The Curvy Girl Next Door: A BBW Romance

The Curvy Girl Next Door

By

Leila Lacey

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Leila Lacey.

All rights reserved in accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.  The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book, (other than for review purposes) prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Editor: Geri Hansford Contact:
[email protected]
.  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Dedicated to all the women and men that came before me that made it possible for me to publish my stories and live my dreams.

CHAPTER 1

‘Come on Lucy.  Come on start for me,’ Angela was thinking as she was pumping her gas pedal and twisting the key in the ignition. Her car continued to spit and sputter but not start.

“UGH! Please don’t do this to me today,” she said out loud leaning her head against the driver’s side head rest.

“Umm… Mom, I don’t think it’s going to start,” Imani said to her mother. She was sitting in the front passenger seat and her sister Eliana was in the back seat listening to her iPod.

Angela McMillan was a divorced single mother of two beautiful girls, Imani and Eliana. Imani is thirteen and Eliana is eleven. Angela had been divorced for four years now. In the first two years, she had thought there was no way she was going to be able to make it on her own. But she and her girls had managed to make it, almost unscathed and settle into a regular routine. No thanks to Angela’s ex-husband, Andre.

Andre had been able to convince her to sign a prenuptial agreement before they were married. She had been so in love and starry-eyed, she had not hesitated. “I mean a pre-nup is not needed unless you are going to get a divorce and I know we will be together forever,” she had stupidly told her mother when she had tried to stop her from signing the document.

Angela had only walked away from the marriage with three things; her beautiful girls, her last name and court ordered child support.  Andre had been ordered to pay child support but had not managed to pay a dime so far. Angela wanted and needed to take him to court but she could not afford a lawyer so she had worked three part-time jobs and went to night school to become a Certified Executive Assistant. When she had gotten the job at Lexco Oil, she had been so relieved. Although she was not getting paid anywhere near what she should for the work she was doing, she was glad to have a steady paycheck and a job with nine-to-five hours so that she could be at home in the evenings with her girls.

“I know, baby, I just don’t know what we are going to do. I have to get to work,” she told her daughter.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

“AHHHH,” Angela and her daughters screamed almost jumping out of their skin.

“HI!” Julian, her next door neighbor, said smiling and waving. Still clutching her chest, Angela rolled down her window and said, “Hi Julian.”

“Hi, Mr. McKenna,” the girls said at the same time.

Julian McKenna was Angela’s next door neighbor. He had always been really nice to Angela and her daughters from the very first day she moved into her house.

He had come over while they were moving boxes and introduced himself and jumped right in.

“I am so sorry. I did not mean to scare you,” he said smiling.

‘God, this man is sex on a stick,’ Angela was thinking. Julian was six foot four inches, with thick black hair he kept cut pretty low.  He had chocolate brown eyes and a dimple in his left cheek. He was a former Advanced Foreign Counterintelligence Officer in the Marines so he had a body made for sin.  This man did not have a six pack; he had a whole twenty-four case of rippling muscles. Angela had never understood why men called their biceps ‘guns’ until she met Julian.  His were more like cannons than guns.

She knew that he would never be interested in an overweight woman but she was glad that he was nice enough to help out when she needed it, which was often.

“Pop the hood for me and let me take a look,” he said as he walked around the front of the car. He had on a pair of acid wash denim jeans, a black fitted t-shirt and no shoes. The way the jeans hugged his nice tight butt made it so hard for Angela not to stare.

‘Get it together, girl!’ Angela said to herself. Angela determined she was going to have to have date night with her B.O.B. tonight (Battery Operated Boyfriend).

Stepping out of the car, Angela walked around to the front of the car and looked under the hood too as if she would have any idea what she was seeing.

The only thing that Angela knew about cars was that they ran on gas. Her daddy had always told her, “Baby girl, a woman should at least know how to change her own tire,” which Angela had agreed with whole heartedly, but had never wanted to get her hands dirty or greasy so she never learned.

“Thank you so much, Julian. I do not know what I would do without your help,” she said to him. The fall breeze blew east to west and Angela got a whiff of Julian’s delicious cologne. She did not know what it was but it made her want to get naked every time she was close to him.

“HMMM…” she said. Angela had closed her eyes savoring his scent. She didn’t realize that she had moaned out loud until Julian said something.

“Are you ok?” he said looking over his shoulder. Angela’s eyes snapped open to find Julian looking at her with a smirk on his face.

“YES!” she said a little louder than she had planned to. “Yes, I just hope it’s nothing too bad,” she said clearing her throat.

“It looks like it’s your battery and your alternator, kid,” Julian said turning toward her.

“WHAT? What does that mean? Can you make it go for now?” Angela started to say frantically.

Grabbing her shoulders and smiling Julian said, “Angela, Angela… breathe.”

Taking a deep breath, Angela rapidly blinked her eyes trying not to start crying.

“It is going to cost you about $800 to get the car running if you take it to a mechanic.”

“WHAT?” Angela said yelling. “I can’t afford that. I need my car. I can’t even get to work…” Angela was freaking out completely.

“ANGELA, honey, calm down. I have two cars.  You can take one of mine until it’s fixed and I will fix the car for you,” Julian said.

Angela was looking at him with her eyes wide in complete shock.

‘Is she breathing?’ Julian thought.

“BREATHE,” Julian said triggering Angela to take a deep breath, pausing to find her voice so that she could speak.

“Julian, you are so sweet to be willing to let me use your car but I can’t!” she said.

“WHY?”

The realization that she was wrapped in Julian’s arms standing in her driveway in front of her car with the hood up, looking up into his eyes, she said, “Because, because, because I can’t. I am not your responsibility. You already do so much for me. I can’t let you do that, too.”

“So you want to feel like you are giving me something for the use of my car and repairs to your car?” he asked.

“Well yeah! But I can’t afford much...” she started to say.

“Angie, Angie, breathe.  Sweetie, your head is going to pop off one day,” Julian said laughing. She was still wrapped in his arms, and although it felt so good to feel his arms around her, she was uncomfortable. ‘Is he going to feel the five fat rolls on my back?’ was all she kept thinking.

Squatting down so that they were face to face Julian said, “How about this; I let you use my car until yours is fixed and I will repair your car. In turn, you will cook me dinner for two weeks. Does that sound like a deal that you can handle?”

“I don’t know, Julian. I mean dinner?  That does not seem like much of a fair trade.”

“HA! Do you want to know what I had for dinner last night?” Julian said “Fruity Pebbles.”

“I love those!” Angela said smiling. “Have you had Coco Pebbles at one a.m.?”

“Umm… Angie sweetie, I think you may be missing the point,” he said laughing.

“Oh-Oh,” Angela said. “Sorry I got a little side tracked.”

Taking a step back from him so that she could think straight, Angela said, “If you are really ok with it.” She extended her hand out to him, she said, “Deal.”

“Deal,” he said laughing and shaking her hand.

CHAPTER 2

“Girl, where have you been?” Angela’s best friend Toni said to her as she came running into the executive offices.

“My car wouldn’t start again this morning and I had to drop the girls off at school,” she said as she was running to her desk and trying to shake her coat off at the same time.

“Mr. Lexington just got here. I told him you were in the ladies room,” Toni said.

Toni Matthews was Angela’s best friend.  They had met three years ago when she started working at Lexco Oil. Toni, like Angela, was an executive assistant there.  She was married and had four children. She was the craziest person Angela knew.

“How long have I been in the bathroom?” Angela asked sitting in her chair getting ready to start working.

“Twenty to thirty minutes,” she said looking at her smiling. “You have the bubble guts because of some bad sushi last night,” she said laughing.

Angela slapped her hand against her head. “Lord, did you really have to give him details?” she said shaking her head.

“Girl, if I am gonna lie, I am going whole hog!” Toni said.

“Fix it Jesus,” Angela said shaking her head.

“So what are you doing about transportation?” Toni asked her.

“Julian is letting me use his car until he is done fixing mine,” Angela said. She had started working so was not paying attention to the fact that Toni had jumped up and ran to the other side of her desk.

“WHAT??” Toni yelled. Angela was startled because she had not realized that Toni was right there next to her.

“WOMAN!” Angela said. “You scared the crap out of me. Why are you over here yelling at me?”

“Because you are acting like this is nothing!  Like Julian is not a delicious man-cicle.”

“Go to your desk, crazy lady!” Angela said pointing in the direction of her desk.

“No ma’am, you are going to give me details on this, miss,” Toni said sitting on the corner of her desk.

Shaking her head, Angela said, “Lord, I am not going to get any peace until I tell you this story, am I?”

“NOPE, so give me what I want so that we can be productive today,” Toni said swinging her left leg back and forth.

Angela sat back in her large leather office chair which, even at Angela’s size, just enveloped her.

The offices at Lexco Oil looked exactly like you would expect the office of a Texas oil company to look like. All the furnishings were made of mahogany wood and very big. The walls were covered in wood paneling and the art work consisted of stuffed animal heads and larges photos of dogs, cows, or cowboys grazing in a field.

When Angela had come to interview for the first time, she remembered thinking, ‘They need to kill their interior designer.’ It was a good old country boy design with a splash of tacky. Feng Sui was definitely out of the question. Angela’s desk was bigger than her car.

“It really is not that big of a deal. My altimeter is shot so he is going to fix it for me. In return for his help, I am going to cook him dinner for two weeks,” Angela said casually.

Toni grabbed the bridge of her nose and shook her head.

“Fix it Jesus! First of all it’s an
alternator
,” she said to her. “And you are going to be cooking dinner for Julian for the next two weeks and you think that is not a big deal? Last, and certainly not least, you think that he doesn’t like you?”

“No, he doesn’t!” Angela said. “You really need to stop. Julian is a great guy and he is a Marine for Christ’s sake. Helping people is what he does.”

Angela could not deny that she had wished on more than one occasion that Julian would show an interest in her but she knew that was not going to happen. Angela knew her chocolate brown skin, dark brown eyes, thick curly hair, and naturally long lashes were her best features. She also knew her size eighteen frame, although she was very confident in her frame and loved her curves, was a little big for a man like Julian.

“You know what? You almost made me call you a heffa just now,” Toni said. “Why are you always putting yourself down? You are a beautiful, smart, loving, funny, strong and caring woman. Julian would be lucky to have you.”

“I am not undervaluing myself, Toni, I am being realistic. Men don’t desire women my size.  That is just a fact of life. Usually they
settle
for women like me, just like Andre did. Andre had secrets he needed hidden and he needed a wife to hide them. I am not going to sit in the delusion that men think I am sexy. I am sexual yes, but desired, no,” Angela said to her friend.

“Ms. McMillan!” Mr. Lexington’s voice came over the intercom.

“Yes, sir,” Angela said putting one finger over her lips indicating for Toni to be quiet.

“I trust you are back from the bathroom and feeling ok,” he said.

Mr. Brice Lexington was a third generation oil man. He was an old man with old money and a bear to work for. But Angela’s kindness and patience had stuck with him. Once she had started working for him, she performed her duties twice as good as any other assistant than he had ever had. He could not help but be glad he had hired her. When she challenged him and pushed back when he was being unreasonable, he had vowed to keep her employed there as his assistant until he retired.

“Yes, Mr. Lexington, I am fine.  I will be right in,” Angela said. Grabbing her iPad and cell phone she stood up to go into his office.

“Don’t think this is over, woman.  You and me are gonna talk about why you won’t ride that Brahma bull till the cows come home,” Toni said as she sauntered back to her desk.

“Does your husband know that you are this crazy?” Angela said laughing.