“You know what I mean.” Brooke returned the orange dress to the rack. “Stop being so stubborn. This is your chance to be whoever you want to be. I know it’s hard, but you need to get out of the rut you’re in and try new and exciting things. You deserve to have fun.”
“So you said before.” Jo pulled a black gown and flipped it around. Another plunging back. She’d fret all night about her butt crack showing. And she didn’t want to give Avery the wrong idea if she used his credit card. “I just don’t want to owe him anything.”
“You need to stop thinking of him as the big bad wolf and start thinking of him as your fairy godmother.” Brooke bumped her hip against Jo’s. “Maybe check out his magic wand. Better yet, let him make that V-card disappear.”
Heat blazed in Jo’s cheeks as she looked over her shoulder and behind Brooke to make sure no one was listening, then whispered, “I did that already. Sort of.”
Brooke’s eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up. “What? When? Why didn’t you tell—”
“Not the V-card.”
“Oh.” Brooke’s shoulders slumped.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Jo grumbled. They’d done a lot of crazy shit over the years, but just because Brooke dated one loser after another, trying to find true love, didn’t mean Jo would jump off that cliff. It had only taken one loser for Jo to understand there was no such thing.
For me, anyway.
“Well?” Brooke scooted to the rack behind Jo and whispered, “Was he, as Viv would say, hung?”
Fire-breathing butterflies stirred in Jo’s belly as she remembered the exact length and width of Avery’s monster dick pressed against her. The heat in her cheeks flamed hotter and her breasts tingled.
She shrugged and flipped to the next dress, without really seeing it. “He’s a lot bigger than Chase.”
“That’s not saying much…well, you know, from the way you described him.”
“True.” In the year she’d been with Chase, he’d pressured her for sex, and she’d tried to get into their make-out sessions, but as soon as his hands and lips started wandering, her grandma’s warnings rang in her ears.
To put him off, she’d given him a hand job. When that wasn’t enough, she’d learned how to blow him. The few times she’d tuned out her grandma and let him get to third base were total fails. He’d become frustrated and suggested actual fucking might do the trick, but by her reasoning, if he couldn’t get her off with a triple, she sure as hell wasn’t rewarding him with a home run.
That was pretty much when she realized it wasn’t working between them. Guess he realized it first.
Jo sighed. “Come on. Let’s go spend some fairy godmother magic.”
“Really?” Brooke beamed.
“Why not?”
Avery and Brooke were right. Just as she couldn’t bake a cake without the right ingredients, she couldn’t do the job he’d hired her for without the proper tools.
She pointed at the orange dress sticking out of the rack. “Let’s just hope I find something that won’t turn me into a pumpkin at midnight.”
Brooke looped her arm through Jo’s. “I’ll drive. You google.”
Two hours later, Jo stood at the cash register of a boutique she’d never heard of, ready to spend an ungodly amount on a dress she’d never wear again. Or maybe she would, someday,when she catered to clients like Avery’s brother’s fiancée, Charlotte Reese.
Jo had tried to stay in a range she could afford to pay back, but even the winter sale rack—lucky for her, the spring line was already out—cost as much as her beloved mixer. Still, the moment she saw herself in the mirror, all her reservations vanished.
It wasn’t flashy.
It was deliberate.
The kind of dress meant to survive scrutiny rather than invite it.
At the last minute, she’d added a black satin bolero because the nights still held a chill.
But the matte black card in her hand felt foreign as she grudgingly handed it to the saleslady. She used her debit card all the time, but she’d never owned a credit card. Every time she’d even thought about applying for one, she heard her grandma saying,“The borrower is slave to the lender.”
Yeah, Grandma, but you have to spend money to make money.
