Curves For Her Rock Star by Stacey R. Summers

Chapter 1

    “ Keep the change,” I said with a smile as I handed the burly
cab driver a twenty before stepping out into the cool night
air.
    “ Thanks,” I heard the deep voice of the man call back before I
shut the door and walked up to the large double door entrance that
lead into Booker’s Music Hall, the most popular indie rock club in
Riverside.
    The bouncer, a tall broad shouldered man
dressed in black, didn’t even so much as glance in my direction as
I walked past, too distracted by a petite little blond, scantily
clad in a plunging pink neck dress that left little to imagination.
The smell of sweat, smoke, and liquor greeted me as I entered the
club, filled to max capacity with gorgeous men and women that made
me feel completely out of place. Few eyes glanced in my direction
as I forced my way towards the bar, but those that did seemed
almost to narrow as if to tell me that I didn’t belong.
    I knew it was irrational, but whenever I was
in such a crowded environment I always felt that every laugh, every
whisper, and every joke was made at my expense. Keeping my head
down as much as possible, I finally made it to the bar, and to my
relief just as a couple locked at the waist shifted away to find a
place closer to the stage.
    Quickly I slipped into one
of the two open barstools, which creaked under my weak. My heart
skipped a bit as I glanced down. ‘ What if
it broke?’
    “ What will you be having?” came a disgruntled voice that
distracted me from my momentary fears. I looked up to see the
bartender with a shaved head that glistened in the low light
staring down at me with a face painted in annoyance. While I worked
in customer service, I could never imagine having to tend to so
many people at the same time, so I took no offense to his
unwelcoming tone.
    “ A
pint of Booker’s Honey Ale,” I replied with a polite smile.
Booker’s Music wasn’t just renown for it’s house shows, but also
it’s own line of brews that weren’t available outside of the club.
Personally I wasn’t very fond of drinking beer, but I also wasn’t
fond of going out to crowded clubs so I figured I might as well
just try and do my best to fit in.
    It took the bartender only a minute before
he returned with my beer, and only another minute to take my twenty
and return with my change.
    “ Thanks,” I said as I pushed a five towards him. Due to the
promotion the club was running the beer only cost me four, so I
figured that the generous tip would have at least earned a smile of
thanks, but as he scooped up the bill his lips didn’t even so much
as twitch before he turned away to tend to the rest of the
bar.
    ‘ He is just having a rough night,’ I
reassured myself before I took a sip of ale, tasting the slight
hint of honey that did little to mask the bitterness. My eyes
watched the bartender as he worked, and my thoughts proved to be
wrong as a petite girl at the end of the bar got him grinning.
‘ If you had a body like that, you would
have gotten yourself a smile as well.’
    The thought caused my eyes to drift downward
to look myself over. My traditional business attire covered a body
that was plump at all the right places, but also a little more than
plump at all the wrong places too. It irritated me to no end how
others can be so outrageously judgmental, assuming quickly that my
weight must be the product of some sort of extreme laziness that
they might catch if they got too close.
    Their assumptions couldn’t have been further
from the truth as over the last year since graduating from college
I had enrolled in multiple diet and exercise programs, but
unfortunately none of them had produced the results I had desired.
Every time I would start to drop a few pounds, I always found
myself feeling less than thrilled about life, so I gave up. While I
wouldn’t mind to have an approving gaze thrown my way every now and
then, my personal happiness far outweighed any care for societies
approval.
    “ Hello Riverside!”