Page 13 of Plays Well With Others

“I deserve it,” I add, pressing my face hard against him.

“Youdon’tdeserve it. You had a bad day.”

“This review will ruin me. I’m already struggling with my business. My shop here isn’t taking off like the one in Venice because I’m the idiot who thought it would be smart to flee town and just open a new shop in a new town and trust that everyone would come.”

“Hey,” he says, firm this time. “Would you talk to your friends that way?”

“What way?” I mutter into the dark cave of his comforting shoulder. I don’t ever want to leave. I will burrow here and hibernate.

“Would you let them call themselves idiots?”

“Well, I was one,” I say.

“It happens, Rachel. You had a moment. You said something you regret. You just have to pick yourself up and keep going. It’s like when I miss a big catch. Which, ahem, I did in last week’s game against the Pioneers,” he says, regret seeping into his tone.

“And I was so mad when the other team’s fans cheered you for missing it. I stomped my feet and flipped them off on the TV screen,” I say.

He chuckles, and his easy approach makes me lift my face a tiny bit, but not enough for him to see my mascara streaks.

“That guy who came into my store? He called me a stupid bitch in his review,” I confess, and it’s embarrassing to admit that out loud even though it’s in black and white and living forever online.

Carter seethes like a bull in a ring. “And he’s a cheating asshole. Want me to track him down and tell him he fucked with the wrong jewelry store owner?”

The image of Carter marching up to that slick man’s fancy home amuses me so much that the tears slow, then stop.

“No thanks. But I feel better now.”

I finally raise my face and, judging by Carter’s quickly hidden horror, I might feel better, but I can’t say the same about how I look.

* * *

Thank god for Sephora’s world-domination strategy. Five minutes later, Carter’s miraculously found another parking spot on this street and pulled up at the nearest makeup shop. “Tell me what kind you need, and I’ll get it. I love errands,” he says, rubbing his palms like he’s excited to track down a new tube of eye makeup.

“It’s from Mia Jane. It’s called Evening Shade. I need it in black. But not Jet Black. Be sure to get Studio Black. Not the volumizing one and not the waterproof one, but the curling, conditioning one,” I say.

He repeats, “Evening Shade. Studio Black,” but his warm brown eyes glaze over a bit, and it’s pretty clear what I need to do. I can’t let him save me every second of today.

“I’ll brave it,” I say, then dab at my cheeks again with a tissue I found in my clutch.

“I’ll go with you,” he says.

I take one more soldiering breath, then I step out of his car and join him on the sidewalk. I try not to freak out. Truly, I do. I hold my head high, and we stride into the shop, where a woman with electric-blue hair gawks at my clown face, then quickly course corrects. “Oh, honey, let’s take you to the makeup triage center.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Ten minutes later, I look presentable again with my makeup redone thanks to the electric-blue makeup angel.

Trouble is, there’s a new problem. I didn’t spot it before, but under the bright lights of the shop, I point at Carter’s slate-blue shirt, covered in my Jackson Pollack tears now. “I ruined your shirt,” I say, and maybe I do need waterproof mascara after all.

He glances down at the ink splotch the size of a sandwich on his shoulder. “Yes, you did, Dumont,” he says, but he’s sort of amused, maybe even proud.

My turn to save the day. “Gap to the rescue,” I say. There was one on this stretch of Chestnut when I grew up here, but when I scurry outside, there’s no Gap nearby. There’s no Target or men’s shop I can see either. I speak into my phone, asking where the nearest Gap is since those things are like Starbucks. But I shake my phone when I read the answer: “Google said the nearest Gap closed down.”

“I’m still in mourning. But I can just wear this,” Carter says, plucking at his horribly stained shirt. “I literally walk around with mud on my shirt on Sundays.”

“But it’s a Friday,” I say, energized by my new mission—to help him. He’s done nothing but help me since I made the official move to town, from lifting the couch, to giving me a ride, to letting me slobber all over his shoulder.

And dammit, I need a victory. If there’s one thing this broken down, hot mess of a divorcee can do, it’s shop.

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