Free A LITTLE BIT OF SUGAR by Lindsey Brookes

in the parking lot sounded all that unappealing. It just wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it. I’d felt the heat of Anthony’s kiss and I wasn’t ready for things to go any further, and that’s exactly what would happen if I gave into the need.
     
    “Enough about me. What happened on your date that made it so awful?”
     
    “Yeah,” Alisa said. “I thought this guy you were going out with tonight was supposed to be the best thing since chocolate.”
     
    That was how Carlina had described this new guy after meeting him at the park while she was out jogging.
     
    “Cheap chocolate,” she grumbled. “You know the kind with no taste. The kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth.”
     
    I laughed. “What did he do?”
     
    “He took me to a fast food restaurant for dinner.”
     
    “I like fast food,” Alisa blurted out.
     
    Carlina snorted. “It’s not where I had envisioned going with this guy on our first date. Especially when he picked me up in a shiny new Corvette.”
     
    “Maybe that’s how he affords to drive a nice car,” I suggested with a grin. “Feeding his dates off the dollar menu.”
     
    “He didn’t feed me. He ordered his meal and then paid for it. I ordered mine – and paid for it.”
     
    Alisa and I gasped.
     
    I sat up in my bed. “You mean he asked you out and then made you pay for your own food?”
     
    “Yep.”
     
    “What a jerk!” I was offended for her.
     
    “Oh, and that’s not the best part,” Carlina continued. “He asked me for gas money.”
     
    “No way!” Alisa exclaimed.
     
    “I kid you not.”
     
    What a jerk! “What did you say?”
     
    “I told him he should have enough gas after eating the four burritos he’d bought himself. Then I got out of his car and walked home.”
     
    My night sounded great compared to hers.
     
    “Good for you,” Alisa said.
     
    “Guys, I really need to get to bed. I have to work in the morning.”
     
    “At the restaurant?” Carlina asked in surprise.
     
    “No,” Alisa answered for me. “She’s talking about her new job.”
     
    “What new job?”
     
    “I’m delivering telegrams.”
     
    “In costume,” Alisa added.
     
    I frowned. “Tomorrow morning I get to deliver one at the country club in a clown suit.”
     
    Carlina snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”
     
    “Wish I were,” I sighed. “It’s not my dream job, but it’ll help pay my portion of the rent and utilities when I move in with you guys. I think I could handle the costume part of this job. It’s the singing part I dread.”
     
    “You’re going to be singing?” Carlina said in that same shocked tone my family had responded to the news with.
     
    “Don’t even say it,” I warned. “It’s a done deal.”
     
    “You know what this means for us, don’t you?” Alisa said happily.
     
    “She’s going to be stressed to the max with this new job,” Carlina replied. “And when she’s stressed, she bakes. Endless cupcakes for all of us!”
     
    I was so glad my friends lived for my misery.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
     
     
    I awoke feeling exhausted. You would think that the thought of having to dress up like a clown and sing in front of people would be what had kept me up all night, but it wasn’t. It was Anthony!
     
    I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss we’d shared the night before. His nickname, Tiger, had taken on a whole new meaning as far as I was concerned.
     
    With a glance at my alarm clock, I slid out of bed and made my way down the hall to the shower. Then after drying my hair, I tucked it up under the clown wig I’d been given to wear. New, thankfully. I could never wear a wig someone else had worn before me. Eeew.
     
    Next step was applying my makeup according to the instructions I’d been given with the costume. ‘Proper clown face’ application. Who knew there was a right way and a wrong way to cover your face in makeup consisting of only primary colors