I really don’t know why Cole and I had spent the better part of a week sharing a guest bathroom while we had the entire place to ourselves. Small-town rural manners, I guess. Even though Brynn’s last words to us before they left had literally been, “Our casa is your casa.” The kitchen and living room, our respective bedrooms, the guest bath, and a little bit of the roof. We hadn’t explored any farther. But in our haste to get ready at the same time and my sudden desire to wear something—anything—that Cole hadn’t seen me wear ninety times before, I had ventured into their master bedroom suite.
I had seen the promised land, crossed right on into it, and spent some time in its luxurious bathtub with more jets and candles and bath salts than I knew what to do with. And Brynn’s closet? Holy haute couture, Batman. Not that fashion was my thing. Not in that way. No, I lived for cozy pants and flowing dresses and nearly threadbare sweatshirts. Brynn could have all those short skirts and sleek overcoats, and those entire walls of shoes. But to me it was sort of like opera. I didn’t have to enjoy it to appreciate it.
I’d gotten Brynn’s permission to raid her closet, but actually picking something out was a lot trickier. For one thing, she was America’s Ray of Sunshine and dressed the part accordingly. She wore colors and patterns and flowers and looked amazing in all of it. And it wasn’t that I shied away from any of that, necessarily, but the fact was, the most comfortable things I owned were wide-legged jeans and white T-shirts. Cole had told me to dress comfortably for our date, and that I didn’t necessarily need to dress up for what he had planned. He was able to say that knowing that even though I was a casual dresser, I had a certain standard. I wasn’t going to go out looking like a slob. (It was one thing to act like we didn’t know each other for the rest of the day, but when it came to getting ready, I was really glad we had a shorthand.)
Like I said, I didn’t want to dress in something he was used to seeing me in. But I didn’t want to dress up too much and make him feel underdressed for . . . whatever.
Your closet makes me feel like I’m going to prom with The Wiggles.
Brynn responded to my text with a laughing emoji, followed immediately by a link to an article about the new purple Wiggle who was apparently a hottie beloved by Katie Couric. Then she said, Don’t knock it. The Wiggles aren’t just for kids anymore.
I was torn, of course. Not about The Wiggles. I’d moved on from The Wiggles before I even finished typing my jab to her—and before that, around the time I turned twelve. (Admittedly, I did hold on to my love for them a bit longer than I should have.) But I was torn as to whether I should ask for her fashion advice. I knew she could help me, and considering Drea was apparently involved, Brynn probably knew what Cole had planned for the day. But there was no way she knew the unexpected turn our plans had taken. She would love to know. That much was certain. And I would love to talk to her about it. Hopefully I would, soon. But whatever was going to happen needed to happen in the bubble of Cole and me first.
Still . . .
Okay, fashion guru. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but what should I wear? Don’t ruin any birthday surprises for me, but help! I wouldn’t mind going a little outside of my comfort zone. #NYC But no Wiggle prom. Ideas?
Her face showed up on my phone a second after I sent the text, and I pushed the button to accept her FaceTime call.
Oh yeah. Technology.
“Hey.”
“Hey, birthday girl!” she greeted me, and I immediately heard Sebastian shout, “Tell her I said happy birthday!” from another room. “Seb says ‘Happy birthday,’” she obliged. “Have you seen anything you like?”
“Well, sure. There’s lots of gorgeous stuff. But it’s mostly gorgeous stuff that would look great on you. No offense.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’m super offended that you think I would look good in all those gorgeous dresses. How dare you!”
I rolled my eyes at her and then turned the camera into the closet. “Direct me. Is there anything . . .”
My voice trailed off as my attention was captured by the coziest-looking plain black sweater I’d ever seen, in a sea of dresses we only would have dreamed of for our Barbies when we were little. Actually, I was pretty sure I had made some miniature versions of these dresses for them, and that was when I just had a little beginner’s sewing machine and had only mastered one seam, and our Barbies wore a lot of strapless pencil dresses and towel wraps. We were always pretending they were rushing out of the shower and getting ready for their big awards ceremony in the city, for which Ken would pick them up any moment.
Oh my goodness, Brynn grew up and became TV Superstar Barbie! We would need to discuss that scratching of the psychological surface later, but for now . . .
“I really like this sweater. I think it could look nice with some khakis or something. Do you think that would work?”
I pulled the hanger from the closet and held it in front of the phone for her to see. She gasped, and I assumed she was going to make some teasing remark about how positively shocked she was that I had chosen neutral colors. But I misinterpreted this gasp.
“Good choice, Lai! But it’s not a sweater. It’s a dress. And it will look amazing on you.”
I was hearing her, but most of the words had been background noise that I would have to compute later. “This is a dress?” As a long sweater, I’d been dying to wear it. But, um . . . no.
“Okay, trust me on this. You have the cutest legs. Doesn’t Laila have great legs, Seb?”
Sebastian let out one loud burst of laughter in the background. “What kind of fool do you take me for? I assure you, yours are the only legs I notice, sweetheart.”
“It’s just Laila. Her legs don’t count as another woman’s legs.”
He deactivated his sugary, doting-husband voice and called out louder, “I honestly don’t remember ever seeing you in anything that showed your legs, Laila. But I’m sure they’re first-class legs!”
Brynn had been watching him over her shoulder and turned back to me as she snickered at him. “And I know it looks super short, but it’s really not. It’s about mid-thigh on me—”
“Mid-thigh!” I coughed. “I don’t even like my bathing suits that short!”
“But that’s on me! I’m taller than you, and my legs are longer. We’re proportioned differently. Trust me on this. I think it will land just above your knees, and it will look great! And it’s G. Label.”
I tilted my head. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Goop. Gwyneth Paltrow’s label.”
“I do love Gwyneth.”
“I know you do!”
My love for her had begun when she was dating Brad Pitt, though really that love had turned into more of an obsession over the way Brad’s style and fashion always perfectly matched that of whomever he was dating, like he was Single White Female-ing them. Beyond that, I’d really liked Shakespeare in Love. And, of course, the television coverage of her ski-collision trial had been better than any limited-run series I had binged with my beloved Netflix subscription.
“Well . . . okay, hang on.” I threw my phone across the room to the bed and quickly whipped my bathrobe—okay, Brynn’s bathrobe—off and slipped the dress over my head. “This is so soft!” I called out.
“Let me see! Let me see!”
“Just a second.” I pulled the ribbed material (wool/cashmere blend, the tag informed me) down along my curves (Yikes! I had curves in this thing!) until it landed just above my knees as Brynn had said it would.
“You shaved your legs, right?”
I laughed. “Yes, I shaved my legs.” I jumped to the bed and grabbed the phone and then hurried back over to the mirror so she could see. “So? What do you think?”
She gasped again. “Oh, Lai. Yeah . . . you have to wear that. Seb, come give us a man’s opinion.”
I smoothed the material over my hips as Sebastian’s face popped into view. “Yeah, that looks really pretty.”
“And it’s going to be seventy-one degrees there today,” Brynn said from the corner of the screen. “A sweater dress is perfect for days like this. And it has pockets! It is truly a perfect dress.”
“Thanks, guys. Better run. See you tomorrow?”
“Can’t wait!” Brynn trilled. “Love you. Have fun!”
Once we’d ended the call I studied my reflection, looking for imperfections and not having to strain too hard to find them. Brynn had diplomatically said she and I were proportioned differently. Yeah . . . she was long and lithe while I’d always defined my legs as stumpy. My knees were sort of knobby and decorated by bruises and scratches and scars that were an unavoidable consequence of spending your life climbing things like trees and mountains and making your way back down to the ground with the help of harnesses and skis and sleds and, occasionally, a gunny sack and baby oil. (In a small town, children found all sorts of ways to entertain themselves.) I didn’t have any desire to hide those imperfections from Cole. He was familiar with each and every one of them and had patiently listened to my complaints about all of them through the years. And of course there wasn’t a scar he hadn’t seen. In most cases he’d been there when I got it. In more cases than not his quick, thorough first-aid skills were to thank for those scars healing up as well as they did.
But I wasn’t going to spend the day hanging out with my best friend. I had a date with a total stranger. And while I wasn’t as confident about the cuteness of my legs as Brynn seemed to be, I had to admit the complete package I saw in the mirror came together pretty well. I almost always wore my hair up, but I was pleased with the way softer water, less humidity, and Brynn’s fancy supersonic hair dryer had worked together to give me one of my better hair days, so I was just going to let it be. I’d tried to do my makeup like I would for a date, though it had been so long since my last date that I wasn’t really sure if my face said, “First date! Nice to meet you!” or “What do you mean Adele doesn’t still wear a beehive?” Now, all that was left were the shoes.
I pulled the bedroom door open and listened for a moment. “Are you out here?” I asked loudly enough for him to hear me if he was, but not so loudly that he’d hear me from behind closed doors. When I didn’t hear anything, I ran on my tiptoes across the condo to my bedroom. I got inside and closed the door quickly and quietly behind me and then pulled my Cinderella pumps from my suitcase.
Okay, so there’d be a fair amount of walking. But I had spent countless hours in those shoes. My one elegant indulgence in a rough-and-tumble life. I’d be fine.
I slipped my feet into them, and everything in me went on high alert, all at once. My feet were so comfortable, and I knew my legs instantly looked longer, so I felt good about all of that. The only strange part was how—by simply slipping on those pink, glittery shoes that I had logged literal miles in since birthday number thirty-six—I suddenly felt ready to make a good first impression on the guy who’d bought me the shoes in the first place.
“This is weird,” I muttered aloud to myself before slumping onto the edge of the tent bed and burying my forehead in my hands.
Were we making a huge mistake? I’d tried not to think too much about just how close we’d come to kissing—so close. But suddenly, without the clock ticking and without designer soap aromas clouding my brain and without the quietest hair dryer in the world causing me to question the little bits I had thought I understood about science, all I could see was the way his eyes had fluttered down to look at my lips as his head tilted toward mine, and all I could feel was his breath, warm and gentle, and all I wanted was—
“Ding-dong!”
“What do you want, blockhead?” I called out in response to his voice as I stood from the bed. I took a deep breath and glanced at my watch, grabbed my phone and little change purse from the dresser, and straightened the dress one more time. “Here goes nothing.”
I stepped out of the room with a smile on my face and then looked around in confusion. “Where are you?”
“Ding-dong!” Cole repeated, though I couldn’t quite compute where his voice was coming from. It sounded like a muffled shout from inside the wall.
“Cole? What are you—”
He altered his tactic. “Knock-knock!”
Just then, the elevator doors began opening, but he hurried to push the button to close them again from the inside and scooted over to get out of sight.
It finally dawned on me what was happening, and I hurried over to the elevator as I choked down the giggles that had begun bubbling up. I took a moment to compose myself again in front of the elevator—deep breath, straighten the dress, smile a normal smile rather than a “You’re such a dork!” smile—and then pushed the button to open the doors. When they slid open, those giggles I’d choked down were replaced by a slight whimper, which I immediately attempted to cover, of course. All things considered, I think I did pretty well.
He was standing there in slim-fitting gray slacks and a V-neck black T-shirt under a black leather jacket. And he was wearing his wedding boots, of course. He loved those things. It was all his except for the jacket. When had he had time to get in there and raid Sebastian’s closet? I’d been in their room almost the entire time.
No matter. Wow. He had shaved again, but his hair was loose and the waves were free, which I loved. I loved everything about the way he looked—always, but right then, especially. But it was the combination of all of that and the single red rose in his hand that had caused the whimper.
“Laila, I presume?” he asked, not moving from his position in the elevator. “I’m Cole. It’s great to meet you.”
“Um . . . yeah. You too.”
“My friends told me you were beautiful, but you know how it is. They also said you’re funny and smart and kind. All the things. You have to figure they exaggerated on some of it, right? They didn’t prepare me for . . . this.” He held the rose out to me but still didn’t take a step. “You’re stunning.”
Okay . . . apparently, we’re doing this.
“And you . . . You look . . . great. Really great.”
That was all I could manage to get out. For most of my life I had resisted any sort of attraction because it was Cole. It was going to be an interesting day, trying to resist all I was feeling and thinking and wanting because it wasn’t him.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t even managed to reach for the rose. Bless him, he was doing a really good job of acting like I wasn’t making things as awkward as I was. But then, a second later, when the elevator doors began closing again and his eyes darted to the side, unsure if he should push the button again or trust that I would do it (and that trust, of course, carried with it a very real threat of his arm getting crushed), I finally snapped out of it. He had committed fully to this silly idea I’d had. The least I could do was not leave him alone on the limb.
“I’m sorry! I’m being so rude.” I pushed the button, and the doors opened again. “Would you like to come in for a minute?” I finally grabbed the rose and held it up to my nose to sniff. “And thank you for this, by the way. That’s really sweet.”
“My pleasure.” Once he was free of the rose, he put both hands in the pockets of the jacket. “And thanks for the invitation, but we actually have some time-specific plans, so maybe we should . . .”
“Oh! Of course. Yeah . . . just let me . . . lock up?” I didn’t want to break back into real life, but I had just realized that he had been in possession of Brynn and Seb’s keys. I shrugged slightly, and I noticed his lip twitching.
“Great. Do you have everything you need?” I lifted the palms of my hands upward, and he nibbled on his lip to control the smile that wanted to break loose. “Are those your keys back there on the kitchen island? I wouldn’t want you to forget those.”
“Ah. Yes. My keys. I’ll need those, won’t I?” I spun on my heel and took a few steps until I could reach the keys. “Thanks.” I spotted the bud vase I had used when I made him breakfast and impulsively grabbed it from the top of the fridge. “Sorry . . . just real quick . . .”
“Of course. Whatever you need to do.”
I put some water in it and slipped the rose stem in. “There. I think I’m ready now.”
“Um . . . those are some great shoes. Really great.” His eyes were slowly making their way back up from my feet to my eyes, and my level of awkward self-awareness rose with them, like a thermometer on a telethon. “Just so you know, there is going to be a fair amount of walking today . . .”
“It’s fine. I’ve logged a lot of miles in these shoes.” As you know very well.
He shrugged. “I’m sure whatever you think is best will be great. But, you know . . . if you had a pair of Converse or something . . .”
I laughed. Alright, then. So much for subtlety and the ignorance of strangers. “Oh, well, now that you mention it . . .” I shook my head and hurried into my bedroom, kicked off my heels, and slipped on some socks and my pink high-top Chucks. At least we’d had one singular moment in our history in which my legs were dressed to impress.
“Better?” I asked as I reentered the space.
He smiled at me—mischievous, charming, and just so Cole Kimball. “You couldn’t possibly go wrong. But I do feel better about not leaving you with blisters when I drop you off tonight.” He gestured into the elevator. “After you.”
“Thank you.” I walked past him, his appreciative gaze warming me from head to toe and back again. Having to resist touching him, even in the casual, unthinking ways we always touched each other, was scintillating. Every breath had a different rhythm, and each word took careful consideration. Yet as he pushed the elevator button to take us to the ground floor, I was able to effortlessly interpret the twinkle in his eye.
He was having as much fun as I was.
“So, Laila . . . tell me a little bit about yourself.”