150 Pounds by Kate Rockland Read Free Book Online

“It’s five-oh-four. Why aren’t you at the gym?” Billy was Korean, had black spiky hair and smooth, caramel-colored skin. His eyes were large and black, framed by beautifully long lashes that were his best feature (which he’d tell everyone who would listen). He was the same height as Alexis, five-foot-two.
    Two eyes peered out of the darkness from Billy’s room at Alexis. She realized it was the other sailor from last night. Tom, or Tim. Or maybe it was Tony? She couldn’t remember.
    “Sailor boy over here thought it might be okay to take one of my banana slices,” Alexis said.
    Polka-dot Boxers Sailor let out an embarrassed chuckle. Alexis realized he sounded embarrassed for her . The nerve.
    “What’s with your roommate?” he asked Billy. “She got a stick up her ass or something? I ate a slice of banana, and she screamed like I was stabbing her in the eye.”
    Billy strode slowly but meaningfully over to him. He came up to the sailor’s nipple.
    Pause.
    He reached up and slapped him across the face.
    The sailor stood there, his hand on his cheek, wearing a shocked expression. Alexis heard Billy’s other boy toy scurry back into the shadows, quickly slamming the door. The sound of the lock being turned echoed across the tiles in the kitchenette.
    “What the fuck was that for?” Polka-dot Boxers Sailor asked.
    “I’m going to explain something to you, so open up your big dumb waterlogged ears,” Billy said, hands on his narrow hips. “Do you have any idea who you just took a slice of banana from? Whose breakfast you so cavalierly interrupted? Motherfucker, this is Alexis Allbright. Editor in chief of Skinny Chick. Queen of Chelsea. Bitch of all bitches.”
    “The blog?” the sailor asked, lifting his thick eyebrows at this news.
    “ The blog, ” Billy replied.
    “Oh, my god,” he said, putting a hand up to his reddening cheek. “I read your blog, like, every single day. I fucking worship you. I used to be a fat kid when I was younger.” He pointed to his washboard abs. “Really.”
    Alexis smiled the wafer-thin smile she reserved for people she didn’t like.
    “That interview you did with Anna Wintour I read like five hundred times on my laptop when we were stationed off the coast of Mexico. It got me through the lonely nights.”
    “Glad I can do my part for my country,” Alexis said. She was starting to calm down.
    “ Now do you understand why taking her banana slice was so disrespectful?” Billy asked, his tone that of a preschool teacher speaking to a very small child. “Girlfriend isn’t going to eat anything for another five hours, as you know from her blog. And when she does eat, it will be a meal consisting of fewer calories than you have brain cells. And she has to now go work out. While the rest of the world sleeps in their lazy little beds.”
    The sailor was tripping over himself to apologize. Alexis let him off the hook with a wave of her French-manicured hand. She never got anything other than a “Frenchie,” as she called them. Her mother had always said color on fingernails looked vulgar.
    “Don’t worry about it, honey,” she told him. “If you can say Skinny Chick ’s motto to me, all is forgiven.”
    The sailor grinned. Now he was on familiar ground. “A few calories a day keep the spandex away,” he sang.
    “Good boy,” Billy said, patting him on the butt like a dog. The sailor went skipping off to the bathroom, glowing as if he’d just met Angelina Jolie.
    Suddenly a second door opened and a dark mane of hair appeared. Alexis and Billy both sucked in their breath at the same time. “All right out ’ere?” a voice called spookily in an indeterminate accent. It seemed to warble, or echo somehow, like a ghost wailing inside a haunted house.
    “Er … everything’s fine. Sorry we woke you,” Billy whispered.
    Their third roommate was the only person on the entire planet who truly scared the shit out of both of them. Not having any friends, they’d