Chapter 4 #4
I touched up my makeup with a lighter hand than Jules wanted and a heavier hand than my nerves would have allowed unsupervised.
I painted on rose-colored lips and repaired my mascara from the morning’s stabbing incident.
Jules stood behind me while I pinned half my hair back and left the rest loose around my shoulders, her expression suddenly unreadable in the mirror.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Jules.”
“You look beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes because it was either that or feel things. “Don’t be weird.”
“I’m not. I’m being sincere. It’s disgusting for both of us.”
The dress fit better than I expected. Jules had a way of owning clothes that looked like they required confidence as a prerequisite, but somehow this one softened on me.
The blue made my hazel eyes look clearer.
The wrap waist gave me shape without making me feel like I was on display.
The borrowed heels made me taller and slightly more likely to die on stairs, but sacrifices had to be made.
At quarter to seven, I stood in front of my mirror fully dressed and felt an almost comic urge to change into jeans.
“No,” Jules said from the bed.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You made a face.”
“I’m worried this is too much.”
“It is not too much.”
“What if he meant casual?”
“He said dinner, not help me move a couch.”
“What if he takes me somewhere normal and I look like I’m trying too hard?”
“What if he takes you somewhere expensive and you look like you panicked yourself into jeans?”
“I like jeans.”
“I know. That’s why I intervene.”
Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Callum Rowe: I’m downstairs.
My stomach dropped so hard it passed Callum and landed in the basement.
“He’s early,” I squeaked.
Jules sprang off the bed. “Of course he’s early. The man builds towers. He fears neither gravity nor traffic.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You are ready.”
“I need perfume.”
“You’re wearing perfume.”
“I need a different perfume.”
“You need oxygen.” She took my shoulders and turned me toward her.
“Listen to me. You are going downstairs. You are getting into the car. You are having dinner with a man who already knows about your dead parents, the employment chaos, the bad bosses, the emotional damage by category, and the lint. There is very little left to hide.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It should be. He texted anyway.”
I looked at her, and the knot in my chest loosened just a little.
Jules smiled a little. “Exactly.”
I grabbed my coat, my purse, and then stood there like I had forgotten the function of doors. Jules guided me gently to the hallway. At the top of the stairs, she caught my wrist.
“One more thing,” she said.
“What?”
“No deciding the whole story tonight.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means dinner is dinner. Attraction is attraction. A job is a job. They may overlap in troubling little Venn diagram circles, but you do not have to solve the entire moral geometry before appetizers.”
“Again with the metaphors.”
“I’m on fire today.”
“You’re something alright.”
She grinned, then pulled me into a quick hug. “Text me from the bathroom if he’s weird.”
“He won’t be weird.”
“Text me if you’re weird.”
“That is more likely.”
“Text me if the open throat situation escalates.”
“Goodbye, Jules.”
“Remember,” she called as I started down the stairs, “fantasy is not a felony.”
I glanced back at her. “Do not put that on a mug.”
“I’m putting it on two mugs.”
I laughed all the way down the stairs, which was good, because otherwise I might have cried, turned around, or done something equally inconvenient.
By the time I reached the lobby, my pulse had steadied into a normal rhythm.
The glass front door reflected me faintly as I approached and I tried not to focus on the nervous expression written all over my face.
Outside, the evening had turned clear and cool, the last of the rain shining on the sidewalk in dark mirrored patches. A black car with tinted windows waited at the curb beneath the street lamp. There was a driver standing near the rear door.
And beside it stood Callum Rowe.
He was not in the charcoal suit from the morning.
This one was darker, nearly black, worn with an open-collared white shirt and no tie.
His coat was unbuttoned despite the cold, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other holding his phone at his side.
He looked up when I stepped outside, and whatever polite greeting I had prepared dissolved somewhere between my apartment building door and the curb.
For one suspended second, neither of us moved.
His gaze traveled over me, not crudely, and not even slowly enough to accuse him, but carefully. His expression warmed by one almost imperceptible degree before returning to my face.
I felt that look everywhere.
Then he smiled, small and contained.
“Avery,” he said. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you,” I said, and was proud when my voice did not shake. “You’re early.”
“I know.”
“Do you have a condition?”
“Several. Punctuality is the least concerning.”
A chuckle slipped out of me, and his smile deepened by a fraction. The driver opened the door. Callum stepped aside, one hand hovering near my back but not touching, not yet, giving me space to decide whether to enter the car on my own.
I took a deep breath, and then I climbed into the car. Callum followed, the door closing softly behind him, and the city narrowed to leather seats, low light, and the clean, cedar scent of him beside me.
Dinner, I reminded myself.
This was just dinner.