Page 74 of Base Block

She was. “I just want to get my body back to how it was before,” I explained.

“Like in that picture of you where it said your name was Roxy? That was terrible,” Heidi told me. “You didn’t look well.”

“Don’t you feel better now?” Anara asked. She was whispering.

“Yes, but that’s due to a lot of stuff,” I argued in a whisper of my own. “Like, I’m not taking pills and I’m sleeping regularly. I have friends, I have a safe place to live, I have Callum. Everything in my life is so much better, it doesn’t even feel like I’m the same person.”

“So why would you want to be that skinny, scary girl again, the one who was sad?” Heidi asked.

“I don’t want to be her.”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “Have the nachos and live your life. I wish that I had some nachos right now. Or, you know what? I wish I had some watermelon but I would put salt on it.”

“That’s disgusting.” Anara shook her head. “Rainey, I really don’t want you to worry. Now I consider you to be the second most attractive person I’ve ever met.”

“After Demitrious? Is he first?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course. I also don’t want you to worry about my wedding. I’m not going to fit into my dress, either,” she reminded me.

“Oh, my Lord. What are we going to do about the wedding gown?” Heidi asked. That conversation occupied us as Pippy’s halftime show went on. I wasn’t enjoying his songs very much—I wasn’t even paying attention, although when I’d seen him before, I’d thought he had put on a good concert. Him performing at a game like this was going to make Damian so mad.

It was funny that none of them had crossed my mind in a while. I hadn’t even thought about Sage, and she hadn’t messaged or posted in a long time. I didn’t really care if she showed the world all the worst things she could find. I didn’t care about any of them.

Before the football action started again, Anara wanted a T-shirt to commemorate the occasion—not for herself, but for the baby. “It’s his or her first postseason game. It’s something to celebrate,” she said. That meant leaving the safety of the suite, but I wasn’t too concerned about running into trouble here.

I should have been. We hadn’t walked far before I heard a voice that sounded so familiar…but there was no way that I could have been hearing it again. It was wrong to hear it now, in the new life that I had.

“Fucking Pippy,” it said. “He’s nothing. Why the fuck were they all cheering like that?”

No. No, it couldn’t have been.

“His lyrics are crap and he looks like a jack-in-the box when he dances. Fucking Pippy! How is his single doing?”

Another voice soothed him. She had the same whine that I remembered, but she sounded even more bored. “No one likes it because he’s terrible. I know you don’t want to watch this sports shit so let’s go home. The car is waiting to take you back to the mansion.”

I knew them. I knew both of them. I stopped and grabbed Anara’s arm, and then we saw Damian with Millie and the rest of his entourage, including the new girl I’d noticed in his social media posts, Matheus, and the other bodyguards. My mouth fell open as they walked past us. Damian looked me over, his eyes sweeping from my neck to my crotch, but he never met my eyes and he didn’t seem to know me. Matheus clearly recognized me, because he smiled before he kept moving, and Millie actually stopped for a moment. Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something, but then she hurried to keep up with them.

“Rainey, what are you doing? You’re frozen like a wood frog,” Anara said.

“That was Damian,” I told her. “He was the guy I used to work for. And that was Millie, his assistant, and Matheus, the team leader of his bodyguards.” I stared at where they’d disappeared around the curve of the stadium corridor. “I didn’t see Sage.”

“That little guy was your boss? The one who was abusive to you?” She started to go after them and I grabbed her arm. “I can take him. He’s the size of a naked mole rat and just as attractive.”

“No, I don’t want you to fight. Think of the baby.” But then I hugged her. “Thanks, though.”

She permitted the hug for a moment. “Why didn’t they talk to you?” she wondered, and as she spoke, I heard my name—what it had been, once.

“Roxy!” Millie called. She rounded the corner fast, almost running. “I almost didn’t know you.” She stopped in front of us and eyed me like Damian had done, except more extensively (she also looked at my face, which he’d only ever noticed in order to complain that my eyes weren’t blue).

I waited for her to comment on my size. She had been the one keeping such close track of it, with her weigh-ins and calorie logs to prepare us for his inspections.

“You look…nice,” she said, after hesitating for a moment. “You look happy.”

“I am. What—” I had so many questions for her that I didn’t know where to start, but she was already talking instead.

“I made Sage stop,” she told me. “That dumb bitch. I should have known better than to hire her, but Damian always liked her ass. It was better than yours.”

“What are you talking about?” I repeated and she started to point to my butt area. “No, not that. Stop what?”