Page 46 of Right Man, Right Time
After texting him back so he knows I’m on my way, I grab my clutch and glance at myself one more time in the mirror. The plum dress Ross chose for me has a strapless, structured top that splits at the cleavage. It has boning sewn into it, so it holds to my torso nicely, but the split of the dress to offer cleavage makes me nervous. It’s why I used the tape, just in case. When the dress hits my hips, it flows in a gauzy-like material and appears to almost be Grecian. It’s beautiful, but not something I’ve ever worn before.
Knowing I can’t go back now, I leave my dorm and take the elevator down to the first floor. I pass a few people who eye me in my dress, but I move past them and right out the front door where a black Tesla Model X waits for me. I peek into the window and spot Silas, so I wave awkwardly, and when I go to open the door, it pops open for me.
“Oh . . .” I chuckle. “Uh, hi.”
“Hey,” he replies, his voice gruff.
I slip into the warm vehicle and smile over at him. “Thank you for doing this. You have no idea how grateful I am.”
“Not a problem.” I catch his Adam’s apple bob as he turns away from me.
“Is, uh . . . is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling on the back of his neck before he glances at me again. “That’s a really nice dress, Ollie.”
I glance down at it as if I haven’t been staring at myself in the damn thing for the past half hour. “Thank you. Ross helped me find it. I didn’t have anything that was black tie appropriate.”
“You should have told me. I could have helped.”
“Why would you help? I’m the one who asked you for a favor.”
“I still could have helped.”
“Well, it’s fine. Everything worked out.”
He nods and grips the steering wheel a touch tighter. Confused about his stiff attitude, I ask, “Are you sure everything’s okay? If you don’t want to do this, I totally get it. I just—”
“No, I don’t mind,” he says and then sighs. “Christ, I just wasn’t expecting you to look so hot. That’s all.”
“Oh.” My cheeks blush. “Well . . . I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Sorry, that was a shit way to say it.” He turns toward me, and with a genuine look in his eyes, he says, “Ollie, you look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I reply, feeling shy and awkward and good God, why is this so hard? “You look very nice yourself, so if we can move on from this because I feel really weird, that would be great.”
“Sorry.” He chuckles. “Still trying to figure all of this out. How to approach things. I feel like you should know you look good, but that’s also something a real boyfriend would say, so . . . fuck . . . I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Ah, yes, I get it,” I say. “How about we just treat this like a business transaction? Like would you tell your colleague that he looked good in a suit?”
“Hornsby demands I pay attention to his outfits . . . but I get what you’re trying to say.”
“I wish I knew which one of your teammates you were talking about. I know I met them, but it was brief. I retained nothing.”
Silas pulls away from the curb and says, “Eli Hornsby. Look up a picture of him on your phone. He’s the pretty boy of the group. Somehow, in all the years he’s played hockey, he’s never managed to get his face bashed in, giving him that perfect movie star look. Earlier this year, he got Pacey’s sister pregnant.”
“Really?” I ask. “Who’s Pacey again?”
“Our goalie.”
I type away on my phone to pull up a picture of him. “How did he handle the news?”
“Not well. Things were rocky within the group for a bit, but luckily, we helped them work it out.”
“Does Pacey have a girlfriend? He’s pretty cute.”
Silas side-eyes me. “He’s just as old as I am, so stop knocking on the doors of grandads.” I laugh out loud. “And he’s attached. He and Winnie are engaged. She actually got lost in the woods right outside of my house in Banff and wound up needing help in the middle of the rainstorm. We thought she was a murderer, and she accused us of being murderers. But in the end, Hornsby was the one who suggested she was good, and Pacey just so happened to hit it off with her. And smitten . . . the boy was all over her on day one.”
“Really?” I ask. “Has he ever had that reaction to a girl before?”
