“Will this mean you’ll turn into a pumpkin on the way back, considering we’ll probably get home past your bedtime?”
Silence then, “Now she gives me smartass and it’s still fuckin’ cute.”
I smiled.
The boy showed.
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed on a muted cry. “He’s back.”
“How’s he look?”
I studied him as he made his careful way to the return bin. “He’s wearing my coat, new jeans. The hat. He really should wear the gloves and scarf I bought him. It’s cold. I’ll put that in my next note.” Then, quietly, “Lip still bad.”
“He uses the Neosporin, it’ll help.”
“Yeah.”
I listened to Chace sigh as I watched the boy make it to the bags.
“He get ‘em?” Chace asked.
“He’s going for them now.”
“Good,” he muttered then, “Gonna let you go. See you tonight.”
“Tonight, Chace.”
“Later, honey.”
He disconnected.
I watched the boy walk away with the bags.
I gave it time, secured Chace’s coffee (latte, triple shot) and then drove into the lot.
I took Chace’s coffee with me into the library and I drank it after mine. This meant I was wired all morning.
Or it could be my date with Chace that night that made me wired.
It didn’t matter.
It felt like I was dancing on air.
*
Seven thirty that evening
“Frak, frak, frickity frak, frak, frak,” I muttered, looking at myself in the full length mirror on the inside of my wardrobe door.
This wasn’t me.
It was hot.
But it wasn’t me.
I was wearing a sweater dress the color of a green olive, a color that Lexie told me would work for me in a big way with my coloring and she was not wrong.
The dress was awesome. Formfitting (very), it went down to just above the knee, had a deep, wide vee in the front that exposed the skin of my chest and collarbone but only a hint of cleavage. The sleeves were tight all the way down and went past my wrists. And there was some vertical detailing in the knit that was sensational. It made me look taller at the same time accentuated my curves. There was more of it around the waistline so it gave even more of a sense of an hourglass figure than I already had and one could say my figure was extremely hourglass.
In a moment of idiocy, I’d looked up straight hair hairstyles on the internet to get ideas. When I got home, I did a bit of fluffing, spraying, tousling and teasing, the last just at the top back, and swept just the hair at the top of my forehead back about an inch, securing it with bobby pins painted dark brown. But the fullness and teasing at the back gave it a sex kitten vibe that even I had to admit looked really good.
I’d added more makeup than I usually used, deepening it a bit, some green around my eyes but not going overboard because I never felt comfortable with a lot of makeup caked on. But with the hair and dress, the effect was astonishing.
I had on silver hoop earrings that were long and an intricate five tier silver necklace that was a mixture of green, brown, purple and dark blue beads, small silver balls with some short silver spikes.
It all wasn’t me .Yet it was, just not in the me sense of me but in the Me! sense of me.
It was the boots that did it. Dark brown, patent leather with a pointed toe, four inch, spiked heel and a super thin strap around the ankle with a tiny buckle at the side that made my ankle look delicate and gave a classy, stylish rock ‘n’ roll look to the boots.
They weren’t hot. They were smokin’ hot.
The whole getup made me look sexy.
It made me feel sexy.
I liked it a whole lot while at the same time it freaked me out a whole lot more.
Because I wondered what Chace would think about it.
And I hoped like all fraking heck that he’d like it.
A knock came at the door and I jumped.
Oh God, he was there.
Frak.
I closed the wardrobe door and secured it with the little latch, sucked in a huge breath and walked across my apartment belatedly thinking I should have had a glass of wine (or two) while I was getting ready.
I pulled off the chain, undid the deadbolt and opened the door.
Chace was wearing a heavy denim, western stitched, slimfit shirt that looked like it was once black but then it had been left out in the elements for a year and after dragged behind a truck for a thousand miles so it was now a dark, distressed gray. Once this was accomplished, it clearly had been blessed by a tough as nails ninety year old cowboy who could still lasso a steer going flat out on his horse and this blessing happened during a sacred rite like all clothing that was kickass should be.
Over it, Chace wore a well-tailored black wool sports jacket. Dark blue jeans. Black cowboy boots and a black tooled leather belt with a silver belt buckle with a subtle cow’s skull imprinted on it.
My mouth started watering and I had to curl my hand around the edge of the door to remain standing because my legs started trembling.
I lifted my eyes to his face and whispered, “Hi.”