The couch is an old-style. Victorian, maybe? And it's been reupholstered with black and white polka dots that make my vision go blurry. Lennox gets Gwen set up in a dressing room, and I take a seat on the couch to wait.
I've never really done this kind of thing before, and I'm hoping that Gwen can get these dresses on all by herself. She dresses herself every day, but that's usually jeans and shirts and skirts, not fancy dresses.
“You should take notes, so we can remember which ones are our favorites,” Gwen tells me.
Lennox shoots me a smile, and I nod seriously before pulling up the notes function on my phone and holding it up for Gwen's approval.
“I look forward to seeing those notes,” Lennox says before winking at me and heading off to presumably find more dresses for my sister.
I watch her go. She's a little funkier than my usual type. She wears these odd converse shoes that are a cross between tennis shoes and boots. They lace all the way up to her knees. She's got on tights beneath them, shorts and what appears to be two oversized sweaters. But she seems nice.
Not quite as …
I shake my head. I've been in an epic slump for the last month and a half since I'd woken up to find my bed empty of the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen in real life. I shouldn't still be thinking about Kalli, shouldn't be comparing every girl I meet to her. It was one night, and she'd been skittish and emotional the whole time. I can't say I'm surprised she ran out on me. She didn't seem like the kind of girl for a one night stand, and I've definitely had my fair share of those to know the difference.
But that's over too. No more wild life. I can't live like that and put Mom and Gwen first.
No point dwelling on things I can't have. My old life and Kalli both.
There's a rustling from the direction of the dressing rooms, and I look up expecting to see Gwen's first dress, but it's the curtain next to hers that slides open.
“Hey Len! Is this how you wanted this dress to hang?”
My eyes snag on the girl's hand as it tugs at a flowy section of fabric over her hips. And somehow I know … just from that voice and her slim hands … I know it's her.
I've spent weeks thinking about her, obsessing over the things I said and did, wondering if it was my fault she felt the need to run away, trying to understand what might have happened to her that night to leave her so on edge. And now she's here.
My eyes track up her body in slow motion. Smooth, olive-brown skin, generous hips and breasts, cinched in at the waist, dark curls spilling over her shoulders.
Then I get to her face. Kalli.
The sight of her hits me like a physical blow, and if I weren’t sitting down, I might have actually stumbled back. She seems just as surprised to see me sitting there, and she blinks, like maybe I'm part of her imagination, and I'll disappear any moment.
I don't disappear.
Neither does she.
We stare at each other, and I swear, the hold this girl has on me after just two meetings is unreal. Fucking scary, actually.
She sucks in a breath, wrapping an arm around her waist in a gesture that's about either comfort or shock, maybe both. And I wonder if she feels it too. If she's just as intrigued and freaked out as I am.
Neither of us has spoken by the time Lennox returns, stepping between us and severing the connection. She tilts her head to the side, surveying the dress that Kalli's wearing. She tugs once at the dress, trying to get it fall in a different way, but nothing changes.
“Hmm …” she says. “I think I've put in too many pleats. If I do half as many and gather more fabric in each one, I think it will sit better.” She steps back, looking over Kalli from head-to-toe.
Guilty. I totally do it, too. She's just as stunning as I remember her, and I don't know what they're talking about with the dress. It fits her perfectly. My mouth is actually watering looking at her, and Jesus, I've got to talk to her. Have to get her number. I can't go another month thinking about her after another chance encounter.
Fuck chance. I'm not leaving it to luck again.
Chapter Ten
“You can go ahead and take that one off,” Lennox says. “I'll make a note on what to fix. Try the purple one next.”
Lennox hangs two more little girl dresses outside Gwen's dressing room and asks, “You doing okay, Gwen?”
Gwen calls out a yes, then Lennox is leaving, and Kalli is turning to go back to the dressing room. Before I really think it through, I'm standing.
“Hey.”
Her fingers tighten around the curtain, but she doesn't retreat inside. She tosses her head a little, just enough to get her thick curls to swing over her shoulder, and then she looks at me over her shoulder.
“Hey.” Her voice is quiet, and I'm incredibly aware that my little sister is just a curtain away. All I want to do is push Kalli into that dressing room and press her against the wall and show her just what she missed when she snuck out of my apartment.
But I can't.
“I didn't realize this place has clothes for adults.”
“It doesn't.” Her body is still turned away from me, like she's going to bolt any second. “Lennox is studying fashion design. She's part of a showcase coming up in a couple months, and I'm her …” She pauses, as if searching for the word. “I'm her friend. I just play mannequin for her on occasion.”
“Mannequin?” Lennox calls out from where she's flipping through hangers on a nearby rack. “I heard that! Mannequins are plastic. Mannequins are scary life-size fake people with curiously absent genitalia. Mannequins might one day come to life and kill us all.”
The smile Kalli sends in her friend's direction is small, but striking. It's one of those moments where a picture is worth a thousand words. Ten thousand. I don't even know that it's something that could really be captured with anything other than the eye.
And there I go again. What is it about this girl that turns me into such a fool? Or maybe it’s not her at all. Maybe I’ve lost some confidence over the last year. When you used to spend your nights in bar after bar with just about any girl you wanted, and you suddenly shift to spending your nights babysitting … it wrecks your head a little.
But still … it feels like more than that with her.
I've never had to think about what to say to a girl. I like to think I'm fairly charming, and I've always been good at stringing words together. With Kalli … I'm scared that if I don't reign myself in, I'll frighten her off as I wax poetic about her eyebrows or whatever part of her has caught my attention at the time.
“You are not my mannequin,” Lennox says. “You're my muse. Seriously. I was totally stuck on this collection until you came along.”
Kalli's eyes flick to mine, and there's something in them. Unease, maybe?
“I'm going to change,” she says. And I don't know if she's saying it to me or Lennox or both of us.
Her curtain closes, and I strain my ears to listen for her movements. I think I hear the glide of fabric over her skin before it thumps against the floor. I rest my elbows on my knees and shove my fingers into my hair because now I'm thinking about her body, how it had looked against my sheets. All that smooth, unblemished skin. Perfect. It doesn't seem possible, but her body was the closest damn thing I'd ever seen to it. I remember the way her wet dress clung to her after our water fight in the shower.
Shit. Shit. I needed to stop thinking about this or I was going to make a fool of myself in more ways than one.
“Wilder,” Gwen's high-pitched voice calls. And that's exactly what I need to distract me. I stand, moving closer to her dressing room.
“Yeah?”
“I need help.”
I blew out a breath. It would probably make me a bad brother to ask if Lennox could help her.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
She doesn't answer, just pulls the curtain aside enough so that I can duck inside.
She's covered. Mostly. But it looks like the black and red dress she has on has some kind of wrapping
mechanism, and she's tied it up all wrong. I unknot the bows she's made to start over, but then I'm not really sure how the thing is supposed to wrap either.
“It goes there,” Gwen tells me.
“I don't think so. What about here?”
“That looks stupid.”
We try a few more ways, and we get close, but something about it just looks slightly off.
“Maybe we should just try another dress,” I say when my back starts to ache from bending down to her level.
“Need some help?” a voice asks outside the curtain, and it's not Lennox, but Kalli.
The fabric rustles, and she opens it just far enough to peek inside, but that's enough for Gwen.
“Kalli!”
Apparently I wasn't the only one impacted by that meeting in the grocery store. Gwen can barely remember things I tell her an hour later, but she hasn't forgotten Kalli's name. She shrugs off my hands where I've been messing with the ties to her dress and flings herself through the curtain onto Kalli.
Kalli’s laugh puts her smile to shame, and it moves through me like electricity. She squeezes my sister tight, and as she looks down at her, I swear she’s freaking glowing.
Hell, I think she’s just one of those people who shine a little brighter than everyone else. The ones that always seem to draw your eye in public, the ones you find yourself looking at for a second time for no other reason than simply because it’s where your eyes want to go.
And my eyes definitely want to go to Kalli. Not just a second time, but a third, and a fourth, and over and over again. She pulls back and gestures for my clumsily dressed sister to step inside the dressing room again, and she follows behind her, closing the curtain. I swallow.
The room had felt generously spacious a few moments before. Now I'm all too aware of the inches between us, and the space vibrates with something almost like static. Kalli kneels, putting her farther away from me and closer to my little sister. She undoes the ties I'd been wrestling with, and then she loops one side of the wrap through a small hole in the dress at my sister's waist that I hadn't noticed. There's one on the other side, too. And once she's fed both ties through, she wraps them again around her waist, hiding the holes, and completing a perfect bow in the middle of Gwen's back.
My sister twirls once, the skirt fanning around her, brushing against my knees and Kalli's stomach. She comes to a stop, her eyes meeting Kalli's in the mirror, as if seeking approval.
“Very pretty.”
A blush sweeps over Gwen's apple cheeks and tiny nose.
“Really?”
“Really. You look very special in that dress.”
“This one!” Gwen cries, looking up at me.
“Are you sure? You don't want to get one that's a little easier to put on?”
She leaps forwarding, clinging to my knees, and says, “Please, can I have this one? Please, Wilder.”
I try to surreptitiously check the price tag, but Kalli sees it. Damn. Nothing to do about that.
“Sure,” I promise. “If this is the one you want, we can get it.”
She starts bouncing up and down then, the fabric of the skirt bouncing wildly with her as she dances her victory. I smile, and my eyes are drawn again to Kalli, who's smiling at Gwen, too. Then her eyes lift to mine. They dim. Her smile falters.
And that shouldn't feel like a knife through my chest, but it does. I pull the curtain wide, and say, “You get dressed, Gwen. I'll wait for you outside.”
Kalli steps out first, and I follow, my eyes taking in the new dress she's wearing. It's purple, black, and gray. And on the surface, it seems simple. It's loose and long, and her shape should be swallowed beneath it, but it's not. Instead, the looseness of it feels like a tease. Here and there are cut-outs that give a peek at the silk-lined interior and just a hint of skin. It feels halfway between something she'd wear on the beach and something she'd wear in the bedroom. And I enjoy the thought of her in both of those places.
I've forgotten how to be charming. Forgotten how to entice a woman. All I know is that I have to see her again, and now that Gwen has found her dress, there's nothing keeping me here. So, instead I just say the first thing that comes to my mind. “I've been thinking about you.”
She hesitates outside her dressing room. “You have?”
I nod. Because if I actually voice how often I think about her, I'm likely to send her running again. I gesture behind me where Lennox is presumably moving somewhere through the shop and ask, “Is that your roommate?”
Her brows furrow. “Roommate?”
“The night we … uh, the last time I saw you, you said your roommate had friends over you didn't like.”
“Oh. No. Lennox and I haven’t known each other that long. That roommate … she moved out. We weren't a good fit. She was … reckless.”
“Well, I'm glad she's gone then.”
She nods. “Yep. She’s definitely gone, and everything is under control now.”
Again, I cut right to the chase. “Can I take you out sometime? Dinner?”
She leans toward me a few inches, then seems to realize what she's doing and straightens.
“I can't.”
And … a knockout in one punch.
“You can't?”
God, I should shut up. She said no. I should take that hint and spare myself further misery, but I don't. Because there's something in her eyes, the way she tracks my movements just as obsessively as I do hers. I remember how vulnerable she'd looked that night when I'd started asking questions about what had happened to her earlier. I see that same vulnerability in her now, and I think she's hiding. I think that's why she said no, and I'm just enough of a masochist to attempt changing her mind.
“You should,” I say. “You should go out with me.”
“Oh, I should, should I?” Her tone sounds offended, but there's the barest tilt at the corner of her mouth that gives me hope.
“You should. You see, I know me. And I'm a pretty fun date.”
“I'm sure you are.”
“I'm also a good kisser.”
“And how do you know that?”
I step closer, closing the distance between us, until she has to tilt her head up to meet my eyes.
“I've been told once or twice,” I say. “Would you disagree?”
My eyes drop to her lips, and her tongue peeks out for just half a second, wetting her bottom lip.
“Wilder.”
I close my eyes. It's surreal hearing her say my name again. I'd never thought it would happen.
“Kalli,” I return.
Our eyes meet again, and that vulnerability is back tenfold. She looks scared. Of me? And before I know what I'm doing, I've reached up and skimmed my fingers along her cheek. I want to comfort her, take away whatever it is that has her worried. For a moment, she turns into my touch. Soft, warm skin against my calloused fingertips. I keep my touch light even though I'm dying to tunnel my fingers into her hair and taste that full mouth again.
Then she pulls away, and practically dives into the dressing room before shutting the curtain between us. I groan and press my forehead into the wall between the two rooms. This is all going so wrong, and I don't know how to make it right. What the hell is wrong with me?
I don't hear Lennox return until she says from just over my shoulder. “Hate shopping that much, do you?”
“No, it's not … it's nothing.”
She surveys me for a moment; then her eyes flick to the curtain separating me from Kalli. She presses her lips together in contemplation. Then Gwen comes running out with her chosen dress in her hand.
“That's the one?” Lennox asks.
Gwen's nod is vigorous.
“You don't want to try on any of the rest?”
She shakes her head. “Kalli says this one is special.”
Lennox's eyes shoot back to me.
“Okay then. Let's get you two checked out.”
I don't want to go to the front register, but I don't have much of a choic
e. Lennox is walking away with Gwen's dress, and I'd look a little crazy waiting outside Kalli's dressing room just so I could talk to her again. So with one final glance at the closed curtain, I head toward the front.
While Lennox rings us up, she asks, “So. Do you know Kalli?”
“We've met before. But I don’t think I’d say I know her.”
Unless knowing the way she tastes counts. And the way her back arches when she comes. The little panting breaths she makes when she’s almost there. I know those things. Fat lot of good it has done me today.
“Tell me about it. Girl has more secrets than Lost. She's hard to pin down.”
So it isn't just me then.
Lennox moves to slip a plastic garment bag over Gwen's dress and says casually, “You should come to Christmas at my place.”
“Uh. I'm sorry. What?”
“Not like … alone or anything. Jesus, I'm not crazy. I'm having an Orphan Christmas for all the people who can't afford or don't want to visit family. Kalli will be there.”
“Really?”
She nods with a knowing smile. “Took me days of prodding to get her to agree to come.”
I’m tempted. So damn tempted.
“I can’t. I’ve got family stuff.”
“So come after. We’re doing a big pot luck dinner, and then we’ll probably stay up late drinking and playing games and watching terrible holiday-themed movies.”
“Yeah?”
In answer, she prints out some extra receipt paper from the register, grabs a pen a writes down her address. We exchange numbers, too. “In case you have any issues,” she says.
She holds the paper out to me, and I take it. “Are you going to tell Kalli I’m coming?”
She scoffs. “Yeah, right. I do know one thing about that girl, and it’s that she goes out of her way not to let anyone too close. And I’m just about ready to strangle her for it. But I think you’re probably a more preferable option.”
“So, you’re helping me? You don’t even know me.”
She shrugs. “I don’t see a lot of dudes come here with little kids. And of the ones that do, there are two kinds. The ones who would give anything to be somewhere else. And the ones who are here because they would give anything for their little girl.”