Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched Read Online Free Page B

Clementine. I was forgetting again that Zach, who owned his own new restaurant, the Silver Steer (in a different location from the one that had brought us together), understood why I was never around, and best of all, he actually admired me for it. This will work out. You can be engaged and keep Clementine’s a success.
    The pitchfork-wielding little devil disappeared off my left shoulder and the smiling angel on my right aimed a miniremote-controlat my brain, reminding me of two weeks ago when Zach had come home exhausted at ten at night from boardroom business negotiations to find me frustrated in his kitchen, my hands coated in tomato guts for a new version of my ratatouille, which was missing something. A producer from Good Morning, L.A. was having me on to teach how to make ratatouille in the studio in two days, and my ratatouille was—in my hard-to-impress opinion—a solid meh.
    Zonked as he was, Zach had sat down at the kitchen table, kicked off his shoes, Charlie’s head resting on his foot, and looked through my three recipes, suggesting what to delete, what to add. He’d tasted all three versions, even though he’d barely been awake by the time I’d finished the third, and declared the third the charm. In the morning, he’d even had the winning ratatouille for breakfast to make double sure on morning brain that it was good enough for the perky hostess, who’d potentially rave on the popular morning show and send hordes to Clementine’s to try it in person. It had been, by the way.
    The mini-angel switched the channel, this time to my younger brother, Kale, calling me from the freeway a few weeks ago to say he had a flat and could I come pick him up. In the middle of dinner rush at the restaurant. Apparently he’d called everyone he knew in LA and no one was around. So who had left a dinner party with investors to pick up my brother, get his car towed, and loaned him his old Porsche until his ancient Honda was ready?
    Yeah: Zach.
    The little devil, now on my right shoulder, lunged the pitchfork at the angel and switched the channel to the Ghost of Clementine’s Future: Me in some fancy bridal salon in a gorgeous white gown, five seamstresses pinning and hemming for hours. Cut to Zach and I at yet another of his dull business functions, me dressed “appropriately” in a pastel Chanel suit. Eating a cube of cheese for some ungodly reason.
    Cut to Clementine’s No Crap Café with boarded-up windows and a FOR RENT sign across the window.
    Beat it, devil. As if any of those situations would ever happen. Cheese? Please. Anyway, Zach was already my partner in life. He knew me. Understood me. Wanted me to succeed on my terms.
    â€œNeed any help?” he asked, picking up the wooden spoon from the empty mixing bowl and swiping his finger through the icing.
    â€œNope,” I said, barely able to keep myself from turning around and telling him I’d found the ring, by accident. “I need to get started on the fondant and then I have a million seashells to make, but I’ve got it.”
    â€œAny chance Jolie will come to her senses and call off the wedding?” he said, swiping one more lick of the bowl.
    â€œSeriously doubt that.”
    â€œGod, I want to object. You’ll have to slap your hand over my mouth when the minister brings it up.” Sometimes he seemed fine about his baby half sister getting hitched so young, butsometimes, the look that came over his face was like one big, long sigh.
    Poor Zach. He wouldn’t even get the chance to object.
    â€œJolie will be fine. Married or not at eighteen, she’ll blaze her way through life. You know that.”
    â€œYou’re right. I forget how much like you she is.” He kissed me again, told me he loved me, thanked me for walking Charlie, then headed upstairs to change for his run on the beach.
    In just hours, we’d be a mile up that beach, attending the wedding, where