Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

“Alright, you’ve had long enough. I’m coming in.” Even as she said it, she was doing so, looking me up and down, a slow smile pulling at her lips. “I’m good,” she said with a nod. “Your tits and ass look great. Now, what are we going to do about heels? Black won’t work. White is tacky. Nude, I guess. I packed shoes, but I think your feet are bigger.”

“I think I have a pair of nude heels. They’re nothing fancy, but they’re decent and all but unworn.”

“Okay. Perfect. Hair and makeup?”

“Well, I should probably shower first,” I said and she nodded.

“I’ll leave you to that then. I am going to go out and grab coffee. Then I get to do your makeup. I’d do your hair, but I think it looks perfect in that half-wavy, tousled, bed-sexy thing you always do with it.”

With that, she was gone before I could even tell her that I didn’t do anything with my hair. The way it dried was the way I left it. I stripped out of the dress, laying it over the door to my closet so it didn’t wrinkle, and showered, paying extra attention to shaving and for the first time in my life, kind of wishing I had a bunch of that body scrub and loafa crap that most girls had stored away somewhere.

Forty minutes later, I was sitting in a towel, my hair slowly air drying around my face and shoulders as Fee bent in front of me, carefully applying a thinner layer of liner to my eyes than I usually did and a light coat of mascara. But only after she had curled them each four times. Yes, four.

“I’m conflicted about the lip situation,” she said, going into her makeup bag and pulling out a natural pink shade. “But you’ll be eating first so it will be off before the end of the date when all the fun stuff happens.”

“If,” I clarified.

“Yeah, right,” Fee laughed, sliding the wand over my lips and making me blot. “There. Once your hair dries, it will be perfect.” Then, both perfectly timed and flawlessly ridiculous, Fee’s phone started ringing from her purse in my bedroom. And because it was Fee, it wasn’t any normal ringtone. No, it was a nineteen-seventies porno ringtone. Bow-chicka-wow-wooooow. “Twenty bucks says Hunter either lost one, can’t shut one up, or can’t figure out how to get nail polish out of kitchen tile,” she declared as she went to the other room to answer. “Hey… yeah. Oh, really?” she asked, looking at me, lips twitching. “Yeah, that’s quite a problem. No, I’m not laughing at you,” she said, but she totally was. “It’s not my fault that you let her get a hold of permanent markers, you know. They were in my office which should have been locked like I left it. Oh my God,” she said laughing fully then. “Yeah. Okay. I’m about done here. I’ll be home in twenty. Love you more,” she declared, hanging up and looking at me. “Okay, so no nail polish or screaming, but apparently Becca drew a rocket on Izzy’s cheek in red permanent marker that looks less like a rocket and more like a cock. So, yeah, I need to get home and get that off before anyone else sees her.”

“Oh, the woes of modern motherhood,” I said with a smile.

“I swear to God this shit only happens with my kids. We can’t go a week without a minor crisis. So, do you need anything else from me? Hair clips? Perfume? Condoms?”

I laughed, waving her off. “I think the fishbowl you have full of them in the bathroom at work keeps all of us fully stocked.”

“If you ever need any better birth control than that, I am not above loaning out Becca for the weekend. She’s scared away seven babysitters. Seven. If I keep going through them, every woman in this town is going to get her tubes tied.”

“Lucky for you, she has four uncles and a set of grandparents that seem to have nerves of steel.”

Fee smiled as she grabbed her purse and gathered her clothes again. “Don’t think it didn’t get back to me that you joined Becca’s Boys Stink Club. She said you might be old, but you’re pretty fun. Next time she pulls an Exorcist on a sitter, she just might be darkening your door,” she warned. “Okay,” she said, walking through my apartment and toward my door. “So relax. Don’t get yourself all worked up. Have fun. Enjoy the sex!” she called, closing the door behind her.

With that, I had no more girly bullshitting to help prevent me from over-thinking. So I over thought as my hair dried, as I drank more coffee, then brushed the taste out of my mouth, as I rummaged for my nude heels, as I slipped into them, a pair of nude-colored cheeky undies, and finally… the dress.