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I don’t just look grown up now.
I look beautiful.
It makes me feel like I’m made of moonlight. The outfit flows around me like wings waiting to carry me to the stars.
As I twirl I even feel lighter, like it gives me a grace I’ve never had before.
I mean ... I know how to make myself look cute. Hot, even, if it’s a good day.
But this ... this is that moment where you wish you had a man just so you could steal his breath away.
I guess I do have one, a man who can sign off on this part of our deal and then be on his merry way to his meeting.
My chest shouldn’t be a bundle of nerves as I push the curtain open and step outside to see what August thinks.
He’s settled on a long low leather bench, reading something on his phone with an impatient knit to his brows, sipping from a small espresso cup.
He doesn’t notice me—but he looks up as I clear my throat.
“So.” I smile, turning to let the skirt swirl around me. “How do I look, Mr. Marshall?”
VI
THE STORM APPROACHES
(AUGUST)
It’s a minor miracle I don’t face-plant on the floor.
Look, I’ve seen legions of beautiful women in dresses that cost more than the GDP of a small country. Women whose job is to be beautiful; who wear the very best like they were born to, their bodies and faces crafted to model perfection so elegant it’s inhuman.
Yet none of them have ever made me do a double take the way this messy little firecracker does when she sails out of the dressing room wearing gossamer and a smile.
When she clears her throat, I glance up at first without registering anything besides how well the dress fits even before any alterations.
Only, my fucking eyes get stuck.
I can’t look down again at the chart on my phone mapping years’ worth of Little Key’s quarterly reports and their ugly downward trend.
“... how do I look?” she asks again, shy and beguiling.
That’s when what I’ve seen really sinks in, and then I can’t look away to save my life.
She’s goddamned stunning.
Not messy.
Not infuriating.
Not dolled up like a scruffy art punk.
She’s a wind-tossed force of nature, delicate and too bright.
The dress swirls around her like an angel’s robes, this soft madness that makes me want to break down into writing sappy poetry if I don’t just throw her against the nearest wall and rip it off her with my teeth.
It’s all the light she exudes so naturally that sometimes just standing close to her burns.
Her arms are pale and slender, willowy things that flow with her movements and make her too graceful.
