Page 19 of Decidedly Off Limits
I drove to the mall and met Erin at the food court. She had already bought a large order of fries and was sitting at a table, eating them.
“I swear I’m going to give birth to a giant french fry.” She stuffed another one in her mouth. “I didn’t even like fries until I got pregnant.”
I giggled. “And you probably won’t be able to stand the sight of them by the time you give birth.”
She huffed. “I hope you’re right. God, at this rate I’ll be incredibly fat by the time the baby comes.”
I reached into the bag and helped myself to a fry. “No, you won’t,” I said, pointing it at her. “You’ll look just as adorable and as hot as you did before.” I stuffed the fry in my mouth.
After she’d finished her snack, we wandered through the mall, stopping at whatever store caught our interest. We weren’t looking for anything specific. I just wasn’t ready to go back to my lonely house.
We entered Victoria’s Secret and checked out their thongs. I held up a light pink satin one. “Um, this looks comfy.”
The corner of Erin’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah, if you like dental floss stuck between your butt cheeks.”
“And yet guys get hard-ons just thinking about women wearing these.”
“That’s because they don’t have to wear them. They might feel differently if they were the ones with the fabric stuck up their asses. Could you imagine them stuffing their junk in this?”
Ugh. I’d prefer not to, thank you very much.
I put the pink thong down and picked up a purple one.
“You must have another hot date with that guy Trent and I saw you with Friday night,” a familiar Australian accent said behind me.
I whipped around, thong dangling from my finger. Holly was smiling, shopping bags in hand. “Actually I don’t,” I said. “We were just checking them out.” I had already told Erin how my date with Stephen had gone, both as to why he hadn’t been right for me and how her brother had sabotaged the date.
Holly scanned the colorful pile and picked up a forest green pair. “I love thongs. I don’t know what it is about them, but they make me feel sexy.”
I barely held back a snort. She was the epitome of sexy. She didn’t need thongs for that.
“Really?” Erin said, eyeing the pile. She grabbed a black and red pair, then looked at me. “Hey, I can use all the help I can get.” She scanned the pile again and pulled out the pink pair I’d been examining. “Here, you can use all the help you can get, too.”
I blinked. What the heck?
“You’ve always been confident, Kelsey,” she went on to explain. “But when it comes to projecting a level of sexiness that drives guys wild, it wouldn’t hurt you to dial it up a few notches.”
She selected another thong, black this time, shoved it at me, and grabbed my wrist. “C’mon, Holly and I are gonna find you some equally sexy bras to go with those.” She dragged me to the racks of bras and searched through them. For some reason I didn’t protest. Maybe because I knew there was no point trying. “You’re a thirty-eight C, right?” she asked.
Holly looked me over. “That sounds about right.” Apparently she had another skill I didn’t know about. Was there anything this woman couldn’t do? Other than laugh without making people cringe.
Twenty minutes later, we walked out of the store, with me now well stocked when it came to sexy lingerie. According to them, this was part of the makeover to create a new sexually confident me.
“You’re not expecting me to wear these to work, right?” I asked.
“Is there a chance you could meet someone worth dating there?” Holly responded.
“Not really. And maybe I’m not ready to date after all. I only just broke up with Owen.”
Erin looped her arm with mine as the three of us headed to the restaurant for dinner. Darren was away for a conference, so she didn’t have to go home right away. And I was positive Mr. Kitty Whiskers was napping, not pining for my return any time soon.
“You dumped him six months ago, and you weren’t in love with him,” she pointed out. “So don’t even try to tell me you’re still dealing with a broken heart.”
I grunted. “I was in love with him.”
“No, you weren’t. You were in love with the idea of having someone there for you, but he wasn’t there for you. And he hadn’t been there for you for over two years.”
No, I didn’t sound pathetic and needy at all. But she was right. Until she said it, I had ignored the truth all that time.