Page 47 of Looks Real Good Now
Just as it felt like Lenny was gone for a tad too long, she came back in, eye now fully lined.
“Could you have just done your makeup in the bathroom?”
“I could have, but there was something nostalgic about sitting on the bed in my childhood bedroom, doing my makeup for a party with all our high school friends. That, and I really could not be bothered to get up. You got your Claus joke yet?”
“No, I keep getting stuck somewhere between stockings, stuffing, and naughty.”
She laughed as she started rolling a stocking up her leg.
“You’re doing it again, Muller,” she said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. I was too focused on her fingers unfurling the fabric up her calf and onto her thigh before securing it to the garter belt.
“We don’t have to go to this party,” I said, still looking at her legs. I didn’t see the sock coming until it hit me in the face.
“I have put on a full face of makeup and steamed the creases out of my dress, Liam. You are not going to be the only person who sees it.”
“Fine, I’m going to wait for you downstairs because if I watch you pull that other stocking up, we are not leaving this bedroom,” I said.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said today,” she replied.
She came downstairs wearing a tight red dress that settled just under the top of her stockings and highlighted the curve of herass. Her heels made her already long legs look miles longer. I let out a groan and Lenny giggled.
“I need you to know that, although yes, I did pack this outfit just in case I had to go to a party, I had no intention of wearing it. I had cosy Christmas Eve plans that you ruined by accepting this party invite. And I’m a nice girlfriend, but I’m not that nice. Realistically, I could have worn nice jeans and a sweater, and it would’ve been fine. But now you are going to have to attend with the knowledge that if you inch this hem just a couple of centimetres, you’re going to reach the sensitive skin of my upper thighs. And just above that, all you would have to do is slip my underwear to the side to get your hands on my pussy which, surprise, is wet.”
There was so much about what Lenny had just said to dissect, but my mind kept getting stuck on the fact that she had called herself my girlfriend. Just girlfriend. Not a mention of the word fake anywhere.
Just a woman who wanted to cruelly tease her boyfriend because he made her go out to a party.
“You look beautiful.”
Lenny clearly still hadn’t learned how to take a compliment, so she rolled her eyes and went to get her coat. As she pulled it on, she studied me slowly, taking in what I was wearing. Black jeans and a dark grey knit sweater that she would borrow indefinitely if I gave her a fraction of a chance. It was an outfit simply unworthy of being in the same stratosphere as hers, but it didn’t matter because Alana was looking at me like she wanted to drag me back upstairs.
“You look shit-hot too, Muller,” she said, shaking her shoulders,and I guess clearing whatever fantasy she had going through her head, before opening the front door and waiting for me to catch up.
30
Alana
Ididn’t hate being at this party as much as I thought I would, but when we hit the two-hour mark, my social battery bottomed out, and suddenly, I needed to be back in my house in my sweatpants and one of Liam’s t-shirts.
So, of course, I couldn’t find him and ended up cornered by Eddie. I had liked Eddie just fine when we were in high school. He was the star quarterback, but he never cared about football the way people wanted him to. He was just good at it. He’d had a calming energy about him whenever we hung out, which had typically only happened in situations very similar to this one.
What I had forgotten about Eddie was that he used to have a crush on me. One that he clearly hadn’t gotten over in the last thirteen years. Or maybe he had, but then the proximity made it come back with a vengeance.
“I’d heard you were around for the holidays,” he said as a greeting, his eyes tracking up and down my body.
“Here I am,” I said weakly.
“How have you been?” he asked. I was bored of this question at this point. The answer was complicated. Did they mean overthe last thirteen years since I missed our high school graduation, in which case the answer was fine? Or did they mean recently, where I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster that I very much wanted to get off? Not even six months ago, I’d been with the person that on some level, I believed I was going to marry, and yet now I felt more at home than I ever had with someone else.
I couldn’t even call it falling in love because it wasn’t that. It was a phoenix finally rising from the ashes of a love that had long burned up but was getting ready to fly again.
“Yeah, I’ve been fine,” is what I said instead. It’s what I had been saying every time I was asked.
“You around for long?”
“Through to New Year,” I said. I had a feeling I knew where this was going, and I felt anxious goose bumps prickle on my skin.
“That’s plenty of time for us to hang out then,” he said, his eyes still looking at my body, never my face. I think he was going for flirty, but it wasn’t working. Maybe if there wasn’t someone else, I would say sure, we could hang out. Eddie was as good a rebound as anybody. But there was someone else. And Eddie either hadn’t been told or he didn’t care and thought he could compete with Liam.
