Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
CLARA
A s expected, there was a quiz on the way back, with one Rebecca Harris as the quiz master.
Gavin had to take an urgent work call, which also dragged Samuel away from quizmaster Becky, but the rest of us had to get at least three questions right for fear of a forfeit. With Becky, that forfeit could have been anything.
Danielle just about managed to get her three. As did Juliette and Xander. Mum and Dad managed four. Drew got cocky and thought he was going to get a full house, but he didn’t let Becky finish the final question, so he also only managed four. A fact that pissed him off even more the moment Jesse got his final question right for a full house of five out of five.
There was never really any doubt that Lucy, Rachel and I would also get a full house. All three of us knew that Becky would choose the most obscure facts to try and catch us out, so we were overly prepared.
Mildly annoyed that she couldn’t enact whatever miserable thing she wanted someone to do should they fail, she dismissed us to spend the rest of our afternoon as we pleased, with a reminder that dinner was at seven.
Half an hour before dinnertime, Lucy walked into my room without knocking. I was putting on my make-up and still trying not to look at Jesse while he slept. He’d gone straight for a nap when we got back. My plan was also to nap, but the moment he crawled into the bed, I couldn’t do it. Something about lying next to him in the middle of the day felt too intimate. I should have just left him alone, but instead, I lazed about the room trying not to watch him sleep. It had been a long afternoon.
As she walked in, closing the door a touch too loudly, I checked that she hadn’t woken him up. Lucy followed my gaze with a furrowed brow before she noticed the sleeping man and then looked back at me, an apology in her eyes.
“I thought you would be alone. I completely forgot who you were here with. I saw him downstairs playing cards and didn’t think,” she said. Her voice was just above a whisper.
“I’m going to have a shower. You can talk at a normal volume.” Jesse’s sleep-rough voice filled the room. We both looked at him.
“Sorry. Did we wake you?” I asked.
“Nah, you’re fine. I needed to wake up anyway,” he said as he pushed the duvet off him.
I had spent the last few hours trying not to look at him, and clearly, I had done a better job than I thought because I was only just learning that he had been sleeping in that bed shirtless. It shouldn’t have had any effect on me, seeing his bare torso surrounded by white sheets, because it was a bare torso that I had seen before. Recently. But as I watched the muscles of his stomach and shoulders move as he climbed out of the bed, my entire body flushed with heat.
The click of the bathroom lock and Lucy clicking in front of my face broke my trance, and I looked up to see the beginnings of a smirk breaking out on her face.
“It’s funny that I forgot he would be here when he was part of the reason I am here.”
“What do you want?” I asked warily.
“By order of the bride, we have to dress up tonight. She knows you didn’t bring anything fancier than your bridesmaid dress, and so I come bearing a gift.”
She revealed a black dress that had been slung over her shoulder.
“Absolutely not,” I said as I turned away from her and started lining my lips.
“Why not? It’s black. That’s your thing.” She stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the material of the dress against my arm.
“It’s made of satin,” I pointed out.
“And? Look, the straps are thick enough that you can still wear a bra. It hits the floor, and the back is high enough that it will cover your bra strap. It’s just a dress. You sleep with less on in a bed right next to him. This should be nothing .”
“If you like it so much, you wear it,” I shot back.
“No. Becky was very adamant that it had to be you.”
“If she wants to make these kinds of demands of me, then she can do them in person. Can’t you just go back and tell her you couldn’t convince me to wear it?”
Lucy sighed. “She can’t come right now. She is making sure that she looks perfect for tonight. Why won’t you wear it?”
“Because it screams fuck me !”
A perfectly arched eyebrow rose. “And the leopard print bikini didn’t?”
My mouth opened to retort, but any response died on my tongue. She had me there.
“How is this dress any different?” she continued.
“Drew wasn’t here when I wore that. He’s here now.” It was a weak argument at best, but it was all I had at this point.
“Why are we thinking about him? Last time I checked, he wasn’t your boyfriend anymore. We are dressing you for the man you just ogled walking into the bathroom.”
“Should I be dressing for anyone but myself?”
“For fuck’s sake, Clo, the two can exist at the same time. You know damn well you would look incredible in this dress, and you would feel incredible in it, too. Rachel made it sound like you might finally be on the acceptance train. Don’t tell me she was wrong?”
I groaned. I forgot to follow one of the key rules of our friendship, which was if you didn’t want the group to know your business, then you had to make that explicit, otherwise, we always kept each other informed to avoid repetition.
There was one other thing I forgot to lock down from today. I was an idiot for thinking Becky would let what she saw this morning go.
“Becky told you about this morning, didn’t she?” I asked. Lucy’s answering grin told me all I needed to know.
“She may have mentioned that you both looked quite cosy. Why not try and bring that to a boil just a little?”
I shook my head. “Not in that.”
“I haven’t heard a solid reason why you shouldn’t wear this. It’s just a dress. It’s more coverage than what you were wearing today, and you wore that with no issue.”
“Because I wear that all the time. That dress is clearly supposed to be sexy .”
“You are sexy, Clara. That man looks at you like he can’t believe you’re real, as standard, so really, this dress isn’t going to affect him that much. I mean, it might, but in a good way.”
I shook my head again. “You can tell Bex that you put in a really good argument?—”
“Wait, wait,” Lucy interjected. “Here is my final argument, and I am appealing to the petty you that I know lives close to the surface. It will piss a certain asshole off to no end that you are looking like extra hot shit, and the very hot person that you are sharing a room with is getting to be in your orbit, and he isn’t.”
It shouldn’t have worked. It kind of gave Andrew more power than he deserved.
But it did.
I quickly stripped down to my underwear, threw my clothes on a nearby chair, and changed into my favourite bra.
“Hand it over,” I said. Lucy’s eyes glistened with joy as she took it off the hanger and passed it to me.
I stepped into it and settled the straps over my shoulders.
As the side zip went up, the bathroom door opened. A quiet “fuck” escaped Jesse’s mouth. I ignored him, even as my skin prickled with heat, and looked at Lucy, holding my arms out, waiting for her verdict.
“Extra hot shit, indeed,” she said before leaving the room with a smile.