Page 41 of Bombshells
November
SYLVIE
Two weeks later I find myself seated on a sofa at the Colorbox salon, waiting for my manicure to be declared officially dry, when Charli blows in through the front door. Then she removes her coat, and I almost swallow my tongue. “Wow, Charli! You look…” I actually run out of words. After all her complaints about tonight’s benefit party, I thought she might bail completely.
But here she is, dressed in a body-hugging, forest-green sheath dress with translucent sleeves. There’s no skin showing, but it’s so beautiful. That dark color makes her pale skin and hair practically glow.
“That bad, huh?” Charli says, snapping her gum.
“Stop. You look magnificent. Wow.”
“Thanks, babe. Not to make this weird, but are you going to this party? Not sure the sweatpants are your best option. At least level up to jeans, maybe?”
“She’s stalling!” calls Fiona from behind the curtain that was put up just for us tonight.
Rebecca threw us a glam-you-up pre-party at her nail salon. I just had my first manicure in a year.
“Sylvie, put on the fucking dress already,” Fiona calls. “It’s time.”
“Okay but…” I gulp. “I don’t know if I bought the right thing.”
Fiona sticks her head out from behind the curtain. “Put that damn thing on, or I’ll make the whole team do a bag skate tomorrow morning.”
“Whoa.” Charli’s head snaps back in shock. “She’s not fucking around. Put the dress on, already.”
“Fine.” I get up off the sofa and walk back behind the curtain, where my teammate Samantha is adjusting the ruffles on her dress.
“It’s all yours,” she says. “I’m going to do my makeup in front.”
Fiona tries to hand me my dress bag, but first I have to shimmy out of the sweatpants. I sit down on a stool and pull the sheerest stockings I’ve ever owned in my life over perfectly shaved legs and sexy panties.
“Somebody better see that lingerie tonight,” Fiona says, clucking her tongue. “Somebody besides me, I mean.”
“Dream on,” I grumble. I’ve hoisted my boobs into a black lace strapless bra, too.
“I might have left a condom on your bedside table,” she whispers.
“What? Why?”
“Because this dress is magic. As a woman who’s sometimes into women, I’m here to tell you that you don’t know its power.” She thrusts the dress at me again.
“All compliments are welcome,” I tell her as I drop the little black dress over my head. I bought it last week at Bloomie’s, with Fiona’s encouragement.
Too much encouragement, maybe. The dress is cut from black velvet so soft that it feels like butter in a fabric form. It has a circular, halter-style neckline that doesn’t show any cleavage. But it’s short. The hem style is called an “ellipse” because the back is longer than the front.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
I put it on anyway, and then—holding the neckline closed so I can see how it drapes—I look in the salon’s three-way mirror.
And then I remember why I bought this dress in the first place. It just fits me. The velvet clings to all the right places. The hem skims across my thighs in a flattering spot, and then drops elegantly down a few inches to sufficiently cover my rear.
It’s not scandalous at all. Not on the face of it. But it makes me look more sensual and sexy than anything else I’ve ever owned.
I take a deep breath, step into the heels that Fiona lent me, and consider the whole look. My hair is clean and shiny. I’m wearing makeup, and I’ve dabbed a bit of Fiona’s perfume at my pulse points. The whole effect was designed to make Bryce Campeau’s jaw drop.
But now I find I’m losing my nerve. “Fiona!” I bark.
“Yes? Need me to pin that dress?”
