Page 29 of The Troublemaker

That stuck in her head. The thing that he had said to her yesterday when she had been wearing her long floral dress. As if there was something wrong with it.

He had said that he didn’t mean that, but she couldn’t get it out of her head now. Which was silly. And more than a little bit illogical.

She went into the bathroom and started the shower, looking at herself in the mirror while the water warmed up.

She didn’t think about her looks all that often.

Her eyes were large, her nose small. Everything worked just fine. She wrinkled her nose, as if to prove to herself that it was fully functional.

She had always liked the color of her hair. It was golden, and she knew that a lot of people had to go to a stylist to get that color. While hers was simply there.

She wasn’t overly proud about it per se, but if pressed, she would say that it was maybe her favorite feature. She had a very small amount of makeup to her name, just enough to sufficiently make herself feel formal at a wedding. A bit of pink gloss, some gold eyeshadow and mascara.

She decided to go ahead and get it out, because after her shower she would actually put some on.

She stripped her clothes off and hopped beneath the hot spray. For some reason she remembered yesterday when Lachlan had stripped his shirt off while walking through the house.

She hadn’t looked at him.

On purpose.

She blinked.

She hadn’t looked at him on purpose. That was an odd thought she wasn’t entirely sure was true. She had just been interested in counting the different utensils in the kitchen.

It was just kind of a normal thing. He didn’t really possess any modesty to speak of, and it didn’t signify to her one way or the other.

At all. It was just immaterial.

The water suddenly felt a little bit too intense, the pressure too high as the droplets slid over her skin.

She shampooed her hair and soaped up her body as quickly as possible and cut the shower short.

Then she went into her bedroom, swathed in a towel, and started to look around in her closet.

She mostly had long floral dresses, a denim skirt, a couple of pairs of jeans...

She saw a black dress in the corner and paused. She had bought it for something. She could scarcely remember what, and she hadn’t worn it for years. It was midcalf, and a stretchy T-shirt material that was a bit more clingy than she usually went with.

She decided to go ahead with that, since it looked a little bit fancy. She put it on and grabbed her tennis shoes and socks and thought... They wouldn’t work.

She had a pair of black simple ballet flats, and she put those on instead. She stood in front of the mirror and blew her hair dry, enjoying the way that it shimmered and fell with just a little more volume. She didn’t usually bother with that. If her hair was wet, she usually just put it up in a ponytail and let it dry out of her way.

She put her bare minimum makeup on, and felt reasonably satisfied that she looked like someone who at least wouldn’t be completely out of place sitting across the table from Lachlan.

Since when did she care about things like that?

She didn’t. It was just a passing thought. People had passing thoughts all the time.

Her father was fond of telling her that when she had been very emotional or upset when she was an adolescent girl.

These are just feelings. And feelings don’t require that you do anything but feel them. It’ll pass.

Yes. Feelings were not an action item. She didn’t have to do anything in response to them. And it was the same with thoughts like that. They were only thoughts.

It didn’t matter what she looked like; that wasn’t the point of anything. The point was to help him. And actually, she felt slightly more confident looking at herself right now. So maybe it was just a side effect of being able to help him.

Her phone buzzed where it was sitting on the bathroom counter. I’ll be there in five minutes.

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