CHAPTER 1
Carolina, Montana
Millie
“Come on, Millie. Don’t be a prude!” Charlotte accused, as I hemmed and hawed at my reflection in the mirror.
“I’m not a prude!” I emphatically defended, though I knew I kind of was. At least, when compared to most girls my age. “I’m just not used to wearing heels and things like… this.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Exactly! That’s why you have to wear it tonight. You can’t keep going out looking like a nervous virgin your whole life.”
That was going to be a problem, because I was anervous virgin.
Sure, I’d gone on dates and even kissed a few guys in the past, but I’d never felt comfortable enough with any of them to go any farther than that. Of course, Charlotte didn’t know that. We’d only just met a few weeks earlier when I’d applied for a job at the local Pizza Palace. Though I hadn’t gotten the job, I’d gotten a friend out of the new deal. Which, in my opinion, was the far superior outcome.
I knew Charlotte was trying to help me break out of my comfortable bubble, but it didn’t feel like help. It felt like pressure. And I didn’t like that anymore than I liked the scarlet-red body-hugging dress she’d poured me into tonight. Maybe even less, given how my butt looked in the dress.
Unlike Charlotte, I wasn’t accustomed to clothes like these. I’d been raised by a single father and had dressed me like a tomboy my whole life. That hadn’t changed when I’d gone through puberty and developed a double D chest and curves that made me self-conscious in anything more form-fitting than a baggy t-shirt and jeans.
Sighing, I turned to the side and bit my lower lip. We all needed a push now and again to get out of our comfort zone. Unfortunately for me, this felt like a straight up shove over the edge of a fifty-foot cliff. But perhaps it was necessary. I was nineteen after all. Time to grow up and start acting like the adult woman I was.
“Come on! I told Alice we’d meet her by eleven, and we haven’t even left yet,” Charlotte whined, as she texted furiously back and forth with her cousin about our ETA.
Accepting my fate, I snagged my purse off Charlotte’s dresser and followed her to the door. “Okay, okay. I’m ready. Let’s go meet up with Alice”
Jumping into her Lexus, courtesy of herverygenerous parents, Charlotte fiddled with the radio as I buckled in. As soon as I closed the door, she backed out of her parents’ driveway and down the street of her beautifully landscaped neighborhood.
I tried not to be the jealous sort. I really did. But when I saw families like Charlotte’s——you know, intact and so indulgently loving of their baby girl—I couldn’t help but be a little envious. Okay, a lot envious.
I lost my dad in a terrible accident when I was seventeen, my mom when I was six. Before Dad passed, he didn’t talk about her much. The long and short of it? He’d awoken one morning to a note that said she “needed space”. Some time to clear her head. A week turned into a month. A month into a year. A year into three. In the fourth year after her abandonment, we’d learned she’d passed away from ovarian cancer through a mutual acquaintance. We’d never even gotten to say goodbye or inherited any keepsakes to remember her by.
So when I saw two-parent households like Charlotte’s, replete with a family dog and little brother that were oh-so-adorable, I was more than just a little envious. That life had been all I’d dreamt about since childhood. Safety. Security. A place of belonging. Not living in apartment after apartment, in nameless town after nameless town, like I’d experienced growing up with my dad.
“Here’s your fake ID,” Charlotte said then, interrupting my thoughts as she handed me the plastic disc that would get me into the bar, no questions asked. “Memorize the info on that now in case the bouncer quizzes you.”
I looked over the image of the woman on the front. She was twenty-five and had glasses. In this case, that might actuallyhelp me. I could account for the differences in our appearances by claiming I was wearing contacts. Plus, everybody looked different with their makeup and hair done, right? I’d had worse. I could make it work.
“You two aren’t exactly twins,” Charlotte conceded, “but it’s a way better match than mine.” She flashed me her ID, and I had to stifle a laugh.
Charlotte looked nothing like the woman on her “borrowed” license. For starters, my friend had pin straight auburn hair and the person on her ID was a strawberry blond with natural curls. You’d have to squint pretty darn hard to think either girl was even loosely related, let alone the same person.
“Do you think these are going to be a problem?” I wondered, afraid we’d be turned away at the door after getting all dolled up for the night. On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all. I wasn’t in the going out mood. I’d just agreed so Charlotte and I could hang out before I started my coffee shop job and got bogged down with my work schedule next week.
“Nah. The bouncers at the door don’t give a shit as long as the licenses are real and you know the info on them,” Charlotte explained. “I’ve been there a dozen times before and I always get in, easy-peasy.”
I’d better commit it to memory then. I’d hate to be the one who mucked up this operation. Glancing down at the rectangular plastic card in my hand, I noted the name on the license was Karen Steinberg.
“Who does this one belong to, by the way? Another cousin of yours?” I wondered aloud.
Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t know. We found it outside a bar in the parking lot about a year ago. It’s within the expiration date, so we use it every weekend. No problems yet!”
Great. I certainly hoped that her winning streak didn’t end with me tonight. Or, God forbid, we bumped into Karen Steinberg while we were out and about at the bars. That would be the literal definition of awkward. Not to mention highly illegal. If I wasn’t nervous before, I definitely was now.
When we pulled up to Maverick’s, Charlotte had to circle the block twice before she found a parking space. It was several streets away from the bustling district where the bar was located. In these heels, that was going to prove interesting. And by interesting, I meant painful.
Getting out of the car, I adjusted the hem of my “dress”, which fell higher on my body than some of my shirts, and tugged it as low as I could get it to go. The only problem was that when I did that the bodice dipped and exposed even more of my bulging cleavage, which was already pretty substantial.
Charlotte was typing away on her phone as she double-timed it toward the door of Maverick’s. It was freezing outside, so at least the military pace was keeping us warm.
