He shrugged. “Nothing. Just saying. It drives me crazy when women spend hours getting ready to go out.”
I felt relieved – and annoyed at myself for feeling relieved. I was a modern woman who didn’t need a man’s approval on how I dressed. Except, maybe… yes, damn it! I wanted Sebastian’s approval on how I dressed. I craved the way he looked at me, like he’d never seen anything so precious. Maybe I ought to make a little more effort. Just for the next few days: give him the best memories I could, before we were parted.
I vowed to buy some lipstick and mascara in the next pharmacy or supermarket we found.
“You remember that time we went clothes shopping in San Diego?” he said, pulling me out of my self-flagellating thoughts. “You had to buy a new dress?”
“Oh, sure, I remember that! The sales assistant was flirting with you?”
He looked surprised. “She was?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you remember, she was asking you if you were a pilot from Miramar?”
Sebastian shook his head, amused and puzzled at the same time.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” I said, smiling to myself, “in those days you never used to notice other women flirting with you: you were such an innocent. Not like now.”
“Hell, you should complain, Caro! You were the one I lost my innocence to – a hot, older woman.”
I slapped his arm. “You know what I mean.”
His look of amusement faded and he caught my hand, pulling me down, until I was sitting across his knee.
“Caro, you’re all I want. You don’t have to worry about other women. Yeah, so I fucked around a lot, but you know what? It was just a game – I was using them, they were using me. It gets pretty old after a while.” He paused to tuck my hair behind my ear and kiss my throat. “But I might have to hunt down those old boyfriends of yours and beat them to a pulp.”
I laughed. “Double standards, Sebastian?”
“Nope, just two sets of rules… but I was thinking about the cute, black dress you bought. You looked so fucking hot in that.”
“I’ve still got it somewhere, although I haven’t worn it in years.”
“We should do that, Caro; go out somewhere you can dress up.”
I sighed. “I used to fantasize about seeing you in a tux.”
“Really?”
“Sebastian, I spent far too many hours fantasizing about you in a variety of, um, situations. And just recently, it’s become my new hobby.”
He laughed, delightedly. “I’ve never worn a tux.”
“Never? Not even at your high school prom?”
“I didn’t go. I hadn’t met you, and I’d split up with Brenda. Ches didn’t have a date either – he swiped some of Mitch’s beer, I scored some weed – and we got trashed on the beach instead. It was a pretty good night – I think. I don’t remember that much about it. We didn’t need any women,” he said, looking at me with a sly expression. “But that was before I met you again.”
“Hmm, very virtuous of you. But didn’t you wear a tux for Ches and Amy’s wedding?”
“Nah, Amy kind of got off on the whole military thing, even though she didn’t want Ches enlisting, so she asked me and Mitch to come in our Dress Blues. I don’t know, I think she thought it would look cool in the wedding pictures.”
He rolled his eyes.
“She turned into a complete nightmare-bitch-from-hell over the whole wedding thing. Ches was freaking out, thinking he was about to marry some crazy person. She even tried to ban him from having a bachelor party,” he said, indignantly.
“Gee, I wonder why… maybe she didn’t trust you,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
He grinned at me, wickedly.
“Yeah, well, she was probably right about that…”
“I don’t want to know, Sebastian!”
He kissed me again. “So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Going somewhere upscale, really dressing up? I’d love to see you like that again.”