“You’re not buying,” Hawk said.
“You’renotbuying me clothes,” she said.
“We’re doing whatever we want,” Hawk said. “Just like always.”
He didn’t have to sound like such a dick about it, but he wasn’t wrong.
We passed Prada and came to the Gucci storefront on the ground floor of Saks Fifth Avenue.
Cassie froze. “Wait… we’re going to Gucci?”
“We’re going to Saks,” I said. “You can get everything there. Would you rather go to Gucci?”
“No, I just…” She rubbed her forehead, something she’d started doing around the small scar where she’d had stitches after the accident. “This is a lot.”
I stopped on the sidewalk and pulled her out of the throng of pedestrian traffic.
“Sorry.” I stroked her velvety cheek with my thumb. “Maybe I should have asked you to go with me since it’s a date?”
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t actually asked Cassie to go to the award ceremony. I’d just told her we were going and started driving toward the city to get her a dress, like a fucking maniac.
Not very civilized, I guess.
She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh. “Asking is… nice for a date.”
“Fuck. I fucked this.” I took her hand, looked at the sky, and took a deep breath. Then I looked her in the eyes because that was probably a part of the whole date thing. “Cassie Montgomery, will you accompany me to my dad’s award ceremony Saturday night?”
A smile lit up her face. “I’d love to.”
“Can we go inside now?” Hawk asked behind me.
“Obviously,” I said. “Our mouse needs a dress. And she’s going to get a fucking dress.”
Jagger reached for the glass door of the department store, then held it open as a well-heeled older woman with glossy black hair and red lipstick emerged.
“Love the lipstick,” I told her, making a chef’s kiss motion with my fingers. “Major cougar energy. Rawr.”
She tried to scowl but a smile quirked at the corners of her lips as she approached a black car with tinted windows idling at the curb.
Hawk entered the store ahead of me, then Cassie.
But when I tried to enter Jagger put his boot down in front of me, blocking the path.
“Be cool.”
“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant but it was fun to ask and even more fun to make him answer.
“Act like you were raised by human beings instead of wolves.”
I grinned. “No problem.”
28
CASSIE
I’d beenin nice stores before. Bram hadn’t been cheap about stuff like that when I’d been a kid, and he’d even weighed in on dresses for prom and homecoming, although hehadalways leaned toward the most chaste of my options.
But I’d never been in Saks Fifth Avenue and I’d definitely never had what the older woman in a Gucci skirt suit and strand of pearls called “our private shopping experience.”
