Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  I snorted so loud, I had to clap a hand over my mouth as the redheaded lady came back.

  “Are we ready?” Red cooed.

  Lanie laughed harder, turning around to hide the shaking.

  “I think I have a few to start with,” I said, swiping the tears under my eyes and snatching the dress from Carmen’s hand. It was the halter one, and after that comment how could I resist?

  “I have a dressing room set up for you,” Red said as I plucked whatever Lanie had draped over her arm and followed her.

  Three minutes later, shoveled into a “boutique” dressing room, I held up something that looked like a bunch of black rubber bands attached on the sides.

  “No.”

  I opened the door and hung that one on the outside.

  “Didn’t fit?” I heard Red say in a melodic tone.

  I closed the door and studied the others, hung side by side in front of me. A deep blue strapless with tiny rhinestones at the waist. A black sheath dress that was super-simple. And the black halter-style dress with no back.

  The sheath dress was probably the most me out of the three. It was conservative and covered everything, sexy in its sleevelessness but covered all the way to the neck. I went with that one first, wrangled myself into it, and walked out tugging at the hem.

  “Wow,” Carmen said. “I’ve never seen you look like that.”

  Yes, yes, yes I know. I dress like a unich.

  “Beautiful,” Lanie said. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s short,” I said, pulling at the bottom that was resting happily at what felt like the curve of my ass. “I have underwear longer than this.”

  “That may be the next shopping need then,” Lanie said.

  “That is the style,” Red said, all her teeth gleaming.

  “I’m good,” I said, already unzipping it.

  I went for the blue one. I was pretty sure it wasn’t for me, it being of the strapless variety, but it was beautiful and I was curious.

  “Holy shit,” I said, looking at myself in the mirror.

  “Good?” Carmen called. “Or bad?”

  I came out and she whistled. “Damn, girl. I never knew you had a rack that good.”

  “That is a gorgeous color on you,” Red said. “Definitely a contender.”

  “Definitely not,” I said, preening in front of the three-way mirror.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because it looks like she’s going to prom,” Lanie said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “It’s hot, but I feel like I’m going to get laid in someone’s back seat later.” Carmen snickered. “Not that I would know, since I was way too pregnant to make it to prom.”

  “You’re right, though,” Carmen said. “It’s really pretty, but not the look you want for this.”

  Whatever the hell that was.

  I sighed. “Next.”

  The other one took a little more time to get right, since the plunging open back meant no bra, and that meant some adjusting up front. I heard a man’s voice muffled out there, which was no big deal. Half the store was for guys coming to rent or buy suits or tuxes. Lanie and Carmen’s laughter, however, told me it was someone they knew. Maybe Nick or Sully came for bow ties to play out Chippendale fantasies for their women.

  Damn, now that thought was going to work its way into my naughty Bash dreams. That would be a good one.

  I got everything in its place and turned from side to side, oddly hit with a wave of warmth. This dress had it going on. Seriously. The halter style held the girls snug but also pulled them up into some kickass cleavage. The bare back was majorly hot and tease-worthy without looking like I was working a corner, and the length was perfect. I bent over, and yep. Long enough to cover my ass, and yet short enough to flirt with my legs. The right shoes, and this would actually work.

  Another round of female and male laughter reached my ears. Lanie catcalling and Carmen clapping as some poor sap was modeling something on the other side, and I figured what the hell. Great time to step out of my box and test this out on a male perspective.

  “Okay,” I said, breezing out of the dressing room and twirling with a rare female-empowerment as I pretended the man’s residual chuckle was male appreciation for me and I soaked it in. I laughed too as I stopped in front of the three-way mirror, and I heard the quick inhales and whoa’s from all three of the women. “What do we think?”

  “I think I could almost change teams looking at you in that thing,” Lanie said, making a show of fanning herself.

  “Hell on wheels, Allie,” Carmen said, eyes wide. “You’re gonna stop hearts, all right. But the true test is did you stop his?”

  Blushing from the thought, I grinned as I turned around with my hands on my hips, and nearly swallowed my tongue at the creature on the other staging area with a black-on-black action going on and the shirt completely unbuttoned.

  Bash.

  Staring at me with his hands frozen mid-reach to his buttons.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Sweet—J—” I breathed, as my words left me.

  My mouth went as dry as sand as Bash stared back at me with blue eyes gone almost black and the hint of a smile still pulling at his lips. I may as well have been totally naked. His gaze slid from my face to my neck, to land and linger in more cleavage than he’d ever seen from me. Well, except for that one time. A hundred million years ago. And even then I wasn’t sure all our clothes made it off. It might have just been the important ones.

  Suddenly it was like one of my dreams, and we were the only people in the room. Bash, looking messy and rumpled like someone had unbuttoned him that way, had me lightheaded. I could imagine his lips on every inch his eyes trailed over. My nipples hardened at the thought, and I watched his eyes notice that. I saw the fire in them dance, before it jumped the space between us and shot right through my belly.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I crossed my arms nervously, the movement making him blink back up to my eyes.

  “Don’t—”

  “I—” I shook my head and covered my mouth, all while trying to cover my boobs unsuccessfully.

  “Don’t hide,” he said, chuckling, his eyes dropping again. He moved his head back and forth slowly and let out a breath. “Don’t ever hide.”

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak as his eyes moved down the rest of my body. My hips. Where the skirt played with my thighs, all the way down to my naked unpainted toes. It was only a few seconds, and yet it could have been all friggin day.

  “Allie, you look—”

  “See?” a shrill voice said from somewhere, breaking the moment. “It’s split in half. Something for both—”

  “Whoa.”

  Bash turned instantly at the word, which was intoned just this side of a lusty catcall, coming face to face with a surprised Alan and Katrina Bowman. Alan had stopped cold to gape at me like I was a giant steak.

  “Keep walking,” Bash said to him.

  “What?” Alan said, glancing back at me. “I just—I mean, damn, who knew?”

  I narrowed my eyes in repulsion. “Really?”

  “Oh my God, I need a dress like that,” Katrina gushed, walking around Alan in apparent oblivion or disinterest with her husband’s gawking over me.

  “Go change,” Bash said over his shoulder, his tone changed.

  “Crap, she’s the competition,” Carmen said, grabbing my hand. “Come on.”

  “What, she’s going to buy the same dress?” I said. “I don’t care.”

  Bash whipped his suit jacket off and wrapped it around my shoulders, holding on to the lapels that covered my cleavage for a lingering moment that seemed to just float between us. Or maybe that was just me, confusing my nighttime activity with the fact that his chest was still bare and just inches from my reach. And maybe t
hat his thumbs were nearly touching my boobies.

  “Please go change,” he said softly. “Before I have to deck him.”

  A surprised chuckle escaped my throat before Carmen pulled me toward the dressing room, Bash’s gaze heavy on me as the suit coat fell open.

  “Sir?” a salesgirl called behind him. “Mr. Anderson? I need to finish measuring you.”

  He blinked away. Away from me, away from Alan, and toward the woman calling his name, raking fingers through his hair. Messing it up. Squeezing my chest with that just-fucked-on-a-boardroom-table look.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth to make sure I didn’t say that out loud. But oh my God, I just thought it. And worse. I wanted it.

  “You don’t want her getting the same dress,” Carmen was saying, although her words just bounced off my brain. “She’ll find some way to upstage you.”

  I found myself suddenly back in the dressing room, standing in front of the mirror, looking like an orphan with Bash’s suit jacket hanging on me. His behavior had my head spinning. Was he saying this dress wasn’t appropriate? Or was he jealous? Don’t ever hide. My eyes filled as I pulled it tighter around me and brought a section to my nose. Oh God, it smelled like him. Four minutes on his body and it already smelled like him, full of his warmth and his—

  “Stop,” I whispered, dropping the fabric and bringing both hands to my face as two tears trickled over my fingers. “You can’t do this.”

  Silly fantasies were one thing. This was getting too—too much like something neither of us messed with. Something we’d decided against a long time ago—sort of.

  I took the coat off and hung it up, and my skin felt hot as I unhooked the clasp behind my neck and pulled the dress off. I sank onto a chair with the fabric wadded in my lap, staring back into the mirror. What was I doing? What was I playing with? Yes, I’d kissed him. Yes, I’d been having sex dreams about him. But none of that meant anything. Bash was my closest, most important friend. Why was I getting emotional over this shit? And what the hell just happened out there? I stood up quickly, as the memory set my whole body thrumming again. Since when did my crazy dream content move into real life, and more than that, when did he actively join that party?

  Because it hadn’t just been me. The way Bash had looked at me. Oh my God. He’d never looked at me that way. No one had ever looked at me that way. I’d had serious boyfriends that never did that. I grabbed a promotional sign telling dressing room patrons to keep their underwear on, and fanned myself with it, trying to cool my face.

  “Okay,” I whispered finally, putting down the sign to put my bra and T-shirt and jeans back on. There. I looked like boring me, again. No one would stop breathing or make lewd comments over this version. “Stop being an idiot,” I muttered. “This is silly. Stop acting like a brainless twit and go take care of business.”

  I took a deep breath as I draped the dress over my arm and grabbed his suit jacket and walked out, holding my chin up. Alan was nowhere to be seen, thank God. Katrina already had a load of dresses hanging on her arm, and Bash was over on his side with his arms stretched out as a young girl measured him and tried not to blush as he talked to her.

  “Well, I think that answered that question,” Carmen said, pulling my attention back.

  “I think that’s the dress,” Lanie said with a knowing look. “Fix your hair down, maybe over one shoulder. Very sexy. What do you think, Bash?” she called out with a chuckle and making me want to duck back into the safe haven of the dressing room. “Is this the dress?”

  I looked back to where he had just turned to face us, arms still outstretched and grinning lazily like the world hadn’t just been rocked. How was that? How did he do that? Ugh—men!

  He cleared his throat and chuckled, smiling his trademark woman-killer smile at Lanie. At Lanie. Not the woman wearing the damn dress. For him. That thought slapped me around a little. It was true. The second his eyes were on me, looking at me like that, I’d known without a doubt that I wanted that dress for him.

  “I think so,” he said, sliding his gaze to me as I walked up holding out the jacket. “Is this the suit?”

  Fuck, yes. Please wear it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  “I think it works,” I said.

  He looked at me for a long moment before blinking and changing course.

  “I got an e-mail about essays,” he said.

  “Essays?”

  “We have to write one,” he said. “One, not two.”

  “Oh, good lord,” I said.

  “Can we work on that?” he asked. “I kind of need us to win this thing.”

  I backed up a step, his adamant tone taking me off guard. “Okay, when’s the next time you and Angel are driving?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “So after that?”

  I shrugged. “That’s fine.”

  “It’s a date, then,” he said as I turned to go.

  I stopped in my tracks and looked over my shoulder, hating myself for doing that. Four months ago, I would have rolled with that without another thought, and now every word was under scrutiny.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said.

  “I mean—” he said awkwardly.

  “No, it’s all good,” I said, holding up a hand and smiling as I walked back to the girls, but closing my eyes and shaking my head by the time I reached them. “Please shoot me now and put me out of my misery.”

  “You’re getting that, right?” Red said, morphing at my side.

  I nodded. “I am.”

  “What about some accessories?” she asked, pointing toward the purses.

  “I’m good,” I said. “We aren’t going on a date.” Nope. No fucking date. “We’re just strutting around a stage like prize cattle.”

  Carmen held up a brochure with bright and glossy pictures of the town. Our town.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Something I picked up on a rack by the door,” Lanie said. “As they were setting up the rack by the door.”

  “Why is there—oh,” I said. “Please tell me it’s not about this silly contest.”

  “Not per se,” Carmen said, flipping through hers. “But it is mentioned as one of the Make a Charming Charmed new events.” She turned it around so I could see the list and the glossy photos of the pond front and gazebo built a few months ago.

  I took the brochure from her and looked at all the photos, from the front picture of the Ferris wheel at the Lucky Charm, to pictures of jars of honey on a table. Not Bash’s honey—just random generic jars. It sported a photo of one of the Honey Wars from this past summer, with Katrina Bowman and Lanie’s husband Nick climbing a knotted rope. She was climbing him like a tree. I showed her.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice sounding sour. “Just what I wanted saved for posterity. Of course they didn’t get one of me stepping on her husband’s face or Nick punching him.”

  “Well, you know, that wouldn’t have shown a charming Charmed,” I said, turning the rest of the pages. “They didn’t get Bash’s apiary either, or the Blue Banana. What the hell?”

  Anderson’s Apiary was the driving source of Charmed’s wax and honey supply, and my diner—my family’s diner—what used to be my family’s diner—it was the centerpiece of town.

  “What a crock of shit,” I said, flipping to the back, where a piece of colored paper was stapled.

  “It’s advertising the Honey King and Queen competition with all the sponsors and the prizes,” Carmen read. “Oh wow.”

  I read what she was wow’ing. Almost twenty grand in cash prizes. Ten apiece. Bash’s comment about needing to win made a little more sense.

  Once upon a time, that would have sounded motivating. Ten thousand dollars could help us out tremendously. Pay for a couple of semesters of college or get Angel a good used car. Now all I could see was that it wasn’t eighty-seven grand.
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  Still. Who was I to thumb my nose up at free money? Or who was I kidding—after today, none of it felt anything close to free. And the grin Lanie was giving me told me that was just about to get worse.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you feel that chemistry?” Lanie asked, brows lifted high.

  “Did you notice he stopped breathing?” Carmen added, looking up.

  Did they notice that neither of us appeared happy about it?

  “You two are so going to win,” Lanie said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  I shoved my fist into the ball of churning fire burning in my belly. She was so wrong. I had everything to worry about.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Hey Mom,” Angel said, strolling in as I slapped some mashed potatoes and deli turkey on a plate with a French roll, and drizzled some gravy on it. “Ooh, that looks good.”

  “It’s always good when someone else does it and you don’t have to help,” I said with a smile.

  She stopped in her tracks and gave me a guilty smile.

  “Was it my night to make something?”

  I was trying to teach her some skills, or at least get her in the habit of thinking about skills. Every third night was her turn to come up with a dinner plan and make it happen. I was happy to help, but it was ultimately on her. Or in tonight’s case, on me. So I didn’t wait. She’d claimed she was studying with her friend today while we were shopping, so I cooked, prepped, and was about to sit down with a plate of open-faced turkey and mashed potatoes.

  “Yes, so I guess you’re having cereal,” I said, walking to the table.

  “Seriously?”

  I threw a dishrag at her. “Get a plate, dork.”

  She did, and we sat down to eat in peaceful coexistence. Except that it wasn’t. Not for me. Angel scrolled through her phone as she munched in happy oblivion, whereas I sat there studying her for signs of sex. No hickeys. No afterglow. No whisker rash on her face—since she was evidently kissing a man.

  “So—homework on a Saturday,” I said. “Wow. Go you.”

  Angel looked up at me with a raised eyebrow. “Shopping. Go you.”