Alison Kent - Kiss & Makeup

“And did she succeed?”

He smiled, thinking of his two friends from Johnson High in Austin, of Heidi Malone from the wrong side of the tracks who’d played sax and become the fifth member of his band, who was now an attorney defending women’s rights, thinking of her married now for six years to Ben Tannen.

“Oh, yeah.” Quentin’s smile widened. “She’s come a long way from the waif I knew her as then.”

“Really. So you have a thing for waifish schoolgirls, do you?”

He laughed aloud, the sound unfamiliar to his ears. He started to speak, was stopped by the movement of the chair beside his.

“I certainly hope he doesn’t, considering the wealth of experienced fish in the sea he has to choose from.”

Quentin turned into a cloud of perfume. The woman who’d sat beside him was gorgeous in that way of starlets, with perfect makeup and perfect hair, nails as bright as jewels and jewels as subtle as her plunging neckline.

She was most definitely on the make. And these days Quentin much preferred the thought of bedding tousled bartenders.

“Sweetie, would you get me a Cosmopolitan? Light on the cranberry.” The woman gave her order to Shandi, then dismissed her and turned his way. “You are buying tonight, aren’t you, hon? Or did I get all dressed up for nothing?”

Nothing was just about it. Not a twinge in his body. But he smiled because that’s what he did, and when Shandi returned with the woman’s Cosmo, he said, “Put it on my tab.”

YOU HAVE A THING FOR WAIFISH schoolgirls, do you?

Gah, had she actually asked him that? What was wrong with her? What was she thinking? Oh, wait. She wasn’t thinking. A big, fat problem that seemed to be worsening as the night grew long.

Show her a gorgeous man and for some ridiculous reason she lost every bit of her mind.

Here she was, telling Quentin all the things she didn’t want him to know—especially where she’d come from—giving him the ammunition he needed to deduce who she was. Who she wasn’t. Who she didn’t ever want to be.

And once he figured out all of that…

In the back room of the bar, Shandi rested against the wall next to the telephone and bulletin board, then beat her head against the surface almost hard enough to leave a dent.

Uh, a dent in the wall, not in her head. Her head was thick and indestructible, or so was the obvious conclusion, what with the way none of her lectures on what to say and what not to say had managed to sink in.

The phone rang in her ear. She jerked up the receiver more to kill the noise than because it was her job while Armand covered the bar. “Erotique. Shandi Fossey.”

“Shan, will you kill me if I bail on tomorrow night’s movie? Daddy called and insists I come for dinner, and there’s no way I can get back by eight. I’m going to spend the night and return Wednesday morning.”

Well, crud. Once again, April’s priorities and unbreakable family ties meant Shandi would be spending her night off scrambling to find a last-minute date. “Depends. Are you taking Evan with you?”

“Don’t be nuts. It’s a command performance. Family only. Some ridiculous emergency about Trevor being seen in public with Stefan Navarro.”

Shandi rolled her eyes. “I was wondering about that.”

“About what? My brother’s sexuality?”

“No. About whether or not you really considered Evan family.”

“Jeez, Shan. Give it a break, will you? Evan and I are fine. And I rather like having him here all to myself.”

Right. As long as you have him that way fully clothed, Shandi mused, then took it back.

Evan and April’s relationship was none of her business—even though they were her two very best friends and had been since that first day after classes last year when, bleary-eyed and suffering from information overload, she and April had shared a table in the Starbucks where Evan worked as a barista.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll go to the show by myself.”

“Well, yeah, you could.” April paused strategically. “But you don’t have to.”

“You’re not fixing me up, April. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not. Never again in this lifetime. Understand?” Life was too short to suffer through bad blind dates.

“Trust me. I know better. Besides, I don’t have to.” April paused. “Evan says you’ve got some guy at the hotel who’s dishy.”

Ah, yes. The 3:30 a.m. sacred hour of confession. “He is dishy, but I don’t have him. In fact, he’s currently at the bar being had by a Bambi in serious need of paint thinner. You should see the layers she’s troweled on.”

April snorted. “Not everyone can manage the fresh-faced farm-girl look, you know. You’ve pretty much cornered that market.”

“Uh-huh. And thanks for rubbing it in.” The reminder was hardly what Shandi needed when she was doing all she could to wipe away every trace of the farm.

She wanted to fit in, not stand out. To gain attention because of her skills, not her accent and the fact that, yes, she really had ridden in barrel-racing competitions.

To prove to her family that she damn well could make it on her own. To prove the same to herself.

This time April sighed. “You know, sweetie, you really do need to get over where you come from.”

“Oh, and you don’t let where you come from dictate your relationship with Evan?”

“Why? Has he said something to you? Is that why you’re all over us all of a sudden? What did he say? Is he complaining that I won’t take him to Connecticut?”

“Evan hasn’t said a word.” She leaned forward to stretch out her taut and tired back. “I’m just feeling out of my league here.”

“Well, stop it. You have no reason to.”

“Did I tell you he’s from Texas?”

“The dishy guy?”

“Yeah, he’s from Austin.” She straightened, then slid down the wall and sat on her heels.

“Wouldn’t that be a plus in his favor? Having that similar-regional-outlook thing going on?”

“No, it’s not a plus, you goon. I live here and he doesn’t.” What kind of plus was that? “And who said we shared any regional outlook anyhow?”

“Hmm,” April hummed before saying, “So? Have fun with him here.”

“Right. The kind of fun that involves not wearing anything.”

April sighed, and this time with more force. “Hey, it’s only a thought. It’s one of many that prove you think about sex too much.”

“That coming from someone who doesn’t think about it at all,” Shandi said, immediately wishing she could bite off her tongue. Especially when she couldn’t even hear breathing on the other end of the line.

She waited one heartbeat, two. “April? Are you still there?”

“I’m here. And now I’m pissed as hell. You said Evan hadn’t been talking.”

“He hasn’t. Not really.” How much more trouble was she going to get into with her mouth? “I was talking to him about Dishy Guy, and we got into a discussion about the girls guys sleep with versus the ones they take home.”

When April stayed silent, Shandi stood and went back to pounding her head on the wall. “Listen, April, my break’s up. I’ve got to get back. Can we talk about this later?”

“I love him, Shandi. More than I knew I could love anyone.” April’s voice broke. “He’s everything to me, and I’m scared to death I’m going to do something major to screw it up.”

The noises from the bar faded into the background until Shandi heard only the hum of the back room’s cooler. Guilt swelled in her chest that she’d even inadvertently betrayed a confidence.

She had a hard time swallowing around the lump of emotion clogging her throat. “You’re not. Oh, April, you’re not. He feels the same about you. You know that.”