Page 29 of Charming my Best Friend

My jaw dropped as he hung up. I didn’t know what to think. He’d never said anything like that to me in my life. Suddenly, I was overcome with anxiety. Should I wear something low cut to indulge him or wear a fucking turtleneck so he didn’t dare speak to me like that again?

When I finally picked my jaw up off the floor, I felt ridiculous. It was not okay for him to talk to me like that even if he was hammered. So why couldn’t I stop smiling?

I wished Fiona hadn’t left so I could ask her advice. Then again, I knew she would want me to dress like a total skank if I told her he said that.

I sighed. I supposed the least I could do was oblige him a little. Maybe some collarbone and a hint of cleavage just to be playful. I mean, he was probably being facetious anyway. I put on my favorite scoop neck black shirt and looked in the mirror.

What if he was embarrassed that he said that, and then I showed up with a low cut top on? What if he wasn’t embarrassed and he actually checked me out when I walked in?

I needed to calm down. It didn’t matter what I wore. He was just being drunk and flirty to take his mind off the fact that he and Chelsea broke up. If anything, I should just be happy that I was off the hook for telling him the truth about her. And even though he would probably just move on to a newer model of the same ridiculous type of person, that didn’t concern me.

What concerned me was being for him now when he wanted to get drunk and rant so he could move on with a clean slate.

I put in the little sunflower earrings that always cheered me up when I was feeling down and started to apply my makeup. I figured, given the circumstances, that it wouldn’t hurt to put on a few extra coats of mascara. After all, the guy sounded depressed and he’d basically asked me to get dolled up.

Which- as much as I hated to admit it- was really flattering because it meant that at least he didn’t think of me as a sister and recognized the fact that I was a woman. And maybe it was only cause he’d recently seen the shape of my breasts down my shirt but still. It was something.

I dug around for some lip gloss and blotted my lips on a crumpled tissue that was lying on my dresser. Then I slipped a short skirt and my black boots on and grabbed my purse.

I looked in the mirror again for a second and cocked my head. For a split second, I actually thought I looked kind of pretty, but a moment later, I felt a sad gnawing in my heart.

Even at my best, I would never be a leggy blond model who looked good in pink and could pull off electric blue eye shadow. I would never be the kind of girl that men fought to open doors for or the type that walked straight to the front of the line when she went clubbing. Shit, I could barely walk in heels to save my life.

The best I could hope for was to be attractive enough to distract Aiden for a few minutes when he was down on girls like that.

And I could be that girl.

I always had been.

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