thicclads

spot the difference

rounding out

and it’s starting to show 😵‍💫

Elliot Byrne arrived in Milwaukee at twenty-two with two suitcases, one navy suit, a new job he was not entirely sure he wanted, and the quiet conviction that adulthood was something other people understood instinctively.

He was six-foot-three and 175 pounds, although his height made him look even thinner. His shoulders were naturally broad, but there was little beneath them yet: a narrow waist, long legs, flat stomach, slim hips. Bright red hair, kept short and neatly parted. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Clean-shaven. Handsome in a polished, slightly nervous way.

His mother called him striking.

His college friends called him string bean.

Elliot preferred striking.

He had been in Milwaukee nine days when he attended his first neighborhood association meeting. Not because he cared particularly deeply about neighborhood associations. There was a proposed apartment development two blocks from his building, somebody in the elevator had handed him a flyer, and Elliot had spent most evenings since moving sitting alone in his apartment watching television while pretending he enjoyed the independence.

So he went.

He sat in the back. He took notes. He asked one question about parking.

Then, for reasons he would never adequately explain, he volunteered to help with the next meeting.

A man sitting two chairs away turned toward him.

He was perhaps twenty-six, six feet tall, and easily over three hundred pounds, with dark hair, a trimmed beard, and the kind of broad, cheerful face that seemed permanently halfway to laughter.

“You new here?”

Elliot glanced around. “Is it that obvious?”

“You volunteered.”

“So?”

“Nobody volunteers.”

Elliot smiled.

The man’s name was Davis Monroe.

Two hours later, Elliot was sitting at a bar with Davis and seven people whose names he was struggling to remember. There was Priya, who worked for a nonprofit; Marcus, a teacher; Lauren, who had somehow already worked on three city council campaigns despite being twenty-four; Ben, a law student; Maya, who bartended somewhere else but seemed to know every elected official in Milwaukee. Two more people arrived after Elliot had given up trying.

Everyone talked at once. They argued about zoning, made fun of an alderman, and ordered wings, nachos, cheese curds, burgers, and enough beer to make Elliot wonder whether anyone had work in the morning.

He ordered a sandwich.

Davis noticed.

“That all?”

“Yes.”

“You’re what, like six-three?”

“Yes.”

“You need more food than that.”

“I’ve survived so far.”

Davis pushed the nachos toward him. “Barely.”

Elliot laughed and took one.

Then another.

He stayed until midnight.

It was the latest he had been out on a weeknight in years.

He went back the next Thursday.

Then the Thursday after that.

Within two months, he had somehow acquired a social life.

There were planning meetings, Friday drinks, Sunday brunches, birthdays every other week, Saturday canvassing followed by pizza, and spontaneous dinners that began with Davis texting you busy? and ended with Elliot getting home after eleven.

He had never known this many people who seemed genuinely pleased when he arrived.

That frightened him almost as much as it thrilled him.

For most of college, Elliot had technically known he was gay.

He had told two people.

Neither lived in Milwaukee.

He had never dated a man. Never held a man’s hand in public. Never said the sentence I’m gay without feeling his heartbeat immediately afterward.

Davis figured it out before Elliot told him.

He was polite enough not to mention that.

One night, after everyone else had left, Elliot spent five straight minutes preparing to say something.

Davis waited.

Finally Elliot looked down at his drink.

“There’s something I haven’t really told anybody here.”

“Okay.”

Elliot swallowed.

“I’m gay.”

Davis took a drink.

“Okay.”

Elliot stared at him.

Davis stared back.

“That’s it?”

Davis looked confused. “Did you want me to alert the mayor?”

Elliot laughed despite himself.

“No.”

“Balloons?”

“No.”

“Press release?”

“Shut up.”

Davis smiled.

Then, more gently, “You’re good, man.”

Something inside Elliot loosened.

It did not all loosen at once.

But that was the beginning.

⸻

The weight arrived almost as quietly as the confidence.

At first Elliot noticed only that he was hungry more often.

College had provided an enormous amount of incidental movement. Walking everywhere. Occasional pickup basketball. A gym membership he used often enough to count. Meals eaten at strange times because he was busy.

Milwaukee gave him a desk.

And Davis.

The combination was devastating.

Davis knew every restaurant within fifteen minutes of downtown and had strong opinions about all of them. He knew which place had the best wings, which had the largest burgers, which diner stayed open latest, and which Mexican restaurant brought another basket of chips before the first was empty.

Davis ate enthusiastically.

To Elliot’s surprise, so did he.

At first it became another joke.

Davis watched Elliot finish a burger, fries, and half the shared appetizer one night.

“Where does it go?”

Elliot shrugged. “Good metabolism.”

Davis leaned back.

“Famous last words.”

Six months after moving, Elliot’s pants began feeling different.

Not small.

Just different.

His fitted chinos sat tighter across his thighs. His shirts no longer fell perfectly straight from his chest. One morning, while shaving, he noticed his face looked slightly fuller.

He stepped onto the bathroom scale.

194.2

Elliot stared.

He stepped off.

Then back on.

Same number.

Nineteen pounds.

He lifted his shirt. His stomach was still mostly flat standing, but the definition along his sides was gone. There was a shallow softness beneath his navel. His waist no longer looked quite so narrow.

He turned sideways.

Then farther.

His backside had changed more than he expected.

It had always been lean. Now it looked rounder beneath his boxer briefs, and when he shifted his weight there was the faintest softness to it.

Elliot frowned.

That evening he told Davis.

“I’ve gained nineteen pounds.”

Davis was eating fries.

“Congratulations?”

“That’s not good.”

“According to whom?”

“Everyone.”

Davis looked around the restaurant.

“Can you point to Everyone?”

Elliot stole a fry.

“I’m serious.”

“You’re six-three and one-ninety-four.”

“One-ninety-four point two.”

Davis stared.

“I’m revoking your right to complain.”

Elliot laughed, but he started going to the gym again.

For about three weeks.

Then there was a campaign.

Lauren convinced him to volunteer for a city council candidate, and suddenly Elliot was spending three nights a week in a cramped headquarters surrounded by yard signs, laptops, volunteers, and food.

Always food.

Pizza stacked in boxes. Donuts in the morning. Cookies somebody’s mother had made. Chinese takeout after late meetings.

His appetite seemed to expand in direct proportion to how busy he became.

He could eat dinner at six and be hungry again at ten. He started ordering two sandwiches at lunch because one left him thinking about food all afternoon.

His coworkers noticed.

His friends noticed.

Elliot mostly noticed when his clothes stopped cooperating.

The charcoal pants had been expensive.

That was why he kept wearing them.

He’d bought them his first week in Milwaukee: slim through the legs, fitted through the seat, thirty-one-inch waist.

By the following year, keeping them in rotation required optimism.

Davis was sitting on Elliot’s couch waiting for him to finish dressing for a fundraiser when Elliot came out wearing them with a white dress shirt.

Davis looked up.

Then slowly lowered his phone.

“No.”

Elliot stopped. “What?”

“Those pants.”

“What about them?”

“They’re fighting for their lives.”

“They fit.”

Davis looked at Elliot’s thighs.

They filled the pants heavily now, pulling the fabric tight from hip to knee. His backside had become broader and rounder, forcing the seat smooth across him, while the waistband pressed into a stomach that had developed a definite curve.

“They do not fit.”

“They’re buttoned.”

“That isn’t the standard.”

Elliot turned toward the mirror.

“They look fine.”

“Elliot, I can see your religion.”

He laughed.

“Shut up.”

“I am begging you to wear literally anything else.”

“I don’t have time.”

Elliot bent to pick up one of his shoes.

RRRIP.

Both men froze.

Elliot remained bent over.

Davis’s eyes widened.

“Don’t.”

Davis put a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

A strangled sound escaped him.

“Davis.”

That was it.

He collapsed against the back of the couch, laughing so hard he couldn’t speak.

Elliot stood upright, reached behind himself, and found the split.

The seam had opened from below the waistband halfway down the seat.

“Oh my God.”

Davis was crying now.

“It’s not that funny.”

“It sounded like a gunshot.”

“It did not.”

“People ducked.”

“There are two people in the apartment.”

Elliot stared into the mirror.

His face had gone red enough to nearly match his hair.

But beneath the embarrassment was something else.

He had known he was gaining.

He had not realized he’d changed enough to become physically incompatible with clothes that once fit him perfectly.

For some reason, that felt bigger than the number 194 ever had.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I genuinely do right now.”

Davis eventually sat up.

“How much do you weigh?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

“I haven’t checked in a while.”

“Go.”

“I’m not weighing myself for your entertainment.”

Davis pointed toward the bathroom.

“Go.”

Elliot didn’t.

He changed into newer pants and went to the fundraiser while Davis continued making explosive noises whenever Elliot bent over.

The following weekend, Elliot replaced almost everything he still owned from college.

He stopped buying slim cuts.

He discovered stretch.

He told himself that was practical, not surrender.

A few months later, after another late campaign night and a dinner large enough that even Davis had looked impressed, Elliot finally stepped onto the scale again.

238.6

He went still.

This time there were no pants to blame.

No wardrobe malfunction to laugh off.

He had gained more than sixty pounds since moving.

Elliot lifted his shirt.

His face was softer now. His chest thicker. A real belly rounded outward over the waistband of his underwear. His hips had widened, his thighs were heavy, and the backside he’d once scrutinized for the faintest softness now looked undeniably substantial.

For several seconds he simply looked.

Then he lowered the shirt.

Davis was waiting in the living room.

“Well?”

Elliot sat beside him.

“Two thirty-eight.”

Davis’s eyebrows rose.

“Okay.”

“That is sixty-three pounds.”

“Since you moved?”

“Yes.”

Davis looked him over.

Elliot folded his arms.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to say you look good.”

Elliot glanced down at himself.

“I got fat.”

Davis shrugged.

“Little bit.”

Elliot turned.

“Little?”

“Medium bit.”

Despite himself, Elliot laughed.

That was the first time he realized the number bothered him more than the body did.

Even that wouldn’t last.

⸻

By twenty-five, Elliot’s life looked nothing like the one he’d expected when he moved.

His red hair had grown out slightly, enough to fall messily across his forehead instead of sitting in the careful side part he once maintained. He had a boyfriend now, Sam Keller, an urban planner he’d met at a neighborhood fundraiser.

Sam met Elliot after the transformation was already impossible to miss.

That mattered.

To Sam, Elliot had always been a big redheaded guy with heavy legs, a substantial stomach, an enormous appetite, and an uncanny ability to walk into a crowded room and know someone within three minutes.

They had been dating four months when Sam found a college photograph.

Elliot stood beside two friends at graduation.

Six-foot-three.

Maybe 170.

Narrow face.

Flat stomach.

Long, lean legs.

Sam stared.

“Who is this?”

Elliot looked over.

“Me.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Sam looked at the picture.

Then at Elliot, sitting on the couch in shorts and a T-shirt, his stomach resting over the waistband and his thighs spreading broad beneath him.

“You were tiny.”

“I was six-three.”

“You were mostly vertical.”

Elliot laughed.

Sam zoomed in.

“What happened?”

Elliot considered.

“Milwaukee.”

That was easier than explaining the truth.

The truth was that Elliot had discovered an appetite he hadn’t known he possessed and then built a life perfectly suited to indulging it.

At campaign headquarters, food orders began including an Elliot adjustment.

“How many pizzas?”

“Six.”

Davis looked up.

“Seven.”

“There are twelve people.”

Davis pointed toward Elliot.

“Elliot’s here.”

Elliot, already holding a slice from the previous delivery, raised his middle finger.

At restaurants, he stopped pretending appetizers were for the table.

He ordered them because he wanted them.

Burger and fries.

Another side if it sounded good.

Whatever Sam didn’t finish.

Dessert if something caught his eye.

Once, after watching Elliot eat through wings, a steak sandwich, fries, half of Sam’s potatoes and a slice of cheesecake, Sam asked:

“Are you actually still hungry?”

Elliot considered.

“Not hungry.”

“Then why are you looking at the dessert menu again?”

“I could eat.”

“Those are synonyms.”

“Not to me.”

It became another piece of Elliot’s reputation.

Davis was the political gossip.

Maya knew everyone.

Lauren could organize fifty volunteers with three hours’ notice.

Elliot could eat.

Everybody knew.

And Elliot had gradually stopped apologizing for any of it.

His body changed alongside that confidence. The broad shoulders he’d always had no longer seemed oversized for the rest of him. His shirts came untucked more often because tucking them beneath his stomach had become annoying. His legs had gone from long and lean to heavy enough that the old photographs of him looked increasingly strange.

Elliot was fat.

He knew it.

He didn’t particularly mind.

But one night, lying in bed beside Sam after yet another campaign dinner, Elliot asked something he’d been thinking about for weeks.

“Do you think I’m getting too big?”

Sam looked over.

“Do you?”

Elliot stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t know.”

Sam waited.

That was why Elliot had asked him instead of Davis.

Davis would eventually listen, but the joke would come first.

Sam simply waited.

“At one-ninety-four,” Elliot said, “I was sure I needed to lose weight.”

“I’ve heard.”

“I thought nineteen pounds was a crisis.”

“And now?”

Elliot rested a hand on his stomach.

It rose heavily beneath his palm.

“Now I’m a lot bigger than that, and somehow I’m less sure.”

“About wanting to lose weight?”

“About what I’m supposed to feel.”

Sam turned toward him.

“You don’t have to feel anything specific.”

Elliot looked over.

“I like being bigger.”

There.

He’d said it.

Sam nodded.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“You check yourself out.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

Elliot laughed.

Then grew serious again.

“I also know this probably can’t just keep going forever.”

“That’s different.”

Elliot was quiet.

Sam put a hand against Elliot’s side.

“If you want to lose weight, I’ll help you. If you don’t, I’m not going anywhere. But don’t make me the reason either way.”

Elliot studied him.

Then smiled.

“That’s annoyingly mature.”

“I work in urban planning.”

“Same thing?”

“Basically.”

The conversation stayed with Elliot.

Not because it changed him overnight.

It didn’t.

But because for the first time, he understood that nobody else was driving this anymore.

Not Davis.

Not Milwaukee.

Not Sam.

Elliot was.

⸻

The doctor appointment happened because Sam made it.

Elliot had been complaining about being tired in the mornings, and Sam asked when he’d last had a physical.

“Recently.”

“When?”

Elliot thought.

“College.”

Sam stared.

“That’s not recently.”

So Elliot went.

The nurse checked his blood pressure, asked routine questions, then pointed toward the scale.

Elliot stepped on.

The display climbed.

Stopped.

347.8

For a second he assumed he’d read it wrong.

Then he laughed once.

The nurse looked up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He looked again.

Three hundred forty-seven pounds.

He remembered 238.

He remembered thinking I got fat.

That man now seemed almost lean.

The doctor was calm, middle-aged, direct without being dramatic.

“How much did you weigh when you moved here?”

“One seventy-five.”

The doctor looked up from the chart.

“When was that?”

“Four years ago.”

A pause.

“So you’ve gained roughly 170 pounds in four years.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

The doctor gave him a look.

Elliot smiled faintly.

They talked seriously.

His blood pressure was beginning to run high. The doctor ordered labs and asked about sleep, activity, alcohol, family history.

Then:

“How would you describe your appetite?”

Elliot thought.

“Enthusiastic.”

The doctor almost smiled.

“More specifically?”

“Big.”

“How big?”

Elliot considered the previous night’s dinner.

“Pretty big.”

The doctor recommended slowing the gain, adding regular activity, improving the quality of what he ate, and following up. He didn’t tell Elliot he had to become 175 pounds again.

He did tell him that continuing to gain at the same pace was likely to make his future smaller in ways that had nothing to do with clothing sizes.

That stayed with Elliot.

He listened.

For a while, he changed things.

He walked more. He and Sam cooked more often. He stopped treating every late meeting as permission for a second dinner.

His clothes loosened slightly.

Then Lauren called.

The council seat was opening.

The filing deadline was six weeks away.

“You should run.”

Elliot laughed automatically.

Lauren didn’t.

Neither did Davis.

Neither did Sam.

Three months later Elliot Byrne was a candidate for city council.

Whatever progress he’d made disappeared quickly.

Campaign life turned his already enormous appetite into a logistical issue.

Breakfast meeting.

Pastry.

Coffee.

Lunch with a neighborhood group.

Food at an afternoon event.

Pizza at headquarters.

Dinner after ten.

Then home.

One night Sam came into the kitchen and found Elliot making a sandwich large enough to qualify as architecture.

“Didn’t you eat?”

“Yeah.”

“At headquarters?”

“Pizza.”

“Pizza is food.”

Elliot added another slice of turkey.

“Debatable.”

“How many pieces?”

“Four.”

Sam stared.

“Five.”

“Elliot.”

“It was thin crust.”

Sam started laughing.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re doing the look.”

Sam walked over and put both hands against Elliot’s stomach.

By then it had become truly substantial, hanging heavily over the front of his stretch-waist pants.

“You’re getting enormous.”

Elliot looked down.

Then back at him.

“I am campaigning.”

“I don’t think those are inherently connected.”

“You don’t know local government.”

⸻

The campaign photograph finally made Elliot understand.

He was twenty-eight.

The photographer arranged Elliot with Davis, Lauren, Sam and several volunteers outside the neighborhood hall where Elliot had attended his first meeting six years earlier.

They took dozens.

Elliot barely thought about it.

Then the photographer turned the monitor toward him.

“There.”

Elliot stopped.

It was an excellent photograph.

That was the problem.

There was nowhere for his self-image to hide.

Elliot stood in the center wearing a navy suit made specifically for him. His red hair was longer now, brushed back from a very full face. His shoulders were still broad, but the body beneath them had become enormous: heavy chest, huge middle, thick legs planted wide beneath him.

And beside him stood Davis.

Davis looked smaller.

Not thin.

That was what made it startling.

Davis was still plainly a very fat man. His belly pushed against his shirt. His arms were thick. His face was broad.

Elliot remembered meeting him at 175 pounds and thinking Davis occupied an astonishing amount of space.

Nothing had happened to Davis.

Elliot had simply grown past him.

He looked from the photograph to the real Davis beside the monitor.

For years Davis had been the visual definition of big in Elliot’s life.

Now Elliot’s body spread wider through the frame. His stomach projected farther. His legs looked heavier. Even his face appeared larger beside Davis’s.

Elliot stared.

“Delete that.”

The photographer looked alarmed.

“Why?”

Davis leaned over.

“Oh, fuck you.”

Elliot pointed at him.

“You look thin.”

“I weigh three hundred and twelve pounds.”

“Exactly.”

Davis looked at the picture.

Then at Elliot.

Then back at the picture.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You passed me.”

Elliot laughed reflexively.

“I did not.”

Davis pointed at the screen.

“Look at us.”

Elliot did.

For once, there was no joke available.

Davis had been the big friend.

The one who requested tables instead of booths.

The one who knew which chairs had arms.

The man whose complete lack of embarrassment about his own body had quietly taught Elliot that being fat did not require an apology.

Now Elliot was unmistakably larger.

Davis grinned.

“I created a monster.”

That broke the spell.

“You bought me nachos twice.”

“Gateway nachos.”

Elliot laughed.

Then looked at the photograph again.

He expected discomfort.

Instead, he liked it.

He looked confident.

Warm.

Big.

Impossible to overlook.

That was not the man who had arrived in Milwaukee.

Maybe that was the point.

He won the election by eleven points.

⸻

At twenty-nine, Elliot returned to the same medical practice.

He had delayed the follow-up.

By roughly a year and a half.

The nurse recognized him.

“Councilman.”

Elliot smiled.

“Please don’t tell my constituents I’m here.”

“Why?”

“They think I’m immortal.”

She laughed and pointed toward the scale.

Elliot stepped on.

The number climbed longer than he expected.

441.6

Elliot froze.

The nurse said nothing.

He looked down again.

“Okay.”

Seven years earlier:

175.

That was the part his brain couldn’t quite reconcile.

He remembered that body perfectly. The thirty-one-inch pants. The narrow hips. The flat stomach. The long redheaded kid who could eat practically anything and never think twice about it.

Two hundred sixty-six pounds ago.

The doctor came in later, reviewed the chart, and looked back at Elliot.

“Well.”

Elliot looked up.

“That’s rarely how you want a doctor to begin.”

The doctor smiled.

“You’ve gained quite a bit since I saw you last.”

“I had noticed.”

They went through the usual things. His blood pressure was a little higher than before, and there were a couple of numbers from his bloodwork the doctor wanted to keep an eye on, but nothing turned the appointment into the reckoning Elliot had half expected.

They talked about sleep. Activity. What Elliot typically ate.

That last subject took a while.

“Still a pretty big appetite?” the doctor asked.

Elliot smiled.

“Enthusiastic.”

“I remember.”

“It’s gotten more enthusiastic.”

The doctor laughed softly.

“I gathered.”

He encouraged Elliot to stay active, make some reasonable changes to what he ate, and pay attention to the direction his weight was moving. More than anything, he told Elliot not to let another year and a half pass before coming back.

“Can you do that?”

Elliot nodded.

“I can.”

“Good.”

Elliot hesitated.

“You’re not going to tell me I need to lose two hundred and sixty pounds?”

The doctor looked at him.

“I’m going to tell you I’d rather see you make changes you can actually maintain.”

Elliot considered that.

“That’s considerably less dramatic.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Elliot smiled.

He made the next appointment before leaving.

Outside, he stood on the sidewalk for a moment before heading back toward work.

Four hundred forty-one point six.

It was an astonishing number.

At 238, he’d been embarrassed by how much he’d changed.

At 348, he’d been stunned by how far it had gone.

At 442, the surprise was different.

He didn’t look at the number and wish himself back to 175.

That person felt too distant now.

Not bad.

Not better.

Just earlier.

Elliot liked the man he’d become. He liked his life. He even liked being big, something he’d finally admitted to Sam years earlier.

None of that meant he couldn’t take care of himself.

He could walk more. He could eat a little differently. He could actually show up for his next appointment.

He could do all of those things without treating the body he’d spent seven years growing into as something he needed to apologize for.

Elliot started walking.

By the time he reached the corner, he was thinking about lunch.

⸻

His mother came to Milwaukee for election night that fall.

She had seen photographs.

Video calls.

News clips.

Nothing prepared her for Elliot walking across the ballroom toward her.

At six-foot-three and roughly 440 pounds, he was enormous.

The red hair was still unmistakable, though longer now and swept neatly away from a round, handsome face. His neck had thickened. His arms filled the sleeves of his custom suit. His stomach dominated the jacket, while heavy hips and tremendous thighs gave him a broadness that seemed almost startling even on his tall frame.

But it wasn’t his size that held her attention for long.

It was the way he moved through the room.

“Councilman!”

Someone intercepted him before he’d made it ten feet.

An older woman grabbed his arm to complain about an intersection.

Two volunteers hugged him.

Davis appeared carrying a plate.

“I got you food.”

Elliot looked at it.

“That’s not enough.”

“You’ve been here twelve seconds.”

“Long twelve seconds.”

Sam appeared behind him, kissed him quickly, and handed Elliot a drink.

Elliot didn’t glance around first.

Didn’t check who had seen.

Didn’t stiffen.

His mother noticed.

Hours later, after speeches and photographs and a great deal of food, she found him standing near the back of the ballroom.

“You’re different here.”

Elliot glanced down at himself automatically.

“I know. I’m working on it.”

She smiled.

“I wasn’t talking about your weight.”

He looked up.

“What, then?”

She studied him.

“You’re comfortable.”

Elliot went quiet.

Across the ballroom, Davis was arguing with Lauren. Sam was laughing with a volunteer. Maya had somehow ended up behind the bar.

His people.

His city.

His life.

“Yeah,” Elliot said.

“You didn’t used to be.”

“No.”

His mother smiled.

“I’m glad you are now.”

Elliot looked across the room.

“So am I.”

⸻

Afterward, everyone ended up at the same neighborhood restaurant where Davis had taken Elliot after that first meeting seven years earlier.

The tables had changed.

The bartender hadn’t.

Neither had the menu.

Elliot sat in a wide armless chair at the end of the table, custom jacket draped over the back, shirt untucked now, enormous stomach pressing forward beneath it.

The server walked over.

“Usual?”

“Plus wings.”

Davis looked at him.

“You ate at the event.”

“That was event food.”

“You had three plates.”

“Three small plates.”

“They were dinner plates.”

Elliot ignored him.

Food began arriving.

Wings.

Cheese curds.

Burgers.

Fries.

Elliot ate with the appetite everyone around the table had long since stopped finding remarkable.

At some point Lauren mentioned the charcoal pants.

Sam looked confused.

“What charcoal pants?”

Davis froze.

His face lit up.

“No.”

Elliot pointed at him.

“Don’t.”

Davis was already laughing.

“He used to be skinny.”

“I know.”

“No. Skinny skinny. And he had these dress pants—”

“Davis.”

“—that were way too small because he refused to admit he’d gained weight—”

“They fit.”

“They fucking exploded.”

Sam started laughing.

“They did not explode.”

“Sounded like a gunshot.”

“It did not.”

“People ducked.”

“There were two people in the apartment!”

Everyone was laughing now.

Elliot covered his face.

Davis wiped his eyes.

“You were barely over two hundred.”

Elliot lowered his hands.

That detail landed strangely.

At the time, splitting those pants had felt like evidence that he’d let himself become enormous.

Now that version of him seemed almost impossibly slight.

Sam looked at him.

“And you thought that was fat?”

Elliot looked down.

At the vast curve of his stomach beneath the table.

At his heavy thighs filling the chair.

At hands that looked thicker than he remembered.

“Yeah.”

Someone pushed the remaining fries toward him.

Elliot took them automatically.

Davis noticed.

Of course he did.

“You know when I met you, you barely ordered dinner.”

Elliot ate a fry.

“When you met me, I was deeply unwell.”

“You were closeted.”

“I was also hungry.”

Davis laughed.

Elliot looked around the table.

The people who had known him when he hardly spoke.

When he first said I’m gay aloud.

When his pants split.

When he started dating Sam.

When he decided to run.

When he became bigger than Davis and somehow only realized it through a photograph.

They had watched him change so gradually that nobody at the table seemed to find the current version extraordinary anymore.

Maybe that was what belonging was.

Being allowed to change without having to reintroduce yourself every time you did.

“I remember all of it,” Elliot said.

Davis looked at him.

“Getting fat?”

“No.”

Elliot smiled.

“All of it.”

⸻

Later that year, Elliot stood behind a microphone in the neighborhood hall where he’d once sat in the back row.

The room was packed.

He had just won reelection.

At twenty-nine, he was six-foot-three, roughly 440 pounds, openly gay, happily partnered, locally recognizable, and physically almost impossible to reconcile with the quiet young man who had arrived seven years earlier with a 31-inch waist and no idea where he belonged.

Davis stood near the front.

Sam beside him.

Lauren.

Maya.

Marcus.

People Elliot had known for seven years and people he’d met seven minutes earlier.

He looked out over them.

“When I moved here,” he began, “I didn’t know anybody.”

The room quieted.

“I had a job. I had an apartment. I had absolutely no intention of getting involved in local politics.”

Someone laughed.

“I went to one neighborhood meeting because I was bored.”

More laughter.

“And then somebody made the catastrophic decision to invite me to dinner.”

Davis cupped his hands around his mouth.

“You’re welcome!”

The room erupted.

Elliot looked down at himself.

“In retrospect, there were consequences.”

The laughter got louder.

He waited.

Then smiled.

“But you kept inviting me back.”

The room settled.

“You invited me back to dinner. Back to meetings. Back to campaigns. Into your homes. Into your lives.”

He paused.

“When I got here, I spent a lot of time worrying about whether I belonged in a room. Whether I was saying the right thing. Whether people knew too much about me. Whether I was somehow taking up space that wasn’t mine.”

Sam’s expression changed.

So did Davis’s.

Elliot smiled.

“You cured me of that.”

Laughter rippled through the room.

Then quiet.

“You gave me a place before I knew how badly I needed one. And somewhere along the way, this stopped being the city I moved to.”

He looked around.

“It became home.”

Applause rose.

Elliot let it.

For once, he didn’t hurry to fill the silence.

He simply stood there.

Broad.

Heavy.

Bright red hair beneath the lights.

A man who had spent years learning that there were worse things than being noticed.

Afterward, Davis reached him first.

“Beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“Little long.”

“Fuck you.”

Davis hugged him.

Then pulled back.

“You hungry?”

Elliot looked offended.

“Obviously.”

Davis grinned.

“Gateway nachos?”

Elliot laughed.

Seven years earlier, he would have worried who heard him.

Now the sound carried easily across the whole room.

At twenty-two, Rhodes Lawson had the sort of body people assumed he worked harder to maintain than he actually did. He was six-one and 185 pounds, broad through the shoulders and chest from years of baseball, with strong thighs and the naturally substantial backside that had survived even after his final college season ended. His stomach was flat, his waist narrow, his face lean beneath thick sandy-blond hair he usually let grow a little too long between haircuts.

Baseball had left its most noticeable mark below his waist. Rhodes had always been thicker through the legs and seat than the rest of his frame suggested, something Molly had appreciated since long before they were married. She had told him more than once. Sometimes she’d catch him pulling on fitted khakis and linger a little too long with her eyes. Rhodes always noticed. He usually just grinned.

The rest of his physique required remarkably little maintenance. Rhodes possessed the kind of metabolism that had allowed twenty-two years of dietary responsibility to remain mostly theoretical. He ate when he was hungry, stopped when he wasn’t, occasionally forgot lunch entirely, and had never once considered the calorie content of anything.

This suited his personality. Very little bothered Rhodes. He had played baseball because he liked baseball. When college ended, he put his glove in a closet and moved on. He took an entry-level sales job because the people seemed nice and the office was twelve minutes from their apartment. When Molly asked where he imagined them living in five years, Rhodes thought for a moment and said somewhere with a garage.

Molly planned. Rhodes figured things out.

Their wedding demonstrated the difference perfectly. When the florist delivered the wrong centerpieces, Molly nearly cried. Rhodes studied them.

“They’re flowers.”

“They’re the wrong flowers.”

“They’re still pretty.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Rhodes kissed her forehead. “Then we’re lucky I’m not in charge.”

Four months after the wedding, they finally took the honeymoon they’d postponed because of work: seven nights at an all-inclusive resort on the Mexican coast.

Rhodes became fascinated by the phrase all-inclusive almost immediately.

“So I can order whatever I want?”

“That is generally what it means.”

“And it’s already paid for?”

“Yes.”

“Room service?”

“Yes.”

“Drinks?”

“Yes.”

Rhodes looked toward the oceanfront restaurant. “Seems financially irresponsible not to eat a lot.”

“That is not how that works.”

“Agree to disagree.”

Their first breakfast lasted nearly an hour. Molly returned from the buffet with eggs, fruit and toast. Rhodes came back balancing two plates. One held an omelet, bacon and potatoes. The other contained pancakes, French toast and several pastries he’d apparently been unable to choose between.

Molly stared. “You don’t even eat breakfast at home.”

“Nobody makes this at home.”

“I make breakfast.”

“You own yogurt.”

“I have made you eggs.”

Rhodes considered this. “When?”

“Rhodes.”

He grinned and poured syrup over his pancakes.

Twenty minutes later he’d finished almost everything. He leaned back, satisfied, and looked toward the buffet.

“I could get used to this.”

“You’ve been here one day.”

“I know.”

“That makes it worse.”

Rhodes rubbed a hand over his still-flat stomach. “I might gain ten pounds this week.”

Molly laughed.

Rhodes smiled.

But he didn’t laugh.

She noticed.

“Wait. You’re serious?”

He shrugged. “Kinda.”

“You want to gain ten pounds?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

That surprised her. Rhodes had never complained about his body. He wasn’t even especially thin. Baseball had left him broad through the shoulders and sturdy through the legs. At 185 he looked athletic, young and solid.

Still, Molly could picture another ten or twenty pounds on him.

Her gaze drifted lower.

Rhodes caught her. “What?”

Molly smiled and gave his backside a quick pat. “Maybe a few of those pounds can end up here.”

He looked over his shoulder. “You like it that much?”

“You know I do.”

Rhodes considered this information with exaggerated seriousness. “Well.”

“What?”

“That’s useful.”

“Why did you say that like you’re taking notes?”

“No reason.”

He stood.

“Where are you going?”

Rhodes picked up his empty plate. “Apparently I have a goal now.”

Molly laughed as he headed back toward the buffet.

She had no idea how consequential the joke would become.

Rhodes embraced the ten-pound challenge with exactly the amount of discipline Molly should have expected from him: none. He simply ate.

Breakfasts became enormous. Lunch involved appetizers because, as Rhodes kept pointing out, they were already paid for. There were drinks beside the pool, snacks delivered to their chairs, dinners spread across several courses and room service whenever Rhodes decided dinner had happened too early to reasonably sustain a person until morning.

On their third night, Molly woke after midnight and found him sitting cross-legged on the bed eating nachos. Rhodes looked up and offered her one.

“Where did those come from?”

“Room service.”

“We ate three hours ago.”

“Four.”

“That does not help.”

Rhodes ate another chip. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“So you ordered nachos?”

“I was hungry.”

Molly looked at the half-empty plate. “Apparently.”

Rhodes smiled and held another toward her.

She took it.

By day four he’d found the fitness-center scale.

190.8.

Molly discovered him standing on it in his swim trunks.

“What are you doing?”

Rhodes immediately stepped off. “Nothing.”

“You’re weighing yourself.”

“That is generally what these are for.”

“How much?”

“Classified.”

She caught the display before it reset. “Five pounds?”

“Five point eight.”

“You’re halfway there.”

Rhodes smiled. “You sound proud.”

“I sound horrified.”

“No, you don’t.”

She didn’t.

The first few pounds looked good on him. Barely visible, but Molly could feel the difference. His stomach had lost a little of its hard flatness. His thighs filled his swim trunks differently. And the part she’d jokingly requested additional investment in appeared to be participating enthusiastically.

Two days later, Molly watched Rhodes pull on khaki shorts for dinner. He buttoned them, paused and turned sideways.

“These feel different.”

She examined him. The waist still fit. The seat didn’t fit quite as generously as it had when they arrived.

Molly smiled.

Rhodes saw her reflection. “You’re doing the look.”

“What look?”

He turned around.

Molly’s smile widened.

Rhodes glanced over his shoulder. “Seriously?”

“Your ten pounds have priorities.”

Rhodes laughed. “I’m up seven.”

“And apparently six went there.”

“Excellent genetics.”

Molly kissed him.

Rhodes looked pleased. “I’m beginning to think this experiment has strong institutional support.”

On their last morning, the scale read 194.2.

Nine pounds.

Rhodes frowned.

Molly caught it immediately. “You’re disappointed.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I said ten.”

“It wasn’t a legally binding contract.”

Rhodes stepped off and studied himself. The difference was subtle. His shoulders looked a touch fuller, his waist slightly less narrow, with the faintest softness at his stomach. He turned sideways and smiled at his reflection.

“Maybe I like it.”

“I know.”

Before leaving, they wandered into the resort gift shop. Molly looked at sunglasses while Rhodes drifted toward a rack of resort shirts.

One caught his attention: cream-colored, short sleeves, small blue palms.

He began flipping through the sizes.

Medium. Large. XL. XXL. Then 3XL. 4XL.

Finally Rhodes pulled out a 5XL.

“Jesus.”

Molly looked over.

Rhodes held it against himself. At barely under two hundred pounds, the thing looked absurd. The fabric extended far beyond either side of him and the hem fell nearly halfway to his knees.

“Imagine me fitting into this.”

Molly laughed. “You’d be enormous.”

Rhodes looked at the shirt.

“Yeah.”

Something about the way he said it made her pause.

Rhodes noticed. “What?”

“You’d like that.”

He immediately returned the shirt to the rack. “I said ten pounds.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Rhodes pulled out a large. “This is my size.”

“Rhodes.”

“I’m buying this.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m sunburned.”

“On your ears?”

Rhodes walked toward the register while Molly followed, laughing.

He bought the large.

The 5XL went back on the rack.

For now.

Three weeks after they returned home, Rhodes walked out of the bathroom wearing boxer briefs while Molly was reading in bed.

“Ten.”

She lowered the book.

“Ten pounds?”

“195.4.”

He looked genuinely satisfied.

Molly laughed. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Now what?”

Rhodes shrugged. “Nothing.”

That lasted two days.

Saturday morning, Molly made herself eggs. Rhodes wandered into the kitchen and looked at her plate.

“Where are mine?”

She stared at him. “We’re done.”

“With breakfast?”

“With your ten pounds.”

Rhodes opened the refrigerator. “Those are unrelated.”

“You didn’t eat breakfast before.”

“I do now.”

Molly watched him take out orange juice.

“You want to keep going.”

He poured a glass. “Maybe another ten.”

“You said that very quickly.”

“Two-oh-five isn’t big.”

“No.”

“Could be interesting.”

Molly smiled.

Rhodes noticed. “You’re encouraging me.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

And that was more or less the end of the ten-pound experiment.

Another ten became twenty. Twenty became forty. Not because Rhodes developed a plan. He simply stopped making the small decisions that had kept him at 185 without ever realizing they were decisions.

He ate breakfast. He ordered what sounded good. He stopped leaving half his fries. He discovered he loved dessert. He finished Molly’s food when she was done. He began suggesting appetizers before they’d opened the menus.

And the more he ate, the more he seemed capable of eating.

By Christmas, his brothers noticed immediately.

Nolan opened their parents’ front door and stared at Rhodes standing outside holding a pie. He’d grown considerably since the honeymoon. His green sweater followed a chest that had thickened and curved over a new belly. The fitted jeans he’d worn at the wedding had disappeared from rotation; the pair he wore now was wider through thighs and seat that had expanded particularly enthusiastically.

Nolan continued staring.

“You got fat.”

Rhodes smiled. “Merry Christmas to you too.”

Grant appeared around the corner and stopped.

“Oh my God.”

Rhodes sighed. “Apparently we’re doing this.”

Grant looked toward Molly.

Rhodes pointed at himself. “Don’t blame her. This has been largely self-directed.”

Their mother reacted more softly. She hugged Molly first and then Rhodes. Her arms went around him, paused, and then she stepped back to look again.

“Rhodes. You really have gained weight.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She put a hand against his side as though verifying that what she saw was actually there. “You were always so athletic.”

Rhodes smiled. “I’m an ex-jock now.”

“You stopped playing baseball six months ago.”

“Retirement hit me hard.”

His father laughed from the kitchen.

His mother did not.

At dinner, Rhodes ate more than everyone else. Not theatrically. That was simply how he ate now. He finished his plate, filled it again, ate what Molly didn’t finish and eventually returned for more potatoes.

Nolan watched until Rhodes finally caught him.

“You going to do that all day?”

“I’m fascinated.”

“With what?”

“You.”

Rhodes took another bite. “That’s flattering.”

“You used to forget lunch.”

“I was young.”

“You are twenty-two.”

“Exactly.”

That was the problem with teasing Rhodes. He gave his brothers almost nothing to work with. Call him fat? He agreed. Point out that he was eating too much? Probably true. Tell him his clothes were getting larger? He’d bought them.

And, increasingly, Rhodes seemed to enjoy the attention.

⸻

The first-anniversary photograph startled Molly.

Not because she hadn’t noticed Rhodes getting bigger. She had watched every pound arrive. But photographs compressed time differently.

She put their wedding picture beside one taken the week before.

Wedding Rhodes was 185 pounds: athletic, lean-faced, narrow-waisted.

Anniversary Rhodes was nearly ninety pounds heavier.

Same blond hair. Same blue eyes. Same relaxed smile.

Completely different body.

Rhodes was lying across the couch when Molly called him over. He protested that he was comfortable but eventually stood and looked at the photographs she was holding.

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve gained almost ninety pounds.”

Rhodes looked again. “Looks like it.”

“That is your reaction?”

“What should my reaction be?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

Rhodes looked down at himself. By then there was no pretending he’d merely filled out. His stomach projected prominently beneath his T-shirt. His chest had become broad and soft. His thighs were heavy, and his backside had exaggerated itself into a much larger version of what baseball had started years before.

“I’ve seen me.”

Molly burst out laughing.

Then she remembered the honeymoon shirt.

She disappeared into the bedroom and returned carrying the cream-colored shirt patterned with blue palms. Rhodes recognized it immediately.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Feels unnecessary.”

“Put it on.”

He sighed and pulled off his T-shirt.

The large made it over his shoulders. Barely. He worked one arm through, then the other, and pulled the shirt downward.

It stopped high on his stomach.

Rhodes tried the first button, then another. By the third, the experiment was clearly over. Several inches of Rhodes separated the two sides.

He looked down.

“Well.”

Molly held up the honeymoon photograph. Same shirt. In the picture it had fit comfortably over his athletic body. Now he couldn’t remotely close it.

Rhodes turned sideways toward the mirror. The hem had ridden upward over his stomach.

“That’s impressive.”

“Impressive?”

“Objectively.”

“You’ve outgrown your honeymoon shirt by that much in one year.”

Rhodes looked at his reflection.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Molly caught it.

“You like this.”

Rhodes met her eyes in the mirror.

“Yeah.”

It was the first time he didn’t bother pretending otherwise.

Molly walked over and tugged unsuccessfully at the shirt.

Rhodes looked down at her. “Dangerous feedback.”

She kissed him.

The honeymoon shirt went into a box with their wedding keepsakes.

Rhodes never fit into it again.

He crossed three hundred before he turned twenty-four.

The moment itself was spectacularly unspectacular. They were staying with Molly’s parents when she noticed the scale beside the guest-room closet and asked if he’d weighed himself lately.

Rhodes hadn’t.

So he stepped on.

301.8.

Molly stared at the display.

Rhodes did too.

“Well.”

She waited.

“That’s three hundred.”

“It is.”

Rhodes looked down at himself. “Makes sense.”

Molly burst out laughing. “That’s it?”

He stepped off.

“You weigh three hundred pounds.”

“I noticed.”

“You’ve gained more than a hundred pounds since we got married.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not freaking out?”

That made Rhodes look into the mirror.

At three hundred pounds, the transformation could no longer be dismissed as newlywed weight or filling out. He was a big fat guy now. His stomach hung heavily over his waistband. His chest was thick and soft. His face had filled into round cheeks above a softer jaw.

His lower half had become almost more dramatic than the belly. The old baseball build was still there, only magnified: huge thighs, broad hips, a backside that made buying ordinary pants increasingly irritating.

Rhodes studied himself.

“Big.”

Molly smiled. “You like saying that.”

He kept looking.

For once he didn’t answer with a joke.

“Yeah.”

Molly waited.

Rhodes smiled.

“I really do.”

That was the point after which there wasn’t much ambiguity left. Rhodes didn’t merely tolerate being fat. He liked being a fat guy.

Maybe he’d always been curious about it. Maybe Molly’s teasing on their honeymoon had given him permission to find out. Maybe he’d simply discovered that the bigger he became, the more comfortable he felt.

Rhodes didn’t particularly care why.

That was also very Rhodes.

A couple of months later, his pants surrendered.

He and Molly were at dinner with friends. Rhodes had eaten calamari, bread, most of a large plate of pasta, part of Molly’s chicken and enough tiramisu that calling it sharing was dishonest. He leaned back.

Something snapped.

Rhodes froze.

Molly looked over.

He reached beneath the table and brought his hand back holding a button.

Molly covered her mouth.

Rhodes looked at it, then at her.

“Don’t.”

She started laughing. “You ate your way out of your pants.”

“Technically the thread failed.”

By the time Molly was crying with laughter, Rhodes was laughing too.

The following weekend she bought him stretch-waist trousers. Rhodes put them on, pulled the waistband outward and let it settle comfortably beneath his stomach.

Silence.

Then he looked at Molly.

“Why did you let me spend twenty-four years wearing buttons?”

“You’re blaming me?”

“Someone has to answer for this.”

“Rhodes.”

“These are incredible.”

From that point forward, conventional waistbands entered rapid decline.

At work, Rhodes found dress pants with hidden stretch. Everywhere else, he simplified: athletic shorts, sweatpants, T-shirts, tank tops, slides whenever possible.

Comfort won.

It usually did with Rhodes.

By twenty-six, he was approaching three hundred ninety pounds.

That was when Molly finally saw him beside someone who remembered him before any of this had happened.

One of Rhodes’s former teammates was getting married, and several of the old baseball crowd would be there. Getting dressed required considerably more planning than it once had. Rhodes owned exactly one suit that still fit, purchased six months earlier and already approaching the limits of its tailoring. The jacket worked as long as it remained open. His white shirt stretched across his stomach whenever he sat, and the dark trousers had been selected specifically for their hidden elastic waistband and generous cut through his thighs and seat.

Rhodes stood sideways before the hotel mirror.

Molly watched from the bed.

“You look hot.”

Rhodes tugged once at his jacket. “I look like I’m about to sell somebody a very expensive truck.”

“You’re wearing a suit.”

“Exactly.”

Molly came up behind him and attempted to wrap her arms around his middle. They no longer came particularly close to meeting.

Rhodes caught her eye in the mirror. “You know that’s not going to work.”

“I like trying.”

“Good attitude.”

He kissed her forehead, and they went downstairs.

The reception was already filling when they entered the ballroom. Rhodes recognized faces immediately—men he’d spent four years practicing beside, traveling with, sharing hotel rooms and dugouts with.

Several looked twice.

One stopped talking.

Rhodes noticed.

He appeared completely untroubled.

Then he saw Wes Carter near the bar.

Wes had played third base. He had also been, by the fairly unforgiving standards of a college baseball team, the chubby one.

In reality, Wes had never been especially big. Just under six feet and around 210 or 215 pounds, he’d had thick legs and a soft stomach in the unfortunate context of spending every day surrounded by twenty-year-old athletes.

But it had bothered him.

Rhodes remembered Wes tugging shirts away from his stomach in photographs. He remembered the lake weekend when almost every guy on the team had stripped down to swim and Wes had kept his shirt on. He remembered the diet every January and the repeated declaration that he needed to lose fifteen pounds before opening day.

The team had teased him.

Rhodes included.

Never viciously, but looking back, Rhodes understood that Wes had cared considerably more than any of them realized.

Wes looked different now. Maybe slightly slimmer than he’d been in college. His suit fit neatly.

Rhodes started toward him.

Wes looked directly at Rhodes.

Then looked away.

Rhodes kept walking.

When he was only a few feet away, Wes glanced at him again. His eyes passed briefly over the enormous blond man approaching him before moving toward the room behind him.

Rhodes stopped.

“You gonna say hi?”

Wes’s eyes came back.

A pause.

Then recognition hit.

“Rhodes?”

Rhodes grinned. “There he is.”

Wes stared. His eyes traveled from Rhodes’s full face to his broad chest, down across the enormous stomach pushing against his white shirt and finally to trousers stretched around thighs almost comically larger than the baseball-built legs he remembered.

“Dude.”

Rhodes laughed. “Yeah.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Retired.”

“From baseball?”

“Very aggressively.”

Wes broke, laughing hard enough that he had to put down his drink. Whatever awkwardness might have existed disappeared.

They hugged—or attempted to. Wes’s arms met considerably more Rhodes than they used to. When they separated, he looked him over again.

“I knew you’d gained weight.”

“Good detective work.”

“No, asshole, I’ve seen pictures. I just didn’t realize…” Wes gestured vaguely at all of him. “This.”

Rhodes glanced down. “Yeah. Pictures flatten me.”

Molly laughed.

The contrast seemed difficult for Wes to process because he remembered Rhodes at his leanest: the narrow waist, the fitted baseball pants, the guy who could eat two hot dogs after a game and somehow forget dinner because he wasn’t hungry.

More importantly, Wes remembered being the big one.

“You know what’s really screwing with me?” he eventually said. “I used to think I was fat.”

Rhodes’s expression changed.

He remembered.

Wes laughed and patted his own stomach. “Two-ten. I spent four years acting like I was enormous at two-ten.”

Rhodes looked him over.

“You were kinda chunky.”

“Fuck you.”

Rhodes grinned. “Sorry.”

“You guys gave me so much shit. I wouldn’t even take my shirt off around you assholes.”

That took some of the humor out of Rhodes’s expression.

“I remember.”

Wes shrugged. “I hated being the fat guy on the team.”

Rhodes looked at him for a moment and then down at himself. At nearly three hundred ninety pounds, there was something inherently ridiculous about offering perspective.

“You weren’t fat.”

Wes laughed. “You literally just called me chunky.”

“I was establishing historical accuracy.”

“Rhodes.”

Rhodes smiled, but his voice softened. “We were twenty. And stupid.”

Wes nodded.

Rhodes glanced down at his own stomach.

“For what it’s worth, if we’d looked like this, you would’ve seemed tiny.”

Wes stared.

Then laughed.

“Jesus Christ.”

Rhodes smiled. “Perspective.”

Later, over dinner, Wes discovered that Rhodes’s body wasn’t the only thing that had changed. College Rhodes had eaten like an athlete when training demanded it, but food itself had never particularly interested him.

This Rhodes studied the menu before they’d finished sitting down, suggested calamari for the table, ate his entire steak dinner and accepted half of Molly’s potatoes without requiring an invitation.

Wes watched him butter another roll.

“You used to forget to eat.”

Rhodes nodded. “Got better at it.”

“Clearly.”

Wes shook his head. “You used to steal bases.”

“I remember.”

“Could you steal a base now?”

Rhodes considered the question.

“I could steal the base.”

Wes frowned.

“Like physically take it home.”

Wes started laughing.

By dessert, the old dynamic had returned completely. Wes teased Rhodes about his suit. Rhodes reminded Wes of the time he’d struck out four times against a pitcher who later became a dentist. Another teammate joined them and reacted to Rhodes with a prolonged holy shit that Rhodes accepted as though it were a compliment.

Eventually Molly wandered away to talk to the bride, leaving Rhodes and Wes at the table.

For a while they watched the reception.

Then Wes looked at him.

Not shocked this time.

Curious.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?”

Rhodes looked over. “Yeah.”

“I mean with…” Wes gestured toward him.

Rhodes followed the gesture down to his stomach. “This?”

“Yeah.”

Rhodes didn’t hesitate.

“Especially this.”

Wes leaned back. “You really like being this big?”

Rhodes rested one hand absently against the broad curve of his stomach.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Rhodes thought.

He could have explained the honeymoon. The first ten pounds. Molly. Three hundred. Stretch-waist pants.

Instead he shrugged.

“Feels like me.”

Wes was quiet.

Then he smiled.

“I spent years wishing I could be skinny like you.”

Rhodes looked across the table.

“And I spent years not knowing I wanted to be bigger.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Probably.”

Wes laughed.

Then he looked at Rhodes again.

“You know what’s really annoying? You’re somehow more confident now.”

Rhodes considered that.

“Probably.”

“You’re supposed to deny it.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

A server passed carrying miniature desserts.

Rhodes’s eyes followed the tray automatically.

Wes noticed.

For perhaps the first time all evening, Rhodes looked mildly embarrassed.

Wes nodded toward the desserts.

“Go ahead, big guy.”

Rhodes looked at him.

There was history in the phrase.

Once, big guy unquestionably would have meant Wes.

They both knew it.

Rhodes smiled.

“See? Now you’re getting it.”

He flagged down the server.

⸻

The next few years passed quickly.

Rhodes did not.

What surprised Molly wasn’t simply how much larger he became, but how completely his size integrated itself into their life. She stopped assuming leftovers would survive the night. Pizza orders expanded. If Rhodes was coming to a cookout, friends bought extra. If there was one burger left, everyone knew who would probably eat it.

Once, Grant passed him the final slice of pizza without asking.

Rhodes looked around the table. “Was there a vote?”

Grant shrugged. “You’re Rhodes.”

Rhodes considered that.

“Fair.”

He ate it.

Furniture gradually entered the equation. Molly bought wider dining chairs. Rhodes noticed the first time he sat down.

“These are wider.”

“Are they?”

Molly continued arranging something on the table.

Rhodes looked at her and smiled. “Love you.”

Booths became something he assessed before attempting. Narrow patio chairs were ignored. The couch developed what Molly privately thought of as Rhodes’s side, although his side had begun consuming part of hers.

His parents had more difficulty treating any of this as normal. His mother had adjusted to the first fifty pounds, then the first hundred. After that, every time Rhodes went a few months without visiting, she seemed to require a moment when he walked through the door.

One Christmas, she opened it herself.

Rhodes stood on the porch in a navy quarter-zip and stretch-waist pants, holding two bakery boxes against an already enormous stomach.

Her eyes widened.

“Rhodes. You got bigger again.”

He glanced down. “Been happening.”

She stepped aside, still looking him over. “I just don’t understand how you got this big.”

Rhodes kissed her cheek. “I’m an ex-jock.”

His father looked up from the living room. “You haven’t been an athlete in years.”

Rhodes continued toward the kitchen.

“Very ex.”

Later, his father found him standing at the kitchen island eating something directly from a serving dish.

“You know, when you quit baseball, I figured you’d put on twenty pounds.”

Rhodes looked down at himself. By then twenty pounds would barely have registered.

“Got carried away.”

His father laughed.

Rhodes took another bite.

His brothers, meanwhile, had discovered that concern was considerably less entertaining than antagonism.

One summer, Rhodes arrived at a family cookout in a sleeveless shirt, black athletic shorts and slides.

Nolan opened the door and looked him over.

“Jesus, Rhodes. You’re fucking huge.”

Rhodes smiled. “Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you say thanks?”

Rhodes shrugged. “Still liked hearing it.”

Nolan stared.

Grant appeared behind him.

Nolan pointed at Rhodes. “He likes it.”

Grant looked at his brother.

Rhodes opened the refrigerator and found a drink.

“Likes what?”

“Being huge.”

Rhodes cracked it open. “Oh.”

Grant waited. “Do you?”

“Yeah.”

The brothers stared.

Rhodes took a sip. “What?”

Nolan looked at Grant. “We’ve lost him.”

Rhodes smiled. “No, I’m right here.”

Later, Nolan found him occupying most of the couch and told him to move. Rhodes shifted perhaps two inches.

“There.”

“You’re taking up two cushions.”

Rhodes glanced down. “Come sit.”

“There isn’t room.”

Rhodes patted his thigh. “I’ve got room.”

Nolan stared at him. “Absolutely not.”

Rhodes smiled. “Then quit complaining before I sit on you.”

“You weigh like four hundred pounds.”

Rhodes’s smile widened.

“Exactly.”

Nolan walked away.

“Good choice,” Rhodes called after him.

Molly, sitting across the room, shook her head.

“You’re terrible.”

Rhodes settled deeper into the couch. “He started it.”

A few months later, their mother tried to get a family picture at Christmas. Grant stood beside their father. Molly tucked herself against Rhodes. Nolan made the mistake of taking the other side.

Rhodes grinned and dropped one enormous arm around his brother’s shoulders, pulling Nolan firmly against his side.

“Jesus. You’re crushing me.”

“Smile.”

“Get off me.”

Rhodes looked down at him.

For a moment he seemed genuinely puzzled.

Then he grinned.

“You got little.”

Nolan twisted around. “I did not get little. You got enormous.”

Rhodes considered this.

“Agree to disagree.”

The photograph caught Rhodes with a huge grin and Nolan looking thoroughly irritated beneath his arm.

Their mother framed it anyway.

That Thanksgiving, Rhodes finished his third plate, leaned back and let out an enormous belch.

The table went silent.

His mother stared.

“Rhodes.”

He covered his mouth. “Excuse me.”

Nolan shook his head. “You’ve become disgusting.”

Rhodes looked down at his enormous stomach.

“I’m just an ex-jock.”

“You haven’t played baseball in five years.”

“Very ex.”

Nolan turned to Molly.

“You realize you’re married to this fat ass, right?”

Molly looked at Rhodes—the enormous stomach beneath his shirt, the thick arms, the satisfied expression he was unsuccessfully trying to hide.

She smiled.

“Proudly.”

Rhodes pointed at her. “See?”

Nolan stared at both of them. “You’re ridiculous.”

Rhodes reached for another roll.

“And yet I’m thriving.”

His father laughed so hard he had to put down his drink.

Even his mother finally smiled.

Rhodes ate the roll.

That was the thing his family eventually learned.

Rhodes wasn’t putting up with becoming enormous.

He was having fun.

And Molly was having fun with him.

⸻

Five years after their honeymoon, Rhodes and Molly returned to the resort.

The first real indication of how thoroughly things had changed came in the airport shuttle.

Molly climbed aboard first.

Rhodes followed.

At twenty-two, he’d arrived wearing fitted khaki shorts, a polo and sneakers.

At twenty-seven, he wore a loose black tank top, charcoal elastic-waist athletic shorts and slides.

There wasn’t a button, zipper or belt anywhere on him.

This was intentional.

Rhodes turned slightly through the aisle and stopped beside Molly’s row.

“Window?”

“You take it.”

He looked at the bench. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

Rhodes maneuvered in and lowered himself. The cushion compressed heavily.

Molly sat beside him.

Immediately she started laughing.

Rhodes looked over. “What?”

“Move over.”

“I am over.”

“More.”

He shifted toward the window.

It accomplished almost nothing.

His backside occupied most of his side of the bench and had made a determined territorial claim on hers. The charcoal shorts stretched broadly across a seat that had once merely been noticeable on his athletic frame.

Now it was enormous.

Combined with thighs that spread heavily when he sat, Rhodes simply occupied considerably more horizontal space than one shuttle seat had anticipated.

Molly’s thigh remained pinned against his.

“Better?”

“No.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not.”

Rhodes settled comfortably against the seatback.

“I’m emotionally sorry.”

Another couple boarded. The man glanced at the remaining sliver of bench beside Rhodes and chose the row behind them.

Rhodes noticed.

Molly noticed Rhodes noticing.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re smiling.”

Rhodes looked down at himself.

“Remember our first honeymoon breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“You told me maybe some of the ten pounds could end up back here.”

Molly looked pointedly at the space he was occupying.

“Apparently they did.”

Rhodes smiled. “Among others.”

When the shuttle reached the resort, Rhodes stood and stepped into the sunlight.

Molly watched him retrieve the luggage.

Five years had transformed him almost beyond reason.

The broad shoulders were still there, but everything beneath them had expanded and softened. His upper arms were thick, his chest heavy. His enormous lower belly pushed the tank outward before hanging over the elastic waistband buried beneath it.

His thighs were massive.

The old baseball build remained visible only in exaggerated form: powerful legs made enormous by fat, broad hips, a backside that projected enough to pull the fabric of his shorts taut behind him.

His walk had developed a subtle side-to-side shift, not because Rhodes struggled to get around, but because his thighs simply occupied more space.

Even his face had transformed. His sandy-blond hair was longer now, curling slightly around his ears because he’d once again gone too long between haircuts. His cheeks were full, his jaw soft, his chin heavier.

But the blue eyes were the same.

So was the grin.

He looked young.

Handsome.

Happy.

And absolutely enormous.

Rhodes caught Molly staring.

“You’re doing the look.”

“What look?”

“The one you’ve been doing for five years.”

Molly smiled. “Can you blame me?”

Rhodes looked down at himself.

“At this point?”

He smiled.

“No.”

The resort had barely changed.

Neither had Rhodes’s enthusiasm for all-inclusive dining.

At breakfast the next morning, Molly returned with eggs, fruit and toast.

Rhodes arrived carrying two heavily loaded plates.

She stared.

Rhodes stopped. “No. Say it.”

“Five years ago I asked whether you were really going to eat all that.”

Rhodes looked at the plates. “Did I?”

“You said absolutely.”

He sat.

“Smart kid.”

Breakfast lasted almost an hour. Rhodes finished both plates, then had a pastry, then another because, as he explained, the first had been surprisingly small.

Afterward they wandered through the gift shop.

Molly had nearly forgotten.

Rhodes had not.

He stopped.

There it was.

Cream fabric.

Blue palms.

Same shirt.

“No way.”

Molly followed his gaze.

“Oh my God.”

Rhodes walked toward the rack.

XL.

XXL.

3XL.

4XL.

Then his hand stopped.

5XL.

He pulled it out.

For several seconds neither spoke.

Five years earlier, the shirt had looked absurd in his hands.

Now it looked like clothing.

Rhodes held it against himself.

Molly covered her mouth.

“Try it.”

Rhodes looked at her. “You don’t think it’ll fit.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your face did.”

He smiled. “Moment of truth.”

He disappeared into the fitting room.

There was some rustling.

Then:

“Huh.”

Molly laughed.

The curtain opened.

The 5XL fit.

Almost.

Across his shoulders it looked surprisingly normal. The sleeves settled comfortably around his thick upper arms. There was even some room through his chest.

Then the shirt reached his stomach.

The cream fabric pulled tightly across the broadest curve of his belly, drawing the lowest buttons into shallow horizontal lines.

Rhodes looked down.

“Slightly snug.”

“Slightly?”

He sucked in.

Very little happened.

Molly started laughing.

“Those buttons are already negotiating.”

That made Rhodes laugh too, which pulled the fabric tighter. He put a protective hand over the lowest button.

“Okay.”

Molly walked around him.

Then stopped.

“Oh my God.”

“What now?”

“The back.”

Rhodes reached behind himself.

The shirt had caught across his backside rather than falling freely. His stomach pulled the fabric forward while his backside pulled it backward, leaving the hem riding several inches higher behind him.

Rhodes tugged it down.

He let go.

It immediately rode back up.

Molly lost it.

Rhodes looked at her through the mirror.

“Your shirt is losing a fight with you from both directions.”

Rhodes turned sideways.

That explained it.

Belly forward.

Backside backward.

The poor 5XL had nowhere left to go.

Molly took out her phone.

“No.”

“Yes.”

She found the photograph from five years earlier.

Twenty-two-year-old Rhodes stood in this exact shop holding the same size shirt against his 194-pound honeymoon body.

The fabric had practically swallowed him.

Then she found another picture.

Their first anniversary.

Rhodes wearing the large version of the same shirt, unable to close it over his stomach.

She held the photographs beside the mirror.

Three Rhodeses.

One shirt.

At 194, the 5XL had looked like a tent.

A year later, the large couldn’t close.

Now the 5XL itself was fighting for survival.

Rhodes looked from one photograph to the other.

Then at himself.

For once, he was speechless.

Finally:

“That’s insane.”

“You said something that first day.”

“What?”

“Imagine me fitting into this.”

Rhodes turned. “I said that?”

“You did.”

He looked down at the shirt stretched tightly across his stomach, then reached behind himself and tried unsuccessfully to free the hem from his backside.

“Apparently I’m very goal-oriented.”

Molly laughed.

Rhodes looked at the photograph again.

“I remember thinking this thing was impossibly huge.”

“And now?”

Rhodes pulled gently at the bottom button.

“Now I’m wondering if they have a six.”

Molly laughed again.

Then she looked at him.

“Remember what else I said?”

Rhodes narrowed his eyes.

“About the first ten pounds.”

His expression changed.

“Don’t.”

“I said maybe some could go back here.”

“Molly.”

She looked behind him.

“I think we found them.”

Rhodes glanced over his shoulder. “All two hundred of them?”

“Apparently they travel in groups.”

They bought the shirt.

Rhodes wore it open over his tank top.

Molly looked at him. “Giving up already?”

Rhodes tugged at the open sides.

“It’s called layering.”

“It wouldn’t stay buttoned.”

“Unrelated.”

They went to lunch. Rhodes ordered nachos for the table, a burger and fries. Molly ordered tacos.

Halfway through, she slid one taco toward him.

Rhodes looked at it.

“You want it.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“You’ve been looking at it for five minutes.”

Rhodes picked it up.

“Marriage is about communication.”

After lunch they walked along the beach.

Slowly.

Rhodes’s open shirt moved in the breeze over his tank top, the 5XL hem still occasionally catching against his backside.

Molly slipped her hand into his.

“This all started because you wanted ten pounds.”

Rhodes smiled. “I remember.”

“I thought you were joking.”

“I was testing you.”

Molly stopped.

Rhodes took another step before realizing and turned around.

“You were?”

“Kinda.”

“Rhodes.”

He smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t know what you’d think.”

“About gaining ten pounds?”

“About me wanting to be bigger.”

Molly studied him.

“You really had thought about it.”

“Sure.”

“How big?”

Rhodes laughed. “Not this big.”

“What did you picture?”

He thought.

“Maybe two-twenty.”

Molly stared.

“Two-thirty sounded huge.”

She looked deliberately down at him.

Rhodes followed her gaze.

“Perspective changes.”

“So when did you decide on four hundred?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

Rhodes shook his head. “Two-twenty felt good.”

“And then?”

“Two-forty felt good.”

“And then?”

“Two-seventy was pretty fun.”

Molly laughed.

“Then I hit three hundred.”

“And?”

Rhodes smiled.

“I liked being big.”

“Clearly.”

“Then bigger was fun too.”

Molly shook her head. “So you just kept going?”

Rhodes looked toward the ocean.

“I guess.”

That was perhaps the most Rhodes answer imaginable.

“How much are you now?”

He hesitated.

“You know.”

“I know approximately.”

“Rhodes.”

“Four-fourteen.”

Molly’s eyebrows rose. “Four hundred fourteen pounds.”

“Last week.”

“You’ve gained two hundred twenty-nine pounds since we got married.”

Rhodes thought about that.

“That’s a lot.”

Molly burst out laughing. “Now it’s a lot?”

“Well, when you say it all at once.”

She put both hands against his stomach.

Rhodes looked down.

“Any regrets?”

He thought.

Not joking this time.

He looked toward the resort behind them, at the open 5XL shirt that had once seemed impossibly enormous, then at Molly.

“No.”

“None?”

Rhodes smiled.

“I probably would’ve skipped buying some pants along the way.”

“Besides that.”

“No.”

Molly wrapped her arms around him.

They didn’t come remotely close to meeting.

Rhodes noticed.

“Can’t reach?”

“Shut up.”

He laughed as she rested her cheek against his chest.

A moment passed.

Then Rhodes looked toward the resort.

Molly felt him shift.

“No.”

“What?”

“You’re looking at the restaurant.”

“I can look.”

“We just ate.”

Rhodes considered that. “True.”

“You cannot be hungry.”

“I’m not.”

Molly waited.

Rhodes smiled.

“I could eat.”

She closed her eyes.

“Those are different things to you.”

“They’ve been different for years.”

Molly started laughing.

Rhodes took her hand, and together they headed back toward the resort.

Five years earlier, Rhodes Mercer had stood in a gift shop holding a 5XL shirt against his athletic body and trying to imagine himself big enough to fill it.

At the time, he’d thought 220 pounds sounded enormous.

Now he was twenty-seven, 414 pounds, dressed almost exclusively in elastic waistbands, carrying an appetite that had become legendary among his family, and wearing that same 5XL open because his belly and backside had collectively defeated its buttons.

He was still the same Rhodes.

Same easy smile.

Same unhurried walk.

Same ability to treat almost anything as though it would probably work itself out.

He had simply become a great deal more of him.

Molly squeezed his hand.

“Rhodes?”

“Yeah?”

“If I ever tell you to gain ten pounds again?”

He looked at her.

“What?”

“Don’t listen to me.”

Rhodes considered that.

Then smiled.

I wanted to show off to @ihatemakingusernames and it has been a long time since I acted like a hog. So I baked a cake, got in all fours and enjoyed it while she teased me 😊