19
Priceless
Tomorrow was not turning out as well as Jack had hoped.
He’d used his second day of suspension from work to buy clothes for his date. Though it had been weird to try shit on and gauge how it looked in the mirror, instead of just checking the sizes and heading for the register. Today, he’d showered right after work, and now he was struggling with his hair.
At some point along the way, it’d gotten pretty long. When it started growing into his eyes, he bought some rubber bands and had been using them to fist it out of his face. However, he’d never tried to put it back in a way that looked presentable.
A long ponytail made him look like a beatnik, and combing it into a high ponytail looked absurd. When he left it down, it flattened helmetlike to his head, then poufed out at the bottom like a skirt. He was starting to get a headache from glaring at himself in the mirror, and the front of his hair kept tangling in his eyelashes and tickling his lips.
Grunting, he snatched up his multi-tool from its battered leather case. He grabbed the bunch of his hair that was the most in his way and put the knife to it. Unfortunately, he used this blade all the time and it was due for another sharpening. After half pulling, half cutting a chunk of his hair out, he put away the knife blade and flicked out the saw blade. This snagged and yanked at his hair, but it cut a damn sight faster.
His vision cleared, and Jack was feeling a whole lot better about everything until three fistfuls of hair had been hacked away and he looked up.
Most of his hair hung long, in its helmety-frizzed-end style. But now a fringe of shorter hair covered his forehead and stopped in a ragged line just above his eyebrows. He looked like a girl.
An ugly girl.
Jack slammed the saw blade onto the bathroom counter. He’d known he was going to blow this date in a spectacular fashion, but he thought he could at least handle the getting dressed part.
Throwing a glance at the clock, he ground his teeth. Would an hour be enough? It’d have to be. He leapt for his keys.
Jack wasn’t coming.
Mari left her motel curtains open once she was dressed so she could watch for his truck to pull in without having to peek through the gap. She sat on her bed because it had the best view. Sitting down would wrinkle her borrowed dress, but she couldn’t very well stand in the middle of her room waiting for him to show up, or she might cry.
Waiting for a man was bad, but waiting for a man while wearing a bright red dress was infinitely worse.
Especially when she had to keep reminding herself not to bite her lip or she’d end up with Valentine’s-red lipstick on her teeth instead of her lips.
Why had she worn lipstick? She wasn’t the kind of person who could pull it off. Lipstick on an older woman just looked desperate, as Brad had said when he’d found her one last stashed tube.
Mari pushed off the bed and went to the bathroom, ripping out a tissue to wipe all the bright, hopeful crimson off her lips. When she was getting ready, Rajni had trimmed the last dye-stained two inches off her hair and it was all her natural color now, swirled up in a twist that she had thought made her silver streaks look pretty, almost like highlights. Now they just felt conspicuous.
How awkward it must be for Jack, trying to avoid a date when they lived in the same motel. He couldn’t claim he’d had to stay late at work when they’d left together an hour and a half ago. At least he had the grace to stay away so she could pretend to believe whatever flimsy excuse he came up with. She wasn’t sure she could have stood it if his truck were parked out front and she knew he was just on the other side of the wall. Ignoring her.
She threw away the stained tissue and sagged against the sink. After reading chapter nine, she’d been so sure that her doubts were just self-sabotage. That the steady safety she felt in Jack’s presence was the correct instinct and the rest was all just baggage from Brad.
Seeing him be a little bit nervous around her had even boosted her confidence until she was bold enough to ask him on a date. She hadn’t bargained for them being good enough friends that he would feel bad about telling her no and would agree just out of politeness. Apparently all that nervousness had just been because he could tell she was more into him than he was into her and—
A flurry of knocks came on her door, pausing and then slowing down to a more measured pace in the middle. She frowned. Ricky had moved out after Jack fired him, and none of her bio friends would show up here without calling first. Could Jack have been in some kind of accident?
An image of his green truck with a smashed-in grille flashed through her mind, and she hurried for the door. When she opened the door, she didn’t recognize him at first glance. Once she did, she couldn’t look away.
“Sorry. Wasn’t gonna be late, but tried to cut my hair and fucked it all up. Haircut place had a line and couldn’t—didn’t wanna . . .” He threw her a desperate look. “Shoulda done it yesterday, not made you wait.”
His man bun was gone, and his face appeared achingly naked. This new style set off the height of his cheekbones, the sharpness of his jaw, and the catlike tilt of his hooded eyes. With his long hair, he’d been ruggedly handsome, but without it, he looked like something she should paint with tiny brushes onto high-quality canvas.
“Yes, right! I mean, it’s not a problem. The cut is . . . well, goodness.” She swallowed. Sweet God, she was babbling and she couldn’t even look him in the eye. Even in the air-conditioning, a sudden flush of heat had prickled sweat across her body so she could feel every inch of her skin. How could a dress this short be so stifling hot?
He grimaced. “You still wanna go? I could wear a hat.”
She blushed. He’d clearly noticed how distracted she was by his appearance, but when she made herself meet his gaze to apologize, he appeared as embarrassed as she felt. She realized he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.
She reached out and squeezed his arm. “I liked your long hair, but the new haircut looks great. Just in case the stuttering didn’t give that away.” The stunned look on his face whooshed all the nervousness back out of her body.
She understood this man. They were born-again virgins at dating, to be sure, but she wasn’t wrong about him. She was going to stop giving in to all those slippery little impulses to believe the worst.
Chapter nine, she reminded herself.
She scooped up her purse—borrowed, so tiny her room key practically poked out the top, but sleek and cute—and smiled at him. “Ready?”
He nodded, and looked anything but ready as he led the way to his freshly washed truck. She couldn’t stop stealing glances at him. He wore a black button-down shirt that was loose at the tucked-in waist but stretched perilously tight across his muscular shoulders, plus jeans so new they still had the shelf-folded creases.
“We’re not taking the bike?” she teased, just to break the ice.
“You want to?” He paused next to it, his expression lifting in a way that looked almost boyishly pleased. “Probably need pants, though.” Reluctance entered his voice, and when she glanced at him, she caught him looking at her dress.
“Next time,” she said, and his gaze flew up to hers. She smiled.
The drive lasted awhile, because he took her all the way to Palm Springs, the biggest town for miles.
They didn’t talk much on the way over, but they did share a laugh when they noticed they were both humming along to an old Eagles song. His seat covers were creased oddly, and she snapped a price tag off the edge, then tucked it into her purse before he noticed, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. She felt a little bad that he’d bought clothes and truck seat covers just for the date, but it put a light, kind of whirly feeling in her belly, too.
By the time they got to the restaurant, she had to search for her borrowed high heel on the floorboard. Without thinking of it, she’d kicked one off and curled her leg underneath herself like she had the last time she was riding in his truck with him.
There was an awkward moment when he came around to open her door but she’d already opened it. She paused and nearly closed the door again, and in the end she hopped down while he just stood there, his hands sort of half-up like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. She laughed it off, her cheeks feeling rosy from more than the desert heat, and took his arm to go inside even though he hadn’t offered it.
His arm was scorchingly warm through the fabric, and she wondered if black hadn’t been the best choice for the Mojave Desert. It looked incredible on him, though, so she didn’t say a word. Maybe men could suffer for their looks now and again, too. God knew her borrowed heels were pinching something fierce. Rajni had gone begging for her to every woman on the project, and Ivy was the only bio who’d packed a dress that fit Mari. Unfortunately, her feet were a half a size smaller.
At the door of the restaurant, she remembered to wait so he could open it, but was distracted as soon as they walked inside. The place was all slick black marble and open spaces, the glasses on the tables these strangely space-age cylinders of flawless crystal. Blue lights spotlighted each table from above, and techno music pumped through the restaurant, just low enough to allow for conversation.
The waiter looked barely out of high school, with a haircut that might very well have cost more than Mari’s last paycheck. His smile was slick as he ushered them inside. “Welcome to the Blue Loft, and thank you for dining with us this evening. Party of two?”
“Got a reservation,” Jack growled, his voice so rough it came out sounding like an insult. “Wyatt.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Your table is all ready for you.” The man retrieved two leather-bound menus and led the way.
When they got there, Mari slid gratefully onto the backless bench seat and eyed the vase in the middle of the table. It had a . . . flower-like object in it. Made of some supershiny swoop of plastic. She was studying it with so much puzzlement she missed the waiter’s leaving. Jack already had his menu open, so she did the same. And then nearly had a cardiac event.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
Her eyes jerked up. Had she let out a sound? “Ah . . . just . . . are you sure this is where you want to go? I’d be totally happy to go someplace different, if you were,” she hurried to add. “We haven’t ordered yet.”
His scowl lines deepened. “Nothing on the menu look good?” He flipped a page, scanning. “It sounds weird, but it’s pretty normal stuff under all that. They got steak. We can go, if you want. Just, this was the place the internet said was the best food.”
“The internet?” she said faintly.
“Yeah, you know, the food place thingy. Yapp.”
“Yelp?”
His scowl was moving into grimace territory. “Yeah, that one. Bunch of people said the food was good.”
“Right, but the only thing I could order in good conscience is the side of guacamole,” she said in a low voice, with a rueful smile to let him know she was in this with him. “I don’t need anything this fancy, honestly.”
His facial expression was now something best described in terms unique to extreme weather warnings. “Order what looks good. I make a decent wage. Don’t spend it all on drink or boats or anything. Can afford it. It’s fine.”
“I know you don’t,” she teased. “That whiskey I lifted off you wasn’t even that good.”
“They got better whiskey here, if you like that. Saw it online.” He flipped to the next section. “Here it is. Back page. I’m driving, have what you want.”
She hesitated, and he looked at her squarely for the first time since he’d picked her up.
“Wanted to take you someplace nice.”
Mari hoped this dress was tight enough to contain her, because she was definitely melting, starting with her heart and spreading to every other part of her.
“Okay,” she whispered, and Jack’s gaze dropped to her lips. It kept doing that. There must still be a lot of pink left from the lipstick she’d wiped off.
“Here.” He took her menu and pulled the parchment page of entrées out of the leather holder, then ripped it all the way down the edge.
Mari squeaked, her hands flying to her mouth. “Jack! What are you doing?”
He wadded up the line of ripped-off prices and stuck it in his jeans pocket, then passed her menu back. “Get what you’d like. Rest of it doesn’t matter.”
Mari took it with a wobbling smile that threatened to burst into something embarrassingly large. Instead, she cleared her throat and made a concerted effort not to spend the whole date beaming at Jack.
“So, Kipp seems like he’s really gotten his act together this week. I think you finally scared him into working more than he talked.”
“We don’t have to talk about work stuff,” he said. “We can talk about, uh . . .” He glanced around. “Whatever.”
She reached across the table and laid a hand over his. It gave her a double thrill: the touch of his skin and the rush of her own boldness, made even more intoxicating by the fact that she was pretty sure he didn’t mind.
“Jack. All of this is lovely, but you don’t have to be a different person just because we’re on a date. It’s enough that you wanted to come here with me, that you wanted to make this . . . something.” She hesitated, but nothing could feel like a risk right now, with this man. Not when she had his seat cover price tag hidden in her purse. “It already feels special. It makes me feel like something special.”
His head was ducked, stealing glances at her with his fingers tense against the table as if he expected her to lift her hand to smack his any second. But he didn’t hesitate at all to say, “You are.” Then the tiniest of pauses, just enough to let her know he thought twice before he said, “Especially in that dress. Look beautiful. Are beautiful. Even not in the dress.” His eyes flew wide. “Not like . . . not in the dress. Just, like, in anything. Is what I meant.”
“Um, thanks,” was all she said, utterly losing the battle against beaming.
The waiter chose that moment to come back, and Mari gave Jack’s hand a quick squeeze before she took hers back.
“Oh no, what happened to your menu? I am so sorry, ma’am, just let me run over and get you a fresh copy.”
“I’d rather stick with this one, if it’s okay,” she said, laying a protective hand over her torn, price-less menu. “I like this one better.”