Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

Looking up, I stare at my huge skirt in the mirror, bored with this entire look that’ll live forever and come back to haunt the shit out of me in years to come.

I lift up the skirt, cringing at the white stockings and fugly satin heels, and then I spin, taking in the back of my gown and the obnoxious corset lacing that should really be buttons instead.

God, I should’ve taken that Xanax. Why the hell do I want to make her happy when she’s out to hurt my feelings like this?

Twisting the other direction, I see someone leaning against the archway and stop, meeting Olivia Jaeger’s eyes.

My heart hammers in my chest.

She holds canvas bags stuffed with tulle and ribbon, her aviators sitting on top of her head as she clearly struggles to hold back her amusement.

I tip my chin up. “Come here,” I tell her, facing the mirror again.

I hear her lose the bags, and after a moment, she comes around my front, facing me.

“Pin the hem,” I instruct. “It’s still dragging, so bring it up another quarter of an inch.”

Hands on her hips, she hesitates like it’s a choice, and then drops to a squat, pulling a pin off the cushion secured to her wrist.

But before she grabs the dress, I pull it away from her. “Wash…your hands first.”

I shake my head as she shoots me a look.

I mean, really. If she’s learned anything, crossing the tracks into St. Carmen every day to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the state the past three-and-a-half years, it should be some common sense. They certainly teach that at Marymount.

Rising, she walks over to the round table and pulls a wipe out of the package, cleaning her fingers. The Jaegers were born with grease under their nails, so better to be safe than sorry.

Approaching me again, she drops down, blowing the lock of hair that came loose from her ponytail out of her face, and folds the hem, pinning it up.

I tip my head back and smooth my hair into a fist high on the top of my head, twirling it into a bun and holding it there. I check myself in the mirror.

Her fingers tug gently at the fabric as she moves to the next spot, and my heart beats harder, every pore in my body cooling with a sudden sweat.

I let my eyes fall, watching her at my feet.

Her jean shorts. The dusky olive skin of her toned legs glowing in the light of the chandelier. I trail my gaze over her messy jet black ponytail and the red tint of her lips as she bites the bottom one, concentrating on her task. Her black-and-white-checkered flannel lies open, and I pause at the low V of her gray T-shirt underneath as it dips between the smooth, pore-less skin of her…

I tip my chin up, looking in the mirror again. Is she even wearing a bra, for crying out loud?

She lifts up my skirt to just past my ankles and steals a peek. “You should lose the stockings,” she tells me, going back to pinning. “And the shoes, too, for that matter.”

I turn a little, jutting out my shoulder and trying to decide if the dress looks better with my hair up or down.

“Imagine what the world would have to come to for me to take fashion advice from a white trash, rugsucking, swamp rat like you,” I reply.

The black leather, calf-high boots are kind of cute and all, but I’m pretty sure everything she’s wearing is whatever she could scrounge up from someone’s hand-me-downs.

I feel her eyes on me, and I look down, seeing a little gleam in her eye. Kind of amused, but mostly a warning that she’s making a mental note of all the shit I say to her for a rainy day.

I’m shakin’, Liv. Really, I am.

“If I take off the stockings,” I explain. “I won’t be properly dressed. The women in my world are ladies, Olivia.”

“You’ll feel it on your legs, though.” She looks back down to her task. “It’ll change how you carry yourself.”

“What will? The sticky, noxious sweat of a Florida in May on my naked thighs?”

The debutante ball is in May. The humidity will be a nightmare, despite the air-conditioned banquet hall hosting it. Like she knows anything.