She steps back and assesses me with satisfaction. "Perfect. Now go have fun and try not to get caught having sex in a dressing room."
My face goes hot. "I'm not going to?—"
"Please. You've been looking at Enzo like you want to devour him for days. I have eyes." She grins. "Just be careful. And maybe choose a dressing room without security cameras."
I leave before she can make it worse.
Enzo is waiting by the car and he does a double-take when he sees me.
"What are you wearing?" he asks.
"A disguise."
"You look like—" He stops.
"Like what?"
"Like trouble." His eyes move over me slowly, taking in the leather jacket and the exposed skin and the boots. "Like someone I shouldn't be alone with."
"Good thing we're going somewhere public then." I grin and get in the car before he can respond, watching him stand there for a moment with his jaw tight before he gets in the driver's side.
We drive in silence for the first ten minutes.
Then he says: "That outfit is dangerous."
"It's just clothes, Enzo."
"Nothing you wear is just clothes." He keeps his eyes on the road. "And that specifically is designed to make men stupid."
"Is it working?"
He glances at me briefly. "What do you think?"
The air in the car gets heavier.
The mall is empty when we arrive, all the lights on but silent, just us and the security guards stationed at the entrances who nod at Enzo as we pass.
I step out of the car and the space opens up around me, vast and quiet and temporarily mine, and I feel something in my chest loosen for the first time in days.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what?"
"For not making this difficult. For just bringing me here."
"I know how tough this is." His voice is quiet. "I know what that feels like."
We walk inside and I just breathe for a moment, taking in the open space, the emptiness, the freedom of movement after days of being contained.
Then I start walking.
Not toward anything specific, just moving through the space, and it feels like permission to exist outside the walls of that house, outside the countdown, outside everything except this moment.
I drift into a bookstore and spend twenty minutes just browsing, pulling books off shelves, reading back covers, putting them back. Enzo follows at a distance and doesn't rush me.
In a cosmetics store I test lipsticks on my wrist, bright colors I never wear, and when I find one that's almost obscenely red, I turn to him.
"What do you think of this one?"
