Chapter 11: You Look Like A Snack

Roxanne's POV

"Oh my god."

Charlotte said before I'd even fully turned around.

I looked at her. "Don't say it."

"Roxie," She set down the diffuser and stared at me. "You look like a whole snack."

"I look like a stuffed sausage." I turned back to the mirror.

The black bodycon dress sat against my body, it clung to my hips, my waist, my chest, everything I owned sitting right there on display with nowhere to hide. My breasts were practically introducing themselves. The neckline scooped low, and the edge sat mid-thigh, which on my body meant every thick inch of my thighs was out.. "This dress is too much."

"This dress is perfect." Charlotte came to stand beside me, looking at my reflection. "You look like the kind of girl that makes every Alpha in a room forget what they were doing."

"That's not...."

"Blackwood is not going to know what hit him." She said it simply.

"Blackwood doesn't..." I stopped. "It doesn't matter."

"Sure." She did not sound convinced.

My curls were massive tonight. Charlotte had spent forty minutes with a diffuser, mousse. They sat full and wild around my face, deep red and deliberately big, bouncing when I moved.

Charlotte's phone buzzed on the desk.

She glanced at it. Her face did something small and fast that she tried to cover.

"What?" I looked at her. "What happened?"

She picked up the phone, read it properly, set it back down. "Liam's isn't coming."

"To the party?" I asked.

"To anything, apparently." She kept her voice even. "Says practice ran over and he's wiped and he'll make it up to me."

I watched her face. "I can't believe he stood you up."

"It's fine." She turned back to the mirror and picked up a curl near my face, repositioning it. "It's okay."

"It's not okay," I said. "You were looking forward to..."

"I said it's fine, Roxie." She met my eyes in the mirror briefly. "I'm not going tonight."

"What? No." My voice was sharp. ""Come anyway." You don't need Liam to..."

"I'm not going to show up to a party without a date so I can stand around watching you fake date your childhood bully. That's not a fun Saturday for me." She stepped back and assessed my outfit one more time. "Everyone's going to be coupled up. I'll just be some sad girl with no one, haunting the edges."

"You wouldn't be haunting anything, you'd be with me..." I insisted.

"No, you'll be with Tyson." She corrected.

"I don't want to be with Tyson." My voice came out sharp.

"Exactly, neither of us do, So." She shrugged one shoulder. "I'll stay in, watch something. It's fine."

I looked at her. She looked back at me and I could see it, the thing she was flattening down, the disappointment sitting underneath the easy shrug. Liam had been doing this a lot lately and she kept calling it fine in that voice.

"I'll think about it," she said before I could push further. "Maybe I'll come later."

"That means no." I said.

"It means I'll think about it." She pointed at my shoes on the floor. "Put the heels on. Let me see you walk."

I stepped into them, buckled both sides, stood up straight. Took four steps to the window and back without incident.

Charlotte nodded slowly. "Three weeks of trauma paid off."

"Don't remind me." I groaned.

The knock came at exactly eleven-thirty.

Charlotte's eyebrows went up. "He's early."

"Of course he is," I said.

I opened the door.

Tyson stood in the corridor in dark trousers and a fitted black shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms, hair pushed back, looking like he'd put in zero effort and somehow landed on handsome anyway. His eyes went to me immediately.

The sweep was slow. Top to bottom, starting at my curls, moving down my face, my chest, the dress, all of it, back up. Three full seconds of looking with those green eyes completely unreadable, and then something shifted in his expression.

"Well." His voice came out slightly different than usual. "You look different."

"Charlie has a great sense of style," I said.

"Yeah, and you have the body." His eyes moved over me one more time, slower this time, unhurried. "You've been hiding all of this under sweaters and jeans, Pumpkin."

Behind me I heard Charlotte make a sound she immediately muffled.

"I feel like a clown," I said flatly.

"You don't." He said it without the teasing this time. "You shouldn't."

I blinked. That wasn't what I expected.

Then his mouth moved.

"You look round and juicy." Those green eyes held mine, steady and deliberate. "Just like a pumpkin."

The heat that exploded up my face was instant and total and deeply humiliating. I felt it hit my cheeks, my ears, my chest, a full body betrayal that I had no control over whatsoever.

"You are just a..." I grabbed my bag from the hook. "You absolute..."

"I meant it as a compliment." He said.

"Whatever, let's go." I walked past him into the corridor, not looking at him, definitely not touching my face. "Let's just get this over and done with."

His low laugh followed me out.

"Goodnight, Charlotte," he called back through the open door.

"Goodnight, Tyson." She was very clearly smiling. I could hear it without seeing it. "Take care of her."

"Sure I will." He said.

I walked faster.

His footsteps fell into step beside me without any effort, easy and unhurried, and when I glanced sideways he was looking straight ahead with that expression, settled, slightly amused, completely comfortable with what he'd just done to my entire face.

"You're still blushing," he said.

"I'm not." My voice rose slightly.

"Your ears..."

"Tyson." I looked at him. "I will turn around and go back inside."

"No you won't." He said

He was right and we both knew it.

I faced forward, squared my shoulders, and kept walking.

His hand found mine at the bottom of the stairs, open palm, easy, no warning, and his fingers closed around mine and just like that, we were on.

My wolf went very still.

"Time to get the show started." He said.

I didn't say anything about it.

We walked out into the cold night together, his hand warm around mine, and I kept my chin up.