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Chapter 15
"Goddamn it, goddamn it!"
I hurled a fourth dress across the guest room, and the zipper hit the picture window with a smack. I was standing in the middle of the spare room, where my clothes were still hanging in the closet. Well, at least the ones that weren't scattered all over the bed and the floor.
"Whoa there, chickie. Don't take it out on the clothes. Never take your frustrations out on the pretty, pretty clothes."
I turned toward my laptop screen and glared at Jane. She ducked out of the frame, like I was throwing something at her, then popped back up with a smirk through her leopard-print glasses.
"Sorry," I said lamely. "Everything looks the same, the same stupid shit I wear every day. Black. Gray. Boring." I sat down on the bed with a thump that shook the computer. "Janey, this isn't like any other night. I can't look like any other night." I groaned. "Why did you have to move to Chicago? I need my fashion guru!"
Jane tapped a finger on her mouth meditatively. "I think you're forgetting one important thing here, Sky."
I cocked my head. "What's that?"
"That it's not about YOU, you pixie-faced narcissist!" she exploded.
She made a big show of fanning herself, as if she'd been forced to lose her cool. My mouth just dropped open, but before I could argue, Jane held up a finger.
"You're not doing this for you," she clarified. "You're doing this for him. So think about it that way: what does he like to see?"
"Legs," we both said in unison, and laughed.
"Okay," Jane said. "That narrows it down. It needs to be short, and it needs to be a dress."
I looked woefully back at the closet and the clothes all over the floor.
"Think, Sky," Jane said. "What has he commented on? What have you worn that made him go wild?"
It was hard to say. Before my colossal fuckup, Brandon usually went "wild" no matter what I was wearing. He was as likely to have me up against a wall when I was dressed in flannel pajama pants as when I wore lingerie. The thought brought back all sorts of memories, including our first date. While it had been a disaster, it had literally started when he had walked into my apartment, caged me against a wall, and hoofed me into my bedroom to have his way with me.
It was the first glimpse I'd had of just how talented Brandon really was in certain ways. Unfortunately, he hadn't shown me those talents since last weekend. Our "makeup" was much more gradual than I'd hoped. I hadn't been kicked out of the bedroom again, but he was still home most nights later than I'd like, and had used fatigue as an excuse to get away from my advances.
I brightened at the memory of our first date. "I have an idea."
"Atta girl," Jane said. "Then let's figure out shoes and makeup. I'm thinking Bridget Bardot meets Debbie Harry. I have a couple of tutorials I want you to watch."
~
The bar I'd found for the party, simply called Pub, was tucked into a Brookline street off Washington Square. After scouring different venues for a week, it was one of a few that fit the requirements I had for this shindig: casual, spacious, and available on short-notice. Lucas and the additional security team that had been hired for the evening were also happy since it was small enough to keep secure.
I arrived about an hour before everyone else did to help set up. Eric, thank God, had also come early to help me prepare, which, for him, mostly meant sitting on a stool drinking beer while I oversaw the kitchen staff and made sure the Springsteen cover band I'd hired was ready to go.
"How much is all of this costing you?" he asked as he watched me rearrange some appetizer platters across the bar top.
I grimaced. "Too much. But it will be worth it."
Eric looked around the room approvingly. "I'll say. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd want."
"I'll remember to tell Jane," I said slyly.
Eric's face dropped. "Yeah. Well. Don't worry about that. She's...I think we're done, Cros. If you see her, it'll probably be without me there."
I turned from where I was hanging a streamer from the ceiling. I couldn't decide if the balloons and crepe paper looked too cheap, but in the end, I decided that Brandon kind of liked that sort of thing anyway. This was the guy who thought Susan's roast chicken was the tastiest thing in the world, who thought my family's decrepit old house in Brooklyn looked more like home than anywhere he'd ever been. While he certainly had a taste for nicer things, Brandon was also just the kind of guy who would wear the same baseball hat for fifteen years out of sentimental value, and who would keep the old furniture in his vacation home just because it reminded him of the nice family who used to live there.
"She mentioned the trip a little bit to me, but I was hoping you had a Plan B," I admitted. "I gathered it didn't go well."
Eric rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. "You could say that. She...fuck. She has a way of stomping on a guy's heart, Cros, I'll tell you that."
