Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)
Staci Hart
Prologue: That Night
Theo
“Hello, Theodore.”
A very serious, very stern, utterly stunning woman stood before me with her hand jutted out and a determined set to her chin, which was tipped up so she could look me square in the eye.
The only thing I hated worse than blind dates was the use of my full name. But from her lips, I was disarmed and unexpectedly charmed by the formality, as if she were meeting a colleague or a second cousin, twice removed, not a date. I had a feeling the context didn’t matter. She’d greet everyone with the same businesslike matter-of-factness and firmness of hand.
Six sets of curious eyes—her friends and my twin brother—watched on as I took her offered hand. But rather than shake it as she’d intended, I turned it over and brushed the soft skin and delicate bones with my lips.
At the flash of simultaneous heat and aversion behind her steely eyes, my smile tilted higher.
“Nice to meet you, Katherine.”
Her palm, which had bloomed with a cool sweat, disappeared in a snap of motion. Wide, full lips the color of a stoplight flattened.
“That’s how the flu spreads, you know,” she said, wiping the back of her hand on her dress.
I fought the urge to laugh, saying instead, “I’d hate to be the cause of senseless virus-spreading. I’m sorry.”
She gave me a single curt nod. “You’re forgiven. And I hope you like to dance,” she said.
For a split second, I imagined turning her around the dance floor at the swing club we were heading to.
“I do.” My smile hadn’t budged.
“And I hope you don’t mind me leading.”
At that, my smile liquefied, brows drawing together. My mouth opened, then closed again when I could find no clever response. Only a string of questions.
“Katherine and I usually dance together,” Amelia, my brother’s wife, offered helpfully, which answered at least three-quarters of my questions.
“Some people say I have control issues,” Katherine added with a shrug.
Amelia laughed. “It keeps us from getting hit on, too.”
“They think we’re lesbians,” Katherine clarified clinically.
Tommy burst into laughter, looking down into Amelia’s face with disbelief.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Amelia said. “Pretending to be a lesbian is easier than talking to strange men. Even when she kissed me in front of a hundred people.”
Tommy’s laughter stopped dead. “I thought you’d never been kissed.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “That didn’t count. There wasn’t even any tongue.”
A single Ha! shot out of Katherine.
The conversation shifted, and when we all had drinks in hand, Katherine’s friend Val raised her glass and toasted. But I wasn’t listening.
I was watching the girl with the stiff spine and dark hair, the girl who smelled like anticipation and fresh, clean soap. Her eyes weren’t on me.
But mine were on her.
We sipped our drinks, chatted easily, the camaraderie clear between the group, all bound together by the four girls. Rin, the tall Asian with a gentle smile and soft laugh. Val, the short, curvy one with freckles smattered across her nose and wild, curly hair. Amelia, my brother’s fake wife, the fairy with platinum hair and cornflower-blue eyes. And Katherine, the starched, serious girl who was to be my date, and who I’d decided I’d make smile before the night was through.
It seemed a herculean task. But I always loved a good challenge.
Out the door we went, piling into cabs to head to the swing club. We loaded in with Val and her boyfriend, the conversation flowing between the three of them. But I spent the ride in observation, cataloging everything about her. Her hair, glossy and dark, bangs cut in a precise line. Her dress, tailored with an exactness that accentuated the curve of her waist, punctuated by a thin belt. Her lips seemed to forever rest in a flat line, even when she was amused. There was no little upturn in the corners, no mirth. When she smiled, her lips stayed together. When she laughed, it was compact, contained.
In fact, everything about her seemed contained, from her small, straight nose to her level shoulders. From her long fingers, wound together smartly and symmetrically in her lap, to her ankles, which crossed demurely. Her smile. Her eyes. The truth of her, I imagined, was locked down somewhere between her ears and never let out.
And I wanted to pick the lock.
We breezed past the line and straight to the bouncer, who shook hands with Val’s boyfriend. He seemed to know everyone except me and Tommy, and eyed us both with suspicion and warning as we passed.
It was like stepping back in time. Swing music filled the ballroom from corner to velvet corner, from parquet to elegantly tiled ceiling, strung with hanging Edison bulbs at varying heights. They cast a golden light on the dance floor, which was a sea of bouncing heads, dotted with the occasional flip of skirts and saddle shoes.
We wound our way into the club, everyone hand in hand, except Katherine and me. That was, until she saw the dance floor.
And that was the beginning of my end.
Her face opened up, her smile wide and bright, her eyes joyous and brows high, the emotion transforming her. The vision hit me in the chest.
When she snagged my hand and towed me toward the parquet, that twist in my chest deepened. Tightened. Simmered and crackled. I followed her willingly.