I closed my eyes in terror.
The dress she’d picked had a knee-length skirt and would have been extremely modest except that the shoulders were sheer chiffon. Even then, very little of my chest was exposed—amazing since I was so well-endowed.
As black dresses went, this one was tame—which perfectly suited me. It had three-quarter-length sleeves and a close-fitting bodice with a cut-out panel of sheer lace across the top and down the back. It was beautiful, but it required very specific technology underneath—a strapless bra that squeezed the life out of me. Or…
I remembered the package in my bag with the stick-on breast supports Angela wanted me to test. That was the moment I knew the universe hated me. “You would pick that dress.”
“At least you won’t have to put your bra back on.”
“Yeah. Cuz the stick-on ones are just so comfortable. And I have to wear a body shaper to smooth the rest of me under that thin fabric.”
Madi draped the dress over me as I laid on the bed. It drifted across my skin as soft as air, but one of the plastic strings sewn into the shoulders landed on my mouth, tickling my lip.
As I brushed it away, Madi said, “I swear it will be worth it. I have a good feeling about tonight.”
“Whatever. Go finish shaving your legs so I can get in there before you use all the hot water. You left it running.”
She shrieked and ran to the bathroom, leaving me to kick myself in private.
Was I really dumb enough to go out to dinner with a rich stranger with only a couple sticky pieces of foam to support me through it?
Chapter Three
By the time we walked into the low-lit, swanky restaurant—only ten minutes late—I thoroughly regretted ever meeting Madi. All my insecurities clawed to break out of the cage I’d stuffed them in—rather like the situation going on with my chest. “I take it back. This is not worse than watching you sulk all weekend.”
Madi’s eyebrows twitched together as she frowned. “You never said that.”
“Oh. Well, I thought it several times.”
“I don’t sulk.”
But the hostess saw us then, squashing my impulse to bolt for freedom. She stood behind a glossy black counter and in front of a back-lit shelving unit covered in wine bottles, giant hydrangea blooms, and lit candles. “Good evening, ladies. Do you have a reservation?”
“We’re joining Taylor Schlesinger’s party,” Madi told her, lifting her chin a bit.
I didn’t blame her. The hostess was super intimidating with her cool stare and modulated voice. But as soon as she heard Taylor’s name, her whole demeanor changed. She even smiled. “Of course. I’ll take them myself, Don. You can see to their coats.”
She stepped out from behind her obsidian fortress, sending the candles flickering. Don assisted us as we took our coats off before carrying them away to some hidden place where such unsightly things as wool and tweed wouldn’t break the contrived perfection of the decor. The hostess then expertly directed us forward without the hint of a suggestion that she was doing so. She had some serious skills, and I found myself fascinated by her. What kind of training did that sort of thing require? Were the talented eyebrows a job qualification? Did she turn into a real person when she went home at night?
My mind was still caught up in these interesting questions when we made it halfway across the restaurant floor and around a giant half-wall screening the back part of the restaurant. Since there was only one table occupied in this part of the room, it was easy to guess where we were headed. Two men sat on either side of a square table in an intimate corner, engaged in what must have been an engrossing conversation, since neither of them looked up until we were practically at the table.
However, as soon as they did, they stood like gentleman from a gangster movie and smiled. It was easy to tell who Taylor was because his eyes shot straight to Madi. It surprised me a little, because while he was good-looking in a way, he didn’t hold a candle to the man with him. That man had the combination of symmetrical, classic features with a hint of distinction that turned people into movie stars. His square jaw and slanted cheekbones screamed manly perfection, but his eyebrows were dark and straight, his lips a shade too full, and his nose was slightly crooked.
But I probably only noticed because I desperately wanted to find his flaws. His brown eyes studied me every bit as critically, and from the slight pressing together of his lips, I knew he wasn’t thrilled with his date for the evening.
Which wasn’t fair. If only he knew how well my stick-ons were holding up—and holding up in every sense of the word, he would have looked me over with a lot more respect. It was so sad that men were clueless about such victories.
Still, maybe his twitch of disapproval had all been in my head. There was a good chance I was being too sensitive in this temple of perfection. But I didn’t think so.
And there was…something….
Had I seen him before?
“Madi, this is my friend, Logan Jennings.”
Making introductions across a table was always awkward, but as Madi leaned across the table to shake Logan’s hand, she managed to make the whole exchange look graceful and relaxed. She was an exacting clean-freak, high-maintenance, and impulsive—all things which annoyed me—but I would never have a tenth of her social poise.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she murmured in a voice like warm honey. “This is my friend Tessa Young.”
Logan’s eyes turned my way again. This time he hid his disappointment so well, I doubted my impression even more. His handshake was masterful, neither crushing nor weak and not a second too long or short. “Thanks for agreeing to be my date tonight,” he said, smiling warmly.
I opened my mouth to answer, but Madi jumped in before I could say anything. “Oh, well, we’re just four people getting to know each other, right?”
Turning my head in surprise, I eyed her expression as I sank into my chair, barely even noticing the way Logan helped me to scoot it in. Madi looped the strap of her evening bag over the back of her chair and sat down as well. Her face was placid, but it was obvious that she was avoiding my eyes. What was she up to?
The waitress deftly presented a menu to each of us, but Madi didn’t even glance down at hers. “So, Logan, you’re here for business?”
He looked up and nodded once. “Yes. For a short time. No more than a few weeks.”
Madi pouted. She had perfected the art. “Oh, that’s too bad. We’ll have to see what we can do to convince you to stay longer.
By this point, I wasn’t the only one eying her in surprise. Taylor, her supposed date, had narrowed his eyes just a fraction. Madi, clearly off in pursuit of a new objective, was unaware of the awkward tension she’d just introduced. I, however, was not.
Trying to smooth things over, I turned to Logan with an enthusiasm I was far from feeling and asked, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a business consultant—which is what brings me to town.”
“Who are you consulting with?”
He gave an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”
Madi giggled. “He could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.”
Logan and Taylor both laughed, even though the cliché joke didn’t spark even a hint of humor from me. But she could tell a joke straight off a Laffy Taffy wrapper and get the same reaction.
Feeling grumpier by the second, I gave up trying to salvage the evening and turned to my menu. At least some good food would keep it from being a total loss.
“What do you do, Tessa?” Logan asked, his voice soft but somehow compelling.
I met his eyes squarely. “I’m afraid it’s confidential too. I guess we’ll have to find something else to talk about.”
His eyebrow arched just enough to make his surprise evident. He probably wasn’t used to women not falling all over him—like Madi seemed more than willing to do.
Taylor leaned toward Madi, asking, “What about you? Are you in a top-
secret line of work as well or just a boring old job like me?”
“Boring, I guess.” But her glinting smile said otherwise. “I’m news anchor with the local station.”
“Wow,” Taylor said, turning to Logan. “We’re having dinner with a celebrity. I guess we’d better treat you right then. Are you ladies ready to order dinner?”
My phone vibrated on the table as Taylor gestured to the waitress. Hoping it was something important that would give me an excuse to leave the table for a minute, I reached for it. But I moved too quickly and somehow managed to hit the edge of it where it hung off the table, flipping it somewhere behind me. It landed with a clatter somewhere I couldn’t see it.
Looking around quickly, praying it hadn’t cracked when it hit the gleaming, ebony-toned floor beneath us, I spotted it just on the other side of the table leg.
“I’ll get it for you,” Logan said, leaning down.
“I can get it.” And determined to be the one to pick it up for some reason, I leaned as far to the side as I could, reaching out my arm for it. And that’s when I felt a pop under my dress, like something under a lot of pressure giving way. I gave an angry groan and froze, not wanting to do any more damage.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked, his face inches away from mine on the other side of the table leg.”
Clapping my hand to my chest, I sat back up. With my mind scrambling to figure out what to do, I forgot all about my phone until Logan handed it to me. I grabbed it with my free hand and looked it over. At least if I was in the middle of an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, my phone wasn’t broken as well.
“Excuse me. I need to find the ladies room.”
“Tessa? Are you okay?” Madi asked as I walked away. But there was no way I was waiting around to explain.
One of the waitstaff directed me toward the restroom, so I was able to dodge inside quickly. Hopefully, I’d be able to stick things back where they went without much trouble. But that meant taking my dress off.
Luckily, even though there were only three stalls in the sleek bathroom, two of them were open. Unfortunately, the roomy handicap stall at the end was the one already taken. Sighing, I headed toward the first stall. This was going to be tricky.
I’ve never understood who designs bathroom stall doors to swing inside. There were only a few inches between the door and the toilet, so I had to grab hold of the wall, throw a leg over the toilet, and lean backwards to get the door shut. So elegant. And then, once I had the door locked, the real work began.
Madi had helped me zip the dress up, but I was going to have to unzip it and zip it back up on my own. Stretching my arm back over my shoulder as far as I could with my right hand, I groped for the zipper pull while pulling my dress taut from below with my left. I managed to get it down a few inches, but there was a long way to go still. As I moved my right hand down to reach up for the zipper pull from the other direction, I managed to bang my elbow hard on the wall.
“Ouch!”
“Are you okay over there?” my bathroom companion asked.
“Fine.” But I wasn’t. Waves of pain radiated through my arm. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was going to kill Angela.
As soon as I could move my arm again, I reached up for the zipper pull a third time, tugging at the fabric of my dress. I just managed to get hold of it, but I had to pinch the little metal tab in the tips of my fingers, which didn’t give me much leverage. By the time I finally moved it down low enough to wriggle the front of my dress down, I was exhausted and had managed to bang my other elbow and impale my hip on the corner of the trashcan mounted on the side of the stall. And things were as bad as I’d been afraid. The stick on bra on the left side had pulled completely free from my skin at the top, which meant it was giving zero support, and no matter how I pressed and held it, it didn’t want to stick back on.
Oh well. Now I had the perfect excuse to duck out of the most awkward dinner date I’d had…well, since the last time Madi had set one up. I tried to peel the rest of the sticky off, since it wasn’t doing me any good, but it felt like I was ripping my skin off. Same for the other side. Apparently, I was going to have to walk out of here seriously lopsided.
I heard the water turn on, and I realized that if the other lady left, I’d be stuck trying to get my dress zipped back up on my own.
Shoving my arms back into my sleeves and yanking the dress up, I opened the door and peered around. “Would you mind zipping me back up?”
It was a woman not much older than I was. Thankfully, she smiled as she dried her hands. “Sure. It sounded like you were wrestling a boa constrictor in there, you poor thing.”
“Felt like it too.”
I worked my foot over the toilet and swung the door open all the way so I could turn my back toward her. She had me zipped up in seconds. “Thanks. Can I ask you… Do my boobs look really uneven?”
Her eyes shot to my chest, flicking back and forth from side to side. “Well, honestly, yeah. But I probably wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t asked.”
I chuckled. “Got it. So, I just need to keep people from looking at them.”
“Good luck with that, girl,” she said as she left.
Moving over to wash my hands, I stared at my boobs in the mirror. Then I rolled my eyes. Like it even mattered. Madi would find the whole thing hilarious later, and it wasn’t like I’d ever see Logan or Taylor again or care what they thought.
Out of habit, I leaned closer to the mirror like I always did when I needed a self-esteem boost and stared straight into my green eyes. Not allowing myself to focus on my whether my curls had gone limp or if I had a double chin or if my hips looked big, I looked deeper and deeper until a spark of connection shot through me. It was like making contact with my soul, with my inner self. It was an old trick my mother had taught me to remember that the only thing that mattered was who I was inside. And I was a smart, capable, independent woman. Not to mention confident. And pretty freaking beautiful too, uneven boobs notwithstanding.
One deep breath later, I was ready to make my exit with my head held high.
With quick powerful strides, I left the protective shelter of the bathroom and turned down the dimly lit hallway back toward the restaurant floor. But as I turned the corner, I had to pull up sharply to keep from running into someone leaning against the wall, talking on their phone. Gasping a quick “Sorry,” I stepped to go around and then saw it was Logan.
He recognized me at the same moment and straightened up. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said into the phone before ending his call. “There you are. Everything okay?”
Confident woman though I might be, I quickly folded my arms under my chest to give the left side a boost. “Fine.”
“Good.” But he kept his eyes focused on me, quietly waiting for more information.
There was no reason I needed to explain anything to him, but somehow it was impossible not to say something. My fumbling brain flashed over ideas like claiming diarrhea, a death in my family, or starting my period. Luckily, I realized that all of them would have been more awkward than what really happened. And why was women’s underwear so taboo anyway? Surely a man as handsome as Logan knew the particulars of how it all worked. “If you really want to know, my stick-on bra couldn’t take the strain. Which means I’m heading out.” I held my right hand out to him, realizing too late that using my left arm as a brace now looked even more ridiculous. I let it fall to my side and willed Logan’s eyes to stay focused on mine. “It was nice to meet you. I hope you can still enjoy your dinner and have good luck with your confidential business. Please tell Madi I’ll see her at home.”
“Do you have a car?” he asked, not shaking my hand.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up. “No. I rode with Madi. I was going to get an Uber.”
“I’ll give you a ride.” He stepped forward and gently spun me around with a hand on my lower back. He directed me toward the front lobby, and since I was heading that direction anyway,
it was impossible to step away.
“That’s okay. I don’t want to put you to the trouble. Besides Madi will…” I closed my mouth before I could finish that statement. There was no need to mention that my friend would rather have dinner with him than Taylor.
“I think we should give our friends some time alone together, don’t you? I don’t know how I let Taylor talk me into this anyway.”
That made me laugh, which both surprised and annoyed me, but I was so much in agreement with him that I didn’t argue with him anymore.
“Are you leaving for the evening?” the hostess asked, looking between us. And though she was no doubt perturbed that two of their guests weren’t staying for dinner, not a single inflexion of it sounded in her voice.
“Something has come up,” Logan told her.
“I wish. It’s gone down more like.” Ugh. What was wrong with me?
Logan’s eyes betrayed his amusement at my horrible joke, but he managed to keep his expression even.
“Don, their coats please.” The hostess’s calm, assured voice filled the repressed silence between us. I would have given anything for her poise in that moment. Which prompted me to consider her more closely.
While we waited for Don to bring the coats, I stepped over to her counter and picked up one of the fancy silver pens sticking up from an elegant holder. “Do you have a piece of paper?”
She placed a pristine pad of white paper in front of me. Of course. Never at a loss, this chick.
I wrote my cell number down and handed it to her. “If you’re ever looking for a nine-to-five job with benefits and weekends off, give me a call.”
For the first time, her eyes widened—ever so slightly—in surprise.
Supremely pleased at my slight victory in making her break character, I nodded and turned to put my coat on. And what a relief that was. It would hide the worst of my support issues.
As I walked out into the cold January night, I could feel Logan’s eyes on me. He handed a card to the waiting valet but spoke to me. “I’m pretty sure that’s a clue about what you do for a living, but for the life of me, I still can’t figure out what it is.”
A Man Worth Shaving For: A Sweet Romantic Comedy Page 2
