Chapter 32
Evangeline shook out her wrist. “How’s your hand not cramping?” she asked as she pressed a thumb into the heel of her right palm. She and Tai had been sitting at her dining room table for the last hour, filling out party invitations and addressing envelopes.
“You forget what I do for a living, sweetheart. The muscles in my hand won’t start to protest for another few hours, and even then, they’ll still be thankful it’s only a pen I’m holding instead of the tattoo gun.
No vibrations.” Tai finished writing the last number of a zip code and added the envelope to the pile.
Evangeline plucked the finished product from atop the others. Her face scrunched as she inspected his work. “Yours look so much better than mine.”
Tai chuckled. “Should I apologize?”
She tossed the envelope at him. “Yes, you should. You’re making me look bad.”
“Not possible. You could never look bad.”
She blushed as she slid a blank envelope out of the box between them.
Tai never let an opportunity pass to tell Evangeline how attractive she was.
With someone else, he may worry about feeding an ego that would lead to vanity, but Evangeline had listened to voices that had distorted her view of herself for so long that Tai wanted to be intentional about helping her repair her self-image.
The doorbell rang, and Evangeline lifted her head, setting down her pen. “I wonder who that could be.” She stood, readjusting her backup wig by tugging at the cap behind her ears. “I’ll be right back.”
Tai waved her away as she walked toward the front door. He was seated in a position with a direct view of the front of her little cabin and looked up from the invitation in front of him when Evangeline opened the door.
“Hayley, what are you doing here? And what happened to your hair?”
“Evangeline, I’m so sorry. I feel just awful. You shared something private and obviously difficult for you, and I’m afraid I didn’t react the best way. I was shocked was all, but then you made up that excuse so I had to leave and I never got to say anything.”
“It’s okay, Hayley.”
“It most certainly is not. Bald is beautiful. If you don’t believe me, just look at ZaraLena Jackson and Ayanna Pressley. Those women can rock the no locks, and so can you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m serious. Wig or no wig, you turn heads. My cousin is an excellent example. He can’t keep his eyes off you.”
“I always have admired a nice view,” Tai chimed in from his chair.
Hayley froze, her face going white. “Evangeline, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here. You told me something in confidence, and I just went and blabbed. Tai, you didn’t hear anything!”
“It’s okay. He knows.”
“You told him?”
Evangeline nodded.
Hayley peeked over Evangeline’s shoulder, visibly relieved. “Hi, cuz.”
Tai waved. Evangeline opened the door wider so Hayley could come inside.
“It’s sweet of you to say those things, but you don’t—”
Hayley held up a hand, cutting Evangeline off.
“I do. But I also came to bring you something.” She let the strap of her bag slide down her upper arm and stop at the crook of her elbow.
Reaching inside, she scrounged around, then pulled out a Ziploc bag with three sectioned strawberry-blond ponytails nestled inside.
“We’re friends. I don’t ever want you to think you have to hide part of yourself from me because you’re afraid I’ll see you any differently. Friends support each other, and that’s what I want to do. What I should have done without any hesitation from shock the moment you confided in me.”
“Hayley.” Emotion clogged Evangeline’s voice.
“I had Connie down at the salon cut off twelve inches. I’m going to donate the hair in your honor.
” Hayley moved the plastic bag to her other hand and reached back in the bag.
“I brought you a few more things as well.” When she pulled her hand back out, she held packages for three new inexpensive cosplay wigs—one black, one red, and one blond. “Meet Roxanne, Natasha, and Astrid.”
Tai grinned and pushed back his chair. He walked toward the foyer, then leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets as he watched the emotions march across Evangeline’s face.
Hayley set down her purse so she could separate the black wig from the others. “This is Roxanne. She’s a no-nonsense woman who likes to be in charge and doesn’t take any grief from anyone.”
“Oh dear,” Evangeline murmured.
Tai nudged her playfully with his elbow and winked. “You should try it on. A little roleplaying could be fun.”
She blushed even as she tipped her chin in challenge. “You think you could handle a woman like Roxanne?”
Tai’s tongue thickened in his mouth. The way Evangeline was looking at him—bold, head-on, no hiding or relegating herself to the sidelines—made the blood heat in his veins.
No words formed. Evangeline flirting back with him seemed to have a misfiring effect on his brain, so he put his mouth to better use.
Gripping her chin, he brought her face toward his and seared her lips with a kiss.
Hayley cleared her throat. Loudly.
Tai groaned but pulled away, pinning a glare on his cousin. “Don’t you have somewhere else you have to be?”
She smiled brightly. “Nope.” She reached out and pulled on Evangeline’s hand. “Come on. I want to see how they look.” Evangeline let herself get dragged toward her bedroom, throwing a smile over her shoulder toward Tai.
Tai smiled back unconsciously, a reflex when it came to his Angel. Whenever she was around, he just . . . reacted. She created responses in him that he hadn’t even known were possible. Made him feel things he’d never felt before.
He took a deep breath and tried to slow his erratic heartbeat. It wouldn’t do to get too far ahead of himself. Too far ahead of Evangeline, even though he knew he was already there. But he’d been steps ahead of her ever since they’d met, feeling before she felt and now knowing before she knew.
He loved her. Loved her when she believed no one ever could. He was in the deep end of these feelings while she was still just dipping her toes in and testing the waters.
But he’d wait. He’d wait, and he’d be there beside her and coax her into the deep end with him.
“Fashion show!” Hayley shouted with glee from behind the closed bedroom door.
Tai grinned as he took a seat in the living room.
This was not his first Hayley Holt fashion show.
She’d often put on performances like this when they were growing up.
At least this time he was just a spectator instead of one of her models.
All of a sudden, Evangeline’s cat streaked out from under the couch and pounced on his shoelaces, batting them between her paws.
“Well, hello there.” Tai reached down and picked up Kitty Purry. “Seems like there’s going to be some runway models on the catwalk in a minute. Want to watch?”
The cat sniffed, then bounded out of his arms. She walked away from him, swinging her hips and swishing her tail. About halfway across the room, she stopped and turned back as if striking a pose. She sauntered toward him, jumped on the couch, then lifted a paw and licked it daintily.
Evangeline’s bedroom door opened a crack. “Tai, I left my phone in my car. Be a good sport and put on some runway music,” Hayley instructed.
Tai pulled out his phone. “What exactly is runway music?”
“I don’t know. Do I look like I’ve been to Paris or Milan?”
“Sorry I asked,” he mumbled. He clicked on the search engine app, typed in fashion show music, then tapped on the first video option that came up. Percussion beat out of the handheld device’s speakers.
“That works!” Hayley shouted her approval. “Okay, here we come.”
Tai sat beside Kitty Purry, who continued her grooming.
“First down the runway is Hayley Holt wearing an Evangeline Kelly original.” Hayley strutted out the door, lips in an exaggerated pout and hands on hips that were in danger of needing to be put back in their sockets if she swung them any wider.
Hayley was wearing one of Evangeline’s pencil skirts and graphic tees. An Evangeline Kelly original indeed. She flipped brown hair over her shoulder, and Tai realized she was also wearing Evangeline’s wig, the one she’d had on before the two had jolted off to her room.
“What do you think? Do I look like Evangeline?” Hayley struck a pose.
“Thankfully not even a little.”
She stuck out her tongue, then pivoted and walked back to the bedroom.
“Next up is Astrid, uh, Johanson. She’s traveled from Sweden to be with us today.”
The door opened again and Evangeline stumbled out, no doubt helped by a shove from Hayley. Cheeks pink, she adjusted a flowy summer dress that put Tai in mind of a Scandinavian meadow. Unlike his cousin’s flamboyant movements, Evangeline tiptoed forward, keeping her eyes down.
“Oh, is Astrid Johanson a shy country girl leaving her village for the first time? Maybe a handsome man can sweep in and show her a bit of the wonderful wide world?” Was he putting it on a bit thick?
Absolutely. But the smile that topped her lips and the look of suppressed laughter in her eyes was worth it.
“Askersund beckvam alang ektorp.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Tai couldn’t help the laughter that spilled out of his mouth. “Did you just speak IKEA to me, sweet Astrid?”
At the end of the catwalk, Evangeline popped her hip. “Maybe.” The bangs of the blond wig brushed the top of her eyelashes. She reached up and swiped them to the side.
“How do you like the blond?” Tai asked quietly so his voice wouldn’t travel to Hayley.
She shrugged, unsure. “I feel like I’m pretending.”
“Is that bad?”
She seemed to think for a moment, and then her eyes sparkled before she gave a twirl. “Actually, it’s kind of fun at the moment.”
She retreated back to the bedroom and came out a few minutes later wearing the red wig. The synthetic hair ran down her back, stopping at the curve of her waist.
“And who do we have here?” Tai leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
This time she slinked toward him like a femme fatale, reeling him in with each step she took in his direction.
“I am Natasha Petrov, KGB agent,” she said in a butchered accent.
His brows rose. “KGB? Didn’t they cease operations in 1991?”
Her step faltered, but then her shoulders squared. “Zat is vhat we vanted you to think.” She tsked. “Americans.”
Tai sat back with a grin. “So, Natasha, are you going to interrogate me?”
“I vill uncover your secrets.”
Tai spread out his arms. “I’m an open book. No secrets here.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Hmm. Ve shall see.” She walked back to the room with her posture perfectly straight.
Hayley came out a second later, back in her original clothes and with her newly shorn hair pulled into the shortest ponytail Tai had ever seen. “Roxanne will be out momentarily.”
Tai stood and pulled his cousin into a hug. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Her voice was muffled by her face in his neck.
He loosened his grip and stepped back. “You helped her to find the fun in a situation where she couldn’t see it before.” Just like you helped me when we were kids.
Hayley studied him. “You really like her, don’t you?”
She meant love and . . . “Yeah, I do.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m really happy for both of you.” She grabbed her bag. “And now I’m going to get out of here and give you two lovebirds your privacy back. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Tai laughed. “There’s not much you wouldn’t do.”
“Exactly.” She winked.
As the front door closed, the bedroom door opened.
Evangeline must have grabbed his leather jacket earlier without him noticing because it draped over her narrow shoulders and hit the curve of her hips.
The raven wig made her pale skin seem even more porcelain, and she planted her hands at the curve of her waist as she stopped in front of him.
He stared into her eyes, and she stared back.
“Nice jacket.”
A hint of a smile played at her mouth. “I’ve always thought so.”
“Is that right? What other thoughts have you been keeping to yourself?”
Her gaze dipped to his mouth, then farther south, halting at his throat.
Or, rather, the side of his neck. It intensified as her eyes tracked over the lines of his rose tattoo.
He could feel her look like a physical touch and then it was, her fingers rising and ever so softly brushing against the lines.
“It’s as soft as I imagined. Like the petals of a real rose.”
Her breath feathered across his lips. It took all his self-control to sit still. To not pull her flush against him and claim her parted lips like the rogue she’d claimed him to be.
Her eyes lifted to his. He swallowed.
“I wonder,” she murmured. Her gaze lowered again to his tattoo, but this time, her mouth followed. Her warm breath fanned across his skin a moment before her lips settled in a kiss over the strumming of his pulse.
She pulled back slightly, only long enough to whisper a surprised “Oh” before her mouth was on him again, another hot press of her lips on the flower’s center.
Tai groaned, his arms snaking out to band around her back. Her knee bumped the side of his and pitched him backward. He rotated her in his arms so Evangeline landed on his lap.
She giggled and looked at him with wide, fake-innocent eyes. “Hi.”
He smirked at her. “Hello, Minx.”
She giggled again. “I take it you like Roxanne.” She said it as a statement, but he still heard a hint of a question there.
He leaned over and nuzzled her nose. “I do. I like Roxanne and Natasha and Astrid.”
She clasped her hands behind his neck. “Which did you like the most?”
He leaned even farther forward and caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth, tugging gently. He let go and whispered, “I like them all, because they are all you.”
Pulling back, he looked at her. Slowly, he lifted his hand and removed her wig. He brushed his fingers over the shell of her ear as if tucking away errant strands of hair. “Evangeline Victoria Kelly”—he winked, caressing the curve of her jaw with his thumb—“will always be my favorite.”