Page 13

Tobie

When only Javier and Reid show up bright and early at nine the next morning, I assume Caleb decided he couldn’t even pretend to date me.

“He’s having a meeting with Coach about some plays we’re working on,” Reid says when he catches me looking for him as we head to the parking lot for our shopping trip.

They’re both in jeans and tees. So am I. Yet they look like they stepped out of a fashion magazine, while I look like I got dressed in the dark.

When a group of girls glances our way, I slow my steps, veering to the right to open up a space between us. I shouldn’t even know guys that hot. Those girls know it. So do I.

Two seconds later, Reid and Javier are back to walking close by my side like they don’t even notice all the stares we’re attracting.

“No one is blaming him for the missed shot, so he’s determined to do all the blaming himself,” Javier explains.

I’ve never heard of someone so good at what they do being so hard on themselves. Maybe some of that is because he’s the captain.

“The championship means that much to him?” I ask as we approach a matte black BMW.

“Only everything he’s ever wanted,” Reid says.

Javier unlocks the BMW and holds the passenger door for me as I reach to open the back. No one opens doors for me. Javier does it automatically.

“I don’t mind sitting in the back,” I say. “Reid has longer legs than me.”

“Reid gets the back,” Javier says. “Pretty girl gets the front.”

“What he said.” Reid gets into the back.

I slide in, nervous about this shopping trip I’m already dreading. The mall is hell on earth on the weekend.

Always .

“This is going to be fun,” Reid says as Javier pulls out of the parking lot.

“The mall on a Sunday?” I twist around to face him. Is he insane?

He grins at me as he gleefully rubs his hands together. “This revenge mission. Your ex is going to see you around campus happy, laughing, having the best time in the world, and he’s going to start thinking why couldn’t I make her that happy? How come I couldn’t put that glow on her cheeks?”

“He is?” I blink at him.

His smile grows. “It’s going to be even more fun than punching him in the face would have been.”

“You wanted to punch my ex in the face?”

“I talked him out of it.” Javier changes gears. “Not that he didn’t deserve it, but Coach would come down hard on him for fighting.”

Right.

“Oh.” I study Reid, then Javier some more. “So, this party tonight…”

“What about it?” Javier asks, driving past the exit for the mall.

Did he miss the turning?

Should I tell him?

When I glance at him, he doesn’t look lost.

“Will I, uh… have to talk to people at it?” As questions go, it’s probably as stupid as they get.

A frat party is going to be swimming with other jocks and the popular students.

The ones who are confident, beautiful, and everything I’m not.

I’ll be stepping into a whole new world, and it terrifies me.

To my surprise, Javier smiles at me. “You sound like Caleb.”

“I do?”

Javier makes the next turn, and the nice mall comes into view. I didn’t think we’d be coming here, but from his car, I don’t know why I’m surprised he would shop here.

There are two big malls in town. The big indoor one where there is never enough parking on a weekend for ordinary mortals like me.

Then there is the nice mall, which is a perfectly air-conditioned, mostly outdoor haven with not a hint of trash on the sidewalk.

It’s an oasis for those with money to burn in the mostly designer boutiques.

It even smells expensive. I’ve only been to the nice mall once.

One visit was enough to learn my budget stretched to a pair of socks or maybe a hair clip.

“On the rare occasion we’ve pried him out of his room or the rink, he will park himself in a corner and glare at anyone who comes near him. If you don’t want to talk to anyone at the party, stick by him, and that glare will chase off everyone,” Javier explains.

That glare sounds magnificent.

“ Really ?” I ask hopefully, then shake my head. “No. You’re just saying that to make me feel better about this party.”

Javier and Reid laugh.

Javier parks, and my nerves are tight as we approach a boutique.

It’s ‘ the fancy, all white, only a handful of clothes on rails ’ store that you know everything you pick up will give you a heart attack when you see the price tag. Hell, I bet this store doesn’t even have price tags. You go to pay at the counter and have your heart attack there.

I’m hyperconscious of my unwashed hair, lack of makeup, and the baggy clothes I practically live in.

Javier is confidence personified as he strides to the door as if he belongs, holding it open for me. Reid is smiling and relaxed. This feels like it’s their world, even though it’s a women’s store.

I’ve had countless shopping trips where I’d go home empty-handed because nothing I tried on looked as good on me as it did on the hanger. We haven’t entered the store yet, and I’m already feeling defeated.

The store is quiet this early, and I release a sigh of relief when out of the two women at the counter, a blonde and a brunette, it’s the blonde, an older woman who looks to be in her late thirties or early forties with a trim figure who approaches with a warm smile.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

I open my mouth, but Javier beats me to it. “Javier Duarte. We’re here for a new wardrobe for Tobie. I called earlier.”

He called?

Wait. A new wardrobe?

The woman smiles. “Perfect. If you’ll follow me.”

I thought the service in a fancy store like this would be cold and impersonal, but her smile is genuine.

She leads the way through the store. By the time I’m asking about where we’re going, we’ve already arrived, and the woman is drawing a curtain closed, so it’s like we’re in our own private section of the store.

My nerves relax a little more.

The woman stops beside a silver rail already filled with clothes, and I run my eyes over it.

None of the clothes are the all-black I’d been expecting.

There’s a mix of colorful skirts, dresses, pants, and even jeans.

They’re not the usual baggy jeans I live in, but high-waisted, wide-leg style jeans.

“Like I said on the phone, Tobie needs everything. Every day basics, some nicer outfits for evenings and nights out that will make her feel beautiful,” Javier says as Reid wanders over to a white boucle armchair and sinks into it.

I stare at Javier, surprised.

I thought they were bringing me here to turn me into a sex kitten, unless they don’t think I have it in me to be a sex kitten.

I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed.

“I see.” The woman gives me a once-over. “You’re a size ten to twelve?”

She can tell that in one glance?

“Uh, twelve.” I blush as I glance at Javier. “A little smaller on top.”

A whole size smaller on the top.

The woman angles her head as she gives my body another scan. “Your clothes look at least twice that size. I have other pear-shaped customers who prefer to cover up completely, but I have some ideas to flatter your body without showing off too much if that’s what you want?”

“Wait? There’s a way to flatter ?”

I will literally marry this woman on the spot if she can achieve what I have spent years failing at.

Her smile is warm. “There is. I’ve pre-selected some outfits, but now that I’ve met you and seen your coloring, I have some other ideas.”

She sounds confident. It’s not like she’s just saying it to be nice, but like she actually means it.

I glance at Javier and Reid to see what they make of this.

“We’ll leave you in Clarissa’s capable hands,” Javier says.

“But I thought…”

I’m not sure what I thought.

He smiles at me. “That we’d put you in short dresses and tight tops?”

“Well, yes, actually.”

“Like I said, it’s about the woman,” Javier says. “And it’s about you feeling good. Otherwise, why would Marc believe we’re making you deliriously happy if you don’t believe it?”

It’s hard to disagree with that.

We’re in the store for hours.

Javier and Reid sit around chatting, texting, and flipping through magazines, and in between, they chat with me as I try on endless outfits.

I learn the baggier the clothes, the bigger you look. Clarissa knows fashion, and she is highly efficient at gently coaxing me to try on things that I would have never picked out in a million years.

I go from pulling on the hems and sleeves of everything I try on to accepting there are clothes that can do the impossible—make me feel good. Javier and Reid’s jaws dropping when I step out of the dressing room doesn’t exactly hurt, either.

My doctor diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s disease when I was seventeen after months of losing control of my body.

Finally, I had something to explain my packing on the pounds, my struggle to lose the weight, always being cold, and a tiredness that would knock me down and make exercise and going to school feel impossible.

Before my diagnosis, I was a size eight to ten. Suddenly, I felt like I was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers . It didn’t matter what I ate, how much I exercised or dieted, I had no control over my body.

I blanch when Clarissa offers to bring out some pretty lingerie.

Trying on dresses and jeans is one thing.

But lingerie?

Lingerie?

I start having heart palpitations.

Javier lowers his magazine and looks at me, then turns to Clarissa. “Just the basics is fine. She doesn’t need to try those on.”

I resume breathing, and we move along to shoes.

We leave the boutique store weighed down by bags, and Javier refuses to listen to me when I tell him he’s spending too much money on me.

“He’s loaded.” Reid checks his phone. “More money than sense.”

Javier arches a brow on our way back to the car. “I’m standing right here.”

“So you are,” he says with a smile, tucking away his phone. “He is also the most generous person I know. He arranged for a private plane for me to get home fast when my brother got hurt at work and wound up in the hospital. Then he paid for my brother’s treatment without telling me.”

“It was the least I could do.” Javier opens the trunk of his car, and we fill it with shopping bags.

Reid snorts. “The least you could have done was buy me a bus ticket or tell me to fuck off.” He bumps shoulders with Javier. “What you did was above and beyond, man. I’ll never forget it.”

I never had a big, tight-knit circle of friends. I’m friendly with the people in my class and will occasionally hang out with the girls on my floor, but I don’t have the sort of bond that Reid and Javier have.

My dad told me that when I moved away for college, my friends would become family, and I shouldn’t feel guilty about not coming home for the holidays if I wanted to spend time with them instead of him. I always went home because I couldn’t let him spend the holidays alone.

“You’d have done the same,” Javier says, slamming the trunk shut. “We’re not done yet.” He snags my wrist and tugs me back toward the mall when I move to get to the passenger seat.

“Sure, I would have,” Reid says. “Know anyone who can leave me a ten-million-dollar inheritance?”

My eyes pop. “How much?”

I can’t even imagine that much money.

“His family was loaded already.” Reid takes pity on me by explaining something I’m struggling to get my head around. “For him, it’s like having another pool of money to dive in.”

Javier arches his eyebrow.

“What?” Reid makes his eyes big. “Everyone knows rich people spend their weekends diving into pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck.”

I grin as Javier approaches a beauty store and holds the door open.

Of course, by then, it’s too late to turn around and walk away.

“No need to look so terrified,” Javier says with a soft smile as he places his hand on my lower back and nudges me inside. “This is supposed to be fun.”

My mind flashes back to trying on makeup with my mom, and a tightness forms in my chest. It’s still forming when a man with a dark beard and brown hair tied back in a low bun approaches.

Javier says, “We have an appointment for Tobie. She doesn’t wear much makeup, so I don’t want you to go heavy.

She has beautiful features, her eyes especially are stunning.

Basics are fine. Something she can do herself for a day look and can take into evening or night. And show her what you’re doing.”

I look at Javier, again caught by surprise at how this shopping trip is going.

He shrugs. “I have a sister obsessed with makeup.”

Reid glances at his watch and flashes me an apologetic smile. “I have to go. Got something I need to do on campus.”

“You want me to give you a ride?” Javier asks him.

“Nah.” He fishes his phone from his pocket as he backs away. “I’ll get an Uber. See you at the party later. Wear the pink dress, Tobie. It’s my favorite.”

It’s one of mine as well.

I expect to hate this makeup lesson before I’ve taken a seat in a spinning leather chair surrounded by beauty products. Makeup was a mom-and-me thing. If I didn’t desperately want revenge, I’d have walked out.

I sit in the chair, stiff and awkward, as the makeup artist approaches me with a welcoming smile. I tell myself I can get through this experience. It won’t last forever.

But I don’t hate it.

The man at the counter takes his time showing me how to do a basic face with light foundation when I want to cover up and how to use concealer when I want to go even lighter.

I get a crash course in applying blusher, mascara, using gold eyeshadow and pencil to bring out the green in my hazel eyes, and how a strong lip can elevate a day look into a night look.

“We’ll take everything you’ve used on her.” Javier has been standing close by, watching my lesson without once looking bored. “And a few different palettes as well for her to try looks out for herself at home.”

I feel spoiled.

Utterly and completely spoiled.

And that’s before the trip to the salon to get my hair trimmed and blow-dried and my nails done. I thought this shopping trip was about turning me into someone else, but it’s still me in the mirror. It’s just a more glowy and smilier version of what I was before.