Zoey And The Nice Guy (Big Girl Panties #1)
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Authors: Carter Ashby
Zoey And The NiceGuy
Carter Ashby
Text Copyright © 2014 Carter Ashby
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Digital Edition. Personal use rights only. No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover Design by Quirky Bird
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To my husband and children, for their unfailing support.
At sixteen, Zoey was considering emancipation from her mother. She already worked thirty hours a week while keeping a perfect grade point average in school. She alone maintained the house, handling her own shopping and cooking. The only reason she could think of to remain a dependent was the wine.
She grabbed a bottle of sweet, red wine from the fridge. Her mom’s ex-boyfriend had worked at a local winery and brought them cases of it.
Zoey poured herself a glass. It had been a long day of tests before Thanksgiving break, followed by six hours waiting tables. Now it was ten-thirty and she intended to indulge in some wine and a bar of dark chocolate she’d bought in St. Louis the weekend prior.
She gathered her goodies and sank into the good spot on the couch. Anywhere else on it, she’d get stabbed by a rusty spring and need a tetanus shot. She’d considered buying a new one, but she didn’t want to put nice things in her mom’s ramshackle, single-wide trailer. No, she would save for her own place and fill it with comfortable furniture and a television that didn’t tint the picture green around the edges.
She flipped on Nick At Nite and took a sip of her wine. She grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and opened it to the new social networking website. All of her friends had profiles on it, now, and she figured it was about time she jumped on board. She figured this Facebook thing would be a cool place to just be herself without having to worry about parents or teachers seeing everything.
Her phone rang. “Yeah?” she said, not having checked the caller id.
“Zoey, please get back with me.”
“Oh, God,” she groaned. Jeremy. She tucked the phone against her shoulder and started filling out her Facebook profile information. “Not interested.”
“Please. I didn’t mean the things I said. It’s just you make me so crazy. But I love that about you. Really.”
“I’m not going to be in a relationship where I constantly feel bad about myself. You can’t undo what you said. You obviously don’t know how to be with a strong, independent woman. We had some fun. Let’s just drop it.”
“I swear, Zoey, I didn’t mean any of it. I just lost my temper.”
“I’m done, Jeremy.”
“Zoey, please! I think I love you!”
Was he crying? “My God, are you crying?”
“Please, please, give me another chance.”
“Ugh. I totally don’t go for guys who cry and beg. Grow a pair and move on, buddy.” She hung up and started scanning through the list of suggested friends. She found Maya and Addy, the only two people who really meant anything to her.
The phone rang again. “Fuck off, Jeremy,” she said, once again not looking at the caller id.
“It’s Addy. I see you’ve broken up with Jeremy.”
“You know, actually he broke up with me. Last night we fought and I told him he was a no good sack of shit and he said it was over. But, now, he’s been calling me, begging me to get back with him.” She sighed. “What a fucking loser.”
“Yeah. Okay. Can we come over? Maya needs us.”
“You and Maya? Yeah, you know my home is your home. Come on over.”
She hung up and closed her laptop. In first grade, Addy had been ganged up on by some mean girls. Zoey had dragged her out of the fight by her pigtails and proceeded to wail on the leader of the bullies. She’d gotten a meeting with the principal out of the deal, but she’d also gotten a best friend.
Maya’s entrance into her small, but tight, circle had been a little less dramatic. She’d been a mouse of a thing. Always sitting at the end of the lunch table alone, hunkered over her weird, homemade lunches, and casting fearful glances around her. Zoey had been so annoyed by her timidity that she’d decided she was either going to have to beat Maya up or make friends with her. A toss of the coin decided it, and they’d been best friends since.
Zoey returned to the kitchen for two more wine glasses. She checked the freezer to assess the Ben & Jerry’s situation.
Chocolate Therapy for Maya. Cherry Garcia for Addy. And Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz for me.
With a satisfied nod, she moved back to her bedroom to put on fresh sheets. Whenever her mom was off on a boyfriend binge, Zoey slept in the big room. She wanted to have the little room ready in case Maya needed a place to crash. Nine times out of ten, she came here to escape her abusive father.
A knock on the door had her hurrying to the living room, bracing herself to see Maya. Zoey exhaled in relief. No bruises or red marks. Just tears. Maya had the face of an angel; wide, innocent green eyes and skin with a perfect, bronzed glow on her cheekbones. Her light brown hair curled in halo-like wisps around her face.
She was leaning on Addy, who wore her usual, care-free jeans and t-shirt; relaxed, maybe even slovenly to the casual observer, except that the jeans were Gucci and the shirt was Ralph Lauren. Her black hair rolled back in a loose bun, her glasses sliding off her nose. They shuffled past Zoey. Addy deposited Maya in the good spot on the couch while Zoey locked up and poured two more glasses of wine. She topped hers off and handed the glasses to her friends.
Addy took the glass and drank, downing half of it.
“Uh, what’s up, ladies?” Zoey asked.
Maya burst into tears. She was still in her cheerleading uniform from that night’s football game. Zoey knelt on the floor at her feet.
“She’s pregnant,” Addy said.
Zoey’s world skidded to a stop. For a moment there was only silence, barely disturbed by Maya’s quiet sobs. This couldn’t happen to her friend. This happened to skanks and drug addicts. Not to Maya, who’d never mistreated anyone nor stepped out of line in her life. The only thing Zoey could think to do was reach up and take the wine glass out of Maya’s hand. She sat it on the end table.
“Damon?” Zoey asked, looking up at Addy, who was pacing and drinking.
“Who else?”
“Fuck.” And then the inevitable rage came. Zoey either loved or hated. There was no in between. She loved Maya and Addy with an unwavering loyalty she’d never felt for anyone else. Damon hadn’t even been on her radar, except for the times that his plans took Maya away from her. Now he had a big, red target painted on his face, and hell was about to rain down on him in the form of a nuclear Zoey.
“That motherfucker!” Zoey leapt to her feet and started pacing with Addy. “He’s dead. He’s beyond fucking dead!”
Maya sobbed harder. Addy sat next to her on the sofa and immediately hopped back up. “Ouch. Goddammit, Zoey, get a new couch!” She knelt on one knee at Maya’s side and took her hands.
“First I’m gonna tie him up,” Zoey growled. “Then I’m gonna chop off his balls with a dull knife and feed them to his dog while he watches—“
“Zoey! Not helping,” Addy said.
Zoey snapped out of her gruesome fantasy. “Does the dipshit know?”
Maya shook her head. “I don’t know how I can tell him. This is gonna ruin his life. He’s got dreams of joining the military and seeing the world.”
“Fucker never had a dream in his life. Don’t tell him, Maya. We’ll take care of you. Won’t we, Addy?”
Addy gave her another warning look. “I think it’s important that we all calm down and deal with the here and now. Maya, honey, what can we do for you?”
Maya shook her head, her angelic face twisted in pain.
“
She’s All That
and Chocolate Therapy?” Zoey offered.
Maya sniffed like a sick kid and nodded. Zoey loaded the guilty-pleasure movie in her DVD player and then went to the freezer for the ice cream.
Once they got her settled, Addy and Zoey convened in the kitchen for a quiet conference. “I’m serious,” Zoey said in a hushed voice. “I’ll take care of her here. I’ll work two jobs if I have to. I don’t want her marrying him.”
Addy’s lips pursed. “She loves him.”
“She’ll get over it. He’ll hurt her. I mean physically.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He left finger marks on her arm that time, don’t you remember?”
Addy winced and blew out a breath. “Will your mom freak?”
“Please, she won’t even notice. Unlike your parents.” Addy’s parents monitored her every activity. And they couldn’t stand Maya, which put them on Zoey’s hate-list. Anyone who disliked someone as pure and good as Maya didn’t deserve her affections.
“We should definitely encourage her to stay with you, then. Her old man’s gonna throw a fit. And I agree that Damon isn’t…dependable.”
“Stable, you mean. He’s unstable. You have to admit he fits the profile of a future wife-beater.”
Addy drained the last of her wine and then went to the freezer for ice cream. “Behavior-wise, yes. But background? It just doesn’t make sense. His parents are upstanding citizens. They make plenty of money and are the least temperamental people I know. And Kellen—well, you know Kellen. He walks little old ladies across the street. I mean—how can Damon be bad when he comes from that kind of family?”
“Kellen’s only eighteen. Maybe he just hasn’t grown into his mean streak yet.”
Addy shook her head.
Zoey didn’t argue. She was right. There was no making sense of Damon’s character. But it didn’t matter. Maya shouldn’t be with him. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What about an abortion?”
Addy licked the back of her ice cream spoon and shook her head. “Absolute last resort. If that. And we can help her together, if all else fails. We should be able to provide her enough support that she doesn’t have to do something like that if she doesn’t want to.”
Zoey exhaled in relief. She wasn’t prepared to go that direction and secretly hoped Maya wasn’t either. “Okay, so we murder Damon and dump him in the Missouri River, then we get Maya settled in here. After that, I guess we need to check out her insurance situation. She’s still a minor, so if her dad doesn’t have anything, he can at least get her on state aid.”