Page 14 of Midnight Kisses (Spicy Fat Cinderella Retelling)

PERRY

Miles’ expression when I left his house was horrible.

I felt awful to be responsible for it, and even worse because it had taken the place of the fervent excitement that he’d had as he’d made coffee.

Whether his high had been on my account or the effects of a good night’s sleep, I didn’t know.

But it didn’t matter which. I made my body walk out the door because my head couldn’t find a reason to stay.

Meanwhile, my heart was going: eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIII. Unhelpful.

My heart was the reason I threw myself into things—like modelling, like business—and showed up with vulnerability, which achieved very little other than reveal my soft underbelly to all and sundry, so people like Ginger could attack.

I’d told myself if I was going to get Perry Skin off the ground and be my own hype girl, I needed to let my head take charge, not my heart. But I hadn’t expected it to feel this miserable.

I don’t know who had told me that I had to be successful in my own right in order to fall in love with a man who was as successful as Miles.

Maybe no one had. Maybe it was an opinion that grew without help, like ivy on an old building.

Either way, the thought of sinking into an identity as Miles’ date, or his girlfriend—and always being introduced as the girl he’d met when she was working in a bathroom—and never being awesome in my own right was too powerful.

That was what drove me out of his house.

Well, and fear.

It was a terrifying idea to fall in love with someone who liked me purely for novelty value, because for some unknown reason he slept well while I was there. Someone who considered an attachment with me ‘not repulsive’.

Miles would get tired of me when the novelty wore off and the idea was unbearable.

When I walked down Miles’ driveway and got into the rideshare car, I could feel his eyes burning holes in the back of my head.

But he didn’t try to stop me. Which was good.

Definitely good, and not at all like a toddler had my heart in their plump little hands and was squeezing it between their fingers like it was made of play-dough.

Over the course of the following week, I worked myself to the bone.

When a polite and super professional email from Sadie arrived in my inbox, I wasted no time reaching out to the people she suggested, setting up meetings, and booking myself into the suggested seminars and talks.

I stacked meetings back to back, outsourced someone to batch-create content, and hired a designer to start working on Perry Skin’s visual identity.

I put all of this on my credit card without letting myself think about the lecture I would get from my parents if they knew.

The very hour my new brand files came in, I launched the public crowdfunding campaign.

My friends showed up for me in force and promoted Perry Skin, hyping for me like I always had for them.

That took all the hurt that had sunk into my bones from a rollercoaster of a month and soothed it.

Things weren’t nearly as bleak as the most hurt little corner of my heart would have me believe.

I hadn’t lost my one chance at the happily ever after I’d always dreamed of—I was just experimenting with the route.

I stretched my waking hours to the max and threw myself into every single task with fervent energy and focus. I ate a lot of toast, and other things that already existed in the kitchen and took ten minutes to make—fruit, ramen, frozen macaroni cheese. Basically, the food of my adolescence.

I didn’t have time to cook, I was too busy working my luscious ass off to make all my dreams come true. Or at least, the professional ones.

MILES

Matty had chosen a terrible time to go off grid. He did this every now and then, he got all in his head and disappeared for a while, only to reemerge like no time had passed. Usually, I understood. But it was bloody rude of him to do this when I was in a crisis.

My only option was to call my mother. She said soothing and encouraging things, as she always did, and all I had to do for access to this unending and unwarranted sympathy was go on a date with a woman she met at tennis.

Lisa. After that, with Elizabeth, the receptionist at the spa she liked, and then she tried really hard to set me up with her neighbour’s son Kyle—Mum was working overtime to ensure I wasn’t feigning heterosexuality on her account.

Kyle was great, but definitely too much man for me, and eventually Mum ceded defeat.

Deep down, I suspected she was disappointed things hadn’t worked out with Perry.

My mother really liked her. Everyone who met her liked her.

I even liked her. Enough to be excited about the idea of recurrent, deliberate encounters.

Dates, or whatnot. Being a ‘boyfriend,’ she’d called it… But she didn’t like me enough for that.

Which was completely fine, and not a total evisceration of my worth as a human being.

There was no way I should read into the fact that the minute Perry had gotten a glimpse of the person underneath the jokes and the good times, she’d disengaged; like Sadie had told me women would.

She was wrong, of course. And Perry was wrong. I was great .

I could have had plenty of repeat dates over the years if I’d wanted them. This whole time it had been my choice not to. My free will.

This was the patter in my head as I ignored the sick feeling in my gut and called the last woman I went out with, Elizabeth, and asked her on a second date.

It sucked even more than the first one.

Perry

On Tuesday, three weeks after the masquerade, my nose started burning. A few hours later my throat began to scratch. In quick succession, swollen glands, blocked everything, and a general feeling of misery arrived.

It wasn’t Covid, I tested for this multiple times; I’d just pushed my body too far without adequate rest or nourishment.

I had to postpone a meeting with an investor that Sadie had connected me to, which had me weeping into my sickbed pillow, but his office was very kind about resetting it for the following week.

The next day, I got an unexpected call.

“Hello, Perry? This is Sadie, Miles’ assistant at Elysian Wines.”

I sat up in bed and greeted her with my very best ‘ I’m not sick ’ voice.

“Woah, why do you sound drunk?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I protested unconvincingly.

“Hey, no judgement,” Sadie said. “I would rather be downing mojitos right now than fulfilling Princess Miles’ every wish. But a girl’s gotta eat.”

“I’ve got a cold,” I admitted. “How can I help, Sadie? Is anything wrong?”

“I heard the meeting with Bradford Lewish moved and I was wondering what was up, but I think you’ve just answered my question.”

“Mucus,” I replied, trying to sound droll. “Mucus is what’s up. I feel terrible that I had to postpone, but Bradford’s assistant kindly agreed to move our sit down until next week.”

“So he didn’t cancel it?”

“No.”

She covered her phone so her next words were muffled, but I heard them anyway. “You better get on the phone and apologise.”

A deep, familiar voice grumbled something in the background.

“What happened?” I asked.

Sadie heaved a sigh. “Miles thought Bradford was fobbing you off, so he rang him and delivered a colourful scolding, despite someone —me, obviously—telling him it was a bad idea. But it’s fine. He can fix this.” She covered the mouthpiece and repeated sternly, “You can fix this.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Take pity on him, Perry. He’s never had a crush before. He doesn’t know how to act.”

“Shut up, Sadie,” Miles barked in the background.

I dragged a hand down my face, trying to think, trying to process, and feeling like I was wading through treacle.

I didn’t know what to do with this information.

Yes, Miles had laid out breakfast, before he’d finished designing a business plan for me.

But from everything I knew about him, he was a player.

No ‘ pretty pussy ’ could ever change that.

Unless … a tiny voice in my brain whispered. Unless you’re meant to be.

My whole life I’d been made to feel like meant to be wasn’t for me.

I didn’t see myself in fairytales, and somewhere along the line I’d internalised thinking those stories weren’t meant for me.

It was hard to recalibrate to allow for a possibility like this.

Every nerve in my body was screaming, ‘ that way lies danger, girl’ .

But maybe I could at least feel out the edges, see where the sharp bits were.

“Give me one sec,” I murmured, then put the phone on mute to hack up a lung and blow my nose. Back on the call, I asked Sadie, “Do you have time to talk properly? Somewhere Miles can’t hear us?”

I could leave it alone. Maybe I should.

But I wanted to be wrong about Sadie more than I wanted that.

“Sure.” There were rustling sounds and a sliding glass door. “What’s up, buttercup?”

“This is a bit uncomfortable, but I got the sense you weren’t pleased I was with Miles at the masquerade. But you’ve been so helpful sending me all these contacts and things and I guess… I guess I just wanted to clear the air.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“At the masquerade. You glared holes in me.”

Sadie sucked in a breath. “Oh, no , Perry. No! I have a resting bitch face. I was just trying to figure out what Miles was up to. He’s never taken any notice of a woman Helen pushed on him, and I thought he’d come to the party to try and find the bathroom girl he made out with—turns out this was you the whole time.

I was just trying to figure out what the fuck he was up to. ”

“Is there something between you and Miles?” I asked, point blank.

“Unadulterated loathing,” she replied cheerfully. “As for anything romantic? No way. Miles is a brother to me.”

“Right.”

I should feel better, but the memory of her stare raking over me, decidedly unimpressed, was still prickling over my skin, like I’d tried to exfoliate with stinging nettle.

Sadie picked up on the tension. “Do you have a problem with me, Perry? Because that would suck.”

“I just—” I had to break off to blow my nose again. “Sorry. I’m really sorry, Sadie. I don’t mean to be difficult or make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Why don’t you just spit out exactly what you want to say—” she said, and there was a definite guarded quality to her voice now, “—and let me decide how I feel about it.”

This was a horrible situation. The chances she would take this badly were high, and even if she didn’t, she probably still wouldn’t get it, and would always be fake and too-careful around me.

But I couldn’t let it go. Not if I wanted to see what the future could hold for Miles and I.

If he wanted that. It seemed like he might—I hadn’t known him long, but he didn’t seem like a man who went around cussing out business contacts on the daily.

“It made me uncomfortable to have two thin women glaring daggers at me while I danced with Miles, someone who is so conventionally attractive, and welcome in that kind of social environment. I’m not saying it was hostile in intent, but that’s how I received it.”

Silence echoed through the phone.

I castigated myself for bringing this up. For being a cheerless shrew pointing out this problem and making it everyone else’s. If I’d just let it go and prioritised comfort—not mine , but comfort in general—it could have stayed exclusively my problem.

“It’s fine,” I said, trying to sound breezy. “I can tell it wasn’t malicious?—"

“No wait,” Sadie said. Then she surprised me by saying, “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’m not apologising for my resting bitch face because I can’t help that?—”

“Totally!” I agreed quickly. “I get that.”

“—But I didn’t think about the layers. Sorry, cowgirl.

That’s an angle I hadn’t considered. To be really clear, Miles thinks you’re fine and so he should, it’s an objective fact.

I know he acts like a fuckboy sometimes, and I talk a lot of shit about him, but underneath all that he’s half-decent.

I think you could be a good match. He likes you Perry, and he doesn’t like many people. ”

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

“I know.”

“I would love it if we could be friends too.”

“Definitely. Hard launch it?” she asked.

“Hard launch,” I agreed with a laugh, which was snotty, but heartfelt. “It’s nice to be your friend, Sadie.”

When we hung up, I felt a million times lighter.

Unfortunately, my cold wasn’t on the same upward path and I got steadily grosser over the week. Tala was staying at her girlfriend’s house a lot at the moment, so at least I could keep my germs to myself.

Guilt over not using every waking hour to work on Perry Skin peeped at the edges of my conscience, but instead of letting it take over, I stayed in bed and watched Derry Girls and ordered delivery soups that didn’t travel well.

Everything would be fine. I’d eat soup now and work next week.