Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) (17 page)

“You?”

“Admit it.” She poked him in the shoulder. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt again, this one with tiny white stripes. By newly formed habit, her fingers itched to measure the stripe width, get it into the computer. “You’ve noticed I’m not the most fashionable chick on the planet.”

His mouth curved in a half smile. “I’m hardly one to judge. Luckily, that isn’t part of my job description.”

“But you know how to look serious. People take you seriously.”

“I’m a guy. It’s a sexist world.”

She appreciated that he was aware of his male privilege, but she also knew he was trying to change the subject. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to be unique. I like it. However… I’d like to be able to blend in when I feel like it, and I’ve got to admit I’m going to need help.”

He looked at her, then down into his glass. “I like your clothes.”

Fuzzy, happy feelings coated her like dandelion fluff on a spring day. “You do?”

He nodded. “You make an impression.”

“Not the right one, though, maybe, don’t you think?” She moved her chair closer to be heard over the crowd. “It would be harder for assistants like Teegan to dismiss me if I had a different look.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t worry about hurting my feelings.” She took another drink. It was mostly true; she’d taken great pride in nonconformity. But it had always been a choice, not a default position, and she wanted to prove to herself she could adapt if it suited her. “You’ve got to admit that if I weren’t wearing a funky outfit today, Teegan might not have been so quick to treat me like a disposable diaper.”

“Speaking of which, how’s your niece?”

“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “Well, will you help?”

“Change diapers?”

“Change me,” she said. “I want some of that corporate style you’ve mastered to rub off on me.”

“I’m sure they’re laughing at my style—my total lack of it—more than they’re laughing at yours.”

“Nobody laughs at you,” she said.

“Like I said, it has nothing to do with what I’m wearing.”

“It does. Look at that shirt—all buttoned up. Literally.”

Frowning, he plucked at it. “It’s a shirt with buttons.”

“Exactly.”

“All this time, it was the source of my power,” he said, shaking his head. “I never made the connection.”

The second drink had clarified everything. She stood up so fast she bumped his arm and spilled his beer. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Shopping,” she said. “Union Square is only a few blocks away.”

 
He licked the spilled beer off his knuckles. “Right now?”

The sight of his tongue momentarily derailed her.
Oh, yeah, right now, babe, let’s
go.
 

She pulled out her phone. “It’s not even seven yet. Macy’s is open late tonight. Did you have something better to do?”

“You don’t want me to come shopping with you, surely,” he said.

“I surely do.”

He laughed, and his whole face softened. “No. You need a woman. Or at least a guy with a clue.” He put his hand on her arm and tried to pull her back down. “Finish your drink, and we’ll both go home.”

Her heart began to pound until she remembered he obviously didn’t mean
together
. “I’ve already finished it.”

“Why not ask your brother’s fiancée, Rose?” he asked. “She looked like she’d be able to help you.”

Jealousy nibbled at April’s ego. “She’s too busy right now getting ready for the wedding,” she said. “Besides, she’s not good at looking boring. She has no experience with it.”

“Which is why you want me?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Exactly.”

“Stop, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Come on. It’s not too late, but it will be if we don’t get going,” she said.

“It’s raining.”

“I’m already wet, and you have an umbrella.”

“I’ll still get wet,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. “You owe me, remember? If you’re really sorry about what happened two weeks ago, you’ll prove it.”

He drained his drink and stood up. “Union Square?”

“Yes! This will be so much fun.” She patted him on the shoulder.

No, stop doing that
. He felt way too good to keep doing that. Strong, broad, male. And whenever she touched him, something flickered in his eyes.

“So much fun,” he said.

* * *

He blamed the appletini.

He sat on the couch outside the dressing room, trying to tune out the loud overhead TV broadcasting a feature about dieting cats.

It had come to this. He couldn’t even sleep with her, and he’d let her drag him into a department store on a Friday night. His shoes were soggy. He needed a toilet.

And he was going to have to look at her body repeatedly and share his opinion.

Yes
, he would say.
Perfect
.

He was in such trouble. He was swiftly careening into full-blown obsession. If only he’d devoted more time to dating this year, he wouldn’t be as desperate. Every little tilt of her hips or smile on her lips made him want to push her against the wall.

“What do you think?”

She stood before him in an outfit a grandmother on a gambling bus to Reno might wear: a baggy floral blouse, a pink cardigan, and tan no-iron trousers.

“Great,” he said. “We have a winner.” He’d already decided he wasn’t going to participate in any meaningful way.

Not the meaningful way he’d like. Wasn’t that exactly why he was so unhappy?

“Seriously,” she said. “I see women wearing this sort of thing to work all the time.”

He bit his lip and nodded.

“It’s hideous, of course, but isn’t that the point?” she asked.

“Shall I meet you at the register?”

“You don’t like it,” she said.

“It’s great.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. You pick something out then.”

“I said—”

“I’m in the first room on the right.” She spun on her heel. “The more you fight this, the longer it’ll take.”

He sank down onto the vinyl sofa and looked up at the TV. The fattest cat he’d ever seen was scowling at him through the screen.

He got up and strode out into the store to grab the first outfit he saw. She’d already shared her sizes with him, but he’d forgotten, so he had to eyeball it. He found a pair of dark khaki pants. And then a sky-blue, pinstripe button-down shirt. Exactly what he was wearing.

Grinning, he returned to the dressing room. “Here you go,” he said, flinging them over the slatted door.

“Nice,” she called out. “We’ll be twins.”

“I’m sharing my secrets, and this is how you reward me?”

He went back to his couch and the TV. They were still interviewing the family with the huge feline. Royal weddings got less coverage.

Then she came out of the dressing room with a gleaming smile on her face. “We’ve got a winner!”

She looked terrible. The shirt and pants fit her well, and she’d buttoned and tucked herself together neatly, but she looked
wrong
. Like every androgynous clone in corporate America.

Like him.

“Take it off,” he said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse me?”

He stood up and pointed at the interior of the store. “I’ll find you something else.”

“No need. This is perfect.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is,” she said, pivoting on her heel, showing him the buttoned welt pockets on her ass. “You picked out the perfect size, too. Thanks.”

He strode over to her. “That’s all wrong for Fite. It’s too conservative. You’re an artist, not an accountant.”

She went inside the dressing room and banged the door in his face. “They don’t want somebody who looks like an artist. They want somebody who looks like you.”

“Just because some design assistant was yanking your chain doesn’t mean it had anything to do with the crazy stuff you like to wear,” he said.

She pulled the door open. She’d put her old clothes back on. “Crazy. There you go. Crazy isn’t the look I’m going for anymore.”

But he liked her look. Too much. “At least try on something a little more… I don’t know… fashionable. More… I don’t know, feminine. Like what the design assistants wear.”

“I already know I can’t wear that crap. The heels alone would kill me. I’d trip on the stairs. I wouldn’t even be able to get out of the house.” She slung the blue shirt and khaki pants over her arm and marched past him. “These are the perfect compromise. Comfortable, wash-and-wear, and they don’t clash too bad with my combat boots.”

“Not wearing the boots would be enough of a makeover. You don’t have to—”

But she was already gone, disappearing past the racks and displays to find a register.

The TV was now broadcasting a commercial for chocolate-frosted-bagel breakfast cereal. No doubt that’s what the cat had been eating.

He caught up to April at the opposite end of the store, where she was already handing over her credit card. Her hair had dried unevenly around her ears, sticking up at odd angles. Her lips were curled in a smile. He thought about kissing her.

Out on a Friday night with a woman he found irresistible, and here he was. Damp. Too sober. Frustrated. And she hadn’t even taken his advice.
 

“Are you in line?” a woman asked behind him.

He jumped aside. “No. Just waiting for…” He trailed off, avoiding eye contact with the dark-haired woman, who held a red-and-black sliver of fabric that might have been underwear.

Why hadn’t he brought
that
to April in the dressing room?

He rubbed his eyes. This had been a mistake. Just because he had iron self-control didn’t mean he should torture himself.

April bounced over to him, hugging a shopping bag to her chest. “I got three of the shirts and two pair of the pants. I’ll have to drive out to Concord this weekend to get a few more. Each store only has a couple per size, you know?”

“I’ll walk you to BART,” he said.

She bumped her shoulder against his as they headed for the elevator. “You aren’t really mad, are you? Just because I didn’t take your advice?”

“I’m not mad.”

“Yeah?”

“The trick is not minding,” he said.

Chapter 15

I
T
TOOK
A
PRIL
ALMOST
THREE
weeks to admit her new clothes weren’t doing the trick.

Teegan and the other Women’s design assistants had become increasingly difficult to work with. They asked her to do things one day and then backtracked the next, never admitting they had said otherwise. April’s hours sped by every morning in a haze of sketches and swatches and screen print designs, a parade of work that never ended, that she never completed.

One morning in late February, she hurried out with Virginia to the coffee truck in the alley for a quick caffeine fix.

“If these guys were really smart, they’d serve liquor,” April muttered.

It was already eleven, she wouldn’t be in the office the next day, and she had one hour to recolor six stripes, lay out a logo on a T-shirt, match a new palette into the computer, and… there was something else…

Right. Go to the bathroom. She’d had to pee for over an hour. At this rate she was going to get a bladder infection, no matter how much cranberry juice she chugged.

Always afraid of offending anyone, Virginia looked around and asked in a whisper, “What happened?”

“They don’t like anything I do,” April said.

Virginia scrunched up her face. “I know.”

“You do?”

Virginia gave her a sympathetic nod. “I hear them bitching while they wait for the elevator in the lobby.”

“About me?”

“Sorry,” Virginia said.

April paid for a bottle of iced tea and an apple that would probably taste like Fite Performance Cotton, but she was desperate for nutrients that didn’t come out of a bag. “The main problem is they make me redo everything, and then I get behind. It’s really annoying.”

“Any way you could pin them down better on what they want before you waste too much time?”

“I do. I ask millions of questions and make them write down what they want before I do anything. Then they see it, exactly what they asked for, and it’s like
I
’m the crazy one.”

“At least you get paid by the hour,” Virginia said.

“But it’s stupid. Inefficient.”

Virginia paid for her hot chocolate and a granola bar. “Are you coming in tomorrow? We could splurge on dim sum.”

“I wish, but I’ve got Merry all day.” April took a bite of her apple, and it was worse than she’d feared, mealy and bruised. She frowned at it, tempted to ask for her money back but not wanting to add to the bad energy already spoiling her mood. “I have to watch her this afternoon, too. I’m going to get really behind.”

Merry was five months old now, rolling around the house and getting into even more trouble. April loved being with her, and the proud parents had insisted on paying her nicely—but her babysitting hours, because of Bev’s work schedule, were usually during business hours, and she kept running out of time.

With Rita still out—she’d filed for family leave, and nobody knew when she’d be back—the workload was snowballing. The design teams had permission to hire more freelancers, but none had appeared, and April was skeptical Jennifer or Darrin would bother. Easier to dump it in April’s lap and complain.

“I’ll have to come in early Monday morning,” April said. She couldn’t believe she’d reached the point in her life when she would regularly get up before five a.m., but what else could she do?

“I heard Rita’s other kid is sick, too,” Virginia said.

“She left me a message,” April said. “Her older daughter had double pneumonia. She spent a night in the hospital. And her six-year-old has always had really bad asthma, and of course it flared up at the worst time.”

They walked back through the back door, nodding at George, who scowled.

“Rita’s a single mom,” April continued. “I can’t imagine how she’s coping. Hopefully I can keep things from totally falling apart while she’s away.”