“Do I get windblown cowboy hair?” Maybe she’ll run her hands through my hair—a close second to the baby oil.
“You get a cowboy hat with this one.”Is it me or does she sound disappointed?
Finley spends the next ten minutes brushing my face, neck, and chest with that incredibly soft brush of hers. When she’s done, she steps back and simply stares. “Wow.”
“Thank you,” I tell her smugly. There’s nothing quite like feeling appreciated by the woman you’re interested in. And boy, am I interested in Finley.
She walks over to a shelf near the costumes and pulls down a dark brown cowboy hat. Then she grabs a rope off a hook on the wall. Leading the way to a backdrop of a field, she calls, “Over here, Cowboy Thomas.”
I practically run to her side. “I like it when you call me Cowboy Thomas,” I tell her in what I hope is a flirty manner.
“You look good in that costume.” She winks and walks over to her camera table. Picking one up, she comes back and orders, “It’s go time. I want you to flex your muscles and smolder like you’ve never smoldered before.”
So far, this is my favorite look. Probably because every little boy dreams of being a cowboy at some point in his life, even a city boy who rarely gets his hands dirty.
Giving her my best John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Gary Cooper all wrapped into one, makes me feel like the manliest of men. “I might have to buy an outfit like this for my days off,” I tell her. I’m only partially joking.
Finley stops snapping pictures long enough to say, “You can have this one. Wear it on our date.”
Even though the air is heavy with tension, I can’t help but laugh. “You want me to take you to the lodge looking like this?”
“Is that where we’re going?” She sounds excited.
“You said it was the nicest place in town, and I think our first date warrants that, don’t you?”
Her complexion tinges pink. “I do. And to answer your question, if you showed up looking like that, you’d ruin a lot of other dates. No woman with a pulse would be able to keep her eyes off you.”
“In that case,” I tell her, “I’ll wear something else. After all, I only have eyes for you.”Cowboys have game. I’m currently a thousand times smoother than I’ve ever been.
We spend another three hours shooting for my revenge calendar. We even manage to fit in a fourth look—a Scottish highland warrior. That one required having extensions added for a wilder look. The best part was that Finley had to run her fingers through my hair when she clipped the synthetic pieces in.
It’s nearly five o’clock by the time we’re done and I am worn out from pretending to be so many different people—modeling is harder than you’d think. Yet, I don’t want my time with Finley to end. “I know we talked about having our first date tomorrow night, but what do you say we go out tonight, too?”
“We could, except I’m not ready to commit to two dates,” she tells me bluntly.
“Okay. Why don’t we go out tonight, and if you decide I warrant a second date, we can go out tomorrow night, too?” I cringe a little at the blatant hope in my voice.
“I’d have to go home and change,” she says. Then she turns flirty. “Are you sure you don’t want to put that cowboy costume back on?”
After assuring her I’d be more comfortable in my normal clothes, we agree that I’ll pick her up in an hour and a half. She has decided that because it has stopped raining and the roads are dry, she’ll be safe enough with me behind the wheel, and we probably won’t die in a gruesome car accident. I’ve decided to take this as a vote of confidence.
Once I’m back at my house, I walk inside and look around. I’ve done nothing to make it feel like mine, yet. And at the rate I’m going, I’m not sure I will. The place came furnished, and as near as I can tell it was inhabited by someone’s eighty-year-old grandmother. There are a lot of chintz and floral patterns. Thepictures on the walls are illustrations of Victorian-era calendar girls.
I briefly toy with the idea of replacing the artwork—if you can call it that—with my modeling images. A maniacal burst of amusement fills the air when I envision my parents’ reaction to them. This is seriously the most devious and entertaining prank I’ve ever played. And I owe it all to Finley. I could have never concocted such an outlandish concept without her misinterpretation of why Constance hired her.
With a smile on my face, I pick up my phone and call my sister. She answers around the twentieth ring, as is her norm. Vivie rarely keeps her phone on her and often loses it altogether. “Thomas.” Her voice is breathy like she’s just run a marathon.
“Hey, Viv,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine. How are you?”
“I’m great,” I tell her. “Really good.” I sound suspicious even to myself.
My sister immediately guesses, “So, thereisa woman! I knew it.”
“Her name is Finley,” I tell her. “But don’t tell Mom and Dad yet. I want to surprise them.”
“Is she surprising?” Vivie is very literal, which I know goes hand-in-hand with being on the spectrum.
