Page 19 of Falling into Place
She was well aware her quirkiness was showing. Didn’t care, though. “I have to. I won’t be able to sleep knowing it looks like that.”
He let out an exhale that may have included a surprised laugh; it was hard to tell. “Seriously? Even if I let you—which I won’t—by the time you go to bed, I’m just gonna mess it up again. There’s no point.”
She stared at the gray blanket and white sheets, and out of nowhere her brain conjured an image of Brooks tangled up in them. His long body spanning the length of the bed, shirtless. Maybe even naked.
And . . . sweaty?
“Carly? You okay?”
“Me? Sure.” God, maybe she shouldn’t have read that spicy romance novel last night. Her several-months-long dry spell since Benjamin left probably wasn’t helping matters.
“Your face is all red. Is my unmade bed giving you hives?”
She cleared her throat and snapped back to reality. “What? No. I’m fine. Just the caffeine from the latte. Closet’s that way?”
It was worse than she thought.
By all accounts, Brooks hadn’t bought any new clothes in the last five years. Maybe longer, if you didn’t count scrubs.
Carly often asked clients to describe their style in three words. They’d say things likevintage.Classic. Edgy.And her personal favorite:timeless.
Her, for example:Flirty,eclectic, andfun.
If she had to choose three words to describe the items she found in Brooks’s closet?
Faded,outdated,mundane.
She’d kept these thoughts to herself, of course. He was already a flight risk, and her intuition told her he’d be resistant to too much change too fast. She was rarely wrong about those types of things. So she did her best to point out the (few) items she could work with and commend him on his tie selection.
“Sasha gives me one every year,” he’d said, not sounding particularly pleased about it.
That explained why he had twelve ties with only two dress shirts and one suit, which, judging by the size, didn’t fit properly.
She’d asked him to try on a few things for her, but by the third outfit change, he (1) was clearly losing patience and (2) caught her straightening out his comforter, so she announced she had enough to go with and got the hell out of there.
So yeah, it was bad, but she wasn’t worried. She liked a challenge, and sometimes starting from a blank slate was the easiest way to go.
The next evening she went shopping. She’d been a little surprised at his insistence they keep a modest budget—he was a doctor, right?—but didn’t pass judgment. One thing she’d become an expert at growing up was finding fashionable clothes anywhere, whether it was a department store, the mall, a secondhand store, or even a garage sale. Once, after her mom had spent her entire paycheck at the casino on the payday before freshman year, Carly did her back-to-school shopping at Goodwill and TJ Maxx and still managed to put together an updated closet she was happy with. Was it fun when clients wanted investment pieces and she got to shop at the high-end boutiques in town? Absolutely. Especially because she still couldn’t stomach spending that kind of money on herself.
But she never let money stand in the way of reaching her goal to improve someone’s wardrobe. Hadn’t stopped her when she was a teenager, and it wouldn’t stop her now.
Anyway, all that led her to start at reasonably priced Nordstrom Rack, which was hit or miss in the women’s section but usually had astrong selection for men. She browsed for a while, grabbing a few things here and there with the photo shoot in mind.
She chose several shirts (smaller and more fitted than anything else he owned) and a few pairs of shorts (shorter and with fewer pockets than anything he owned ... Could cargo shorts just die, already?). She’d grab a pair of chinos and jeans, too, in case he preferred pants.
It was six o’clock, so she took a chance he’d be off work and sent him some texts with pictures.
He replied immediately, vetoing all the shirts with patterns.
“Fine,” she grumbled as she put them back, and the guy on the other side of the rack gave her a strange look.
Brooks:i like the gray one
Carly:Of course you do.
Brooks:it looks a little small though
Carly:Trust me.
