“Um, Neely?” I called, crossing my arms over my chest to pin the corset in place. “Little help here?”
A handsome man with tanned skin, black hair and dark eyes yanked back the curtain, wearing a stern expression. “Should I be concerned about Neely hiding a half-naked woman in his dressing room?”
“Guess it depends.” Blushing under his frank scrutiny, glad I’d worn my good underwear, I curled my toes in my stockings. “How do you feel about half-naked women?”
“They’re like avocados. I can appreciate they exist, but I wouldn’t want to eat one.”
Hooting laughter exploded through the room. “Dang, baby.” Neely hooked his arm around Cruz’s wide shoulders. “You didn’t have to be so mean. We like Grier, remember?”
“We do like Grier,” he agreed. “We just prefer she wear more clothes around happily married men in the future.”
“You’re so cute when you get jealous.” Neely planted a loud kiss on Cruz’s cheek then shoved him aside. “Now scoot back so I can get her tied up.” A wicked grin lit his face. “Behave, and I’ll let you tie me up later.”
Cruz’s molten gaze skimmed the length of Neely’s body. “Deal.”
“Do you mind if he stays?” Neely waded through a parade of half-naked women in various stages of undress nightly. He was blind to girl bits. Cruz, however, was not. Boobs clearly intimidated him. “I can blindfold him if you’d like.” He wet his bottom lip. “I know I would.”
“Neely.” I snapped my fingers at the end of his nose. “Focus.”
“Sorry.” He jolted to attention. “It’s just he’s been working a case in Atlanta all week.”
“The quicker you finish with her,” Cruz said, retreating to a chair he angled to face the wall, “the faster you can get back to me.”
Neely sighed dreamily at his gallant husband then whirled his finger for me. I did as he instructed, planted my palms against the wall, and sucked in my stomach until my navel touched my spine the way Cricket had taught me. He laced me up in record time then helped get the rest of the outfit straight before hauling me into the well-lit bathroom suite and starting to work on my hair and makeup.
“How did you get so good at this?” I gazed at the sagging ceiling while he applied my eyeliner.
Neely was about three years older than me, so I remembered him from high school, but I hadn’t gotten to know him until I worked my first summer as a Haint when I was fifteen. Things went south for me soon after, but Neely hadn’t changed a bit, and I could almost pretend no time had passed instead of facing the gap that yawned in our friendship.
“Are you asking because he’s a guy?” Chair legs scraped in the corner. Cruz twisted his chair and sat down facing my back, all the better to glare at me in the mirror. “Or because he’s gay?”
Mostly I was asking out of desperation. That almost-kiss with Boaz was occupying too much of my headspace for comfort.
Tension thrummed in the warm hand Neely rested on my cheek, and the eyeliner pencil wobbled.
I touched his wrist to let him know I was all right. “Are you asking because you’re insecure or paranoid?”
Cruz growled low in his throat, but very little scared me these days. When the worst had already happened, there wasn’t much left to dread.
“Grier is good people,” Neely said softly. “She’s not like…” He mashed his lips into a hard line. “Just dial it down, okay?”
A quiet breath hissed from between Cruz’s teeth as he stood. He left without saying another word.
Neely swayed toward the empty doorway like the bond between them was tugging him after Cruz.
“Do you need a minute?” I rested my hand on his forearm. “This can keep.”
“Cruz runs hot.” He shook his head and got back to applying the finishing touches. “Cooling off before we talk about this will help us both.”
Sensing Neely craved a distraction as much as I did, I picked up where Cruz had cut us off earlier.
“I don’t know the business end of a sponge applicator from one of those eyelash crimpy things.” Maud had been a fan of the natural look, but one glance in her bathroom proved how many cosmetics were required to achieve that bare-skin glow. “How did you learn?”
“Trial and error. Mostly error.” He clicked his tongue, going to work on braiding my unruly hair into an artful crown that circled my head. “It’s a miracle my sisters didn’t murder me for stealing their makeup. Erin, the second youngest, was the one who noticed I had a good eye and a steady hand. She started asking me to doll her up before dates. Later, Regan, the eldest, let me do her makeup for graduation.”
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Four. Two older and two younger. I’m the middlest.”
A twinge drew my chest tight as I imagined his big heart and wide smile multiplied by four. “That must be nice.”
“Nice is a strong word for growing up in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house with four siblings.” He scooted back, giving me a clear view of my reflection for the first time since Cruz left. “Well, what do you think?”
The bags under my eyes had vanished beneath a layer of concealer, and the ragged skin on my chapped lips was hidden by the careful application of tinted gloss. Rather than appearing washed out from my confinement, he somehow smoothed my flaws into a porcelain glow. Even my frizzy hair behaved itself, sleeked back and coiled into demureness upon my head.
I flicked my gaze up to his. “Explain to me why you don’t do this professionally again?”
“There’s a reason so many people hang up on their calling. Dreams don’t always pay the bills.” He tapped the end of my nose with his fingertip. “Mom raised us on her own, and she was always worried about paying the bills. She figured the best way to have money was to work for people who had plenty. That’s why she nudged me into corporate accounting.”
“And that’s how you met Cruz.” That much of their story I had heard.
“He gave me the last bear claw during the longest, most boring meeting of our lives when the sugar might have given him the will to live through closing arguments. That’s when I started believing in love at first bite.” He flicked his wrist. “Now scoot. You’ve got victims waiting.”
I rose, straightening my skirt, then balanced on the edge of the top step. “Good luck with the kissing and making up.”
“Thanks.” He swiped a coat of clear gloss over his bottom lip with his pinky then pressed them together. “But I got this in the bag.”
Leaving Neely to hunt down his man, careful not to comment on the length of untied cravat in his hand that would do as a blindfold in a pinch, I braved the narrow staircase. Fabric rustled against the walls on both sides, and the ribs of the hoop skirt groaned as they were compressed. I counted the steps to make sure I didn’t fall flat on my face and breathed a sigh of relief when I hit bottom.
Thankfully, we were allowed to wear color-coordinated sneakers. Otherwise, I would have broken my neck in period-appropriate shoes on the way down. Not to mention grown a blister the size of some small children after a few hours.
The bulletin board where Cricket pinned our nightly assignments stood empty. I almost panicked before smacking my forehead with my palm. Duh. Of course my packet was gone. Leaving it up there for all to see would have shined a spotlight on my absence. Refusing to let panic wrestle me into a chokehold, I patted down my skirt in search of its hidden pockets. The crisp edge of stiff paper under my fingertips reassured me, and I pulled out an assignment sheet Amelie must have stuffed in there before enlisting Neely to the cause.
The note pinned to the top said the waiting group was twenty-nine strong. Considering the cutoff was thirty, it was a healthy size. My night was looking up already.