Inspire (The Muse #1)(21)
Author: Cora Carmack

Shit. Shit. I needed to stop thinking about this or I was going to make a fool of myself in more ways than one.

“Wilder,” Gwen’s high-pitched voice calls. And that’s exactly what I need to distract me. I stand, moving closer to her dressing room.

“Yeah?”

“I need help.”

I blew out a breath. It would probably make me a bad brother to ask if Lennox could help her.

“Can I come in?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, just pulls the curtain aside enough so that I can duck inside.

She’s covered. Mostly. But it looks like the black and red dress she has on has some kind of wrapping mechanism, and she’s tied it up all wrong. I unknot the bows she’s made to start over, but then I’m not really sure how the thing is supposed to wrap either.

“It goes there,” Gwen tells me.

“I don’t think so. What about here?”

“That looks stupid.”

We try a few more ways, and we get close, but something about it just looks slightly off.

“Maybe we should just try another dress,” I say when my back starts to ache from bending down to her level.

“Need some help?” a voice asks outside the curtain, and it’s not Lennox, but Kalli.

The fabric rustles, and she opens it just far enough to peek inside, but that’s enough for Gwen.

“Kalli!”

Apparently I wasn’t the only one impacted by that meeting in the grocery store. Gwen can barely remember things I tell her an hour later, but she hasn’t forgotten Kalli’s name. She shrugs off my hands where I’ve been messing with the ties to her dress and flings herself through the curtain onto Kalli.

Kalli’s laugh puts her smile to shame, and it moves through me like electricity. She squeezes my sister tight, and as she looks down at her, I swear she’s freaking glowing.

Hell, I think she’s just one of those people who shine a little brighter than everyone else. The ones that always seem to draw your eye in public, the ones you find yourself looking at for a second time for no other reason than simply because it’s where your eyes want to go.

And my eyes definitely want to go to Kalli. Not just a second time, but a third, and a fourth, and over and over again. She pulls back and gestures for my clumsily dressed sister to step inside the dressing room again, and she follows behind her, closing the curtain. I swallow.

The room had felt generously spacious a few moments before. Now I’m all too aware of the inches between us, and the space vibrates with something almost like static. Kalli kneels, putting her farther away from me and closer to my little sister. She undoes the ties I’d been wrestling with, and then she loops one side of the wrap through a small hole in the dress at my sister’s waist that I hadn’t noticed. There’s one on the other side, too. And once she’s fed both ties through, she wraps them again around her waist, hiding the holes, and completing a perfect bow in the middle of Gwen’s back.

My sister twirls once, the skirt fanning around her, brushing against my knees and Kalli’s stomach. She comes to a stop, her eyes meeting Kalli’s in the mirror, as if seeking approval.

“Very pretty.”

A blush sweeps over Gwen’s apple cheeks and tiny nose.

“Really?”

“Really. You look very special in that dress.”

“This one!” Gwen cries, looking up at me.

“Are you sure? You don’t want to get one that’s a little easier to put on?”

She leaps forwarding, clinging to my knees, and says, “Please, can I have this one? Please, Wilder.”

I try to surreptitiously check the price tag, but Kalli sees it. Damn. Nothing to do about that.

“Sure,” I promise. “If this is the one you want, we can get it.”

She starts bouncing up and down then, the fabric of the skirt bouncing wildly with her as she dances her victory. I smile, and my eyes are drawn again to Kalli, who’s smiling at Gwen, too. Then her eyes lift to mine. They dim. Her smile falters.

And that shouldn’t feel like a knife through my chest, but it does. I pull the curtain wide, and say, “You get dressed, Gwen. I’ll wait for you outside.”

Kalli steps out first, and I follow, my eyes taking in the new dress she’s wearing. It’s purple, black, and gray. And on the surface, it seems simple. It’s loose and long, and her shape should be swallowed beneath it, but it’s not. Instead, the looseness of it feels like a tease. Here and there are cut-outs that give a peek at the silk-lined interior and just a hint of skin. It feels halfway between something she’d wear on the beach and something she’d wear in the bedroom. And I enjoy the thought of her in both of those places.

I’ve forgotten how to be charming. Forgotten how to entice a woman. All I know is that I have to see her again, and now that Gwen has found her dress, there’s nothing keeping me here. So, instead I just say the first thing that comes to my mind. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

She hesitates outside her dressing room. “You have?”

I nod. Because if I actually voice how often I think about her, I’m likely to send her running again. I gesture behind me where Lennox is presumably moving somewhere through the shop and ask, “Is that your roommate?”

Her brows furrow. “Roommate?”

“The night we … uh, the last time I saw you, you said your roommate had friends over you didn’t like.”

“Oh. No. Lennox and I haven’t known each other that long. That roommate … she moved out. We weren’t a good fit. She was … reckless.”

“Well, I’m glad she’s gone then.”

She nods. “Yep. She’s definitely gone, and everything is under control now.”

Again, I cut right to the chase. “Can I take you out sometime? Dinner?”

She leans toward me a few inches, then seems to realize what she’s doing and straightens.

“I can’t.”

And … a knockout in one punch.

“You can’t?”

God, I should shut up. She said no. I should take that hint and spare myself further misery, but I don’t. Because there’s something in her eyes, the way she tracks my movements just as obsessively as I do hers. I remember how vulnerable she’d looked that night when I’d started asking questions about what had happened to her earlier. I see that same vulnerability in her now, and I think she’s hiding. I think that’s why she said no, and I’m just enough of a masochist to attempt changing her mind.

“You should,” I say. “You should go out with me.”

“Oh, I should, should I?” Her tone sounds offended, but there’s the barest tilt at the corner of her mouth that gives me hope.

“You should. You see, I know me. And I’m a pretty fun date.”