“Oh my God, I hope you’re going to eat all that because I certainly can’t,” she remarked. “About ninety-nine percent of this stuff is not on my diet.”
“Diet?” Liosh frowned as he looked down at the array of food he’d bought. “Why would you need to diet when you’re already the perfect size?”
“The perfect size?” Melli nearly burst into laughter before she realized he was serious. “Wow, that’s… really nice of you to say but it’s not true. I wish I was the perfect size.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re not the perfect size, then who is?”
“Well, she looks really nice,” Melli observed, pointing surreptitiously at a slender, petite girl who looked to be around a size two walking past their table. “Or she’s really pretty,” she went on, nodding at a tall, thin model-type swaying like a graceful giraffe on the other side of the food court.
Liosh frowned.
“But both of those females are so thin you can see their skeletal structure. Is that really what your people consider attractive?”
“Well, sure.” Melli shrugged. “It’s what most men consider attractive, anyway.”
His frown deepened to a puzzled expression.
“Human males have very strange tastes, then.”
“Not according to social media.” Melli shook her head. “You ought to see some of the Influencers on Instagram.”
“The what on where?” Liosh asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh—it’s a site on the internet.” Melli took out her phone to show him, but realized that the battery had died while she was up in the Mother Ship. “Crap—it’s dead.” She sighed. “Well, I’ll show you on my laptop when we get home.”
“That would be nice. Although if you’re just going to show me more pictures of skeletal women, I’m not sure how much I care to see them,” Liosh said frankly. “Are you honestly going to sit here and tell me you think someone like her is more attractive than a female who has curves, like yourself?”
Melli looked where he was pointing…and could barely suppress a groan. Liosh must have seen the look on her face because he frowned in concern.
“What’s wrong? Why do you look so unhappy all of a sudden? You smell almost panicked.”
“I smell panicked?” Melli frowned at him, then waved aside the strange comment. “It’s just that I know her,” she said in an undertone. “I used to go to high school with her and now she’s in my Sociology class this semester. It’s like I can’t get away from her.”
The “her” in question was none other than Amanda Brannigan, former head cheerleader of the Midtown Mustangs and the same girl who had set her up on her fateful date with Jason Sykes.
Just seeing her tied Melli’s stomach in knots. Unfortunately, Amanda seemed to know that because she always made a point to stop and talk to Melli every time she saw her.
Or maybe “torment” might be a better word.
Melli looked away, hoping not to be noticed but no such luck. Amanda spotted her and made a beeline straight for their table, a nasty-nice smile plastered on her pretty face as her size-zero, non-existent ass swayed with the motion of her impractically high heels. Her bouncy auburn hair, which looked shiny enough to be in a shampoo commercial, fluttered becomingly with each step and her cute little nose with three perfect freckles across the bridge wrinkled in a way every boy at Midtown High had found unbearably sexy and adorable.
“Well, hello Melli-the-belly,” she said, using the unkind nickname Melli had been stuck with in high school even after she’d lost some weight. “And what are you doing here?”
“Oh, hi Amanda.” Melli looked up, giving her a weak smile. “It’s, uh, nice to see you again. We’re just shopping.”
“You’ve been shopping, all right. Is all this for you?” Amanda eyed the huge pile of food disapprovingly. “There’s an awful lot of empty carbs here, Melli. Don’t you think you ought to be cutting back, rather than beefing up?”
Melli felt her whole face get hot. It was just like high school again, when Amanda and the popular crowd would come by her table at lunch and criticize whatever she happened to be eating.
Melli had almost developed an eating disorder because of them. Until after the Junior Prom, that was—after that she’d lost her appetite for nearly a year and the weight had come off. Now, in college, she’d started to work past some issues and the pounds had come back. Not all of them, but she wasn’t quite as thin as she’d been at graduation, she had to admit.
“It’s not all for me,” she said quickly. “I would never, uh, eat all this stuff. We’re just trying some new things—that’s all.”
“I see. But who is ‘we’?” Amanda eyed Liosh with open and undisguised admiration.
“Oh, sorry—this is Liosh,” Melli said. “Liosh, this is Amanda Brannigan.”
“Well, Liosh—nice to meet you.” Amanda stuck out a hand with perfectly manicured nails.
The big Kindred took the offered hand with a notable lack of enthusiasm, shook it exactly once, and let go.
“It’s agreeable to meet you,” he said, not quite sounding like he meant it.
But Amanda Brannigan wasn’t put off in the least. She was used to wrapping any guy she wanted around her little finger and it was clear she considered Liosh prime meat.
“Well it’s agreeable to meet you, too,” she purred, sliding one hand over his thick bicep appreciatively. “My, you’re a big boy, aren’t you? Are you Melli’s tutor or something? She always was hopeless in school. Why, she nearly failed our junior year!” She laughed nastily and rolled her eyes as though Melli was some kind of an idiot.
Melli felt her stomach clench miserably. There was a damn good reason she’d nearly failed her junior year of high school—a damn good reason she hadn’t been able to think or study or concentrate on anything but the awful turmoil churning inside her.
“No, Liosh
