Free Bad Moon (BBW Paranormal Romance) by Jackie Sexton

Chapter 1
    I have always been a bigger girl. My mother
said a healthy girl ‘ necesita comer!’ (has
to eat) , and well, it didn't hurt that her culinary flair
produced far too many delicious tacos. It caused for many satisfied
nights after dinner, sitting with my pants undone and sighing on
the couch, but it didn’t do much for those dreadful follow-up
mornings in front of the mirror, remembering that I didn’t have my
mother’s olive skin complexion or her otherworldly ability to store
all her fat in her breasts.
    I was the Pillsbury Doughboy incarnate, with
a smattering of freckles across my nose and dull brown, reckless
curls.
    That's why it really stung when Jason, my
boyfriend of nine months, said to me before my epic summer journey
cross country, "hopefully when you get back you'll be a little
lighter!" with a flippant chuckle. I fought the tears in my eyes
and picked up my bags, mumbling "good bye," as I headed over to the
back of the beat-up old van.
    "What's wrong?" Sierra asked me, tapping my
arm gently. Her beautiful hazel eyes, smattered with honey around
the iris and rimmed with green, scanned my face, deep with genuine
concerned. I sighed. There was no way to lie to one of my greatest
friends and the person I had been living with for the past four
years, but I didn’t want to start off the first day of my trip
being lectured about how awful my taste in men was.
    “Nothing...just going to miss Jason,” I said,
giving her a weak smile.
    “Hmm,” she said, trying not to betray her
emotions even though I was painfully aware of how much she hated
Jason. “Well...maybe you’ll find someone else to keep you company
on the trip...someone you’ve known all along, but never realized
how much he meant to you...” she said wistfully, dramatically
turning her gaze up to the sky. I gave her a small punch in the arm
and a severe look. But before I could think up a snappy retort,
Trent came up behind her, snaking an arm around her shoulder
casually and giving me a lopsided grin. He looked between the two
of us expectantly.
    “Speak of the devil,” Sierra laughed, giving
me a knowing look.
    “You guys are talking about me?” Trent said,
cocking up an inquisitive brow. I tensed, instantly cursing Sierra
in my mind.
    “No,” I rushed. “I was just saying that I was
going to miss Jason.”
    “Yeah, and how much we all hate him, you
included.” Oh how I wanted to wipe that smirk off Sierra’s face
just then.
    “Oh yeah, that guy. He sucks,” Trent nodded,
a hard, dull look coming over his gorgeous steel gray eyes as he
looked over to my boyfriend. “Bye, dude,” he called out to him with
a slight head nod.
    Jason looked up from his phone and waved,
giving us a half smile before returning his gaze to the little
screen in his hands, furiously typing into it.
    “See?” the smile returned to his face. “All
he does is text.”
    “He’s a business man,” I said haughtily,
putting my hands on my hips. It was hard hearing from the two
friends I had had since third grade, the ones who I traded
Pokémon cards with and made mud pies to bathe our cats in
(still not proud of that), that the guy I had invested nearly a
year’s time in was a dud.
    “Yeah, so he’s the next Mark Zuckerberg,”
Sierra said with a roll of her eyes. Trent chuckled.
    “Okay, we’re done talking about this,” I
said, picking up my bags from the ground again and hefting them to
the car. “Thanks for the design work,” I huffed back at Sierra. She
followed me to the trunk of the van, pouting.
    “Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye to your
best friend,” she said, helping me shove my bags on top of the
others, adjacent from all the instruments and equipment. “You know
I just want what’s best for you.”
    “I know,” I sighed, turning to her once my
bags were settled in the trunk. “And I love you too. Come here,” I
said, opening my arms to envelope her small frame inside of
them.
    “I wish I could come with you