Boring Is The New Black (The Fashionista and The Geek Book 1)

by Megan Bryce

Gia crooned in the back of her throat and said, “Here. This is me stroking your nice, soft, straight hair. This is me holding you and telling you that I love you. And this is me telling you that you love me, and Victoria, and Colette, already. You maybe love Scott, and maybe love Nikita. And adding one more love or even one more maybe love to your life is something good. Adding one more person who will love you in return, adding one more person who will have your back when you need it most, is worth the fear.”

  Nicole choked back a sob. She could feel it, an invisible hand tenderly stroking her hair and she said, “I told him thank you.”

  Gia chuckled. “Oh, yeah, you’re going to have to grovel. No doubt about that.”

  “Will he even forgive me?”

  “Of course he will. Love forgives. You called me plus-sized and I forgave you, remember?”

  Nicole smiled through the tears. “Really having a hard time forgetting.”

  “That’s because love also likes to repeatedly remind you of your mistakes.”

  “Someday I’d like to meet your family in person.”

  “Oh, they’d like that! You should come visit. You can help me hide my boss’s body.”

  Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black

  Thirty-Seven

  It was freezing.

  The wind was blowing and the clouds were swirling and Nicole could feel the air getting heavier, wetter.

  A storm was coming, and when Flynn opened his parent’s front door, Nicole thought she’d rather stay outside with it than go in with him.

  He said, “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I needed to talk to you. I want to talk to you.”

  He waved her inside and she didn’t move. She handed him a white apparel gift box.

  “I made it for you,” she said and he pulled the lid off, dug through the tissue paper. He pulled out a gray lightweight wool suit jacket.

  “You made me a suit?”

  She nodded. “I wanted you to have a suit you loved. So you don’t have to wear one you hate. So you know how it feels when you love what you wear.”

  “That’s very important to you, I know,” he said, smiling slightly, and she whispered, “Look good, feel good. I’ve been working on it for a while.”

  He put it back in the box and she said, “Um, there’s more to it,” and she reached for the jacket, pulling it back out.

  She opened it up, turning it inside out to show the half of a stylized black and gray S on each side, and then closed it to show what it would look like when it was buttoned.

  “I know, it’s backwards. He takes off the suit. But I thought, when you buttoned it up, you would feel it. And it would still be on your chest so. . .”

  He looked at her. “You made me a Superman suit?”

  He dropped the box, pulling the jacket from her fingers and up his arms and buttoning it up. His shoulders went back and his chest went out and he said, “Okay, I get it. I’d pay $3000 for this.”

  “It doesn’t cost that much. Only a second chance. Please, and I’m sorry, and I didn’t mean thank you.”

  “What did you mean?”

  She’d meant love. Maybe love.

  She said, “It never ends well for a man in love with a Bissette.”

  Breath rushed past his lips in a half laugh. “I noticed.”

  “It doesn’t end well for the Bissette, either.”

  Flynn carefully shoved his hands in the jacket pockets.

  “So you’re never going to try? Just going to keep your heart locked up?”

  Nicole squeezed her hands into fists.

  “I was telling you that I’m in love with you. Maybe.”

  Flynn blinked and the silence lengthened.

  Nicole finally said, “I love you. I think I love you. I’m not a hundred percent sure because I’ve never been in love before. No one’s ever loved me before. Me.” She put her hands to her chest, thumping lightly. “Men have said those words before and I’ve never believed them. And I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you when you said it. Not at first.”

  “You believe me now?”

  She wanted to say yes. Wanted to tell him she did.

  But she told him the truth instead.

  “I don’t know. But I want to believe. I want to believe that if you don’t really– not quite– love me yet, that maybe you could. Maybe you will.”

  He waited for more but that was all she had. She wanted to believe him, wanted it so badly that she’d come here even when she’d known it would end like this.

  He said, “Not going to lie. This, I hate.”

  “Me, you mean.”

  He waved his hands between them. “This. This maybe. This I think.”

  “I’ve given all I can give right now, Flynn.”

  “And I thought it would be enough. I thought I would give anything to be with you. Go through any kind of hell but now. . . what’s going to happen when I want more? Because I keep wanting more from you, Nicole, and what’s going to happen when I want everything? When I want your whole heart and your whole life. When I want our future and our children, when I want us and no more me and you? If I’m going to have to walk through hell, I want to know you’ll be there with me the whole time, and now I’m afraid you won’t be.”

  “I’m always afraid. I can’t stop worrying,” she said, taking a step closer to him. Wanting to give him all of her truth, even if it wouldn’t be enough. “Except when I’m with you. You’re my closet. My refuge. When I’m with you, I feel safe.” Nicole opened her arms, kept her eyes wide open, and opera-ed, “Sanctuary!”

  Flynn didn’t smile. He looked down.

  “See, I want to give you that. I love you, and I’d give you anything I could. I just. . . I need a sanctuary, too.” He looked up, meeting her eyes sadly. “I didn’t know that I wouldn’t want to do this with you. Right up until this moment, I just didn’t know.”

  Nicole whispered, “Can’t know what you don’t know until you know it,” and felt the first fat, cold raindrops fall from the sky.

  Flynn closed the door behind him softly, took his new Superman jacket off gently, and then fell limply onto the couch.

  His mom said, “Where’s Nicole?”

  “Went home.”

  Lisa pulled back the curtain and said, “She’s just standing out there in the rain. She’s going to catch her death.”

  She waited for Flynn to get up and when he didn’t, huffed loudly and went outside herself.

  Flynn almost got up to look out the window, but she came hurrying back in a moment later, alone and shaking water from her arms.

  “She won’t come in. Mike!”

  Mike poked his head from the kitchen where he’d been hiding since Nicole had first knocked on the door.

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Get her to come inside!”

  Mike looked at his wife, then his son still sitting lifelessly on the couch. He went to the door, opening it to look at Nicole.

  He shut it.

  “Mike!”

  “What do you want me to do, Lisa? Carry her inside fireman-style?”

  He went back to the kitchen, Lisa following behind him, whispering furiously.

  Flynn fingered the material of his new suit, looked at the inside of the two sides but didn’t put them together.

  She’d made him a suit. And he would bet it looked great, felt amazing.

  He’d never be able to wear it, not without thinking of her.

  His dad sat down next to him and passed him a beer and a bag of chips.

  “So.”

  “So.”

  Mike grabbed the remote, turning on the TV and turning the volume way down. “Guess that’s over.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Probably for the best.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You know. Just. She’s Nicole Bissette.”

  Flynn sipped, and took a deep breath, and ate a chip.

  Then he said, “No, she’s not. Nicole Bisset
te is some kind of character. . . some kind of caricature. Nicole is more than that.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s careful and cautious but she keeps standing back up. She wants to hide but she doesn’t. She looks beautiful but she wants others to feel it. She makes me a Superman suit but won’t tell me she loves me without a maybe. She’s just standing out there in the rain and I don’t know what she wants from me!”

  Mike grabbed a handful of chips. “Women. Can’t get away from that, son.”

  A loud thump from the kitchen made Mike jump and he cleared his throat. “But I mean, what would we do without them?”

  Flynn took another deep breath, another sip. “Why is Mom hiding around the corner while we’re having this little heart-to-heart?”

  “She said I had to do it. And I say this as your father, Flynn, but a man does what his woman wants him to. Even when, especially when, he doesn’t know exactly what that is.”

  “Why can’t they just tell us what they want?

  Lisa said loudly, “Oh, we try. It just never works.”

  “Mom, come on out.”

  Lisa came around the corner, saying, “Nicole probably told you what she wanted, you just weren’t listening.”

  Had she told him? All Flynn had heard was maybe.

  Maybe she loved him.

  Maybe she believed he loved her.

  “Nope.” Flynn shook his head. “I got nothing.”

  Mike glanced at Lisa. “Sometimes you’ve got to read between the lines,” he said and Lisa sighed.

  “She needs you to be her sanctuary. She sang it to you!”

  Mike and Flynn considered this, and Flynn said, “But I need that, too. Don’t I?”

  Mike said, “She’s already given you what you need,” and Lisa and Flynn both looked at him.

  “You needed a woman you’d bring home to me and your mom. A woman who’d steal your heart and then offer it back to you. A woman who’d make you smile and laugh and come alive. A woman who’d make you feel like Superman and make you a damn suit to go with it. A woman who–”

  “All right. Okay. I get it.”

  “Don’t think you do. You’re still here. She’s already given you what all men need. A woman who thinks they’re a ten, ‘cause none of us are. And when you find that woman, you give her whatever you think she wants from you. You’re going to be wrong; give it to her anyway.”

  “Nicole doesn’t think I’m a ten.”

  “The woman is standing on the front lawn in the pouring rain. She sang to you. She thinks you’re a ten. And my guess is she’s trying to give you all she can. Trying to give you what she thinks you want. She’s going to be wrong. Take it from her anyway.”

  Flynn put his beer down and went to the window, looking at Nicole standing in the pouring rain.

  Waiting. For what exactly, Flynn didn’t know.

  But still waiting.

  He heard his dad say softly, “Is that what you wanted?”

  He heard the smile in his mom’s voice. “No. But it was still pretty good.”

  “There’s just no pleasing you women.”

  There was a pause before she said, “But we really like it when you try,” and Flynn was forced out the door before he started hearing kissy noises.

  He stopped on the porch, shutting the door behind him, and stared at Nicole.

  Soaking wet and shivering and waiting for him to try again, and Flynn ran to her.

  He shouted over the storm, “What do you want, Nicole? From me? What’s my best answer when you say you maybe love me?”

  “Say you maybe love me back! Until I’m not afraid. Until I love you, no maybe.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, feeling her shaking. “Will you tell me when you’re sure? When there’s no maybe?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I mean really tell me. No hints, just tell me outright. Don’t make me guess, don’t make me get it wrong.”

  “I will.”

  He put his lips against hers. “Well. I accept. I’ll wait.”

  She put her arms around his neck, hiding her face against his cheek and saying, “I never wanted to believe before. Maybe I do love you.”

  Flynn pulled back. “Is this me now? My turn?”

  She nodded, smiling, and Flynn said, “Maybe I love you, too.”

  * * *

  Sign up for my newsletter at meganbryce.com and be the first to know about new releases and what I'm working on next. And then turn the page to read a (short!) excerpt. . .

  Sample from The Tie’s The Limit (The Fashionista and The Geek)

  You can’t go home again? Yeah, tell that to Gia Abelli’s parents. After crumbling under the guilt trip from hell, Gia’s forced to leave the greatest city on Earth (New York!) to move in with her parents in… Florida? Hurricanes, alligators, and beer? Oh, my.

  Forced to give up her (okay, meager) apartment and her (not particularly lucrative) job, she falls back on the one thing she could do in her sleep: shopping! With help from her too-large and too-Italian family, she’s been set up as Florida’s premier fashion consultant. But if there’s anything worse than 400-degree heat and having to actually drive (and park) an obscenely large SUV, it’s having to shop for an ice-cold accountant who doesn’t realize he can’t wear the same damn tie every damn day…

  Mac Sullivan has been given an ultimatum: fix his wardrobe or kiss his promotion goodbye. Despite the fact that no one can adequately explain what exactly is wrong with wearing the same looking tie every day, or that he’s not exactly sure he wants the promotion anyway, he’s been saddled with New York. Glittery, bubbly New York who’s never met a sequined flip-flop she didn’t love, and who thinks she can dress him in something she likes to call “English Lord”…

  Well, she can think again. She’ll dress him normal, and she’ll keep the glitter and sequins out of his office, even if it is starting to look a little dull when she’s gone…

  Megan BryceThe Tie’s The Limit

  One

  The thing about family, the thing about Giada Abelli’s family especially, was they were always there.

  Sometimes they were there for her.

  Like when she applied for a scholarship at an all-girls boarding school because her best friend Gina wanted to be the first Italian-American president and you just have to go to the finest boarding school so you can get into Harvard so you can get into Harvard Law or you’re just not going to make it, duh.

  That best friendship had ended abruptly after Gia had gotten accepted and Gina hadn’t.

  It might have been saved if Gia hadn’t actually gone. But she’d begged and she’d pleaded with her parents to let her go and when they both said, “No! That’s final!” she’d enlisted the help of her brothers.

  And when they’d only laughed and said that Ma and Dad were NEVER going to let their baby girl, their only girl, their only child still living at home, leave before they actually had to, she’d gone to the aunts.

  The uncles.

  Her new sister-in-law.

  Her cousins.

  She’d even gone to her nonnino’s grave and cried her eyes out because he wasn’t there anymore to make everyone do what they should.

  Her nonna had found her there. Had placed that week’s flowers carefully by her husband’s headstone and then gathered up her granddaughter.

  “What’s all this crying?”

  “Ma and Dad won’t let me go to school!”

  Nonnie laughed, having already heard about this school that their baby wanted to go to.

  “Nonnino would have made them let me go!”

  “Nonnino would have said no. Too many boys. You are too young to move away, maybe when you are thirty-five.”

  “It’s all girls. There aren’t any boys there at all.”

  “Only girls? Is it a nunnery?”

  “No. It’s where you learn how to be a president and stuff. Gina said so.”

  “President of what?”

  Gia had pushed herself up and
said regally, “The president of the United States. Of America.”

  Nonnie said, “Hmm. You want to be president or you want to be with your friend Gina?”

  “Gina’s not my friend anymore. She didn’t get in. I did. I got a scholarship.”

  “And that’s a reason to not be her friend anymore?”

  “She said they only took me because I won that drawing contest last year at school. And because they felt sorry for me because of my hair.”

  Nonnie sucked in a breath and puckered her mouth, getting ready to spit, and then stopped abruptly when she remembered who she would be spitting on.

  She said instead, “A bird loves her nest,” and Gia had never been sure if that meant she was supposed to love her hair, or if she already did and wasn’t supposed to.

  Or if it just meant it was hers. So there.

  Nonnie had looked at her husband’s grave and sighed.

  “Life is too short, mia creatura. It is finished before you even realize it’s started. If you want to go to this school, away from your family who loves you and cares for you and protects you, then you will go.”

  And suddenly, the exciting adventure of being the first Abelli, the only Abelli, at that school seemed a little frightening.

  She had never been the first Abelli, ever. In anything.

  She couldn’t imagine being the only Abelli.

  Gia thought about what it would really mean to move away from the family that loved her and cared for her and protected her.

  What it would mean to be all alone.

  She leaned back into her grandmother’s soft, warm embrace, wondering if her heart was going to explode out of her chest because she was excited or because she was scared.

  She whispered, “Can I really go, Nonnie?”

  “Yes.”

  And if Nonnie said so, it was true, so Gia nodded her head slowly.

  “I really want to.”

  Nonnie squeezed her and said softly to her husband, “Gianni, our Giada is going to be the first Italian-American president. Of the United States.”