When Bryttni asks for a walk-in appointment, the woman at the reception desk laughs and looks at us funny.But almost immediately, a large, bald man scurries toward us.
“My next client just cancelled,” he tells the receptionist.“I’m Bruno.Can you girls be back in an hour?”
“Done!It’s fate!You’re going to get such a huge tip, Bruno!”Bryttni pulls on my hand and we’re off again.We spend the time in a dizzying race to visit as many obscenely overpriced boutiques as possible in an effort to find something for me to wear.
I’ve heard of speed dating.This is speed shopping.
“Keep repeating this to yourself—it’s your new mantra,” Bryttni says, closing her eyes and taking a cleansing breath.“Sexy dress, sexy shoes, sexy accessories.Sexy all the way down.”
I feel myself grimace.Because I’m a virgin—all the way down.Bryttni doesn’t know that.No one knows that.So what exactly am I doing?I wouldn’t know sexy if it bit me on my left butt cheek.
So how will I handle this?Do I act like I’mnota virgin tonight?Am I actually hoping that tonight’s the night I enter my post-virginal era?
Do I have a plan?And if so, what the fuck is it?
“I want to hear you repeat what I just said.”Bryttni stops.She folds her arms across her sparkly cover-up and waits.
I sigh and mumble, “Sexy all the way down.”
“Yaaaaaassss!”
But I need some clarification.“What exactly do you mean by accessories?Like scarves or something?”
“Are your ears pierced?Let me see.Yes!Good.Earrings, necklace, bracelets.Stuff like that.”
“If you say so.”
Bryttni collects several dresses, a few short skirts and blouses, and a pair of bell-bottomed pants and a halter top and shoves me into a changing room.Once alone, I grab all the shit I wouldn’t be caught dead in and hand it out the door.That leaves me with one dress.It’s black.Some sort of slippery fabric.I tug it on over my clothes and step out to show Bryttni.
She blinks in disbelief.
I’m already out of patience with this farce.I say, “Yes or no, Bryttni.Because it’s either this dress or my ranch clothes.”
On the way to the cash register, Bryttni says, “We’re getting you shoes next, and no, you can’t try them on over your shit kickers.”
She’s true to her word.Bryttni helps me find a pair of heeled sandals that probably won’t cause me to break an ankle.Then she eyeballs me up and down and picks out a black bra-and-panty set, the bottoms looking more like a slingshot than underwear.
“I don’t wear that kind,” I inform her.
“You do tonight,” she says.
Next, Bryttni forces me to look at jewelry.I don’t want to buy any of it.It’s wrong to spend Declan’s money like this, and I tell her so.
She sighs and goes off to pick out some shit without my input.
Not ten minutes later, I’m walking into the spa.Ten minutes after that, I’m walking out of the spa shower wrapped in a towel, and a woman hands me a fancy spa robe and slippers to wear to my hair appointment.“I’ll take you to Bruno,” she says, and I can’t help but feel like a horse thief headed to the gallows.
“Fresh as a daisy,” Bruno says, patting a salon chair.He then snaps a giant bib around my neck and spins me around to face a huge mirror.“What are we doing today?”
“Do not cut my hair.”
He rests a hand on his hip and blinks at my reflection in the mirror.“This isn’t a Wendy’s, sweetheart.We do hair here.Let’s try this again, shall we?What are we doing today?”
CHAPTER 11
Declan
I unzip my garment bag and take out my suit and dress shirt.Of course, most of what I packed was intended for the surf and sand of Maui, not the Las Vegas concrete jungle.But I’m glad I had the presence of mind to throw this into the luggage hold just in case.
