Lindsey, Not Perfect (eBook)

Linnea Cleverly (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
282 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-2251-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Lindsey Bennett is a college graduate just trying to figure out what to do next. Marriage? Graduate school? Career? So many options and no guarantees. What do you do when the world is telling you who you should be? Create yourself.

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Chapter 2

She pulled herself together and trudged up to the third floor, practically kicking in the door when she got there. Carly Baker sat at the kitchen table, her old textbooks from nursing school beside her as she reorganized their bookshelf. She was Lindsey’s best friend from college and current roommate.

They’d met on their first day of college in an introductory math class, back when Carly thought she wanted to study English. They’d been inseparable ever since, only not so much lately. After three months of persistent hounding, Carly had finally received a nursing student rotation among the different local hospitals. She usually started her shifts at five a.m. and they ended between ten or eleven a.m. After her shifts ended, she usually had class from noon to early evening, which is why it was so surprising that she looked like she’d been home all afternoon.

“Surprise check-in?” Carly asked, her dirty blonde hair up in a ponytail, with her bangs pinned away from her almost emerald-green eyes. She was beautiful and athletic; two things Lindsey was not. Lindsey was studious, snarky, and always striving to be classic. They were opposites, but Lindsey felt they complimented each other’s differences.

“How’d you know?” Lindsey asked sarcastically as she tossed her stuff to the floor and collapsed on the couch.

“You missed dinner again.”

“Another unintended consequence of refusing to drink the fashion punch. They think if they force me to miss enough meals, then the anorexia will kick in and make me look like the rest of them,” she theorized as she covered her face with a couch pillow. “Any leftovers?”

“Chicken pieces and buttered noodles,” Carly answered, her eyes never leaving her textbook as she tried not to laugh at her bestie. “All the carbs, fat, and protein you need to stave off a potential eating disorder for at least one more day.”

“You’re an angel and I love you,” Lindsey declared as she put the food in the microwave. “What’s Quinn up to?”

“Your amazing boy toy went to help his mom move some furniture,” Carly informed her. “He’ll be back later.”

Quinn Richards was Lindsey’s boyfriend of almost six months. If she could describe their relationship in one word, it would be “fast.” He sort of came out of nowhere and decided he was here to stay. There was no doubt of his attractiveness. He had one of those beautiful faces that just made girls swoon. He had a defined jaw, cleft chin, and thick eyebrows that miraculously complimented his features, instead of overpowering the rest of his face. They met at a gym when she signed up for a six-week trial with a personal trainer, and there he was. It only took two sessions for her to learn that he had been a track star in high school and went to college on a full-ride athletic scholarship, where he had studied political science as well as health science. Additionally, he was the oldest of five, with no brothers.

By session four, she had learned about his dream of running every marathon in the US before moving on to international marathons. At the time, he was the organizer for some local youth running groups and was working as a personal trainer. What he really wanted to do was work as an athletic coach at one of the local high schools. At the end of their last training session, he had asked her out.

In her mind, it was a summer romance, filled with long walks around the city, trips to the pool, street carnivals, stargazing, and holiday fireworks. Quinn had other plans for them. While she had pegged him for a guy who would enjoy the non-commitment, he had inadvertently trapped her at a dinner party where he introduced her as his girlfriend. She decided to go with it and give him a real chance, but then he decided to move in with her.

He didn’t even really ask Lindsey how she felt about the living arrangement. He and Carly sort of ambushed her with the idea. Carly had warmed up to him almost instantaneously (it must have been the athletic bond or something like that) and she gave him the option to move in when their third roommate Emily moved out. Carly loved the idea of having a man living in the loft, but Lindsey wasn’t completely on board. Suddenly, she had a live-in boyfriend whom she wasn’t even sure she wanted. She already felt smothered because she was sharing a room with Carly, and now she was sharing all her personal space with him as well. It’s not that she didn’t enjoy their company, but it was hard to have “me” time when they both seemed to be underfoot.

The more time she and Quinn spent together, the more she noticed the differences in their ways of thinking. He didn’t seem to pick up on any of the conflict, or if he did, he hid it well. He was an all-American boy, but she felt he was more style than substance. For example, he was not above using his looks to get what he wanted, even if it meant at someone else’s expense. He was the master at flirting his way into or out of almost anything. It was superficial, but when she brought it up, he claimed that to not use your assets to get ahead would be to waste them. It didn’t seem right to her, but as much as she hated to admit it, it worked. She had tried it once to get out of paying an extra fee on her car. Yeah, she had gotten away with it, but felt totally phony after the fact, like all the genuinely good things about her were suddenly devalued.

She did care about him though. He was incredibly sweet, but also incredibly focused on settling down. Lindsey knew that settling down was not something she was interested in right now, but she was humoring him with limited cohabitation to buy herself some time. He certainly was beautiful, plus he loved his mother and each of his four little sisters dearly. At twenty-seven years old, his intentions were understandable, but she wasn’t sure she shared them. She sometimes thought that she wanted to break up with him, but she strongly feared that when the time came, he wouldn’t let her. Those concerns should’ve been enough of a red flag, but she waited for more noticeable ones to appear.

Lindsey inhaled her food and then made it to her room ready to crash, so she slipped on her sleep mask and instantly fell into a deep sleep. Around four a.m. she was woken up by Carly calling to find out which hospital her shift was at. Carly left at four-thirty and Lindsey tried to go back to sleep. Her efforts just weren’t paying off, so she decided to get up and reward herself with a hot breakfast.

The sun was barely starting to rise as she began cooking eggs and bacon. The pan sizzled and hissed as the bacon transformed from cold, raw meat into something hot and delicious. The smell was fantastic. Memories from her childhood came rushing back as the kitchen filled with the aroma. Her mom used to make brunch every weekend, and bacon was a staple food in their home. Bacon reminded her of the good times, silly as it was, and always made her day brighter.

Just as she finished putting the final touches on her breakfast sandwich, Quinn returned from his morning run. She admired his dedication. Every single day he was up at dawn and ran at least eight miles, except on Sundays when he went to church with his mother. He observed the day of rest without fail. Religion was only one of their fundamental differences. He was incredibly conservative and very traditional, while she was spiritual and a bit more mainstream in her beliefs.

“Good morning, Sunshine!” he greeted her brightly.

“Right, that thing in the sky that’s just now beginning to rise?” she teased.

“Early bird catches the worm.”

“Some of us have an aversion to worms, but we appreciate that others are motivated to go and catch them,” she teased.

“Well, there’s a right way to do things and a wrong way,” he replied, completely missing her joke. He was funny that way, always on a quest for efficiency.

“You know, not everyone is a morning person, but there’s nothing wrong with that,” she continued, throwing him a side-eyed look. This was a prime example of how they communicated. Black and white versus shades of gray.

“How can you eat that?” he asked, referencing the small mountain of bacon piled atop her plate beside her bacon and egg sandwich.

“Bacon is the food of the gods! Along with mac and cheese, of course.”

“Don’t buy it anymore, it’s bad for you.”

Ugh. Enough with the bacon-bashing, this was not the right way to start the day, not when there was a glorious mini-mountain of bacon beckoning her.

“Whatever. Would you like some eggs?”

“I’ll make my own. You don’t do it right.”

“Oh, come on, is there really a wrong way to make eggs?” she teased.

“You overcook them.”

“I prefer the term ‘properly obliterating potential salmonella’ if you don’t mind.”

He didn’t reply as he scrambled his eggs, toasted his bread, and blended his protein smoothie. She had to give him props for his dedication to living a healthy life, but his habit of being condescending was not his most attractive trait. After all, did it really matter how good-looking you were if people couldn’t stand to be around you?

“I need to get ready for work,” she lied, knowing that he wouldn’t question her. “Another day, another dollar!”

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned with sticking it out for a year,” he began.

“It’s a stepping stone,” she defended. “It opens the door so I can start to do more of what I would like to do.”

“Still, once you get married...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.10.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-2251-6 / 9798350922516