I turn in front of the mirror, repeating Presley’s opinion over and over.
You look like a total babe. That dress was meant for you.
The bright yellow dress clings to my curves, a tiny vertical sliver cut out at my left shoulder. My blonde hair hangs in beachy curls, and Presley has highlighted, contoured, and bronzed my face like only someone that can spend hours on end playing with makeup and a trust fund can.
I feel beautiful. I’ve primped and shaved and waxed and curled and taken care of myself in a way I haven’t in a long time. It feels good. I’d forgotten what it feels like to pamper myself on this sort of level.
“Try these on,” Presley says, tossing me a pair of turquoise heels. I raise my brows and she hushes me with a twist of her head. “No. No arguing. I’m the designer here. Put them on.”
I have no clue if they match, but I’m too nervous to argue.
“He did text you where to meet him, right?”
“Yes,” I reply, standing on one foot and slipping on the second heel. “He literally just sent the address and name of the restaurant. That’s it. Nothing else. No ‘excited to see you’ or anything.”
I huff a breath and stand, not bothering to look in the mirror. Presley’s lit up face tells me I’ll be wearing these whether I like it or not.
“Is this even safe?” I ask her. “We met him today. A handful of hours ago, to be exact. In a grocery store. And all we know is that he’s gorgeous and cyberspace gives us nothing other than he exists.” The realization hits me hard. “Oh my God, I’m gonna die tonight . . .”
“Stop it. You’re being dramatic.”
“It’s not dramatic. It’s self-preservation.”
“It’s a date,” she laughs. She places a hand on my shoulder. “Can I just say that you have that sparkle in your eye that I used to see before we’d go out on a Friday night and dance until we had a line of boys ready to take us home?”
“It’s the bronzer.”
“No, it’s not, you jerk,” she laughs. She bumps my hip with hers. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I haven’t done this in so long . . . it does feel good, Pres. I feel like me.”
“I know, and that makes me happy.”
We stand in the middle of Presley’s bathroom, my head on her shoulder, for a long time. The lights from the makeup table hit us like a spotlight and we look at ourselves in the reflection in the mirror.
“When is the last time you had a date?” she asks.
I shrug and stand straight. “I’ve had a couple since Grant. I don’t particularly remember who. Oh! One was a doctor. Connor something, I think. But he lives in Phoenix, so I’m not sure why I even agreed to that one.”
“You went on that one because nothing could come out of it,” she huffs. “There’s no way that could’ve ended up in a real relationship.”
“As always, you’re right.”
“And that’s fine. But I think you need to open up to the prospect. I’m not saying jump back into something,” she says, talking fast so I can’t interject, “But at least start heading in that direction in case Mr. Right comes along.”
“Maybe,” I say, looking for my purse. “But I feel so burned by Grant. He was literally the man of my dreams. Until he wasn’t, anyway. The thing is,” I say, wheeling around to face her, “I don’t know what happened to him. He just came home moody and needing all this time to himself. And that would’ve been fine. Even when Brady told me to back away from him, I would’ve given him the space to work through whatever it was. But to cheat on me? When, before he left, he was talking about getting engaged? If I can’t trust him, who can I trust?” Rolling my eyes, I face the mirror. The heels actually look good with the dress.
“Something was definitely going on with him. There’s no denying that. I think he was on drugs or something.”
“I think Mandla, the company he and Brady contracted for, did drug testing. So it can’t be that.”
“Well, they obviously fail at other things, like bringing their employees home. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they also failed to drug test.”
“True. They just keep saying they don’t know more than they’ve said, but Dad thinks they’re lying. He thinks they paid off the unit that was with Brady to be quiet. Hush money, he calls it. Grant came by the house and talked to my parents when he got back and whatever was said made Dad believe Mandla dropped the ball. It’s such a mess.”
“Grant’s not still going to see your parents, is he?”