Chapter 22
CAN YOU SAY AWKWARD?
REMY
That was the most abrupt ending to the world’s hottest kiss, and now I’m replaying every single second and wondering what went wrong as my shoes click on the sidewalk and I near Fallon.
The Fresh Face producer stands outside Champagne Taste, a consignment shop that specializes in upscale dresses for black-tie affairs.
Her lips are pinched. Her expression is stern. And I feel even more unsteady. From the kiss that felt like it ended with a correction on both ends—Lake’s and now Fallon’s.
He stopped that kiss abruptly, and I can’t help but wonder why. Did he not like it? Not want it? Maybe I just can’t read him. Or men for that matter.
But Fallon is an open book, tapping her ballet flat. “The MOH is here,” she says into her walkie-talkie. She’s talking to the videographer on a freaking walkie-talkie?
“I’m not late?” I say, but it comes out as a question.
She gives me a false smile. “Only by eight minutes. But I’m sure we can manage.”
Was that an eight-minute kiss? I lost track of all time. Did Lake? Something coils tight in my chest. I ignore the tension, the way I feel like a jack-in-the-box. “What order do you want to do things in?”
“Let’s get you in the dress first. Then the kiss,” she bites out as she opens the door with the Closed sign on it then peers behind us, scanning the sidewalk. “Did you bring a subject?”
“My wedding date,” I say, but I feel foolish all over again. That kiss scrambled my brain.
“And where is he?”
“He’ll be right in,” I say, but I feel like I’m covering something up, like a girl making an excuse for a guy. I switch to problem-solving mode, trying to wrest control of the situation with a quick answer. “I’ll get the dress on though.”
Before I can take another step, she darts out a hand, her bony fingers circling my wrist. “The same one as before?”
I give her a look like she can’t be serious. “Yes, of course it’s the same guy.”
Her lips twitch. “Good. We love a glow-up.”
There’s that word again. And I get it. Really I do. It’s just so surreal to be the glow-up. But this is what I got myself into when I told my sister I’d get a date for her wedding.
I march into the shop, greeted by soft floral perfume, tasteful lighting, and Ella Fitzgerald music setting the vibe.
I nod at the videographer, who’s waiting with mini lights already set up around her phone camera, then say hi to a gray-haired woman at the counter wearing a shimmery blue dress.
The shop owner, I remember from my first visit here.
I flash my I’m Caroline’s sister and I’m not going to mess it up for her smile. “Your shop is so pretty,” I say to her.
“Thanks, love,” she says to me in a warm voice that sounds like she’s from London. Her cheeks are rosy in her pale complexion, and her silvery eyes twinkle. “Your dress is ready for you. It’s in a dressing room at the back. The one with the red heart on the door.”
“Thank you.” I head straight past the racks of clothes to a hallway at the back of the shop.
There are two dressing rooms, and a wreath-like heart made of dried rose petals hangs on one of them. I yank it open. My black vintage dress with spaghetti straps hangs on a padded pink hanger.
“I’ll just get this on,” I say to no one, but really, to me, as I zoom into fix-it mode.
Inside, I tug off my sweater, skim off my pants, and shimmy into the dress. I’m zipping it up when the zipper snags.
“Crap,” I mutter, right as the heavy sound of footsteps grows louder. Strong, purposeful footsteps. I pretzel my arms behind my back a little more, trying to loosen the zipper. But its stubborn metal teeth refuse to budge.
“C’mon,” I grunt, fighting with it.
“Remy.” Lake’s voice is clear, like an order from the other side of the door.
It sends a zing through me, and I wish it didn’t.
“I’ll be out in a second,” I say, all chipper and upbeat.
His big hand curls over the top of the dressing room door. “I didn’t want it to end.”
I freeze, my hands on the zipper. “What?”
“That kiss,” he adds, lowering his voice, like he knows we can’t act in public as if there might be any questions about our romance, any confusion.
“Oh. Okay,” I say, my heart beating irritatingly faster.
“At all,” he adds, emphasizing each word.
I purse my lips. I don’t want to let on to Lake that I was doubting him. Or really, me. I don’t want him to know that I thought—and it felt so important a few minutes ago—that he didn’t want to kiss me with the same ferocity I wanted to kiss him. “It’s all good,” I say as breezily as I can muster.
“Are you dressed?”
“Yes, but the zipper is stuck.”
“Let me in. I’ll help.”
I sigh, but I don’t fight him. I let go of the naughty zipper and open the door.
He joins me in the dressing room, closing it shut behind me with a decisive click.
The sound of footsteps floats past my ears, but they don’t sound like Fallon’s ballet flats.
More like heels, but they fade quickly enough.
Lake looks me up and down, his icy blue eyes like midnight flames, his voice rumbling in his throat. “Your dress,” he says, raw and guttural.
“It’s stuck,” I whisper.
He moves behind me, runs a hand along the fabric, then gently, carefully wiggles the zipper from side to side. I try not to tremble from his fingers on me as he slides the zipper up, up, up.
He reaches the top, then clasps the eye hook together. “There,” he says, low and smoky. He drops a soft, tender kiss to the space between my shoulder blades. It sparks from his touch. I spark.
“I didn’t want you to be late. That’s why I stopped.”
I close my eyes, let out a shaky breath, more relieved than I want to be. “I thought you didn’t…” I can’t even finish.
“I do. I fucking do. But I was kind of a dick.”
“You weren’t.”
“I was curt.”
He was brusque when he ended the kiss. Still, I wish I didn’t feel so bruised. So tender. I wish he didn’t feel like I’m this damaged woman.
But maybe I am.
Maybe I don’t have to be all the time though. I think of his words from the night Jameson dumped me in front of twenty thousand fans at the arena. Chin up. I can be brave again. I lift my chin, look in the mirror in the dressing room, and meet his gaze. “Thank you. For coming in here.”
“Only place I want to be.” He lowers his face, gazing at my body as he runs his hands over my bare shoulders and coasts them down my arms, slow and sensual.
When he reaches my hands, he slides his fingers through mine.
A double clasp, and it feels like a reassuring embrace from behind me.
I’m fizzy everywhere, bubbles popping in every cell.
He meets my gaze straight on in the mirror again. “You’d better go put on some lipstick, Remy. I’m going to do everything in my power to absolutely fuck it up on camera.”
All that tension, all that tightness, unwinds and slinks out the dressing room door, a jack-in-the-box unsprung. I turn around in his arms. “Thank you. For telling me all that.”
He frowns, apologetic, then his lips return to a straight line. “I’m not always good with words.”
I don’t think that’s true though. “You are.”
But also, I think I need his reassurances more than I want to admit. And maybe that’s okay.
Shoes click, flats this time, and a throat clears from the other side of the door. “Are you ready for the LT?”
“Yes,” I say, opening the door, focused on why I’m here. The LT, or lipstick test.
With disappointment, Fallon points to my mouth, then dips her hand into her ever-present bag of makeup tricks. She extracts a lipliner and a tube of lipstick. “You were supposed to be wearing both.”
“Oops,” I say, while Lake coughs like he’s fighting a laugh as he slips past us. I guess we know no lipstick can withstand an eight-minute side-of-the-road kiss that leaves you with a sweet ache between your thighs. “Give me the L and the LL then.”
For the first time ever, the dour woman looks a little pleased as she hands over lipstick and lipliner, then tells Lake to wait by the wedding dresses.
When I finish applying the makeup, she marches over to the doorway leading from the dressing rooms back into the shop, motioning for me to join her.
“You walk in from here, and the videographer will record you showing your dress to your date. You’ll join him by the wedding dresses.
Just talk naturally about the dress. Then I want you to say, ‘But can this lipstick withstand a hot kiss?’”
I nod, repeating the line in my head. I didn’t realize there was a script. But I also can’t resist, saying, “Confirming you want an HK?”
Lake shoots his arm in the air from his spot near the dresses. “Or should it be a VHK?” He tilts his head, the most adorably quizzical look on his face as he asks if she wants a hot kiss or a very hot one.
The woman behind the counter hides a chuckle as she attaches tags to stacks of clothes on a pink, cushioned chair next to her.
“HK will suffice,” Fallon says crisply.
“Got it,” Lake says, then blows out a breath and murmurs to himself like he needs to remember every detail, “HK. Give her an HK. You’ve got this.”
Fallon turns to the videographer. “Ready?”
“Always,” she says.
Fallon backs me up to the dressing room area. “On three.”
The videographer counts, and on cue, I emerge.
When I turn into the shop this time, Lake stares at me like he did the first time he saw me in my black strappy dress, with desire in his eyes. I walk across the store, the videographer following alongside me. It’s so weird that someone’s filming me, but I try to ignore her and act natural.
“Stunning,” Lake says when I reach him.
And I forget the cameras. “You like?”
“Love,” he says, as if he’s mesmerized.
I strike a pose. I hardly feel like I’m acting. Lake’s heated eyes journey up and down my dress, then he reaches for my hand. “I won’t be able to take my eyes off the maid of honor.”
“Good,” I say, then he looks to my mouth.
And I forget my line. I forget the script. I forget everything but what he said to me about messing up my makeup.
Neither of us says a word. I don’t know who makes the first move, but we collide.
In mere seconds, he’s kissing me fiercely, passionately, hands roping in my hair, hungry mouth devouring mine.
He’s relentless—determined, it seems, to destroy my makeup.
As he kisses me, he dips me in the middle of the secondhand dress shop, his strong arm wrapped around me.
When the kiss ends, he tugs me back up, studies my lips, and smirks. “Sorry, Fresh Face.”
There’s no makeup that can withstand that kind of kiss.