Come On Closer (14 page)

But he still checked his phone one more time.

•   •   •

“All right,” Zoe said, nudging the box forward with her toe. “It's time, before you fall asleep on my floor.”

Larkin yawned and smiled sleepily. It was ten o'clock, way past her bedtime, but it had been worth it. Her friends were draped over the furniture in Zoe's gorgeous living room. Annalise, a florist who was one of her karaoke partners in crime, was in a sweatshirt and shorts and flopped across a wingback chair. Sam Henry, looking more than a little like Daenerys Targaryen with her platinum hair around her shoulders, was sporting a set of well-worn Rainbow Buddies pajamas and lounging on the couch with a martini, with Zoe, her curls piled on top of her head and wearing elegant silky jammies, curled up beside her. Emma had opted for striped cotton pajama pants and one of Seth's sweatshirts, and she sat on the floor, her back against an ottoman, with an empty martini glass in her hand.

“Just do it,” she advised. “Might as well get it over with.”

Larkin pushed up off her stomach with a groan and folded her long legs beneath herself. “All
right
.” She sighed. “I just know what it is.”

“Lingerie, probably,” Emma said, and Larkin burst out laughing. She hadn't even considered that.

“No. It's not lingerie. At least, I hope it's not lingerie.” She felt her face go hot. “Uh, maybe I should have opened this on my own.”

“Uh-uh. You come to my temple of pajamas and wine, you play by my rules. And my rules clearly state that any unopened packages must be opened in full view of everyone before you leave.
Especially
if the package might contain lingerie.” Zoe tipped her chin up and smiled an imperious little smile that any queen and/or classical goddess would have been proud of.

Larkin wrinkled her nose at her. “You really need to post these rules someplace people can see them. As a warning.”

“Sorry, the temple ownership reserves the right to change the rules on a whim. You don't like it, find a less capricious goddess to party with.”

They all laughed, and Larkin wrapped the soothing atmosphere around her like a warm blanket. She'd needed this tonight. She hadn't realized how wound up she'd been getting over Shane and how things were going between them. This was a nice reminder that as many knots as she might get tied up in, she had lovely friends on call to help her untie them, even if they didn't know they were doing it.

“What do you think it is?” Sam asked. “You seem pretty sure about it.”

“It's a dress,” Larkin said, and the surprise in the room was palpable.

“A dress?” Annalise asked, rearranging herself in the chair to watch the unveiling more comfortably. “I
thought Shane's MO was getting women
out
of their dresses, not into them.”

“Why do you think it's a dress?” Emma asked, frowning. “That doesn't sound like Shane.”

“Sure it does,” Larkin said, tucking a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. “See, he roped me into dinner with his parents tomorrow night because his father is a pushy jerk, right? And Shane knows I'm a ‘jeans and flip-flops or sneakers' girl, plus he's been to my house, so he knows I live in the quote-unquote bad part of town. So this is his way of making me presentable to his parents.”

“Ew.” Sam winced. “Like
Pretty Woman
, but more condescending. Are you sure, though? Shane can be . . . let's say ‘interesting' . . . but I've never seen him do anything like
that
before. He's actually a lot less snobby than he used to be.”

“Of course I'm sure,” Larkin said. “When I was out in California, I dated a few wealthy guys who were willing to date down as long as they thought they could dress me up. I was young and dumb and thought they liked me, not just the way I looked.”

“Really? You never told me that.” Emma watched her, bright blue eyes full of curiosity and sympathy. Larkin struggled not to hunch her shoulders and hunker down defensively. She wasn't going to be judged here. These were her people.

“I know. Just my crappy dating history. It's not, like, an exciting topic of conversation. I mean, I saw a counselor for a little while. I know I was looking for what I never got at home.”

“Lookin' for love in all the wrong places,” Emma sang quietly, and Larkin laughed.

“Pretty much. I was good at it, too! If you put me in a room with a hundred good guys and one jerk, I'd be obsessed with the jerk within five minutes.”

“I went through that in college,” Sam volunteered, raising her hand. “I was pushy jerk catnip. It's like I showed up with a T-shirt that said
Hi, I'm emotionally damaged—please try to control me!
Except it turns out I have a low tolerance for bullshit.” She smiled, and Larkin tried to picture her as the bullied teen everyone said she had been. All she saw was a beautiful woman who was comfortable in her own skin. Though maybe that was what people saw when they looked at her, too. It wasn't totally true, but she was a lot closer than she ever had been. It was nice to know she wasn't alone.

“My tolerance started out pretty high,” Larkin admitted. “My mom—she's a prize—always wanted me to be something I wasn't. It was hard to break the pattern, since I started off picking guys who did the same thing.”

“But not in a long time, right?” Emma asked, her voice full of sympathy. “That's not you anymore. You know just who you are.”

“And who's that?” Larkin asked, only half-teasing. She wondered what people thought of her when she wasn't looking, probably more often than she should.

“A grown woman who bakes like magic, loves everyone, and has a weird thing for unicorns,” Emma replied, and their friends erupted into laughter around the room. Larkin laughed with them, amused.

“Good point,” she said. “That's me. Except I don't love
everyone
.”

“Close enough,” Zoe said. “You are way more inclined to like people in general than most of us.
You're like walking sunshine. It's good for people. Namely me.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of her friends, and Larkin couldn't hide her smile, even though it came with the unexpected sting of tears. She blinked them back, touched beyond what she could express. Here was evidence that she'd found the right balance in her life, that what she put out into the world came back to her in the most wonderful ways as long as she remembered what was important.

She'd almost lost herself a few times along the way, before she'd understood that she had a right to expect to get as much as she gave. Tonight was quite an illustration of how far she'd come. She'd needed this.

Emma's hand settled on her shoulder, soothing. “I don't think you need to worry so much. I may not be his biggest fan, and he can be kind of an idiot, but I've seen you and Shane together. Whatever's in the box, it's there because he likes
you
. Not just the way you look. Even though I still think this is lingerie.” She smiled, and Larkin found herself laughing again.

“It is
not
.”

“Forget the box; when was he at your
house
?” Annalise asked. “Why didn't I get to hear about this?”

“Uh, yeah, opening the box now,” Larkin said, and hurriedly ripped off the packing tape. There was fancy printed tissue paper from a well-known store in Boston. Larkin pressed her lips together. “It's probably navy blue,” she said flatly. “Conservative and boring and obviously super expensive and—”

Her muttering died as she tossed the paper aside, ripped open the tissue carefully wrapped around the
dress, and lifted it up. If the Fates had decided to teach her a lesson about making assumptions, they'd done a hell of a job. Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

It was a scrap of silk the same shade of green as her eyes that slipped through her fingers like water. She stroked her hands over it, unable to help herself, then let it hang from her fingertips. It was a simple babydoll dress with a scoop neck, made to hang and swing and swish around her figure—a style she'd always favored, both for comfort and because dresses like this made beanpoles like her look good.

“That's not lingerie,” Emma said, sounding slightly awed.

“It's not navy blue, either,” Zoe added. “You wear that this time of year, you're going to need heated underwear.”

“I'm not even sure you
can
wear underwear with that,” Sam said, leaning in to see. “Wow. Are you sure that's from Shane?”

“There's a card,” Larkin said, tearing her eyes away long enough to pick up the small square envelope that had fallen to the floor when she'd picked up the dress. She set her gift gently back in the box and opened the card with more care than she'd shown all the tissue paper. The message was simple.

Saw this and thought of you.

Hope you like it.

—Shane

“Oh,” Larkin said again, and was pretty sure her blush had spread from her cheeks all the way down to
her toes. He really had a knack for that. She carefully tucked the card back into the envelope, ignoring the expectant silence that surrounded her.

“Well?” Emma asked.

“It's, um, definitely from Shane,” Larkin said with a breathless laugh. It was beautiful. Definitely too expensive, unexpectedly sweet, a little high-handed, and beautiful. What on earth was she supposed to do with it?

“Are you sure that isn't lingerie?” Zoe asked, humor glinting in her storm gray eyes. “It's so pretty. I'd ask to borrow it if I didn't think it would come down to my ankles.” Larkin smiled. At five-two, Zoe had a hard time sharing clothes with anyone except her fellow short people.

“Not lingerie. It's beautiful,” Larkin said, shaking her head and closing up the box. “I don't even know what to think.”

“The man has taste; I'll give him that,” Sam said. “I'm just trying to picture Shane shopping for women's clothing.”

Why did he have to go and complicate things? It was way too extravagant. It was exactly the sort of thing she'd sworn she would only ever buy for herself. But . . . it was also incredibly thoughtful. This would have been easier if he hadn't done such a good job choosing something she would have chosen for herself. And if she ever went anywhere that necessitated a nice dress.

Flustered by her inability to feel a single way about it, she changed tacks. “What do you guys think of him, anyway?”

The silent looks that passed between her friends weren't exactly subtle.

“Does it matter?” Annalise asked. “I don't think any of us know him very well, except for maybe Sam. He doesn't seem to make female friends.” She smirked. “Except you. And we all knew he liked
you
.”

“I thought he was just messing around,” Larkin confessed. “I had no idea he was serious.”

“He can be serious when he wants to be,” Sam said. “Honestly, he used to be an enormous jerk. I'm not going to lie. He was miserable to me back in school, and he wasn't great when I started dating Jake. That turned out to be more of a guilt thing, but he was still a jerk.”

Emma coughed and muttered something about “still can be,” but Sam just made a face at her.

“Is he different now? I don't know,” Larkin said, tossing her hands up in frustration. “I really like him. I feel like I shouldn't. It's like having a crush on the villain in a movie.”

“Oh God, I always do that,” Emma said. “Instead I ended up with Captain America.”

“Hey. Seth is hot, but nobody is Chris Evans,” Larkin said, then stuck her tongue out. Emma laughed. Larkin had been very clear about calling dibs on Cap.

“Does he treat you right?” Zoe asked. “Because that's the most important thing. I like him, too, honestly, but if I ever tried to get together with him we would kill each other. It wouldn't even take days, probably just hours.”

“He . . . yes,” Larkin said, thinking of how easily he'd accepted it when she'd wanted to take a few steps back and slow down, how he'd pulled her chair out at the sushi place, how he was surprisingly easy to talk to on his own . . . even when she had no idea what to say
because he was watching her with those pretty eyes of his. “He's been very gentlemanly.” Then she remembered the way he'd used his teeth on her—teeth, hands, tongue—and added, “Mostly.”

“Is that a blush? Note that we haven't been told about the time he came over to her house,” Annalise said with a snort. “Anyway, he'd be too much for me. Every time I've been around him, he's struck me as one of those people who walks into a room and then kind of fills the whole room, if you know what I mean.”

“Presence. Yeah, he has a lot of that,” Larkin agreed. “Probably one of the reasons he was such a good actor.”

Sam looked surprised. “Oh, he told you about that?”

“His friend Ryan did.” Larkin wondered if she knew about the potential job. Shane and Jake were really tight. He'd seemed so flustered about it, though, she really wasn't sure how far that bit of information had traveled. It wouldn't go any further where she was concerned.

“That's right. Aaron mentioned you all had had dinner the other night,” Zoe said. “He liked you, by the way. And for what it's worth, he thinks you're going to be good for Shane, who he loves to torment, if you didn't notice.”

“I noticed,” Larkin said. “And that's sweet.”

“That's what he said about you. Sweet. I did mention your issue with falling into things, and how you think you can rap, but that doesn't really affect your sweetness level. Now he just wants to do karaoke with you.”

“The more the merrier,” Larkin said with a smile. It was always nice to know she'd made a good impression.
It would be nicer to know what, exactly, Shane's thoughts were on the matter, but she didn't think that information would be at all as easy to get. The dress was certainly a sign. Of what, she had no idea.