“Owen likes the way I dress.”
“I highly doubt that. Now I’m going out to meet the man who put that smile on your face, while you change into something a little less you. ”
“Don’t tell him any embarrassing stories about me!” Caitlyn called after her.
Jenna closed the door securely behind herself on her way out. She was totally going to tell Owen all sorts of embarrassing stories about her, Caitlyn just knew she would. Caitlyn rushed to collect her things.
In the guest room, she upended her overnight bag in the center of her borrowed bed and looked for something to wear to a rock concert. Jenna was totally right—she couldn’t be seen someplace cool dressed in any of her clothes. She shoved a pair of twill weave slacks and a matching emerald-green sweater into the bottom of her bag and then helped herself to Jenna’s closet. Most of Jenna’s clothes would be too small for Caitlyn’s rounder backside, but one of her flirty dresses should fit. Was she daring enough to wear red? Yesterday Caitlyn would have said no, but today she was feeling particularly daring. And sexy. All thanks to Owen.
She wasn’t quite daring enough to wear the dress during the day, so she added it to her bag to change into later. Then she filched a pair of red heels from Jenna’s massive shoe collection, but she refused to borrow Jenna’s underwear. Caitlyn’s cartoon cow panties would have to do. Why had she bought those novelty panties in the first place? Owen had seemed to like the fuchsia pair with the sheep; how would he feel about turquoise with a cross-eyed cow?
Would he insist on making her saturate them with her arousal?
Oh lord, she was going to embarrass herself for sure.
Next time she saw Owen, she promised herself that she’d wear sexy underwear for him.
If there was a next time. She was starting to believe there might be a lot of next times.
After tossing her toiletries and make-up into her overnight bag, Caitlyn yanked the zipper shut and went to rescue Owen—and her own reputation—from Jenna’s clutches.
As expected, Jenna had Owen in stitches. They were standing next to the car, Owen leaning against the door so he didn’t collapse in hysterics and Jenna talking in her typical animated fashion. Caitlyn could only guess what her friend had been telling him. Probably about the time she’d forced Caitlyn to go zip-lining and she’d gotten stuck over a canyon. Caitlyn had been fascinated by the physics of the exercise and had determined the effectiveness of hand-braking via experimentation. Her experiment had been a marvelous success—she’d stopped dead in the center of the line—and it had taken her nearly an hour to pull herself, hand over hand, to the nearest station, much to the displeasure of everyone waiting a turn to zoom across the canyon.
“When she fell, she grabbed the nearest guy—by the pants, unfortunately—and we all soon discovered that he was a man who went commando.”
Owen sniggered and rubbed his forehead.
Oh, this was her rollerblading fiasco story. What was next, the “stuck upside-down between two rocks in a kayak” story? Jenna had never gotten it into her head that Caitlyn had the athletic prowess of a common sea slug. While their exploits were adventures for Jenna, those excursions had been exercises in injury and humiliation for Caitlyn. But she went because she knew how much Jenna enjoyed the not-so-great outdoors. And Jenna sometimes accompanied Caitlyn to science fiction conventions because she knew how much Caitlyn enjoyed pretending she was from space. Caitlyn pinked at her thoughts. She hoped Jenna hadn’t told Owen that she liked to dress up as Princess Leia on occasion. She kept the fake-braid earmuffs in the top drawer of her dresser at home.
Though she should be mortified, she wasn’t really. It was stranger to see Owen laughing with Jenna than knowing he was laughing because Jenna was embarrassing her. Seeing him with her best friend made it seem possible that Owen could become a part of Caitlyn’s regular life and not just be the guy who’d given her one night of thought-shattering sex.
Did she even want Owen as part of her regular life? That hadn’t been what she’d been after when she went to the sex club.
Just because something was possible didn’t mean she had to follow up. Maybe she could still blow him off and spend the day with Jenna. Jenna was… safe.
Owen smiled a greeting when he noticed Caitlyn approaching. Jenna turned and her face fell. You didn’t change? Jenna mouthed without speaking.
“I put on clean panties,” Caitlyn said defensively.
Jenna turned and said to Owen, “Can you give us just five more minutes?”
He turned to the driver, who stood next to the front fender. “When does the bus leave?”
The driver checked his watch. “We need to leave here in the next couple of minutes to make it.”
“I guess you have time to put your dirty panties back on,” Owen said.
Jenna burst out laughing and patted his chest playfully. “This one is naughty and nice,” she said, tossing her hair in an obviously flirtatious way. “You were so right about him.”
“He has his c**k pierced too,” Caitlyn blurted, and then she clamped her hand over her big mouth.
“Hurry, baby.” Owen said. “We need to get going. I can’t wait to introduce you to Force.”
“What force?” Caitlyn asked.
“Our drummer. He’s going to love you.” Owen scratched the back of his neck. “On second thought, I should probably keep you away from him.”
“We’ll be right back,” Jenna said, pulling Caitlyn back into the house. She slammed the door behind them and spun to confront Caitlyn. “Oh my God, Caitlyn, he’s gorgeous. And funny. And sweet. And apparently rich and famous. How in the hell did you luck into that?”
“I dunno. He likes older geeky women who give off men-suck vibes in sex clubs.”
“If you want to keep his attention, you’re going to have to dress better. You look like you climbed out of a thrift store Dumpster.”
“I’m telling you,” Caitlyn said, “he likes this look. I don’t get it either.”
“He can’t possibly like this look,” Jenna said. “He likes you and, unfortunately, you come with this look.”
“He likes me?” Caitlyn said breathlessly.
“Well, duh. What’s not to like?”
In a semi-trance, Caitlyn allowed Jenna to strip her down to her bra and panties. After a deserved eye roll at Caitlyn’s cow panties, Jenna stuck her in a pair of black capris that were tight in the rear and a soft pink T-shirt that stretched taut across her boobs.