Page 6 of Homebody (The Long Road Home #21)
Chapter Six
T he text came through on the group chat that Tessa’s boss Ruby had insisted they set up. It included Ruby, Red, Susan and Tessa.
Although on second thought, Susan was Tessa’s boss now too.
On the way home to her one-bedroom rental on the first floor of the enormous multi-apartment Victorian house on Main Street, Tessa had deposited Susan Sinclair’s check directly into her bank account and then taken out the cash she needed for rent.
She couldn’t change her mind now. The moment she’d handed that cash over to the landlord, she couldn’t give it back to Susan. There was no backing out of this insane plan.
With the rent already in her landlord’s hands, and no path but forward, Tessa stood frozen with indecision and a good amount of dread.
She stared at the giant jumbled pile of clothing Red had insisted she take home.
How was she supposed to choose an outfit?
All of Red’s fashion advice seemed to have fled from Tessa’s brain now she was alone.
The only positive thing about the multitude of choices was that Red had insisted she take them home free of charge.
Her uniform for her new job . That job being seducing a man she never met for money.
Meanwhile, the text chain was blowing up. The incessant alerts finally knocked her out of her stupor.
As an only child, an introvert, a book nerd and an overworked student, Tessa had zero friends, which meant she rarely got texts. Or at least that used to be the case. That was no longer true, apparently.
With a sigh, Tessa made her way around the bed to the nightstand and picked up her cell.
The first text that caught her eye was the one in all caps with an excess of exclamation points.
Susan
ABORT!!! ABORT!!
Ruby
Why? What’s happening?
Susan
Dean knows!
Red
How does he know?
Susan
He guessed it was a fix up!!
Ruby
How? Did you admit it?
Susan
No! Of course not.
Ruby
Good. Don’t. Deny everything and leave the rest up to us.
Red
Yes! He can’t blame us so let us handle everything.
Tessa
So what’s happening? What should I do?
Ruby
Go to the bar as planned.
Red
And dress HOT #BadGirlVibes
Go.
Don’t go.
Yes, go, but dress hot.
Tessa’s mind spun with the rapidly changing and conflicting instructions, but through it all one thing was becoming clear. She was at the beck and call of this ad hoc matchmaking committee that was trying to fix her up in a fake relationship with the unsuspecting Dean.
The whole thing seemed even more insane now she was eyeball deep in it. Susan lying to her son. Paying Tessa to pretend to like him all while acting like someone or something she was not.
#BadGirl, her nerdy ass. #GeekGirl was more like it.
None of it seemed real. But the money now in her anemic, usually close to empty, bank account was real enough. So was that stack of cash she’d handed to secure her one more month in her apartment.
That, this new reality of hers, meant one thing. Surreal as it all was she would be heading to the Muddy River Inn tonight dressed in clothes she’d never wear by choice. Outfits she wasn’t convinced she could pull off in spite of Red’s assurance and Ruby’s exuberance.
Tessa turned once again to glance at the pile of things on the bed.
The items hadn’t cost her any of her precious payment from Susan but they also weren’t really hers either.
Red had loaned her the gently used clothing from her resale shop.
That was good since Tessa doubted she’d wear any of these things again.
Not after this ten-day command performance as a Mudville bad girl was done.
With a giant bracing inhale, she tossed the cell back onto the nightstand, turned and took a step toward the bed—and stubbed her toe on the leg of the metal bedframe.
Cursing under her breath from the pain, she wondered if a bad girl could also be a klutz, because she was afraid there was no hiding that trait.
She would have to be careful not to spill on any of the clothes on loan from Red though.
Pretty much every one of her own shirts had stains.
She wore them anyway. But they were hers.
These things were not. She couldn’t return borrowed clothes after she’d stained them.
Which meant if she ruined anything on loan she’d have to pay Red for it.
With the current condition of her finances, Tessa didn’t allow herself to splurge on things like clothing when what she already owned was just fine. Or at least good enough. She definitely didn’t want to sink a bunch of cash into a wardrobe she didn’t want, need or even like.
She picked up one of the items from the bed. Black jeans. Used, but they were in good shape. What wear there was on them, a slight fading of the color around the knee area, only added to the comfortably distressed look of them.
People paid way too much for brand new designer jeans with a distressed look, in her opinion. Why didn’t they just buy old jeans from thrift stores? They came already distressed at no extra charge.
But what did she know about fashion?
Obviously nothing since she had felt the jeans were far too tight when she’d tried them on at Red’s shop. Against Tessa’s better judgement, Red said the jeans hugged the curves of her ass and hips perfectly. She’d insisted Tessa take them home.
As she shed her comfortable old loose pants now and pulled the jeans on to get dressed for tonight, her negative opinion about the fit hadn’t changed.
With no other choice, she fastened the button fly and let the shirt she already had on—her own, not from Red’s—fall down over the jeans. The shirt was old and soft. Comfortable. And most importantly, loosely oversized… and completely, undeniably unacceptable for tonight.
At least it would be according to the committee of women in charge of her life right now.
Tessa picked through the selection of tops she’d brought home. She’d definitely feel better with a shirt long enough to cover all that hip and ass hugging . Unfortunately, Red hadn’t provided any tops long enough.
She picked up the graphic T-shirt Red had selected for her. The most casual of everything, it would be her choice if it wasn’t cropped way too short. And if it didn’t have a pair of giant lips printed on it.
Another shirt, gray with a black pattern all over, was longer but cut way too low in front. She wasn’t up for baring her cleavage tonight on her inaugural run as seductress.
Yet another shirt was so tight it showed the outline of her bra’s cups and back strap through the fabric.
Tessa sighed. At least she’d convinced Red that she needed tops that actually allowed her to wear a bra because she needed one. No strapless or backless styles for her C-cups.
Feeling like Goldilocks, she could see nothing they’d sent her home with was just right . Too short. Too low. Too tight… and don’t even get her started on the dresses!
Fine. The shirt that was too tight would just have to do.
It was garishly bright, featuring a funky seventies throwback pattern of concentric circles in pink, orange, white and black.
There’d be no missing her in this. It was like wearing a neon sign. Dean would have to be blind, or at least color blind, to miss her in this thing. She imagined the committee would like that.
Maybe she could just leave her jacket on the whole time. Since nights were cool and they planned on her going out on a lot of night dates with Dean—she rolled her eyes at the confidence they had but that she didn’t feel—Red had provided a beautiful black leather jacket.
Soft. Supple. It was the one thing Tessa actually liked and wished she could keep when this was all done. Maybe she would splurge. Treat herself and use some of her payment from Susan to purchase the jacket from Red after this whole mess was over.
That was if she wasn’t such a horrible failure at seduction and playing the bad girl that Susan wanted a refund.
Oh well. They couldn’t blame her for failing to look like a bad girl. She had warned them she wouldn’t be able to pull off the vibe they wanted. Going from nerdy to naughty just wasn’t in her DNA.
Her protest had fallen on deaf ears.
They’d chosen this outfit and all the rest, basically dressing her like she was a Barbie doll and they her over-grown-little-girl overlords.
Dictating her appearance, not to mention her existence.
At least for the next week and a half while Dean would be in town and exposed to the evil temptation of his ex-girlfriend.
His ex-girlfriend …
Juniper would have no problem wearing any of these clothes. She’d not only wear them, she would look amazing while doing it. She’d no doubt feel amazing in them too.
Juniper would strut into the bar and right up to Dean. All bouncy boobs and bubbly butt. Irresistible to any man and probably some of the women in the place.
And Tessa, at his mom’s beck and call, was to prevent their reunion?
How the hell was she supposed to do that?
Tessa was up against Dean and Juniper’s long history together. She’d have to combat their past—and most likely present—physical attraction to each other.
Judging by the look of Juniper today when she’d stopped at the salon, how could Dean not be attracted to her? She was like sex on heels. Meanwhile Tessa was lucky she didn’t fall off the chunky sole of her slippers.
She looked at the footwear Red had forced upon her.
Thank goodness among the bag of impractical shoes and sandals she’d upended onto the floor of her bedroom, there was one pair of low-heeled boots. She could probably pull those off tonight without breaking an ankle or falling on her face.
So it was settled. She had an outfit.
What she didn’t have was any idea of what to say or do when she got there… or even how she was getting there since she was currently without motorized transportation.