I've spent weeks thinking about her, obsessing over the things I said and did, wondering if it was my fault she felt the need to run away, trying to understand what might have happened to her that night to leave her so on edge. And now she's here.
My eyes track up her body in slow motion. Smooth, olive-brown skin, generous hips and breasts, cinched in at the waist, dark curls spilling over her shoulders.
Then I get to her face. Kalli.
The sight of her hits me like a physical blow, and if I weren’t sitting down, I might have actually stumbled back. She seems just as surprised to see me sitting there, and she blinks, like maybe I'm part of her imagination, and I'll disappear any moment.
I don't disappear.
Neither does she.
We stare at each other, and I swear, the hold this girl has on me after just two meetings is unreal. Fucking scary, actually.
She sucks in a breath, wrapping an arm around her waist in a gesture that's about either comfort or shock, maybe both. And I wonder if she feels it too. If she's just as intrigued and freaked out as I am.
Neither of us has spoken by the time Lennox returns, stepping between us and severing the connection. She tilts her head to the side, surveying the dress that Kalli's wearing. She tugs once at the dress, trying to get it fall in a different way, but nothing changes.
“Hmm …” she says. “I think I've put in too many pleats. If I do half as many and gather more fabric in each one, I think it will sit better.” She steps back, looking over Kalli from head-to-toe.
Guilty. I totally do it, too. She's just as stunning as I remember her, and I don't know what they're talking about with the dress. It fits her perfectly. My mouth is actually watering looking at her, and Jesus, I've got to talk to her. Have to get her number. I can't go another month thinking about her after another chance encounter.
Fuck chance. I'm not leaving it to luck again.
Chapter Ten
“You can go ahead and take that one off,” Lennox says. “I'll make a note on what to fix. Try the purple one next.”
Lennox hangs two more little girl dresses outside Gwen's dressing room and asks, “You doing okay, Gwen?”
Gwen calls out a yes, then Lennox is leaving, and Kalli is turning to go back to the dressing room. Before I really think it through, I'm standing.
“Hey.”
Her fingers tighten around the curtain, but she doesn't retreat inside. She tosses her head a little, just enough to get her thick curls to swing over her shoulder, and then she looks at me over her shoulder.
“Hey.” Her voice is quiet, and I'm incredibly aware that my little sister is just a curtain away. All I want to do is push Kalli into that dressing room and press her against the wall and show her just what she missed when she snuck out of my apartment.
But I can't.
“I didn't realize this place has clothes for adults.”
“It doesn't.” Her body is still turned away from me, like she's going to bolt any second. “Lennox is studying fashion design. She's part of a showcase coming up in a couple months, and I'm her …” She pauses, as if searching for the word. “I'm her friend. I just play mannequin for her on occasion.”
“Mannequin?” Lennox calls out from where she's flipping through hangers on a nearby rack. “I heard that! Mannequins are plastic. Mannequins are scary life-size fake people with curiously absent genitalia. Mannequins might one day come to life and kill us all.”
The smile Kalli sends in her friend's direction is small, but striking. It's one of those moments where a picture is worth a thousand words. Ten thousand. I don't even know that it's something that could really be captured with anything other than the eye.
And there I go again. What is it about this girl that turns me into such a fool? Or maybe it’s not her at all. Maybe I’ve lost some confidence over the last year. When you used to spend your nights in bar after bar with just about any girl you wanted, and you suddenly shift to spending your nights babysitting … it wrecks your head a little.
But still … it feels like more than that with her.
I've never had to think about what to say to a girl. I like to think I'm fairly charming, and I've always been good at stringing words together. With Kalli … I'm scared that if I don't reign myself in, I'll frighten her off as I wax poetic about her eyebrows or whatever part of her has caught my attention at the time.
“You are not my mannequin,” Lennox says. “You're my muse. Seriously. I was totally stuck on this collection until you came along.”
Kalli's eyes flick to mine, and there's something in them. Unease, maybe?
“I'm going to change,” she says. And I don't know if she's saying it to me or Lennox or both of us.
Her curtain closes, and I strain my ears to listen for her movements. I think I hear the glide of fabric over her skin before it thumps against the floor. I rest my elbows on my knees and shove my fingers into my hair because now I'm thinking about her body, how it had looked against my sheets. All that smooth, unblemished skin. Perfect. It doesn't seem possible, but her body was the closest damn thing I'd ever seen to it. I remember the way her wet dress clung to her after our water fight in the shower.
Shit. Shit. I needed to stop thinking about this or I was going to make a fool of myself in more ways than one.
“Wilder,” Gwen's high-pitched voice calls. And that's exactly what I need to distract me. I stand, moving closer to her dressing room.