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So it felt safer to keep Damon to myself, at least for now while things were still so brand new. Well, to myself and my family. Ugh. Yes, I definitely made the right move not telling the girls. My family being all up in my business was more than enough.
So now I was home and Damon would be here in less than an hour and . . . oh, good heavens. I was going to lose it. I needed a paper bag to hyperventilate into. Did I mention I had absolutely nothing to wear?
“It’s an emergency,” I said as soon as Carlie answered my call.
Since my family already knew about Damon, I might as well call in backup. And I could trust Carlie to keep news of this date to herself. Mom had already been grinning like a danged smiling emoji while she’d watched me and Damon interact. And that was without knowing we’d exchanged numbers and definitely without knowing anything about this date. Oh man, if this worked out my mom was going to lord this over me until the year three thousand. And yet I still hoped it would work. If that wasn’t a testament to how much I already liked Damon, I didn’t know what was.
“Are you okay?” Carlie asked, her voice laced with concern.
“No. I have nothing to wear on my date,” I moaned into the phone.
“You’re going out with Damon? Tonight?” Carlie squealed.
I gurgled an incomprehensible reply.
“I’m coming over. Be there in ten,” Carlie said, hanging up.
I fell back into my luxurious duvet, wondering how socially acceptable it would be for me to wear that. Granted, it was white and we were past Labor Day now . . .
What would Damon wear? As long as he didn’t cover those forearms of his, I didn’t care. The man was so good looking. Too good looking. I sat up on my bed.
What was I doing? Relationships with extremely attractive men didn’t work. At least not for me. I’d dated a guy back in high school who was just so pretty. But the relationship never got off the ground because he began giving me pointers on my eyebrows on our first date. Damon wouldn’t do that, would he?
And then there was Elliot, a guy I’d met while stationed in Georgia. He was gorgeous. Luscious blond locks, chiseled jaw, soulful eyes—the works. I’d dated him a little longer but caught him getting the number of the waitress on our fourth date. He’d said he didn’t think we were exclusive yet, even though he’d called me his girlfriend a number of times. I’d told him to get lost.
So my dating history with guys who were too handsome for their own good? Yeah, it wasn’t great. And Damon was better looking than both of those previous guys combined.
“Get up,” Carlie ordered as she burst into my bedroom, laden down with what had to be half of her closet. She was the best.
But even as I inwardly cheered the outfit options, I was also thinking of ways to cancel.
A cold . . . that somehow came on in the last thirty minutes? Dog ate my homework? My dog caught a cold so he ate my homework?
Gah!
“I mean it, Ella,” Carlie said. In one quick move, she pushed my duvet off of my shoulders, grabbed my hands, and yanked me to my feet.
“Hey, I was going to wear that,” I joked lamely, looking back at the duvet that had fallen limply on my bed.
“You need help,” Carlie muttered as she got behind me and began propelling me toward the bathroom.
“He’s too pretty,” I said, knowing I was pouting, but if I couldn’t pout to my sister who else could I pout to?
“You’re too pretty,” Carlie said, kicking my stool from my bathroom wall to where I stood. She climbed on the stool and now stood about an inch taller than I was. “Let’s start with this hair.”
Carlie plugged in my curling iron and sifted through my makeup offerings while it heated. I’d put on a little before work that morning but that wasn’t nearly enough for a date with a guy like Damon. I imagined the kind of supermodel women he usually took out. And then placed myself next to them.
One of these things is not like the others,played in my head.
Carlie pulled out tubes of eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and concealer. She found my favorite blush and bronzer duo and then pushed everything aside for my gigantic eye shadow palette.
“Do you want to do it?” she asked, waving a hand over the cosmetics.
Mom had trained us in the art of makeup from a young age. The trick was to look like you’d used nothing although you’d applied approximately four hundred dollars’ worth of product. It made no sense and yet our mother was a daily testament to the method, perfectly put together each time I saw her. So although I never spent nearly as much money or time on makeup as Mom would have liked, I did work on mastering the techniques she had taught me. Both Carlie and I were pretty dang skilled now.
“Yup.” I knew the mundane action of putting on makeup would calm me.
Carlie did my hair as I started with concealer and then moved through my process.
