she turned sideways he wouldn’t see anything at all.” Eva pushed the garlic bread toward her. “Cheer up. She’ll be gone by next week and he’ll have another one on his arm. Disposa-girl.”
“I haven’t been on a date in nine months. I’m a failure,” Paige muttered. “A big fat, failure.”
“But you have amazing taste in friends,” Eva said cheerfully. “Now shut up and eat something or we’ll force-feed you and it won’t be pretty.”
Just at that moment Paige’s phone, which had been depressingly silent for the past two weeks, rang. All three of them stared at it, and then at each other.
“This is it. This could be it.” Paige sprang from her seat and took the call outside, passing Matt, who was on his way back into the restaurant with Jake, who appeared to have ditched the blonde toothpick.
“Urban Genie. How may we help?”
