by Noelle Mack
“Can’t wait,” Dee said untruthfully. “Just set it there.”
Jami pulled the container out of a paper bag and put it to the side of the unrolled sketch. She took out another, flipped back the little door in the lid and took a noisy slurp of the thick green liquid inside. “Mmm. I’m having a Chloro-Phyll-Me-Up.”
Dee nodded. “Sounds yummy.”
Jami peered at the sketch. “Back to the old drawing board, huh? Love the red. The nipple cutouts are cool.”
“Thanks.” Dee thought of the man who’d inspired them and blushed but her assistant didn’t seem to notice. Jami took another slurp of her smoothie.
“Want me to run over to Feingold Fabrics and get some material? We could get started on a new one. Where did that other thing go?”
Dee pulled the first prototype out of the drawer underneath her drafting table, and stretched it out. Even being rolled and stuffed in a drawer overnight didn’t flatten cups like that. Slowly they rose as both women watched.
“I still think it has possibilities, Dee,” Jami said thoughtfully.
Dee picked up her pencil and tapped it on the sketch. “This has possibilities. This is a bra that gets a reaction.”
“Really? Who else has seen it?” Jami’s eyes widened.
“Um, a friend.”
“Oh.” Jami finished the green drink by tipping the cup back and letting the last of it slide down her throat. “That was deelish. I’m going out to Feingold’s.” She tossed the empty cup in a tall wastebasket and headed for the door, kicking the jacket and messenger bag she’d brought in out of the way.
“Take some money from petty cash,” Dee called after her. “But don’t spend more than five dollars a yard. Better yet, get remnants.”
Jami clomped over to the diamond-quilted steel box on the filing cabinet and took out a handful of bills. “Want any trim? Sequins, ball fringe, rickrack, stuff like that?”
Dee studied the two versions of the bra, with and without nipple cutouts. “Nah. This is a little too tacky as it is.”
Jami came back. “There’s no such thing as too tacky. Tacky rocks.”
“In your world, maybe. But I gotta impress buyers in the heartland.”
Her assistant nodded her head. “Where Elvis still lives.”
“Elvis didn’t wear bras, Jami.”
Jami waved a hand airily. “If you say so. Okay, keep it plain. But keep it red.”
“I intend to,” Dee grinned. The awful coffee had perked her up a little and she was ready to work. Jami was sure to come back with something interesting; she always did.
When she heard her assistant going down the stairs, she took out a fresh sheet of paper and began to draw. Not bras, just random outfits she’d seen on people in the street. And faces. Nothing like a city for providing endless inspiration. Dee sketched absent-mindedly for several minutes, covering several sheets of paper in quick succession, then lifted her pencil when she realized that she’d drawn Tom Driscoll in a half-profile. Just the line of his jaw and a suggestion of his nose. Hmm. She added his eyes. Sexy eyes. And his hair, tumbling over a strong neck.
Why stop there? She drew his shoulders. Muscular arms. A chest that showed to advantage under that all-American classic, a plain white T-shirt. She let the line continue, sketching in mighty thighs in well-worn jeans with a few swift strokes.
She added a big bulge in front. How completely yummy. Dee finished the drawing with more care, getting the jeans just right over the long calves beneath. Feet and toes—um, bare. She couldn’t remember whether he had been wearing shoes or not but he had been awfully quiet in her apartment. She gave him big feet and sexy man toes to balance the mass of his body and sat back, very pleased with the sketch.
Maybe she should show it to him, Dee mused. No. She wouldn’t want to give him the idea that she had been looking at him that hard or thinking about his toes. But it was a good likeness. And the other, smaller sketches of the clothes and accessories she’d noticed on the way here were worth keeping for later reference. Dee set glass weights on the drawings, and picked up the smoothie, popping the lid as she swiveled away from the table.
Carrot juice and soy milk had to be good for you. She took a sip and gagged. Maybe it was, but pulverized ginger was a little too invigorating. Dee got off her chair and went to the sink, pouring the smoothie down the drain little by little, turning on the faucet full blast to help wash it down.
It was nice of Jami to bring her breakfast and the last thing Dee wanted to do was hurt her assistant’s feelings. She crumpled the empty cup and tossed it in the wastebasket, then turned off the water.
“Hated it, huh?” Jami was standing by the table, holding a plastic bag that said Feingold’s.
“No. I drank some.”
“Don’t lie. You’ll never get into heaven if you lie,” Jami said.
“Dang. So whadja get?”
Jami hoisted the bag of fabric and set it on the table. Then she noticed the drawing of Tom Driscoll. “Who’s that?”
Dee didn’t really want to explain. “Um, a friend.”
“Oh. The friend that reacted to the bra?” Jami moved the glass weights off the drawings, shuffling them until she got to the sketch of the bras. “You said it got a reaction.” Humming under her breath, Jami put the drawing of Tom back on top. “He’s so built. Lucky you. Where’d you meet him?”
“He lives in my building but I don’t really know him. So he’s not exactly a friend. I mean, I said hello to him in the lobby a couple of times. And I’ve seen him on the street.”
“Barefoot?”
Dee picked up the bag of fabric and dumped it all out on the table, covering the drawing. “Great stuff, Jami. I like this red stretch velvet. How much did you get?”
“A yard. Feingold said we could have the whole bolt for fifty dollars.”
“A yard is all I need for now. But call him and have him set the bolt aside for us.”
“Okay.” Jami paused and looked at Dee expectantly. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“About your friend.”
“Oh, him. Yeah, he was in my apartment last night. He lives downstairs, right under me, and he thought my pipes were leaking and the janitor let him in and yes, he was barefoot. I think. I was only wearing a towel and basically wanted him out of there as fast as possible.”
Jami pushed aside the mound of material and looked at the drawing of Tom Driscoll. “Why? He’s so hot.”
Dee reached out and rolled him up, curling the edge of the paper over his sexy toes first and making him disappear. “C’mon, Jami. Let’s get to work.”
Twelve hours later, they had a bra. Dee folded it and slipped it into her tote bag, along with the other half of a takeout roast beef sandwich. Jami had averted her eyes when Dee ate the first half around six p.m., then asked to leave to get ready for a date.
Not a problem for Dee, who kept on working on the red velvet prototype until she was pretty sure she had something. She’d said as much to Uncle Is when he’d called and he’d praised her to the skies. Old sweetie. Just talking to him made her feel better. He told her not to work too late and she promised to be home by nine, not that he would check on her.
Blasting loud music in the empty loft got her even more revved up. Of course she could design the bra of bras, which would sell in the millions! It was only a matter of time! Then she’d settled down and handsewn the pieces, not wanting to try it on when it was bristling with pins. No telling what it would look like or feel like until she actually had it on.
That she could do at home. And the Chinese manufacturer would just have to wait until tomorrow morning before she sent him the sketches and the specs.
She switched off the overheads and locked up, clattering down the loft’s metal stairs to the street. A taxi swerved over at her upraised hand and she got in and got home in record time.
Once there, she changed into sweatpants and took off her bra and top, hoping the protot
ype would be worth the hours of labor she’d put into it. She pulled it out of her totebag and slid it around her waist, using a safety pin in place of the hook and eye closure she hadn’t had time to set in.
There was a knock on the door. “Who is it?” Dee called, sliding it around to the front and flipping the cups over her breasts. She slid the straps onto her shoulders. Oomf. It squashed her. Oh, hell. Under a T-shirt this would look like a monoboob, not two high, firm, round breasts.
“Tom Driscoll,” came the reply. “The ceiling fell down.”
Skip the peephole check. She recognized his voice, nice and deep. She wasn’t going to have a chance to change into anything more flattering. A fallen ceiling qualified as an emergency. Good thing she hadn’t gone into her bathroom, she might’ve gone through the floor.
She threw on a baggy T-shirt, glancing with disgust into the hall mirror as she went to open the door. She did have a monoboob. Totally weird. Well, he wasn’t going to stay and with luck he wouldn’t even notice.
Dee unlatched everything and opened the door. There stood her downstairs neighbor, smiling and holding a bag from Bertollini’s. The best Italian takeout in town—and it would beat half an old roast beef sandwich, for sure. But he looked suspiciously well-groomed in a white linen shirt worn outside of newish jeans.
“Hi, Dee. Want to share? My treat. To make up for bothering you last night.”
She checked him out. God, he looked good, but she didn’t have let him know that. “The ceiling fell down, huh? Where’s the plaster dust? You look a little too clean.”
Tom grinned. “It happened last night. The building owner is letting me stay in the penthouse apartment. I understand he’s your great-uncle.”
Dee opened the door wider and motioned him inside. “That’s right.” So that’s how Tom had known she was on her way home, dinnerless. Uncle Is was not above doing a little matchmaking.
“Nice guy. He suggested Bertollini’s.”
Dee took the bag from Tom’s hand and brought it into the kitchen. He followed. “They have killer lasagna. Is loves it and it hasn’t killed him yet.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. I got some.”
When Tom went to the kitchen window to look out, she tugged at the red velvet bra on the sly. The safety pin was uncomfortable and the way the cups squeezed together was making her a little breathless. Unless it was him.
“Hey, we have almost the same view.”
Dee stopped fiddling with the bra and got busy unloading the bag. “Yeah, how about that. A brick wall. Sometimes when the light is right I pretend I can see through it to the harbor.”
Tom laughed. “Your great-uncle said he was pissed when the condos went up next door. The builders bought air rights before he could.”
“Sounds like you two hit it off.”
“I guess we did. Anyway, Is was in the lobby this morning and he overheard me yelling at Blastovik, so he came up to take a look. Got a team of workmen in there pronto and I can stay in the penthouse until they’re finished.”
“Everybody needs an Uncle Is,” Dee said with feeling. She wanted to rub up against the refrigerator and adjust the latest version of the bra from hell that he had financed, but all she could do was stand super-straight to try to keep it from creeping.
Tom didn’t seem to notice a thing. He kept his eyes firmly fixed above her neck, she noticed, not letting them drift downward once. He really was trying to make up for last night, even though she’d been pretty rude. Well, he had made a dumb comment about bras, but she couldn’t really blame a person with testicles for doing that. Men couldn’t help it.
Tom came over to the table and looked inside the bag she was unloading. “Just a thought. We could have dinner up there on the terrace. They included plastic forks and knives, and we could grab a couple of plates from your place and take them up. Want to?”
Dee managed a smile. Dinner for two on a penthouse terrace and she was wearing sweats and a sloppy T-shirt. And a monoboob bra. “Okay.” She could change…unless that would make him think she thought this was a date or something. Which it wasn’t.
She started getting the takeout containers back in the bag—and paused for a fraction of a second when he put a hand on her waist to move her to the door. “Moon rises over the harbor in fifteen minutes. Let’s go.”
Dee didn’t move away from his hand. She liked the strength and warmth of it, and the way he curved his fingers around her side for just a fraction of a second until he let her go.
“Got any wine?”
“Huh? Um, yes. There’s cabernet in there. And merlot.” She pointed to a cupboard over the kitchen counter, enjoying seeing him stretch up for the wine and flex his muscular arms to reach the bottles.
“Which one is better?” he asked, setting down two.
Dee made a show of inspecting the labels, not really remembering. She didn’t drink wine very often and the bottles had been gifts. “They’re both good.”
“Then let’s bring both.”
He had to stretch even higher to get the good wineglasses she never used. The linen shirt rose up and she caught a glimpse of muscular belly with a light trace of fur disappearing into his boxers. At least he hadn’t planned everything down to the last detail. But she didn’t mind how fast he moved. Considering the fantasies she’d indulged in, he could move even faster.
If Tom and Uncle Is had hit it off, that was a recommendation right there. Is checked out his buyers carefully, even though they didn’t have to pass the rigorous screening of a co-op board. “I run a nice building,” Is liked to say, with heavy emphasis on the nice.
Tom had the wine bottles in one hand, and two wineglasses crossed at the stem in the other. He looked like an ad for wine, in fact. Or an isn’t-it-romantic ad for condoms. She remembered the way she’d imagined his hard-on straining against snug jeans as she made him suck her nipples.
“Plates?” he said pleasantly.
“Uh—of course.” Dee drew in a breath and collected her wits. She got two paper plates out of the cabinet, slid them into the bag and threw in a handful of paper napkins. Bertollini’s lasagne was fabulously gooey and messy, a multilayered arrangement of thick, homemade noodles, meat sauce, four different kinds of cheese, and Italian sausage. With a dash of chopped parsley on top for health reasons.
“Don’t forget the corkscrew.”
“Right.” She rummaged around in a cutlery drawer until she found it, then stuck it in his shirt pocket, stainless-steel wings folded, curly tip up. It made the pocket sag a little but Tom didn’t seem to mind. He still didn’t look down, only at her face in a way that made her feel melted.
Shaking off the feeling, Dee led the way, holding the bag close to her monoboob. She stuck her feet into her red velvet Chinatown slippers before she got to the door, thinking irrationally that at least something she had on matched. The sequined dragons on the toes were about as glamorous as she was going to get tonight.
Once in the elevator, Tom pressed the PH button and leaned back against the paneling, looking at her with a calm smile. A few passengers got on and off, between floors, noting the lit penthouse button but not remarking on it.
Dee stared at the floor numbers as they passed. They had risen higher than the brick wall that shielded the apartments on the lower floors, and went higher still. She felt a little giddy. The elevator stopped with a bump and opened into a private foyer. She stepped out first, smelling the newness. Fresh paint. And a cut-wood smell that made her sneeze a little.
“The carpenters just installed the kitchen cabinets. Reclaimed teak from a Cunard ocean liner.”
“Only the best for Uncle Is. He was thinking of living up here himself.”
“Really? It’s empty except for a few basics. Table and chairs, a sofa, and a bed. I brought up my own linens. I assume you’ve been here before.”
Dee shook her head. “Not recently. The penthouse was finished long after the building went up and the other apartments were sold. Now Is says the pi
geons make him nervous and the elevator ride makes him dizzy. I know he hasn’t sold it yet.”
“Interesting. I wouldn’t mind living here. Big place for a single guy, though.”
They walked through the apartment to the terrace, where wrought iron bistro chairs had been set on opposite sides of a small table. Dee looked over the harbor. No moon yet, but on a clear night like this it would be a spectacular view when it showed up.
She set the bag on the table and unloaded it again, grateful that there wasn’t a breath of a breeze to turn the paper plates into Frisbees. Tom got to work on the bottle of cabernet, pulling out the cork with a squeaky pop that made her jump a little, and poured two glasses. She dished up the lasagna and salad, and they both sat down.
Tom raised his glass. “Behold.”
As if he’d ordered it up, an enormous moon appeared just above the horizon, casting a wide band of light that shimmered around the tiny boats in the harbor far below.
Dee picked up her glass too. “That’s a major moon. Let’s drink to it.”
They did. The first bottle was gone in no time as they talked through dinner, eating everything in the bag until the last forkful of tiramisu, carefully propelled by Tom between Dee’s parted lips, disappeared.
She took the fork from his hand and licked it absent-mindedly. Dee was feeling nothing but happy. “So what was it you said you did? Run a hedge fund?”
“Mm-hm. The Driscoll Group. Doing great so far, but I’m not rolling around in money yet.”
She pointed her licked fork at him. “When you do, invite me. I’ve always wanted to roll around in money.”
“You’re on.” He turned his wineglass by the stem and looked at her until she felt all melty again. Dee stared down at her paper plate. It had been too long, way too long, since she’d taken time out for a date.
And this counted as a date.
“Well, you know what I do.”
“It’s a noble calling.”
Dee giggled. “I plan to make a million. Unfortunately, my latest design is held together with a safety pin and spit, but I think I’m getting there.” She covered her mouth to hold back a faint hiccup, and waited, hoping there wouldn’t be more. She hated having hiccups.