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I set my mouth in a hard line. I refused to be swayed. Again. “Uggs are a fashion boot. If your feet are cold, you can have some of the socks I got at the army and navy sto—” I stopped at her peal of laughter. “What’s so funny? I have some in the package that I haven’t worn yet.”
“Ame, you’re twenty-one, not fifty. You desperately need to spend some money on a frivolous purchase. When was the last time you bought something fun? Like, I dunno, a new jean skirt or a new shirt, or hey, w
hat about a new bra and panty set?” She gave me a sly look. “Fox would eat you up in lace.”
My face heated and I had to struggle against the urge to grab my blanket and pull it over my head. Why was I so uncomfortable when it came to sex? I shouldn’t have had any modesty left. But Car knew the real me, and that made my tough girl act a lot more difficult to pull off.
“Fox won’t be eating me in anything,” I muttered, flushing at her giggle. I grabbed my pillow and hit her with it, laughing as she tried unsuccessfully to rip it away. My hands still ached like hell from Friday’s fight, but sometimes my strength came in handy.
And sometimes it created barriers between me and other people I wanted to get close to, even if it was dangerous.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. He seems pretty persistent about chowing down when it comes to you.” She pushed the pillow into my chest. “You should totally shock the hell out of him with some skimpy lingerie. You’d blow his mind.” She waggled her brows. “And maybe a few other things.”
“God, you’re terrible.” I tried to keep my face straight, but it was almost impossible when she was leering at me. “We’re not seeing each other anymore. If we ever were.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re in here hiding out in bed? Weak, Sis. Completely weak.” She rose and tugged on my hand. “If you’re miserable about ending it with a guy, you don’t go into hibernation mode. You make him see what he’s missing by flaunting your sexy bod until he drowns in a puddle of his own drool. Don’t you know anything?”
“Apparently not.” I resisted the pull of her hand by planting my ass and refusing to budge. I was sore and cranky and stubborn, and even her intergalactic perkiness couldn’t improve my mood. “I don’t want to flaunt and I don’t want him to drool. I just want to fight him and move on. Jesus, stop pulling on my hand. I’m already in enough pain.”
Her grip lessened, but she didn’t let go. “Want more ibuprofen?”
“No. I’m okay.” Blowing out a breath, I focused on the bony kneecap outlined by my blanket. That’s what I was. All bones and sinew, nothing warm and soft. I liked it that way. Or I had once. “When are you going to tell me why you’re here anyway? What about school?” I’d intended to ask those questions yesterday, but my post-fight haze hadn’t left me real coherent.
The post-Fox haze wasn’t worth mentioning.
“You need me,” Carly said simply.
“Carly. What about school?”
“I swear, everything’s fine. If you come to the mall, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“You’ll tell me everything regardless.” Her hopeful look cut through my gloom. I sighed. “How about online shopping?”
“Lame. Don’t make me bring out the big guns.” She tugged something out of her ridiculously tight jeans—something we would be discussing later after I’d sucked down a quart of coffee—and waved it. A tiny purple spritzer bottle of perfume trailed scent through the air. “I’ll bathe your ass in Luscious Lavender, bitch, unless you stop acting like a wuss and come eat some breakfast with your adorable baby sister who makes one hell of a rockin’ omelet.”
I couldn’t hold back my grin. She looked so fierce standing there with her bottle of perfume. I knew it wasn’t an idle threat. She’d make me stink so bad I’d never be able to walk into the gym again.
“Fine. Have it your way.” I held up both hands. “I’ll get dressed and be out in fifteen minutes.”
Carly lowered her perfume. “And after breakfast we’ll go to the mall?”
It would take a stronger woman than I to say no to those pleading baby blues. “If you insist.”
“And you’ll let me get purple Uggs?”
“Absolutely not, and don’t push your luck, Carly Ann. Now get out of here.”
Her giggle as she disappeared down the hall made my grin widen despite the aches and pains I couldn’t laugh away. Damn, I was getting too old to fight. Or too weak.
I was definitely too weak to go to the mall, but I dragged myself up and into the shower anyway.
An hour later, we were standing at the counter of a lingerie store and Car was shifting through a rainbow of bras with the focus of a lawyer about to take the bar exam. She selected and rejected faster than I could make sense of the swimming sea of frilly underthings that surrounded me. They hung off hollow-hipped models and seemed to drip from the rafters, closing me into a claustrophobic world of satin and silk and see-through nipple cutouts.
I hadn’t been in a store like this for a long time. Not long enough, apparently.
“I like you in pretty things, Amelia. You were made for silk. You’re so delicate and soft…”
I shuddered and forced the memory away. Not any fucking more. No one would ever accuse me of that again.
