Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“I met her for lunch with West. I took a half-day.”
“Look at you, taking time off,” she said with a laugh. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Well, Jordan sent me home early. He’s sending us back to Midland and told me I should take some time because we’ll be there on a Saturday.”
“Oh yeah, I got that email,” she said with a smile. “Should be fun. Maybe two rooms this time.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
She grinned, running my tie through her fingers. “You think I’ll share a bed with you again?”
“We don’t have to share the bed,” I said, dragging her fingers up to my lips. I pressed a kiss into each knuckle. “We could share the couch and the shower and the desk.” I kissed up to her wrist. “The floor.” Another kiss up her arm. “The wall.”
“Okay, okay,” she gasped breathlessly. “I get the picture.”
“I could draw it for you.” I pressed our lips together.
She leaned into me with a sigh. “Fine. One room. You convinced me.”
“Can I convince you of something else?”
“What’s that?” she asked, rising on her tiptoes to try to get to my lips again.
“Go to the fundraiser dinner with me.”
She dropped heavily onto her heels. “What?”
“The dinner this weekend.”
“Right. I mean, I’m going. We’re both going. Nora hired a limo for the group.”
“I know. I want you to go with me.”
“What’s the difference?” she asked warily.
“You’d be my date.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. I waited patiently for her to think it over. I could see the cogs working through her mind, but she didn’t pull away from me. Part of me wanted to push. Maybe at the start of all of this, I would have, but I’d seen her come to me of her own accord now. I’d held her as she cried. We were more than casual. Somewhere between that and dating, and I was ready to take the next step. I wanted her to be ready, too.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Okay, I’ll be your date.”
I sealed her promise with a kiss.
17
Eve
“So, a date date,” Nora said.
I held the cocktail dress up to my figure. Nora had insisted on going dress shopping for the event tonight. We were currently in Chrome, a local designer clothing store, handing off potential dresses to the hovering salesclerk. I wasn’t sure I could afford anything in this place, but here we were.
Now, I was pretty sure she’d only asked me because West had told her about my date with Whitt tonight.
“A date date.”
Nora squealed. “Oh my God, I’m so excited for y’all.”
“It’s one date, Nor,” I reminded her, replacing the dress on the rack.
“You’ve been dating for weeks!”
“No, we’ve been hooking up for weeks.”
She huffed and picked up a green dress. “Try this one on.”
I took it out of her hands and held it up to me. Yeah, this could work. I passed it to the salesclerk.
“That’s probably enough. I don’t even know if any of this is going to fit.” Part of me hoped they didn’t fit so I could wear something I already owned.
“Something will fit.”
“You don’t have boobs,” I pointed out. “Clothes aren’t made for people with giant boobs. Material isn’t supposed to stretch the way it does around these things.”
“Girl, I am so jealous of your boobs.”
“Don’t be. They’re a hassle.”
“Whitt doesn’t think so.”
“Good Lord!”
Nora laughed. “I’m just saying!”
“I know what you’re saying.”
I strode into my dressing room and tried on the first dress—a pink number that I immediately knew didn’t work. Nora stepped out in the cutest little blue minidress. The little pixie looked good in everything.
“But you like him, right?” Nora asked.
I gestured to my dress. “I don’t like this.”
I strode back into the dressing room and tried on more dresses, hating all of them.
Nora sighed. “You know you can talk to me about this. I’m excited.”
“It’s still too early to be excited about anything.”
“It’s never too early to be excited.”
“Not when all my previous relationships have crashed and burned.”
“You haven’t even dated anyone in the last year. And honestly, should we even count Daddy Sinclair?”
I snorted. “Stop calling him that.”
“It’s a perfect name, and I will not stop.”
“Okay. Fine. And no, I haven’t dated since him, just hooked up. It’s not that I’m still upset about him or whatever. I just needed to live in my single era.”
“And now, you’ve found a great guy,” she pointed out. “So, maybe that era is coming to a close.”
I bit my lip. “Maybe it is.”
Nora cheered as I went back into the dressing room for the final dress.
When I stepped out, both of us were speechless.
“That’s the one,” Nora said in awe.
“It so is.”
I didn’t even complain about the price tag. This was the dress.
“Are you nervous?” Blaire asked.
“Excited?” Piper piped in.
“Hyped!” Nora added.
“Y’all need to calm down. It’s a date for an event we both were already planning to attend.” I lounged back in the overstuffed chair and crossed one Louboutin-clad foot over the other. Tried-and-true heels for tonight.