Lacey gaped at her sister. “And what do you know about morning-after bedhead?”
Kelsey laughed. “I read about it in Cosmo once. Have fun on your date.”
Giving her a wave, Kelsey turned and walked out.
Lacey looked at Wendy. “That’s it, I’m calling up that convent we talked about.”
Wendy laughed, turning Lacey back to the mirror and picking up her chubby cosmetic brush. “Lacey, she’s not a kid. She’s twenty.”
“She’s a kid to me and always will be.”
Her friend shook her head as she dipped the brush in the powdered blush. “Well, Kelsey’s right about one thing. You’re not spending this much time fussing with your hair and makeup to go see a movie. You really like this guy, don’t you?”
Lacey started to deny it, then decided not to bother. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Wendy lightly ran the brush over Lacey’s cheeks. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
Lacey shrugged. “Maybe it is. I want this to work out with Alex—I really do. But I just can’t help feeling like the other shoe is going to drop any minute now, and then I’m going to find out that Alex isn’t anything like the man I thought he was.”
Her friend placed the cosmetic brush in the drawer, a sad expression in her eyes. “Lacey, it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Experience tells me otherwise, but you already know that.”
Lacey tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She was excited about tonight, and she didn’t want to ruin that by thinking too far ahead. Things were good right now. Why did it have to be about anything more than that?
Wendy regarded her for a moment, then reached out and hugged the stuffing out of her. “Just because your mom had shit luck with men doesn’t mean you will. You’re not like your mom, and Alex isn’t like your dad—or any of the other guys who came after him.”
Lacey hugged Wendy back, wishing her friend was right but unable to put much faith in the possibility. While Lacey was smart enough to know she was too young to be this cynical, she was also wise enough to know there wasn’t much she could do about it. Life had made her this way.
She pushed away from her friend and pasted a smile on her face. “Enough. If you make me start crying and mess up my mascara, I’m going to whack you.”
“Definitely can’t have that.” Wendy gave her a wan smile. “But seriously, I don’t want to see you blow this thing with Alex because you’re so busy looking for problems that aren’t there.”
“I won’t. I promise. Come on. He’s going to be here soon, and I don’t want Kelsey getting to him without me in the room. She might ask him what his intentions are toward me.”
This time, Wendy’s grin was one of amusement. “It could be worse. She might ask if he plans on using protection.”
Lacey blinked. “You don’t think she’d really ask him something like that, do you?”
“Actually, yeah, I do.”
Groaning, Lacey hurried out of the bathroom. Fortunately, she made it to the living room before the doorbell rang. Not that it mattered. Kelsey was too preoccupied with her cell phone to run for the door shouting about the importance of safe sex, so Lacey was able to answer it herself.
A smile spread across her face the moment she saw Alex standing there, all the silly stuff she and Wendy had been talking about in the bathroom fading away like a fuzzy dream.
“Hey there.” She took in his tight T-shirt and jeans, deciding she liked him even more in casual clothes than she had in the suit he’d worn on the first date, especially when those casual clothes were formfitting and showed off all those perfect muscles. “Come on in. I just have to grab my purse.” She motioned at Wendy as she walked over to the couch. “I’d introduce the two of you, but it’s obvious you already know each other, since you conspired together to ambush me at the rescue shelter.”
Her friend let out a short laugh. “Ambush? You make it sound like I did something horrible. If one of my friends sent a hunky single guy out to spend the day with me, I sure as heck wouldn’t complain.”
Lacey snorted. “You have friends? When did that happen?”
She was so busy grinning at her snappy comeback that it took her a moment to realize Kelsey still hadn’t looked up from her phone, even though Lacey was sure that zinger at Wendy had been one of her better ones.
“Everything okay, Kelsey?”
Her sister frowned at her phone for a second, then tossed it on the couch beside her. “Yeah. I just got a text from Sara.”
“That’s great!”
