Big Girls Need Love Too

Chapter One

Molly Sampson mentally catalogued her flaws. She’d become more than aware of them after being her older sister’s maid of honor a few months ago.

Five foot four inches. Forty-eight. Forty. Fifty-two.

Her measurements also served as the numbers to the combination lock she used when she went to the gym. She looked at them as a motivational tool.

Despite having a gym membership, she didn’t know what number corresponded with her weight, since she only stepped on a scale when she had a doctor’s appointment. She’d done her best to erase the memory of that particular measurement from her mind.

So really, why was she sitting here in Clicks—a smoky pool hall a mile away from her apartment—knowing good and well her best friend Benjamin intended to hook her up with some unknown guy? Especially when the population of their hometown of Waco, Texas consisted of spoiled, rich Baylor brats, men who were already married or single dads who barely managed to pay their child support—if they paid it at all.

What were you thinking, asking Benjamin to set you up on a bunch of blind dates? Molly took a sip of her Pineapple and Parrot Bay. Oh, yeah, it was that whole trying new things, meeting new people, attempting to date resolution you made.

She rolled her eyes. Whatever had possessed her to make a New Year’s resolution like that—hell, to make one at all for the first time in her twenty-six years of life—was beyond her. But she’d only made the resolution a few days before, and she didn’t like to renege on a promise, even if it was a silly one made in the early hours of January first to no one but herself.

She sneezed. Man, she knew this had been a bad idea. Not only was the cigarette smoke aggravating her allergies, but she had to have been temporarily insane to agree to meet a guy in a bar of all places. Could she get any more cliché? How romantic could neon Lone Star beer signs and Corona advertisements be anyway? Although she did have to admit that the grass-skirt wearing Spanky the Monkey—the pool hall’s mascot who hung from the ceiling in the bar area—did add a certain amount of class to the establishment.

“Earth to Molly. Did you hear a word I just said?”

Her head snapped up at the sound of Benjamin’s voice. He stood across the table from her, holding one of the bar’s famous Big Ass Beers in his hand, with an impatient expression on his bearded face. Man, she must’ve really zoned out, because Benjamin rarely got impatient.

“Sorry, hon. I was thinking.”

“Stop doing that.”

“But thinking is good.”

“Not when you’re mentally cataloguing every single flaw you think you have.”

She tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear. “What makes you think I was doing that?”

He raised a brown eyebrow.

“Okay, you’re right. Get out of my head.”

The problem with being best friends with someone you’ve known since junior high was that they also knew all of the things you obsessed over.

“Moll, you know I love you, but sometimes you just think way too damned much.”

“I know. I know. It’s just…” she paused, trying to find the right words. “I haven’t been on a date in three years. I haven’t kissed someone in almost two. And it’s been so long since I last had sex that I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to do it. So right now I kind of feel like I’m jumping into the deep end of the pool and all I know how to do is doggie paddle.”

He took a swig of his beer before responding. “At least you know how to doggie paddle. And I know it’s a big step, Molly. But don’t you think it’s time to get back out here in the world and try to meet someone? You’re great. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”

I don’t want just “any guy,” though. I want you.

And that was the one thing her best friend didn’t know about her—that her other New Year’s resolution had been to fall out of love.

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