Unhinged (5 page)

“We’re announcing the
new concept car.”

Fucking shit.

“I want you to be
there.”

“Not a chance in hell,”
I told him firmly. Rather than argue because I know the next phase, I simply
added, “Look, I gotta work.” With that, I hung up on him.

I’d hear all about it
the next time I saw him, I was sure. The old man lived to bust my balls, which
didn’t make me want to do him any favors.

Payton

“Party?” I stared back
at Mr. Trovato, praying my mouth wasn’t hanging open while I tried to
comprehend what he’d just asked me.

I was pretty sure my
jaw was on the floor.

I’d been back in the
office for all of an hour, eating my turkey sandwich at my desk while Mr.
Trovato left to attend his lunch meeting. He’d been gone less time than I
figured he would be and when he returned, I had been filing some paperwork that
had been signed last week. I had greeted him as soon as he reached the top of
the stairs, and on his way to his office he had mumbled something about a
party.

Yes, a party.

Maybe I was hearing
things because it sure sounded like Conrad had invited me to a party at his
house.

He stopped in the
doorway, his hand on the frame as he turned back toward me. “Tomorrow night.
Seven o’clock. Black tie. My house. I’ll make sure you’re added to the guest
list,” Mr. Trovato clarified.

Yep, it was official. I
wasn’t hearing things.

I nodded, purely
because I had no idea what to say.

As much as I liked my
job, despite the bizarre encounter I’d had with Mr. Trovato’s mechanic, or the
peculiar expression I’d been met with when I explained to Conrad before he left
for lunch
—
for the second time
—
what had happened, I wasn’t all that interested in going to a party.

“Mr. Trovato?” I
greeted when Conrad answered his office phone after Maude so kindly transferred
me to him.

“Yes, Payton?”

It sure sounded like
Mr. Trovato had been expecting me to call, but I pretended not to notice. “I
wasn’t able to get your cell phone, sir. Aaliyah had already left for school
and your mechanic said that no one was home.”

“My mechanic?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Umm… Okay. Just come
back to the office, Payton.”

“Yes, sir.”

I thought I’d heard a
hitch in my boss’s voice when I called to inform him I wasn’t able to get his
phone as I was driving back to the office. But the look on his face when I told
him in person was… priceless.

In fact, he probably
looked a lot like I did right at that moment.

What was I going to do
at a party at his house? Certainly he wasn’t expecting me to assist him. Was
he?

Oh, crap. Now I was
even more worried.

Between that and trying
to figure out what to wear…

It was bad enough that
I didn’t have anything to wear to work. Now I had to figure out what to wear to
a party. Black tie? That meant I had to wear something fancy, right?

Shit.

“Will you be able to
make it, Payton?” Conrad asked, pulling me from my wayward thoughts.

“Yes, sir.” The words
had come out before I thought better of it.

Crap.

“Great. I’ll let my
wife know to add you. I’ll be back in two hours,” Mr. Trovato stated as he
headed toward the stairs.

Again, I nodded.

Lowering myself into my
chair, I dropped my head into my hands and tried to put the errant thoughts
running through my mind into some sort of order.

Sexy mechanic. Didn’t
need to think about.

What to wear to a
party. Top priority.

Who would go with me? Good
question.

Sexy mechanic.

Ugghhh!

It wasn’t working.

Despite the fact that I
had more important things to focus on, I was still attempting to replay the
conversation I’d had with Sebastian and how it was possible that I’d had a
dream about a guy I’d never met. It still didn’t make sense. On top of that, I
was trying to figure out why I couldn’t stop thinking about him
period
.
He had called me angel. Angel. Seriously. If that wasn’t some sort of
patronizing assholishness (yes, I just made that word up), I don’t know what
was.

 Not that I had time to
think about Sebastian, or our strange encounter, or whether or not he was
really the mechanic. After my conversation with Conrad, I wasn’t so sure that
was the case. But either way, Conrad didn’t seem at all concerned, so I wasn’t
sure why I was.

Dress.

I had to find a dress.

Yanking my cell phone
out of my desk drawer, I quickly dialed Chloe’s number. If anyone could help
me, she could.

“I’ve got a problem,” I
said in a rush as soon as she answered.

“You’ve got many, but
now probably isn’t the time for me to point those out. What’s up?”

“Thanks. I feel so much
better,” I retorted, gripping the phone hard enough to nearly crack the
plastic. “I need a dress.”

“For?”

“And a date,” I
continued, ignoring Chloe’s question. “I need a dress and a date. Shit. Not
necessarily in that order.”

“Hold up, woman.” Chloe
laughed. “I’m sure I’ve got a dress you can borrow.”

“Have you seen me?” I
asked her, incredulity dripping from every word. “You’re like three sizes
smaller than I am.”

“Whatever. When do you
need it by?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Seriously? You
couldn’t give me a little more notice?” she asked, teasing me as always.

“I just found out.
Conrad invited me to a party. At his house.”

“Girl, should I be
worried that he invited you to his house?”

“Shut up.” I
immediately wondered what she was going to say when she found out I’d already
gone to his house. “Can you help me or not?”

“With the dress, yes.
If you’re asking me to be your date, well, I’m afraid to tell you that you’re
just not my type.”

I laughed, releasing
the breath I’d been holding.

“What time will you be
home?” Chloe asked. “And yes, I’ve got something that’ll work, you just have to
trust me.”

“I won’t leave here
until six or so.”

“Well, grab dinner on
your way home and I’ll work my magic.”

“What do I do about a
date?” I asked. It was one thing to find a dress, something else entirely to
conjure up a date on such short notice.

“What about Aaron?”

Hmm… That wasn’t a bad
idea actually. He was my best friend, and I hadn’t asked him for any favors lately.
“I’ll call him.”

“Text me and tell me
what he says. I’ll see you at home tonight.”

I hung up without
saying goodbye, my stomach suddenly churning with nerves. I wasn’t worried that
Aaron would tell me no if I asked him to accompany me. The worry came from the
fact that he was so busy lately and I didn’t know what his plans were for
tomorrow night.

But, I wasn’t going to
know until I tried.

Pulling up the contact
list on my phone, I scrolled until I found Aaron’s number and hit
dial
.

“What’s up, Buttercup?”
Aaron greeted on the second ring, a smile in his always cheerful voice.

“I need a date,” I
blurted. I followed my little outburst with a nervous giggle. I could feel my
face heat. Thank goodness he wasn’t there to see me. He’d laugh.

“What? Like to prom?”
he asked deadpan, and just like that all of my tension drained.

Resting my forehead on
my palm, my elbow on my desk, I held the phone to my ear and took a deep
breath.

“Yes, to prom,” I said
sweetly. “I need a date to prom.”

“Awesome. Count me in.
When and where?”

“I’m being serious,
Aaron.”

“I know, doll. If you
weren’t serious, you wouldn’t’ve called me.”

“That’s not true and
you know it,” I answered defensively.

Aaron responded with a
snort.

He was truly my best
friend. He understood me in ways even Chloe couldn’t. We had a long history
together and it started back when I met him in seventh grade. He was a new kid
at my school. A
hot
new kid at my school. I remember noticing him for
the first time. He’d been standing outside the principal’s office and I had
been going there for who knows what. As I passed, he tossed me a smirk and a
muttered hello. Needless to say, Aaron was the first boy I ever
noticed
.
Tall and gorgeous, I’d been in love at the first hello.

Me and the rest of the
seventh-grade female population.

It wasn’t until high
school when Aaron came out of the closet that I realized we’d been destined to
be friends. He admitted that he’d known that all along, but he hadn’t wanted to
hurt my feelings. Being rejected by a guy was mortifying, especially in high
school, and Aaron had made sure never to do that to me. So, when he told me he
was gay, I can’t say that I was shocked. Relieved, maybe. Although I had
reprimanded him for not telling me sooner. I had spent the better part of
junior high thinking there was something wrong with me.

And from that moment
on, my attraction to him fizzled and turned into a love that I’d never known
for another person who was not my mother or father. Aaron was my best friend, I
loved him like a brother and I would do anything for him. I considered myself
lucky, because I knew he’d do the same for me.

“What shall I wear?” he
asked.

“A tux.”

“Seriously, Payton? You
can’t just invite me to a cool party, can you? Always makin’ me dress up and
shit.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”
The last time we’d gone out had been our senior prom, so he wasn’t joking.

“No worries. It’s about
time I donned a tux again. Mark won’t know what hit him when he sees me.”

There was so much truth
in that statement. Aaron was an attractive guy, there was no doubt about that.
But when he dressed up… he was irresistible.

But again, not the
point. “You don’t even know when the party is,” I told him.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s tomorrow night.”
I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me that it was too short of notice
and that he had other plans.

“Good deal. What time
do I pick you up?” he asked.

“Can you really get a tux
that quickly?” I blurted.

“Doll, I can do things
mere mortals can’t.”

My breath escaped me in
a rush. This had been far too easy for a last minute invite. I now had a date,
and possibly a dress for a party that I didn’t really want to go to in the
first place. Things didn’t generally work out that well for me.

Which left me
wondering… just what was going to be the hiccup?

Payton

“Honey, I’m home!” I
shouted to Chloe when I came through the front door around seven-thirty that
night.

I’m not sure what had
gotten into me, but ever since I hung up the phone with Aaron earlier in the
day, I’d felt much better. Better than even before I had a party to worry
about. We had shared texts for much of the afternoon, which had effectively
distracted me from thoughts of the sexy mechanic. Aaron had sent me numerous
selfies while he was out and about trying on tuxes. And yes, the man was right,
he could do things mere mortals couldn’t. He found a tuxedo, convinced the guy
at the shop to give him a discount and was now set and ready to go.

I had been conversing
with Chloe as well, mainly because Aaron and I were trying to work on what
color cummerbund he should get
—
something he insisted on. Chloe suggested silver and that had me curious as to
what she had found in her closet for me. Silver? If she put me in a silver
dress, I was going to look like a glittery blow up doll, I was sure.

“What did you get for
dinner?” Chloe hollered from her bedroom.

“Tacos.” I resisted the
urge to storm her room and see what she’d picked out; instead, I made a beeline
for the table, setting the paper bag down before depositing my purse and my
computer bag in my bedroom and kicking off my heels.

“You’re an angel, you
know that?” Chloe exclaimed when she joined me in the kitchen, throwing her
arms around me from behind and hugging me.

I stilled instantly.
Angel.

“You okay?” Chloe
asked, making her way around me to the table.

“Fine. Is Aaron home
yet?” I asked, her statement still ping-ponging around in my head. Angel. That
was what Sebastian had called me.

Strange.

Shaking off the
recurring sense of déjà vu, I blinked twice and forced my feet to move.

“Aaron’s in his room
with Mark,” Chloe announced loudly in a singsong voice.

The door to Aaron’s
room flew open and there stood Mark in all of his handsome glory. Blond hair,
blue eyes, built like a swimmer
—
which he was, so it kind of made sense.

“Hey, pretty girl,”
Mark greeted me as he made his way down the short hall. When he reached me, he
pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly.

“Hey. I hope you like
tacos.”

“Girl, I like anything
you bring me. But I hope you brought enough.”

Did I mention that Mark
ate a lot? He said it had to do with all the swimming. He must swim an awful
lot because he ate like a horse and never gained an ounce.

“Come on, pokey,
dinner’s here!” Mark called to Aaron down the hall. 

“What do y’all want to
drink?” I asked Chloe and Mark as I leaned into the refrigerator and rummaged
around for a diet drink. We didn’t usually keep them in the house, mainly
because Chloe and I would devour them within a day, but I knew I’d hidden a
couple in the back. Before anyone could answer, I retrieved the two cans and
then held them up so she could see.

Chloe squealed.

Easily excitable, like
I said.

“We’ll take water.”
Aaron sounded snubbed as he came over to me and hugged me from behind.

“Don’t act like you’re
upset. You don’t drink sodas.”

He hadn’t had a soft
drink in at least five years. I envied his will-power, I did. But I wasn’t
giving up my Diet Dr. Pepper for anyone.

Aaron retrieved two
bottles of water from the refrigerator and then returned to the small breakfast
nook where Mark was pulling out the chairs, waiting for Chloe and me to take
our seats.

“Thank you.” I smiled
at Mark as I slipped into my chair, then glanced over at Chloe and added, “Please
tell me you found a dress.”

She’d already snatched
the bag of tacos and was pouring the contents out onto the table.

“Why do you doubt me?”
she asked, pretending to be offended.

“I don’t. I’m just—”

Chloe interrupted me,
her green eyes twinkling. “You’re just eating. And then we’ll try on the
dress.”

“Maybe we should try it
on
before
I eat. I don’t want to be bloated,” I told her seriously, my
eyes watching for her reaction. “The dress may not fit.”

Mark and Aaron laughed
while Chloe erupted in a fit of giggles. I sat there staring at the three of
them, trying to keep a straight face. “What is so funny?”

“Just eat and tell us
about your day,” Chloe replied when she stopped laughing.

“Mine was boring,”
Aaron offered when no one spoke. “You?” He turned to Mark.

“Yep, just as boring.”

All eyes turned to me.

“I went to Mr.
Trovato’s house today,” I blurted before thinking.

I kept my attention on
my taco, avoiding eye contact with the other three people at the table, but I
could feel their gazes boring into me.

When no one said
anything, I slipped my eyes up to Chloe’s face.  

Her eyebrow was cocked
and she had stopped chewing. “I knew I should be worried.”

It was my turn to
laugh. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Spill,” Mark said as he
finished off his first taco. “He’s rich, right? Nice house?”

“I don’t know. I just
saw the outside.”

“And?”

“It’s a house.” I tried
to sound indifferent. I seriously doubted Conrad Trovato’s home could be
classified as a mere house, but that wasn’t the point of my story. “Anyway. He
left his cell phone at home and his wife couldn’t bring it to him. He told me
to go. I went. No cell phone.”

“What?” Aaron looked
thoroughly confused. “Where was it?”

I laughed, realizing
how Aaron had taken my statement. “I didn’t get it.” Without hesitating, I
spewed the rest of the story, including the part about meeting the sexy as sin
mechanic, never stopping to breathe.

“A mechanic? Are you
serious?” Chloe asked, her eyes locked with mine.

I nodded, sipping my
Diet Dr. Pepper.

“How hot are we
talking? Lukewarm? Or like scorch-your-fingertips-if-you-touch-him hot?” Mark
asked.

“The second one,” I
answered, studying my taco.

I knew I shouldn’t have
said anything. Chloe would constantly remind me of the mechanic from here on
out and Aaron would be worried about me. It was a known fact that I didn’t date
much. And it wasn’t because men didn’t ask me out. They did. But I was a firm
believer in the physiological reaction that I knew existed, even if I’d never
felt it before. Until I found that, I wasn’t interested in wasting any more
time with guys who just didn’t do it for me.

My hand stilled halfway
to my mouth.

I’d felt that reaction
to Sebastian, hadn’t I?

Shaking off the unruly
thought, I forced the taco to my mouth, taking a bite and ignoring the
sensations that stirred in my belly when I thought about him.

I shouldn’t have even
brought him up. I didn’t want to think about Sebastian, much less have someone
ask me questions about him. I doubted I’d ever see him again and that… that
kind of bugged me.

I managed to deflect
the rest of their questions until finally we were finished eating. Before I
could grab the taco wrappers to toss them in the trash, Chloe sprang up from
her chair and grabbed my arm, dragging me into her bedroom before I realized we
were on the move.

“We’ll just… clean the
kitchen,” Aaron called, laughing.

“Thank you!” I hollered
back, stumbling behind Chloe.

There on her bed was
the sexiest dress I’d ever seen.

And the good news was
that it wasn’t silver. It was black.

“What do you think?”
she asked, her hand pressed firmly to my back as she urged me closer to the
dress.

“It’s… It’s… Wow. It’s
beautiful.” That was an understatement. “It’s also nearly nonexistent, Chloe.”

“Not true. Try it on.”

Yeah, it was safe to
say that
little
was the most-prominent adjective in that little black
dress. I grabbed the hanger and held it up in front of me.

“Try. It. On,” Chloe
commanded.

I could tell she was
losing her patience, so I did as she asked. I carried the dress to my bedroom,
slipped off my sweater and my skirt and then pulled the slinky, form-fitting
dress on.

“This bra’s not gonna work!”
I shouted from my bedroom as I stood staring at the woman in the mirror.

The dress… Wow. It
really was incredible. The kind of incredible that acted as camouflage, hiding
all of those little things I hated about my body. 

“Holy shit.” Chloe
whistled when she walked into the room, stopping to stand beside me as I
continued to stare at myself in the mirror. “Yep, that’ll work.”

I reached for the hem
of the skirt and tried to modestly pull it down to cover more of my thighs.

“Quit that,” Chloe
snapped as she slapped at my hand. “It’s perfect just like that.”

I met her gaze in the
mirror and then glanced at the bra strap that was showing.

“Okay, maybe not
perfect. But the bra we can fix. Worst case, go without one.”

“Chloe!” I exclaimed.
“You can’t be serious.” She
couldn’t
be serious.

“You don’t need a bra,”
she told me, reaching out and cupping my breast.

I slapped her hand away
and laughed. “I do, too.” I might not be well endowed, but I still needed a
bra.

“Are you decent?” Aaron
called from the living room.

“As decent as we’ll
ever be,” Chloe bellowed.

The next thing I knew,
Aaron and Mark were standing side by side in my doorway staring at me.

“Holy shit,” Aaron said
softly while Mark whistled.

“What?” I asked.
“What’s wrong?”

“Girl, that dress is
fucking hot.”

“I think it’s the girl
in
the dress that’s hot,” Chloe corrected.

“That, too.”

Aaron’s eyes continued
to rake over me. I waited for him to meet my gaze.

“What shoes are you
gonna wear?” Mark asked. I glanced over to see his eyes trailing down to my
bare feet.

Crap. Shoes.

“This we got,” Chloe
assured me. “We do wear the same size shoes.” She practically skipped out of my
bedroom, her ponytail bobbing merrily behind her.

I waited not so
patiently, perusing my figure in the mirror while Chloe disappeared. Aaron
flopped onto my bed and watched me while Mark continued to stand in the doorway.

“What’s the party for?”
Aaron asked, his hands behind his head, his long, lean body draped across my
bed. He really was a good looking man. Blond hair, blue eyes, tall and trim,
not bulky, but definitely well-built.

“Don’t know. Mr.
Trovato just invited me. I didn’t ask what it was for.”

“Maybe the mechanic
will be there,” Chloe said when she returned a second later, a pair of silver
closed-toe heels dangling from her fingertips.

I snatched the shoes
and glared at her. “He won’t be there.”

“How do you know?”
Aaron asked, his blond eyebrows launching into his hairline.

“Because he’s the
mechanic,” I offered, sounding not so sure of myself.

“Well, I’ll cross my
fingers for you.” Chloe winked at me and then dropped onto the bed beside Aaron
while I slipped the shoes on.

I continued to primp in
the mirror while my best friends laughed and joked behind me. I lifted my hair
up, let it drop down, wondering just how I should wear it. The entire time, I
was thinking about Sebastian.

What if he was there?
What would I say to him?

A renewed sense of
nervousness overcame me. Could this be the shakeup that my life needed?

Or was I just getting
my hopes up for nothing?