Hazel St. James - Fighting For You (Redemption#1)[ by Hazel St James

wrong with your ass? Looks fine to me.”
    Peyton didn’t give him the standard giggle flirt that most girls would, nor did she roll her eyes at him. With a simple nod, she said, “Thanks. But I would have to do an extra hour on the elliptical to make up for eating just one slice.”
    Tristan was impressed with her general knowledge of fitness and gave her body a good once over in his mind. He’d always been attracted to any size woman, but a curvy one with some body tone was always top on his list.
    Tristan was familiar with the gym himself since he’d dropped out of school. He’d put himself on a self-dictated diet and fitness program when he worked full-time and had the money to pay for the health food and gym membership. But now he didn’t have the money or the inclination to continue and that was something he did miss in his life.
    Thinking about his lack of money reminded him that he needed to “talk” with Uncle Morgan again tomorrow. Tristan was owed back pay from his last month of work at J-View Plastics, but Morgan was less than accommodating in returning it, saying that there were things he had to pay for while Tristan was in the hospital. But he knew that was absolute bullshit. There was more than enough money in his checking account to have paid for all of his expenses, plus more, but all of that had been “used.” Or so Morgan said. Any time Tristan asked for his money, Morgan would call him an ungrateful leech, and they would go to blows. However, there was a little money left in an account at the bank that Morgan wasn’t aware of, but that was all that was left from his mother’s estate. Morgan and his mother were only half related, so the tiny bit left from her estate was destined to be left to Tristan anyways. It was everything Tristan had in the world, and it needed to see him through for a while.
    “Yeah, well, I intend to indulge in some good old-fashioned junk food for a little while longer. Then I’ll get back on the low carb, high protein, work out an hour a day lifestyle again. For right now, though, I’m going to enjoy how a good chunk of the population lives.”
    Tristan picked up another slice of pizza and polished it off in less than a minute. Peyton watched him with a half-smile, half-disgusted look on her face. “Okay, Tristan. You do that. But it’s going to be a bitch to get back into the gym after you have gorged yourself on pure junk and had basically no physical activity for two months. The endorphins would make you feel better, too. Just start back up right now,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.
    That line of logic made complete sense, but the lack of funds was holding him up again. It would do him some good to get out of this apartment and stop wallowing in self-pity, but he wasn’t sure if he should jump right back into everything all at once. Not sure how he would react in a crowd, or under pressure again, Tristan decided to go one step at a time. “Let me think about it for a bit. Ya coming back tomorrow? I’ll need food regardless, so let me think on it and see if I can’t find the drive inside myself again.”
    Tristan didn’t have a car to drive anymore and needed to make a stop at the bank regardless, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go shopping with Peyton tomorrow anyway. Kill two birds with one stone. Then he wouldn’t have to waste the time making a list, since he had no desire to show Peyton his piss poor spelling skills, even if she could read his handwriting. School wasn’t something that Tristan had ever taken seriously, and now that he was an adult, he was easily offended when his grammar or math skills were scrutinized.
    By the time Tristan had finished his third slice of pizza, Peyton had already put her coat on and was getting ready to go back out into the cold air. She only had a thin windbreaker on. He knew that it was barely forty degrees outside this hour of the day, and she wasn’t going to be warm enough in that shit excuse for a winter