Ha, one of his lady friends. Let’s see how he answers that.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I do need to pick up something for one of my…lady friends.” He chuckles, his gaze flashing toward me for the briefest moment. “Such a quaint way to phrase it, Marlo.”
“We are always searching for fun ways to describe what we sell and who we sell it to, Mr. Gaines.” She points to the table. “Which piece do you like in particular?”
“All of it,” he says without hesitation. He’s not looking at me any longer. He is one hundred percent focused on Marlo, and she is one hundred percent focused on him.
I take a step back, wondering if I should hightail my butt out of here.
Of course, I don’t move.
“Which bra style do you prefer?” Marlo asks. “The full or the quarter cup?”
“Quarter cup, please.” He smiles, and it’s almost like I can see the image inside his brain. “Thirty-four C.” And that scene in his brain is of me, standing in this very same spot wearing that bra, my breasts threatening to spill out.
Lord, let me just dissolve into tiny little pieces where no one can ever see me again.
“Thong or brief?”
“Brief. Size small.” Hmm. I figured he’d go for the thong.
“And what about the teddy? It is such an exquisite piece, though I must admit, it’s rather expensive.” She laughs, and he joins in. “Look at me. I shouldn’t try to discourage you, should I?”
“It wouldn’t work anyway.” His laughter dies and he is all business. “I definitely want the teddy. Size small.” He sends me another quick look, his smile sly, his eyes twinkling, and I bite my lower lip.
He’s buying over six hundred and fifty dollars worth of stuff. Stuff that is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, and I would take all of it if I could, but I shouldn’t let him keep buying me gifts.
Yet he’s so hard to resist…
“Do you mind taking care of Mr. Gaines’ transaction, Sarah?” Marlo asks me, her right hand full of the lingerie Jared wants.
For me.
“Of course. Right this way, sir.” I offer her a bright smile and head for the sales desk, sensing when Jared falls into step right behind me. I put a little extra swing in my hips so I can give him a show, and I hope like hell he appreciates it.
I ring up his purchase, swallowing hard before I tell him the total. He doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash as he reaches for his wallet, extracts his credit card and hands it to me. I take the credit card and push it into the card reader, tapping my fingernails against the edge of the counter. “Would you like me to wrap this?”
“Please. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the gift.”
I’m annoyed at the idea of having to wrap my very own present.
“Very well.” I snip off the price from the tags, then fold up each item, wrapping each of them in a single piece of white tissue. I put together one of our gift boxes, then set the items inside, careful to not look at him as I go about my business.
Dude. You have to admit this is super weird, right? Or am I the only one thinking this?
“Do you have a card I can write her a note on?” he asks, and I nod, handing him one of our blank cards and an accompanying envelope.
He writes a message on the card while I pull his credit card out of the reader and print out the receipt for him to sign. We go about our business normally, like we do this sort of thing every single day, and truthfully, I do. He’s here often enough that I’m sure it feels like habit for him too.
We are ridiculous.
I pull out one of our bags and shake it open, then slide the wrapped box inside. I hand him his receipt, then the bag. “Hope you enjoy.”
My cheeks go hot the second the words leave me. I said that automatically, without thought. And by the look on his face, I’m sure he’s eating this up.
“I plan on it. Eventually.” He nods once in my direction, his fingers making contact with mine when he takes the bag from me. More electricity shoots up my arm, and I wonder what might happen if he actually touched me in a sexual manner.
I’d probably die.
“Have a good afternoon, Miss Harrison,” he murmurs, his gaze sweeping over me one more time.
“You as well, Mr. Gaines,” I call after him as he strides through the store.
I watch him exit through the doors, sagging against the counter the moment he’s gone. I’m not sure if I can continue this façade much longer. We are playing a game and I’m fairly certain…
I will lose.
Eleven
Jared
I receive the call within minutes of my leaving Bliss Lingerie. I’m on such a high from speaking with Sarah, from actually touching her, even for the briefest moment, that I don’t bother to check who’s calling when my phone starts ringing. I answer with a cheerful hello, which is not like me whatsoever. First, I rarely answer my phone unless I’m expecting someone specifically. Second, I am never cheerful.
The pause on the other end of the call tells me I’ve momentarily stunned whoever it is.
“Jared? Is that you?”
Shit. It’s my brother.
“Yes, it’s me,” I say, my voice gruff, my insides twisting with regret. The high from being with Sarah comes crashing down all around me.
“Oh. Hey.” Kevin laughs, the sound faint. “For a minute there I thought I called the wrong number.”
“No, it’s me.” I chuckle, but it sounds forced, so I go silent.
I’ve been avoiding him, and his calls have increased in frequency because he knows what I’m doing. God knows what Candice told him after our meeting. That I planned on not attending his engagement party? You’d think he’d understand, but blood should probably come before ex-fiancées, so there’s that.
“It’s been a while, right? I’ve called a few times, but I never heard back from you,” Kevin says, his voice pleasant. Like it doesn’t bother him that I don’t want to chat.
“Been really busy at work.” My usual response sounds like a weak excuse.
“Right. Called you at the office too, but you never returned those calls either. Maybe Denise isn’t giving you your messages.” He pauses. “Makes me think you might be ignoring me.”
“Ignore you? Not at all.” More forced chuckling. He must know I’m full of shit. “What’s going on with you, Kev? Life treating you well?”
“It’s been treating me very well, and that’s the reason I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. Though I think Candice told you what’s up. About the engagement party? I asked Rachelle to marry me,” Kevin says, sounding proud.
I have to give it to my brother. He graduated high school, went away to college and never came back. Thought he wanted to be a doctor, changed his mind in the middle of college and ended up going to law school. Now he works for a medical malpractice firm, and our father couldn’t be prouder.
“I did hear, yes. Candice stopped by the office a few days ago to let me know,” I tell him, wishing my voice didn’t have such a forced quality to it. “Congratulations. I’m sure you and Rachelle are very happy.”
“We are. Though I must admit, I’d be even happier if you said you could make it to our engagement party,” he says, and the sincerity I hear in his words makes me feel especially bad that I’m going to turn him down.
I can’t go. I don’t want to face Evelyn. Or her entire family. Or mine, for that matter. I may be a successful businessman, but my personal relationships are in the damn toilet. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me.
But moments like this, interactions become awkward. Uncomfortable. Usually phone calls are avoided so I don’t have to deal with it, but I let my guard down, and now look at me. Having stilted conversation with my only brother and pretending to be happy for him when all I can think is he’s making the biggest mistake of his life.
Marriage is bullshit. Look at our parents. We lost our mother too soon, and our father was absolutely devastated. Destroyed. It was so hard, watching him live throu
gh that. Watching our mother suffer with cancer wasn’t a cakewalk either. I was a selfish teenager who wasn’t ever around so I wouldn’t have to see her slowly wither away.
And after she passed, I avoided my father so I wouldn’t have to see him cry. See the confusion on Kevin’s face, see the sadness on Candice’s.
Love is no guarantee that you’ll be happy. Life comes along and kicks you right in the ass when you least expect it. I’d rather be alone than put my heart on the line, only to watch it get broken into a million pieces.
Fuck that.
Kevin doesn’t really want me there at his celebration. He just thinks he does because it’s the right thing to do. He’ll realize soon enough not having me around is preferable to me having hostile interactions with Evelyn and her family.
“Just say you’ll come to the party. It’s not this weekend, it’s the next one, in San Francisco. I’ve sent the invite to your email, but I’ll text it to you too. It would mean a lot to me and Rachelle if you’d be there. Plus, I’d like to discuss a few things with you that I don’t want to do over the phone. I’d rather talk to you about it when we’re face to face,” Kevin explains, sounding like the mature adult that he’s become.
“I’ll need to check my calendar, but I think I can be there,” I say as I make my way to my car. I will really need to check my calendar, but I don’t schedule too much over the weekend, and it’s not like I currently have a social life. Lately I’ve become a hermit. There aren’t any women I want to take to one of the many social functions I’m constantly invited to, so I end up staying in the office working late, or I’m at home.
Besides, the only woman who interests me is Sarah. Not that she’d go with me…anywhere. I send her gifts and she doesn’t respond. I call her and she acts like she wants to hang up on me. I show up at Bliss and she barely looks at me, then sends me those sultry glances from beneath her lashes that set me on fucking fire. And next thing I know I’m spending over six hundred dollars on lingerie for a woman who I can almost guarantee won’t show me what she looks like in any of the shit I buy her.
When it comes to Sarah, it’s like I can’t help myself. She makes me feel like an addict.
“We hope you’ll be there. It would mean everything to us to have everyone from our families with us at the party,” Kevin says. “Just let me know if you can make it and if you’ll bring a date, okay? Rachelle’s been on my case lately, something about needing exact numbers for the catering company or whatever.”
My brother laughs. I do too. We make idle chitchat, I promise to get back to him as soon as possible, and then I end the call.
Yeah. Not going. I hate that I’ll disappoint him.
But I won’t have to see his face or hear the sadness—or anger—in his voice when he realizes I’m not going to show up, so I’ll be fine.
Really, I will.
Twelve
Sarah
I come home to find a plain brown box already on my front doorstep, waiting for me. Assuming no one’s home, I grab it and hurry into the house, lock the door behind me and practically start sprinting to the kitchen so I can open the box and find out what he wrote on that card.
I already know what I’m getting. The real mystery is in the note.
“Wow, you have another package?”
Stopping in my tracks, I turn to find Andie curled up in the corner of the couch. In the dark. I reach over and switch on the lamp on a nearby end table, and the room immediately fills with light.
And I can immediately tell she’s been crying.
Forgetting all about the package, I drop it onto the coffee table and collapse onto the couch right next to my little sister. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She sniffs. Hiccups. Wipes at her face to get rid of the teary evidence but doesn’t do a very good job of it. “Everything,” she says with a little laugh, right before she starts to sob.
I pull her into my arms and hold her close, rubbing her back as she cries into my shoulder. I don’t say anything, don’t ask any questions, just let her get it all out. I’ve discovered it’s better that way. Asking her what’s wrong before she’s willing to tell me usually ends up with her flouncing off to her bedroom and slamming the door.
And me never finding out what the problem was in the first place.
Dealing with teenagers is delicate stuff. So I keep on holding her, letting her tears soak into my shirt, until finally she shifts away from me, reaching for the box of Kleenex on the end table closest to her so she can wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Feel better?” I ask, tilting my head as I contemplate her.
“Sort of. I guess.” She shrugs, wadding up the Kleenex and tossing it onto the coffee table. I’ll end up picking up that tissue later, I just know it. Andie and Brent are both slobs. “I hate boys.”
Ah. Boy problems. I should’ve known. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I was over Brenden, you know?” Brenden is her ex. They were off and on throughout their freshman year and into their sophomore one before they finally broke up a couple of months ago, right after winter break. “But I just heard Bella is going to ask him to the Sadie’s dance, and I don’t know.” Her face crumples and tears spring to her eyes. “Maybe I’m not over him at all.”
Bella is more an acquaintance than a friend, but I’m sure this still hurts. Obviously, considering how much she’s cried in front of me. I pull her into my arms once again, but we keep it brief since she pulls away and sits up straight before I say a word. And I was about to say words like he’s not worth your tears. Or forget that asshole, you broke up with him for a reason.
But I say none of that. I can’t. Teenage love is powerful stuff. I remember how I felt about my high school crushes and boyfriends. It was all-consuming, all the time. Shoot, I last had a boyfriend when I was in high school. Once we graduated, he broke up with me in the middle of summer, then hightailed it out of here to go away to college. Haven’t heard from him since.
Haven’t had a chance to try my hand at a serious relationship since then either. How pitiful is that? Oh, I’ve dated here and there. Did some steady dating with a couple of guys over the years, but nothing for long.
In the last few years, Andie has had longer relationships than I have.
“What do you think I should do?” Andie asks once she’s got the weeping under control. “Should I tell him how I feel?”
“Well, how do you feel about him?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs again. “I totally hate hearing he might go with Bella to that dance.”
“So she hasn’t asked him yet.”
Andie slowly shakes her head.
“Who told you she’s going to ask Brenden?”
She launches into a “she said” and “she heard” type of story that has me sighing by the time she’s finished explaining herself.
“I say wait and see,” I suggest. “Maybe Bella will ask him to the dance, maybe she won’t. Is there a boy you’re interested in asking to Sadie’s?” The Sadie Hawkins dance is the one time of year the girl has to ask the boy. When I was a teen, the possibility both gave me courage and scared me to the death.
“Maybe.” Andie draws the word out, her eyes beginning to sparkle. “If I ask someone else, maybe that’ll make Brenden want me back!”
I was trying to distract her from Brenden with another guy, not suggest she use the other guy to make Brenden jealous. I’m about to explain myself when she leaps to her feet and darts to off toward her room, patting me on top of my head like I’m a pet dog as she passes by me.
Sigh. Teenagers.
Deciding that I’ve waited this long, I may as well wait a little longer. I go to my room and change my clothes. Start a load of laundry. Go to the kitchen and check out the prospects for dinner. Decide I’m going to fix myself a sandwich since we don’t have much in the fridge.
Only after I’ve made the sandwich, poured myself a glass of lemonade and tore into the bag of barbecue kettle chips d
o I finally go to the living room and grab the box from Jared Gaines. Take a pair of scissors from the knife block and cut the tape open. Inside is the very box I wrapped at work earlier, and I take it out to find the card at the bottom.
I pull the card out of the tiny envelope and hold my breath as I read it.
* * *
When I look at the stars, I’ll think of you.
JG
* * *
Oh shit. He just got romantic on me.
Of course, he’s also referring to the fact that the lingerie he sent is covered in stars, and he’s hoping that the next time he sees those stars, I’ll be the one wearing them. And that’s not particularly romantic, right? More like it’s just lustful wishing on his part.
Sighing, I shake my head. I don’t know what to do about this. I’m tired of asking my friends. They’re probably just as tired of hearing me complain about him and my wishy-washy ways. I’m turning into that woman who protests too much—I gripe about how awful he is, yet I won’t tell him to leave me alone.
Clearly, I make no sense. My feelings toward him make no sense.
So if I’m this confused, if I’m this distressed about the situation, then I should end it. Just—cut him off. Tell him I’m not interested, he needs to stop, we need to pretend we’ve never had these conversations, and that he’s never given me these gifts. I should probably return those shoes too, as much as it might pain me to do so.
We can do that, right? Forget what happened these last few days? Yeah, I doubt it, which is fine.
Really.
As I eat my dinner, my imagination starts to get away from me. I can picture myself now, marching into his office, tossing the boxes of lingerie onto his desk and demanding that he stop. Letting him know that he’s crossed a line that we can never go back to, and that our professional relationship is finished.
He can find someone else to help him at Bliss. My tenure as Jared Gaines’ personal shopper is…
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