22
“So let me get this straight,” Anna’s voice drifts out of her walk-in-wardrobe to where I’m sitting cross-legged in the centre of her king sized bed, “he’s come to meet you after every night shift you’ve worked in the last two weeks? To take you home? Then he just... checks your apartment and leaves?”
“Yep.” I hug one of her decorative pillows to my chest while Anna shuffles around inside. The sound of coat hangers banging together lets me know she’s still rifling through her dresses.
“And he hasn’t tried to touch you again since you turned him down in your kitchen?” she asks skeptically.
“That’s right.” I don’t tell her that the sexual chemistry between us has been off the charts since then, though. It’s as if spending that night together, as innocent as it was, broke down any walls I had up to fight off my attraction to him. Being in Zayn’s presence makes me burn hotter than the fire of a thousand suns, and I spend most of the time squirming in the passenger seat of his car, thinking of nothing excepthow badly I want to slide onto his lap and ridehimthe whole way home. Which would be a terrible, terrible idea.
Right?
“It’s like you guys are in a sexless relationship,” Anna continues as she re-enters her room with a handful of gowns thrown over her arm. “He’s the perfect boyfriend, except that he won’t touch you. The boy we knew has grown into a bloody adonis, and you won’t let him near you. I don’t understand it.”
“You know what it was like for me when he left.” I stare down as I fidget with the tassels on her pillow. “I can’t fall for him like that again. And he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“So you keep saying, but it sounds to me like heis,minus the perks.” She throws her loot down onto the bed before me and puts her hands on her hips. “You’ll look stunning in any one of these, but try them all on so I can decide. I’m in the mood for a fashion show.”
Anna tops up her wine-glass, then mine, then swooshes me off the bed so she can take my place, nearly sloshing her freshly poured red wine onto her cream bedspread. “Try the red one first.”
I scoot off the bed and pick up the red dress that sits on top of the stack. “Red isn’t my colour,” I say as I hold the dress up and take in the plunging neckline. “Where did you even wear this?”
“The accounts awards night.” She sighs dreamily, placing an elbow onto her knee and resting her chin in her open palm. “I slept with Scott, an accountant from our rival firm that night.”
“Hopefullyafteryou removed the dress,” I laugh, making a point to turn the dress around and check for any suspicious stains.
Anna barks out a laugh and takes a large gulp of wine. “It’s been dry-cleaned.”
I undress down to my underwear.
“Tell me how you ended up with an invite to Zayn, yournon-boyfriend’s,work gala tonight anyway.”
Shooting Anna a pointed glance, I slip the halter neck over my head and turn to face the floor-length mirror. “I told Zayn I was looking for an event space to host the Hope House fundraiser, and he suggested I come along to his work gala as a plus one to suss out the venue.”
“Riiiiight,” Anna says slowly, drawing out the single word like it’s a whole sentence in itself. “That doesn’t sound like the most obvious ploy to get you out on a date.”
“It’s not a date, it’s a work function. Hardly romantic.” I wrinkle my nose at the dress. The excessive cleavage is a bit much for a work function.
“Yes, but you’re hisdate.” She tilts her head to the side. “The cut of the dress makes you look like a bombshell, but you’re right, the colour is a bit too bright.”
I slip off the dress and reach for a slinky gold strapless gown. “I’m his date, it’s notadate.”
I pull the gold dress up and over my chest and turn in the mirror. In the reflection behind me I see Anna raise a hand to her temple. “Dear God, may this level of denial never find me,” she mutters to herself. “Whatever you say. Too big for your waist,” she then tuts, waving a finger around my torso area. “Next.”
When I slide my arms into the thin straps of the next dress and zip up the tight white corset bodice, Anna lets out an excited yelp.
“Holy shit, yes!” she squeals, actually sloshing her wine onto her lap this time. “Fuck. You are going to bring him to hiskneesin this one!”
My hands glide over the tight, white fabric that hugs my hips then tapers off in a soft waterfall down to my feet. When I shift slightly, the tanned skin of my thigh peeps through the split and I agree the dress is perfect.
“You don’t think its too much?”
“What! No. It’s just enough, trust me. You are going to make ascene.”
This is Zayn’s work event. I don’t want to make a scene.
Anna sees the indecision on my face.
“If you don’t wear this dress I will no longer be your friend.”
