The Ex Files

Chapter 1 - Ally

This was the second worst wedding I'd ever been to, and I'd been to a lot of weddings. Seventeen so far this year, so I considered myself something of an authority.

The bride, who was my date's nineteen-year-old cousin, had just married her thirty-two-year-old former math teacher. Dinner had come from KFC, which was where they'd gone on their first proper date. I say "proper" date because rumour said—rumour being the gossip in the ladies' bathroom—that they'd been caught sneaking out of the stationery cupboard next to his classroom on more than one occasion. Today, she'd squashed her seven-month baby bump into a white spandex minidress and hung onto her Maid of Honour—my date's ex—with a death grip as she said her vows. Oh, and did I mention the ceremony had taken place in a pasture? Not so unusual in today's world of shabby chic, but most people cleared the horse poop off the grass first.

Now we were in a barn, fortunately minus any actual horses, and the DJ was playing the opening bars of "Sweet Home Alabama." With the exception of yours truly, all of the non-pregnant guests were drunk. The happy couple might have skimped on costs almost everywhere, but they sure had been generous with the alcohol budget.

"Would you remove your hand from my ass, please?" I asked Kyle, the man who'd brought me to this literal shitshow.

"Huh?"

"Your hand? No touching below the waist—it's in the contract."

"Yeah, sorry." The drunk idiot moved the offending body part two inches higher, still a little low, but I could live with it. Then his eyes lit up with an idea. "What if I paid extra?"

Urgh. At times like this, I wished I'd taken another job at the mall.

"No."

He looked as if he might complain, but then the music registered.

"Hey, this is your song. We should dance."

Yes, we should. Not because I wanted to be groped on the dance floor but because the MoH was dragging her new beau in that direction, and I had to earn my money. I prided myself on good customer service, and I had the online reviews to prove it.

Ever survived a bad breakup only to cross paths with your ex at an unavoidable event soon afterward? A wedding, a graduation, a family party... Did you wish you'd had an attractive date on your arm to show that your ex wasn't the only one who'd moved on? Well, for fifty bucks an hour plus travel expenses, I'd play that role. I wasn't pageant-pretty, but I was girl-next-door-cute according to my roommate, Cooper. Although Cooper also thought giant African land snails were cute, so perhaps that wasn't the ringing endorsement he thought it was?

"Okay, let's dance. But keep your hands to yourself, hot stuff."

Every client signed a contract, but it was short, just four rules, so even Kyle should be able to remember them.

- No touching below the waist.

- No kissing with tongues.

- No pictures of my face on social media.

- All meetings are to be in public.

But after tonight, I considered adding a fifth: no dancing if a man had two left feet. My toes were black and blue by the time I hobbled to a cab in the early hours of the morning. Did anyone make high-heeled pumps with steel toecaps? Because if they didn't, they were missing a gap in the market. Hmm... I'd have to look into that. In September, I'd start the fourth year of my fashion design degree at the University of Coastal California, and the professors were always encouraging us to explore product innovation.

But first, I needed to survive a summer of disastrous non-dates.

Cooper and I shared a two-bedroom carriage house in the backyard of his Great-Aunt Nora's home in Hermosa Beach, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because I'd never have been able to afford a place like that without the discount she gave us on the rent. Bad because Cooper was studying zoology with a focus on entomology, and he had weird taste in pets. The living room was filled with things that crawled, climbed, and slithered, which was why I spent as little time in there as possible. The snails I could cope with. The spiders? Not so much, especially when he told me just how painful the bite from a brown recluse spider could be.