Page 63 of Dove
Keep him on his toes!!her text had read. Typical Reverie.
Keep him on his toes…
Her text had come while we’d been halfway through grooming the horses. I’d sighed heavily, watching as Josh guided Clover out to pasture with a lazy, coaxing smile on his face. Josh wasn’t one of Rev’s LA hookups. The rules of the game were drastically different out here in the sticks.
The only response I’d gotten back when I’d sent her that was:
Babe, men are men. Doesn’t matter where they live.
So… evading his invitation it was, then.
But his disappointment was still superimposed on the back of my eyelids as he’d watched her pull up to the house, and I could still hear the forced casualness of his voice as he watched Rev park.
“What are you two up to tonight?” he asked, eyes on Rev as she stepped out and slammed the door behind her.
“Girl stuff,” I answered vaguely, stomach cramping with the lie. No, not lie.Half-truth.Weweredoing girl stuff.
He’d accepted my answer without comment, but the warmth on his face had taken on an icy edge, like summer days giving way to frigid nights, and his jaw tensed as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it.
A little while later, he’d come down the stairs, freshly showered and looking too handsome for words in straight leg jeans and a dark navy button-down with the top few buttons undone. He’d eyed Rev and I chilling casually on the couch. We were waiting for him to leave, of course, so Reverie could haul in the calvary.
“Have fun,” he wished us simply before he left, snagging his keys off the hook and slipping out the front door.
Reverie’s eyes twinkled dangerously the moment it closed behind him. “Oh, this is going to befun. Did you see that boy’sface?”She sounded damn near gleeful. “You’ll get him, hook, line, and sinker.”
Hook, line, and sinker,I repeated to myself now, as Reverie applied mascara to my lashes and gloss to my lips.
She hadn’t let me look in the mirror since she started with my hair, but we were almost done. All we had left was the outfit, which she vehemently told meshewas picking.
Lord help me.
“There.” She leaned back against the counter to scrutinize her work, blocking my view of myself in the mirror. “I think that’s good enough. Subtle but still enough to wow him. Girl, your lashes make mejealous,” she whined enviously. “People pay good money for that kind of length, you know.”
I honestly didn’t. But I imagined there wasn’t much youcouldn’tpay for in a place like LA.
“Am I allowed to look?” I teased. “Or are you afraid I’m going to run away screaming the moment I do?”
She scoffed. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
A second later, her voice took on an exaggerated accent as she exclaimed, “Reverie is exhausted. Only Reverie could takethis”—she gestured to all of me—“and give you…” She slid from in front of me, extending her arm out to the mirror for me to look, “…a hot-ass bitch.”
“You’re a dork,” I told her seriously, but the reference to one of our favorite movies when we’d been younger had a smile tugging at my sticky, shiny lips.
I rose, my legs tingling as blood rushed back after sitting so long, and nearly fell when I caught my reflection in the mirror.
My hands found the counter and curled over its edge, mouth dropping open in shock.
“It’s almost like I do this for a living, huh?”
I barely heard her snarky comment because I was too busy looking at my reflection. There was nothing drastic about it, like she’d promised, but everything she’d done seemed to make all of me…more.My hair cascaded past my shoulders in soft, smooth waves, and my eyes were lined with kohl and smoked out just enough to give them a hint ofsexy,making the blue of my eyes look damn near electric. My lashes looked miles long, curled up and coated in the blackest mascara I’m sure Reverie could find. And my lips…
Wow. Were my lips really that full?
I turned to her in awe. She shrugged.
“Just enhancing what you already have, babe.”
Then she turned and marched out of the bathroom, calling, “Now it’s time to pull it all together!”
