Chapter Nine
Letty
After a restless night of sleep with dreams that not even my journal gets to know about, I take my time picking out an outfit for work.
Maybe it’s the dreams about the biker with the stunning green eyes and the tattoos, or maybe it’s something else, but today I want to change up my appearance. I’ll never be the kind of girl, no, the kind of woman who wears short skirts and flashy tops that show off my breasts, but that doesn’t mean I still need to dress like a twelve-year-old choir girl.
Or does the way I live my life mean that’s exactly how I should dress?
Am I really changing my look for a man who is all wrong for me? Shades is handsome and charismatic, sure, but he’s also a criminal. The kind of man who people follow around and beat up. He’s the kind of man who gets into fights in church parking lots. He probably doesn’t even believe in God.
Who am I to judge?
That’s the question I pose to myself as I stare at my reflection. What right do I have to judge Shades for his life choices? It isn’t my place, and I don’t know his story, but I do know he served in the Marines. Maybe he has PTSD or did something he can’t live with, and that’s why he’s chosen this path.
Or maybe he’s just a criminal, and you’re making excuses because you had dirty dreams about him last night.
Okay, it could also be that.
I close my eyes tight, and yep, there they are again, images of me pressed up against the door while Shades kisses me like it’s the end of the world, and we’re the only two survivors. His hands are touching me, and I don’t back away but arch into his strong hands instead.
“Darn!” I open my eyes and discover my breathing shallow and my chest heaving.
Same reaction. Again.
Only now, my skin is flush, and my eyes look like pools of blue. My nipples are hard behind the full-coverage bra I wear to avoid tempting anyone to think I’m the wrong kind of woman.
That’s my mother talking, not me.
I change out of the bra that looks like it’s made for a woman twenty years older and opt for a black and white polka dot bra to wear under my navy blue blouse.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” The woman staring back at me isn’t just passably pretty. She’s kind of a knockout.
The navy blue shirt makes my eyes blue like a California sky. and they pop prettily thanks to my sable brown eyeliner. But it’s not just the makeup. The bra makes my breasts look bigger, which I’m not sure I like, but it changes the shape of my body into an hourglass.
“Holy wow!” Instead of my kitten heels, I dig out a pair of deep blue heels I’d worn to a wedding last year, and now I have long legs and a trim waist.
I look good.
No, I look amazing.
“What are you wearing?”
My mother, the queen of image, scowls at me the moment I step inside the kitchen. Her gaze drags up and down my body, her lips twisting in clear and obvious disgust.
“They’re called clothes, Mother. It’s what we wear to cover up the nudity.”
I know she’s not going to appreciate my smart-aleck comment so I turn away and make a cup of coffee. With creamer.
“I know what clothes are, Loretta. What I’m asking is why are you wearing those particular clothes. Jeans are hardly appropriate for church.”
I add a little more creamer and two sugar cubes before I bestow a grin on my disapproving mother.
“I’m not going to church, Mother. I’m going to work, and jeans are perfectly acceptable for work.”
“Creamer! You’re using creamer in your coffee? You know that stuff is full of fat.”
I frown at my mug and set it down at the table across from my scowling mother and silent father. “If it’s so horrible, why do we have it?”