Page 126 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

“Exactly,” Lucy said, smirking as she stood. “Now get out of my cabin so we can get cute.”

They took the hint. Slowly. With too-long glances and little comments that felt loaded.

Garrett met my eyes once more before he left, and I saw something there, warmth, maybe. Worry. The pull of everything unresolved.

But then the door closed behind them, and Lucy’s eyes lit up like she was the Christmas tree herself.

“Okay. Operation Get Cute is officially underway.”

I blinked. “Is that a real operation?”

“It is now.” She grabbed my wrist and tugged me down the hallway as if we were late for a heist. “Come on. We’ve got like, two hours before the event, and your current vibe screamsdepressed college freshman in finals week.”

“Iamdepressed,” I muttered. “And finals week was traumatic, remember?”

“Exactly why this is a full transformation moment,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s going to be so much fun!”

She shoved open the door to her bedroom, which now doubled as our temporary shared closet-slash-chaos-zone, and flung open every drawer in a heartbeat.

“Let’s see,” she said, rooting around, a raccoon on a mission. “Something festive, but not too festive. Cozy, but hot. This is your reinvention, right?”

“Is it?”

“What?” she said innocently. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I threw a pillow at her.

She dodged it and popped up with a triumphant gasp, holding a thick cream-colored knit sweater with little pearlbuttons down the back. “This. With your dark jeans. And those boots you brought that make your legs look like sin.”

“Too dramatic,” I said, already losing the argument.

“You’re in denial,” she sang, tossing it at me. “Try it on.”

I groaned but pulled my sweatshirt over my head, tossing it onto the bed. Lucy turned away dramatically to give me “privacy,” which mostly meant she was rifling through a makeup bag like a beauty witch preparing a spell.

“You’re lucky you’re naturally hot,” she said. “But tonight we’re doing effort hot. We’re going full Hallmark protagonist. You’re going to glow like fresh snow and heartbreak recovery.”

“I swear, you come up with this stuff in your sleep.”

“I do, actually. It’s a gift.”

When I emerged in the sweater, Lucy did an actual slow clap. “See? If Ava could see you now, she’d choke on her jealousy.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Let’s mail her a postcard.”

She sat me down on the edge of the bed and got to work. Brushing, fluffing, dabbing things on my cheeks with a speed and precision that suggested this was not her first makeover montage.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she confessed, lining my eyes with a soft bronze shimmer. “Like in movies, where the sad girl becomes the sparkly girl and everyone falls in love with her. Only, you know, without the need to change who you are or whatever. You’re already great. We’re justenhancing.”

I smiled. “Do I at least get a dramatic entrance later?”

“Oh, absolutely. We’ll be fashionably late and glowing like hearth goddesses.”

When she finished, she spun me toward the mirror and did jazz hands.

“Ta-da!”

I barely recognized myself, but in a good way. My hair was soft and loose around my shoulders, not how I’d do it in my makeover videos at all.

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