Stacy’s eyes sparkled. “It makes it soooo much easier for a man to run his fingers through your hair.”
Alice giggled nervously. The thought of Russ’s hands in her hair made her scalp tingle. “You know this from experience?”
“A stylist never kisses and tells.” Stacy clicked the top on the mascara.
Alice smacked her arm. “Ack! Now you have to spill.”
Shaking her head, Stacy said, “Later. This is about you. Now pucker up.” She reapplied the bright lipstick, had Alice blot, and then added a glossy shine. “Whatever you do, do not ask him about the almost kiss.”
“Why not?” Alice asked incredulously. “What if he’s waiting for me to bring it up, and then he will proclaim his undying love and we’ll get to move past the wholealmostpart and get right to the kissing? Not that I would tell you about it.” Alice smirked.
Stacy smiled but shook her head. “If you bring it up first, then you look desperate.”
“Or like a grown-up who can have a conversation.”
“Or you’ll be embarrassed that he doesn’t proclaim his love, and your whole friendship will be ruined.”
“I hate it when you voice my fears.” Alice slipped in a pair of silver hoops.
“Trust me, it’s his move.”
Alice decided to trust Stacy’s recommendation for lipstick and silence. After all, if she could trust her sister with her eyebrows, she should be able to trust her advice on men. Stacy had more experience in the guy department; she parceled out her knowledge on a need-to-know basis. Alice really needed to know tonight.
There was a knock at the door, and both women scrambled to put away the trove of makeup on the coffee table. Heroines may spend hours getting ready for a date—or non-date? Let’s just call it an outing with her beau—but they never let the manknowthe monumental effort they procured on his behalf.
“Coming!” called Alice. She stood and adjusted her cowl-necked sweater before pulling her hair over her shoulders to frame her face and getting a thumbs-up from Stacy. Breathless with anticipation, she swung the door open. “Hi.”
Russ stared, his admiring look wandering over her flowing hair and landing on her lips. Alice’s mind went directly to their embrace. The air between them hummed with a sense of possibility. She wondered if Russ felt it as strongly as she did.
If he did, he masked it by clearing his throat. “Are you ready?”
As ever!“Yep.” She threw a chunky scarf around her neck to ward off the fall chill and waved goodbye to Stacy.
He bounced his keys in his hand as they walked to his car. “Just to be on the safe side, I did an online search for the book but didn’t see what Lillian was looking for. The ones I did find, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure would work, and they were expensive, so I didn’t order them.”
“Sounds like you had a busy day of procrastination,” Alice teased as she climbed into the car. He shut the door behind her and went around to his side. Stacy suggested she show Russ what he was missing out on, to leave a lasting impression for when Gabriella arrived. She wouldn’t bring up Gabriella unless he did, and she’d do everything in her power to steer the conversation far away from the starlet.
Russ started the car and pulled into traffic. “I do not procrastinate. I’m a professional.”
“Which means …?”
“Which means I don’t have the luxury of waiting for my muse to appear. I have to put my butt in that chair and get to work, inspiration or no inspiration.”
She glanced in his back seat and saw a helmet. “Or in your case, butt to bike?”
His cheeks, what she could see of them over his trimmed beard, flushed.
Laughing, she shook her head. “Busted.”
“I made slow and aggravating progress today—for about an hour,” he admitted sheepishly.
She chuckled. Traffic grew thick and she craned her neck to see around the car in front of them. “What’s going on?”
“They’re having a book signing.”
“Why did I not know this?” She pressed her hands against the window and stared owl-like at the gathering crowd. “I adore authors. Who is it?”
“Brenda Lee Mitford and Pumpkin the Labradoodle.”
