create a sea of noise that hides his voice from me.
I wave down a cab and jump in, leaving him on the road yelling at me.
I don’t look back.
6. CUPID’S CHOKEHOLD
A ngie gives me a once-over before nodding. “Ya look fine, but I don’t understand why he wanted ya to go over with me. Is Dash all right then? Or you two having a row?”
“He’s fine. I think he wanted to talk to his mother,” I lie, smoothly and evenly.
Her I can lie to. It’s to protect her anyway. I cannot bear the idea of telling her why I froze up mid–limo sex.
She shrugs. “His mother is a bit of a twat.” The word forces a grimace from me and my face forces a laugh from her. “Ya know what I mean. She can’t even help it.”
“I feel like she can. No one needs to be that rude.”
“Right, hence the twat.”
“Right,” I confirm and spend another half second staring at myself. My reflection tells me I look great, perfect even, with my dark hair pulled into Angie’s half-assed knot that somehow looks classy, even on me. Even my eyes are Angelina Jolie’s—those cat eyes from Mr. and Mrs. Smith .
A Google search taught us that red lips and a black cocktail dress are about as good as it gets on pale brunettes. All that is helped out by my heels, boasting an extra four inches.
But my eyes hunt out imperfections. It’s my way of seeing myself in there. The flaws are me.
My heart hurts just a little and my insides ache from the way he said what he did. I have to push it all away to make it through the night. I need to be me to do that.
My lack of relationship experience has me curious if this is me acting like a giant baby again, or if what he said was as off base as it feels. There’s a large part of me that thinks I might have the dress and shoes to go with my dramatic girlie tantrum and sudden lack of self-confidence.
I sigh and give Angie a once-over. She does look perfect. The idea of a redhead in a red dress seems like it shouldn’t work, but it does. She’s got one frilly strap on the right side and her entire left arm and shoulder are bare. She even has side boob. She catches me focusing on the creamy flesh and scoffs, “It’s acceptable. I’m single. In society only single ladies are allowed a little side boob.”
“What about a lot of side boob?”
She sticks her tongue out before smearing on more of the lipstick that matches the dress. “We look smashing,” she says in a perfect English accent.
“I like your ochs and twats .”
She wrinkles her nose. “The Queen’s English is fun for a piss, but that’s about it.” She loops her arm in mine and I forget about everything else. “Now, shall we venture down and see if there’s a car waiting for us?”
In that moment there are no Rorys or Dashes. There are no evil mothers-in-law and no British Barbie waiting in the wing to steal my man. There’s not even a man. It’s just my friend and me. All the other things are swept away and labeled as unimportant.
We look beautiful. We are both safe from the man who had us fooled. I am free of that prison, and even if this is a mind run, I don’t care. “I wish we were going somewhere fun instead of out for dinner.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “We can.”
The mischief in her eyes tells me she’s serious, but I can’t do that to Dash. “No, and you know it. Standing them up would never go away. That one act would haunt us the rest of our days. Or not, because Dash would never speak to me again.”
“That’s a true story if I ever heard one. And we are nearly late, look!” She points at the clock and I grab the door handle.
We hurry to the hotel elevator. I nearly pause when I see it, wishing we could take the stairs as I did on the way up. But that had been in comfy shoes, not heels that were trying to murder me. If I had some intense adrenaline I might be fine, but I’m not feeling either frightened or alert at all.
When we get inside the small space, I take deep breaths and push away all
I wave down a cab and jump in, leaving him on the road yelling at me.
I don’t look back.
6. CUPID’S CHOKEHOLD
A ngie gives me a once-over before nodding. “Ya look fine, but I don’t understand why he wanted ya to go over with me. Is Dash all right then? Or you two having a row?”
“He’s fine. I think he wanted to talk to his mother,” I lie, smoothly and evenly.
Her I can lie to. It’s to protect her anyway. I cannot bear the idea of telling her why I froze up mid–limo sex.
She shrugs. “His mother is a bit of a twat.” The word forces a grimace from me and my face forces a laugh from her. “Ya know what I mean. She can’t even help it.”
“I feel like she can. No one needs to be that rude.”
“Right, hence the twat.”
“Right,” I confirm and spend another half second staring at myself. My reflection tells me I look great, perfect even, with my dark hair pulled into Angie’s half-assed knot that somehow looks classy, even on me. Even my eyes are Angelina Jolie’s—those cat eyes from Mr. and Mrs. Smith .
A Google search taught us that red lips and a black cocktail dress are about as good as it gets on pale brunettes. All that is helped out by my heels, boasting an extra four inches.
But my eyes hunt out imperfections. It’s my way of seeing myself in there. The flaws are me.
My heart hurts just a little and my insides ache from the way he said what he did. I have to push it all away to make it through the night. I need to be me to do that.
My lack of relationship experience has me curious if this is me acting like a giant baby again, or if what he said was as off base as it feels. There’s a large part of me that thinks I might have the dress and shoes to go with my dramatic girlie tantrum and sudden lack of self-confidence.
I sigh and give Angie a once-over. She does look perfect. The idea of a redhead in a red dress seems like it shouldn’t work, but it does. She’s got one frilly strap on the right side and her entire left arm and shoulder are bare. She even has side boob. She catches me focusing on the creamy flesh and scoffs, “It’s acceptable. I’m single. In society only single ladies are allowed a little side boob.”
“What about a lot of side boob?”
She sticks her tongue out before smearing on more of the lipstick that matches the dress. “We look smashing,” she says in a perfect English accent.
“I like your ochs and twats .”
She wrinkles her nose. “The Queen’s English is fun for a piss, but that’s about it.” She loops her arm in mine and I forget about everything else. “Now, shall we venture down and see if there’s a car waiting for us?”
In that moment there are no Rorys or Dashes. There are no evil mothers-in-law and no British Barbie waiting in the wing to steal my man. There’s not even a man. It’s just my friend and me. All the other things are swept away and labeled as unimportant.
We look beautiful. We are both safe from the man who had us fooled. I am free of that prison, and even if this is a mind run, I don’t care. “I wish we were going somewhere fun instead of out for dinner.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “We can.”
The mischief in her eyes tells me she’s serious, but I can’t do that to Dash. “No, and you know it. Standing them up would never go away. That one act would haunt us the rest of our days. Or not, because Dash would never speak to me again.”
“That’s a true story if I ever heard one. And we are nearly late, look!” She points at the clock and I grab the door handle.
We hurry to the hotel elevator. I nearly pause when I see it, wishing we could take the stairs as I did on the way up. But that had been in comfy shoes, not heels that were trying to murder me. If I had some intense adrenaline I might be fine, but I’m not feeling either frightened or alert at all.
When we get inside the small space, I take deep breaths and push away all
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