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“Well, welcome.I hope you love it here.”Jessica’s cheeks plump as she smiles, creating gentle creases in her round face.I’ve obviously got Christmas on the brain because all it would take is a frilly red hat to turn her into the perfect Mrs.Claus, especially with the tiny glasses perched on the end of her nose.Then again, I can’t imagine Mrs.Claus reaching into a stranger’s bra to reposition a wayward breast, which is exactly what happened to CJ a few minutes ago.
My overeager best friend chooses that moment to fling the door open with something small and red clutched in her hand.“I feel good about this,” she declares as she hands it over.
Jessica helps tug the straps into place, which I’m grateful for.I’m less grateful two seconds later when she’s feeling me up.
“Scoop from the side,” she says, settling my left breast and half the skin from my back more firmly in the red lace cup.She repeats the action for righty, then steps back and gestures to the mirror.“See?”
“Okay.Wow.”I blink at my reflection, where my extremely average breasts sit high on my chest, looking plumper than I’ve ever seen them.And the band is… comfortable?Is that even possible?I twist and turn, bend and snap, putting the bra through its paces.Through some sort of gravity-defying magic, it stays put and doesn’t even pinch.It has strategically transparent lace in front, with thin red satin straps that curve up and away from my sternum in the center to skim the tops of my breasts before joining the sturdier elastic straps above the cups.
“This isn’t me.”I almost whisper it, my eyes fixed on the woman in the mirror.It’s easily the sexiest thing I’ve ever had on my body.
“That’s exactly why you buy it.”Jessica adjusts the bottom of the band in the back.“It’s part of our Christmas collection.”
“What, like a gift for the man in your life?”
The waiter from yesterday pops into my mind unbidden.If I’d been wearing something this bold, maybe I’d have smiled at him more.I definitely would’ve socked Richie in the jaw on my way out of SparkNexus instead of walking out without a fight.What, like Canada was going to deport me twice?
Jessica peers at me over her half-moon glasses, blissfully unaware of my sex-and-violence fantasies.“A man?Honey, it’s a gift to yourself.”She pats my shoulder and steps out of the dressing room, leaving me alone with the woman in the mirror, who looks about four hundred percent more daring than I actually am.
With a cursory knock, CJ barges into the dressing room and squeals, “Holy shit!”
“Yeah?”
“Girl.”CJ stands behind me and wraps her arms around my midsection, resting her chin on my shoulder.“Just imagine our waiter stripping off your shirt to find you in this.”
Her mouth falls open in a playfully shocked expression, clearly anticipating my surprise that she noticed me noticing the way-too-hot, way-too-charming Jonesy.
You know, the guy I was thinking about not fifteen seconds ago.
“He wouldn’t—I mean, I’m not…”
My bright-red cheeks give me away, and CJ laughs.“You weren’t subtle when you stopped to check him out as we were leaving.”
“I wasn’t checking him out,” I say primly.“I was curious what it said on his name tag.It really was just ‘Jonesy.’”
True, I was curious about the name thing, but I mostly wanted an excuse to spend a few more seconds absorbing him in all his dark-haired, dark-eyed, sexy-scruffy glory before he moved on to his next table and forgot all about us.
Oh god what am I even doing?Like I need to hand CJ any more ammunition to tease me about my momentary infatuation with a pretty boy.
“Anyway, this isn’t how I should be spending money,” I say, deflecting like mad.“Did you forget the part where I don’t have a job?”
CJ takes the bait and rolls her eyes.“Like you’d let me forget.”
I glance back up at the mirror.My cheeks are still a little pink at the memory of Jonesy’s grin, all full of dirty thoughts and kept promises.“A new bra isn’t necessary.”
“But it makes you feel good.”
The insane confidence of having my boobs look this good is starting to burn away my critical thinking skills, so I shove CJ out of the dressing room and reach behind me to unclasp the hooks.Her sigh slips through the door.“You’re not buying it, are you?”
“Nope,” I say in my best nonnegotiable voice.“I’m full up on unwise decisions at the moment.”Actually, I may have reached my lifetime quota of unwise decisions by going to work for SparkNexus Marketing.
I had a plan.I was on a path.Take my double major in fine art and graphic design and become an art director at a top marketing agency.But instead of being patient and working my way up the ladder in Phoenix, where I’d been for six years, I took a leap and joined Richie Mulligan’s flashy new Canadian marketing firm.My old college classmate had been after me for months to join his wildly successful start-up, and every time I said no, he’d come back with a bigger offer.More money, more responsibility, autonomy to create my own campaigns, a company car, and a signing bonus.He made the unrestrained creativity happening at SparkNexus’ ad incubator sound too good to be true.
It was, of course, and three weeks and two days after my big international move, the Canadian Revenue Agency was hard at work calculating Richie’s many financial crimes and I was numbly boarding a plane back home because my work permit barred me from earning money at any Canadian company other than the now incredibly out-of-business SparkNexus.
The first time I was able to take a deep breath without the risk of a panic attack was when CJ met me at the airport yesterday and whisked me to lunch, then to her place, where I slept for eighteen hours.I’m now giving myself until the end of the year to figure out my life.There are no open doors for me in Phoenix, which means I’m hustling to find a new job literally anywhere in the United States so I can start my corporate climb all over again.
The moral of the story is simple.No more risks.Only practical decisions moving forward.And this bra is the opposite of practical.
