Talon’s already signing the check.
“They’re not kicking us out, are they?” I ask.
He glances up, placing the pen down. “Nah. Figured we could use a change of scenery after that … incident.”
“So you knew her?” I ask, turning to point to a girl who is clearly long gone.
His nose twitches. “Unfortunately.”
On that note, we leave Ultra. I don’t ask any more questions about Alicia and he doesn’t say another word, and it’s for the best. Bullies are only powerful when you give them power over you.
She doesn’t get to ruin this night.
“Mind if we walk around a bit?” he asks once we’re outside.
“Of course not.”
A gush of tepid wind blows my damp hair over my shoulder as we stroll the downtown sidewalks of Pacific Valley, but I brush it away. We don’t get more than a couple of blocks before Talon slips his hand in mine and pulls me against him.
“You must be freezing in that,” he says glancing at my damp sweater before nodding toward a retail store ahead. “Why don’t we get you something clean?”
Before I have a chance to respond, he takes my hand and leads me through the double doors of an upscale women’s clothing boutique—one I wouldn’t have dreamt of setting foot in before.
“It’s fine,” I say. I’d rather be damp and cold than slap down a line like, “I can’t afford anything in here,” because I know what he’ll do and I don’t need him to do that. Plus it’s late. The sign on the door indicates that they close in fifteen minutes. I don’t want to be that customer.
“Don’t be stubborn. Just grab something you like. My treat,” he says. “If I hadn’t have taken you to Ultra, you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.”
I stand in the middle of a store filled with shoes and bags and jackets that cost more than some people make in a month, paralyzed with indecision.
“Fine,” Talon says. “I’ll make it easy for you.”
He walks to a rack and plucks a leopard-print cashmere sweater off the rack—medium—a safe choice. A correct one too.
“You like it?” he asks.
I reach for the price tag but he yanks it away.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” With that, Talon carries it to the cash register, where a short-haired woman with hair the color of the unstained parts of my current sweater gives us a curious gaze. When she begins to box it up, Talon tells her to stop. “She’ll wear it out.”
The woman cuts the tags and begins to hand the sweater to him, but he steps back, pointing at me.
“Please show her to a changing room,” he says.
The white-haired woman leads me to a small room with a curtain for a door and hands me the priceless sweater before disappearing. Tearing off my wet, ruined top, I tug the new one over my head and adjust it into place. Next, I manage to find a spare elastic in the bottom of my purse and twist my hair into a low, messy bun. On top of that, I happen to spot a tube of vintage red lipstick in a side pocket. I almost swipe it across my lips when I stop myself. No man in his right mind wants to kiss a girl and walk away looking like a clown.
Giving myself a final once-over in the mirror, I rub my palms against the sugar-soft material. If cotton candy clouds were sweaters, this is exactly what they’d feel like.
I will cherish this sweater for the rest of my life, I’m sure of it. Long after it’s out of style, it’ll still be hanging from a velvet hanger in the back of my closet, a souvenir of this night and everything it entailed.
I place the lipstick back in my purse along with the old sweater, and then I step out from behind the curtain. Talon’s seated in a white leather arm chair, reading something on his phone, when he glances up, wasting no time drinking me in from bottom to top.
“Ready?” I ask.
He rises, sliding his phone back into his pocket.
“All right. Good as new.” He takes my hand and leads me outside, pulling me against him the instant our shoes hit the pavement.
He’s smooth.
And amazingly, I’m kind of okay with this …
There’s nothing wrong with allowing myself to have a good time with him. None of it means I have to sleep with him. All he asked for was a date. Nothing more, nothing less.
I breathe him in as we walk beneath a starry sky, downtown block after downtown block. Soon we’re surrounded by the tail lights of taxi cabs and Lyfts, the humming and whirring of diesel buses, and the aggressive purr of locals in their luxury sports cars.
It’s a symphony of sights, sounds, and smells—one I’ll forever remember long after tonight, I’m sure.