She screws up the corner of her lips and makes a strange clucking sound as she regards her reflection. One eyebrow lifts. Then the other. She narrows her gaze then gasps, horrified. “I’m the Keebler elf.”

  I clutch my belly, laughing, till I collect myself. “First of all, you don’t look like the Keebler elf. He wears red and yellow with his green jacket, and I would never let you pair those colors.”

  “You are a good woman to look out for potential color mishaps.”

  Smiling, I meet her gaze. “However, if you feel like the Keebler elf, then the question is—is that what you want? If so, I say to each her own fetish and kink, and nom-nom-nom.”

  She cringes, shaking her head. “I’m all for kink, but I assure you, a little elfin magic doesn’t go a long way for this girl. Or any way, for that matter.” She appraises herself once more, studying her reflection. “Nor does leprechaun kink. Admit it: I kind of look like I’m about to skip over the rainbow with a pot of gold.”

  I laugh, flicking my red hair. “Preach, sister. I can’t wear green lingerie for that same reason. And it’s a shame, because I love emerald, but I also love sapphire, so I wear that instead.”

  “For your . . .?”

  She waits for me to fill in the dots—husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, lover.

  I shake my head. “I’ve been single for some time now, but that doesn’t stop my lingerie habit. I wear sexy undies every day because they make me feel fabulous. And I suspect they’ve played their part in making me feel like I’m finally ready to date again. But listen, I’m willing to bet that your guy doesn’t actually care what color your panties are.”

  “You think he’ll be fine without the Green Lantern thing?”

  I smile softly. “If he loves you for you, and I bet he does, he’ll be happy if you’re happy. Because pretty panties don’t have to be for him. They’re about what you like. What type of panties make you want to march up to him and rip off his shirt?”

  “That’s a smart way to look at it. What does get me going?” She repeats the question like she’s thinking about it for the first time. “Besides, of course, when he cleans the kitchen and the bathroom.”

  “That’s a turn-on, for sure. Keep thinking along those lines. And when it comes to lingerie, ask what style gives you the confidence of Athena? What look makes you imagine you’re a Botticelli? For some women, it is green lingerie. For others, it’s sapphire or ruby. I could bring you a cranberry-red set if you want.”

  She shakes her head, and I keep going.

  “Some prefer sheer nude. Others feel sexiest in a sports bra. Maybe it’s a cami and a tank and boy shorts. Or perhaps it’s a festive little novelty set.”

  She points at me excitedly, like she’s found the winner in three-card monte. “Yes. That.”

  I had a feeling I’d pique her interest. She likes unconventional answers, and I bet she’d want unconventional underwear. “Would you say you like numbers?”

  “However did you know?” she asks dryly.

  “Just a lucky guess,” I tease. “Okay, I’ve been on the hunt for some fun patterns. Let me grab something from a shipment that came in the other day that I think is perfect for you. I suspect you’re a big fan of purple.”

  “Is that your lingerie ESP again?”

  My eyes drift down to her handbag. It’s a bright shade of eggplant. “Or it could be that your purse was the giveaway.”

  “Look at you, using observable possibilities.”

  I curtsy. “But let’s make sure you like it first.” I step toward the back of the shop, then I stop, going for the pièce de résistance—the proof that I will always put my money where my ESP is. “And if you don’t feel gorgeous in this set, your next purchase is on me.”

  Her eyes pop. “Whoa. Thank you.”

  I send a silent wish to Grandma Mimi that I’m not wrong here with my lingerie magic eight ball as I fetch the items I have in mind from a box in the back. As I pass, I glance toward the shop floor where my sales assistant, Marley, is gift-wrapping a purchase for a woman in a camel trench coat. I bet it’s red and lacy.

  I return to the dressing room and hand the silky items to Daniella.

  A minute later, she gushes her praise from inside the room. “This. Is. So. Me.”

  Yes. That’s what I want to hear—her own confidence in what she wears underneath her clothes.

  That’s what matters. She doesn’t even need my seal of approval as long as she’s given it to herself.

  She opens the door and strikes a ta-da pose, owning it. The lavender bra and panties decorated with numbers, formulas, and mathematical symbols fit her personality like a glove.

  “There is a one-hundred-percent chance of me loving this and feeling hot in it.”

  “Then I’d say it’s a sure thing that you’ll be ripping his shirt off when you see him, and he’ll love that too.”

  Her eyes twinkle with naughty mischief. “He will. Because I’m not Wonder Woman.” She gestures to her body. “I’m a sexy statistician. Thank you for helping me see that.”

  “It’s my pleasure. I’ll be up front when you’re ready.”

  A minute later, she’s practically floating as she brings the new ensemble to the register. “Now I only have one thing I want you to remember,” I say as I ring her up.

  She clasps her hands, waiting for my wisdom. “Tell me.”

  My expression turns full-on serious. “As much as I want you to come back and buy a new set every single day, remember if Jamie rips this off you, you’ll be spending a fortune. Don’t do that crazy stuff unless you want to start wiring half your paycheck directly to me.”

  “I do like your shop,” she says with a smile, glancing around You Look Pretty Today, settling on the other patterned bras I recently added. “But I’ll take the advice, and I’ll tell my friends all about this place. My best friend is a novelist, so I bet she’ll dig that typewriter-style over there.”

  Cha-ching. “She’ll look like a decadent wordsmith when I’m through with her.”

  As I fold tissue paper around the garments, Daniella tilts her head and asks, “What makes you feel like a Botticelli?”

  Sliding one finger under the shoulder of my shirt, I show her a hint of the coral-pink lace bra. “Lace. It’s my kryptonite, and it’s my armor. I’ve worn lace every single day since my fiancé left me earlier this year. Lace helped me get over him, because every day I had a secret, and the secret was how I looked and felt.”

  Daniella slowly claps. “When you get back out there, some guy is not going to know what hit him.”

  I smile as I tuck the tissue paper—covered bra and panties into a bag and hand it to her. “A girl can dream. Thanks, Daniella. Go be the statistical goddess you are.”

  “That’s the only kind I know how to be.”

  After she leaves, Marley scurries over to the counter, beaming. “You sold the math bra. I thought for sure that was going to wind up in a pile of regrets.”

  “Regrets are for haircuts and exes. Never underwear. Not if we can help it.”

  She offers a hand to high-five. “You’re like the lingerie guru. Just like you were in your old blog.”

  I high-five back as my chest twinges with a smidge of regret. Fine, regrets are also for shuttering blogs for the wrong reasons.

  But I’m on the other side of those wrong reasons, and the other side of heartbreak, hurt, and doubt.

  And there’s no time like the present to let the many months of lace work its restorative magic. Perhaps it’s finally time to ask out that sweet guy in my favorite yoga class. The one who spreads out a mat for me every time. The guy who also does the best downward-facing dog, and I’m not just saying that because his butt has been carved by angels.

  Though those are the best kind of rears to stare at in yoga.

  When the bell rings on the pink door, I set aside my yoga-guy musings. A leggy brunette in skinny jeans and a half shirt strides inside, her trimmed abs on display. A honey blonde in a leopard-print skirt is next to her.

  My internal radar beeps, and I size them up based on first impressions alone. What would they like most from my store? I just stocked the cutest black-and-white animal print that I bet the blonde will go gaga for, and I have new demi-cup bras that I suspect the half-shirter will dig.

  “Happy Saturday. If you need any help with styles, sizing, or recommendations, just let me know.”

  “Thanks, babe,” says the half-shirter.

  I head to the counter, Marley by my side, and we set to folding the last of the most recent shipment of bustiers we recently added to our wares.

  The blonde drags her finger along a shelf, considering the displays. “Oh. This is so fab,” she says when she finds the black-and-white bra.

  “It’s so you, sweets. So totally you,” her friend echoes. “You have to get it. Seriously, I command you. Now. Get it. Wear it. Be hella hot.” She finishes her order with a snap of the fingers.

  Marley nudges me, a gleeful grin on her young face.

  I simply smile, hopeful for another sale.

  “I’m doing it, I’m doing it!” the blonde says, her hand darting into the stack, hunting, I presume, for just her size.

  But she freezes.

  Flinches.

  Gasps.

  She calls her friend closer, points excitedly out the window, and whispers. “Babe. Oh my god, look! Do you see what I see?”

  The half shirter squeezes her friend’s arm. “Your eyes. They’re like the best. The best of the best.”

  “We are so there.”

  In a split second, the blonde tugs the half-shirter out the door. The two babes, as they call each other, race off, the bell tinkling sadly behind them. I have a sinking feeling I know what caught their attention.

  My gaze follows them.

  The chain store behemoth a city block away sports a new sign in its window: Half off Lingerie at Harriet’s Wardrobe.

  My shoulders slump. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  All these years of busting my butt to give customers beautiful underthings and personal service, and here’s the specter of the Lingerie Warehouse threatening to devour my little boutique like the blue-plate special.

  That’s what I’m up against—a wasteland of bargain-basement polyester and panty lines.

  2

  TRISTAN

  It can only be a Monday.

  Consider the evidence. An email from a pasta supplier to say he’s running late with his gnocchi delivery. By a week. A note from my wine guy saying he’s out of the chardonnay I ordered. Then a text from my dishwasher calling in sick—for his shift on Thursday.

  Not anything I want to see when I check my phone after I get out of the shower. Definitely not all at once.

  I need coffee. And I need it stat. After pulling on jeans and a Henley, I brew some French roast and sink into a chair at the kitchen table, fueling up to tackle the rest of today’s inevitable flat tires.

  “Good morning.” My brother, Barrett, strolls out of his room and grabs a box of cereal from the kitchen counter.

  “What’s so good about it?” I grumble.

  He shakes some cereal into a bowl, pours some milk, then joins me, nodding at my coffee mug. “You should stop drinking that. It stunts your growth. We learned that in health class the other week.”

  “You’re seventeen. I’m twenty-nine. I’m fully grown.”

  “But what if? What if new scientific research emerges proving our potential for growth doesn’t end when we turn eighteen?”

  I give him a stare and my best I can’t even with your sass this morning face. “That. Won’t. Happen.”

  “It could though. Science expands the boundaries of knowledge every day. Heck, you can clone a dog now. What if we can grow into our thirties?” He shoves a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and crunches hard.

  “I’m six feet tall. So are you. We’re good to go in the height department.”

  He shrugs. “If you say so, but I won’t stop hunting for new discoveries.”

  Ah, youth. “My brother, the painter-slash-scientist.”

  “I’m a Renaissance man. A regular Leonardo.” Barrett digs again into his bowl, going from crunching to slurping so loud he might be sucking each Cheerio up with a straw.

  I aim a withering glare over the rim of my coffee mug. “I’m pretty sure Leonardo was not a savage at the breakfast table.”

  He slurps more. “But are you certain?”

  “I’m positive. Also, there are these things called manners. You’ve heard of them?”

  The corner of his lip twitches. “Hmm. Manners. Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “Here’s a refresher, then: don’t slurp cereal.”

  He narrows his eyes, making a show of analyzing my wisdom. “But is soup okay? What about ice cream? Is it okay if I slurp ice cream?”

  “I see you took an extra dose of sarcasm this morning. Is this because I told you to shut it down and stop watching Doctor Who at midnight?”

  He scoff-laughs. “Doctor Who is so last year. It was Stranger Things, and I watched it with Rachel.” A small smile flits across his lips but disappears so quickly I could have imagined it.

  Except I don’t think I did.

  And it’s more evidence that my brother has it bad for his best friend, and has for some time. But he’s afraid to make the first move, so I’ve been hunting for gentle ways to nudge him.

  But I’m not feeling so gentle this morning, so I stay on topic. “Point being, it was a school night, and you still have classes.”

  He answers my remark with another slurp.

  Groaning, I drop my head in my hands. “Dear God, grant me the patience to handle this child raised by wolves.”

  “Maybe you’re the wolf.” He laughs, and then the seventeen-year-old little shit proceeds to throw back his head and howl at the top of his lungs. It lasts for a full thirty seconds and incites a frenzy of barking from the terriers who live down the hall.

  “You should definitely consider a career in animal impressions. From the slurping to the howling, you’ve got a handle on the call of the wild.”

  His hazel eyes, the same shade as mine, twinkle with mischief. “Know what else I could make a living at?”

  “What’s that?”

  He leans on the elbows he’s parked on the table. “Getting your goat. Doesn’t matter how much I dangle the bait—you still bite. React like I’m the most teenaged teenager ever put on earth. But no. I’m your wiseass brother, sent here to wind you up forevermore. And doing it most excellently.” He lifts his spoon like a hoity-toity society dame and proceeds to finish his cereal ever so elegantly.

  Damn. He got me again. I was sure he was a mannerless, cereal-slurping adolescent. I didn’t consider he was being uncouth on purpose. And I do ride him hard on civility, since there’s no one else around to tell him when he’s oinking too much.

  “Fine. You win,” I concede.

  He pumps a fist. “And it’s not even seven.”

  He picks up his bowl and takes it to the sink, and I get a look at what he’s wearing.

  No effing way.

  I hate to go all kids today, but I swear. Kids today. They dress like gym class will break out any moment and they have to be prepared. He might have won the slurping showdown, but I draw a hard line at gym shorts on a school day.

  He heads to the bathroom down the hall and turns on the sink tap to brush his teeth. I follow him. “Do you have sports practice today?”

  He shoots me a look like I’d said it in Martian. “I don’t play sports.”

  “Oh.” I furrow my brow in exaggerated confusion. “Then why are you wearing basketball shorts to school?”

  His duh look is well-honed from practice. “Everyone wears basketball shorts. And I have a pair of jeans in my locker in case I get busted.”

  “That’s my point. We don’t need to tango with the law—not when you go to a freaking magnet school.”

  “But I look good in these shorts.”

  I lift a brow. “Are you sure?”

  He recoils, jerking his head back. “Are you saying I don’t?”

  I shrug, scratch my jaw, adopt a casual stance. “I’m saying there are ladies who prefer a sharp-dressed man. One lady in particular.”

  He spits the rest of the Crest into the basin and snaps his gaze to me with keen but wary curiosity. “What do you mean?”

  My brother lights up whenever Rachel is around. Hell, he sparks at the mention of her. But she won’t wait for him forever.

  I know what happens when you wait too long—the window of opportunity slams shut and you lose your chance. I won’t let him make the same mistakes I’ve made. Not if I can help it.

  Ever so casually, I stroll out of the bathroom, trailing the bait a little. “Just that a certain someone might have remarked she likes a well-dressed man.”

  “Who?” He’s on me like sticky tape.

  I stare at the ceiling in the living room, tapping my chin as if thinking hard to recall. “Let me see. I believe it was the sweet and funny girl you had over last Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and so on. She and Peyton were talking about clothes, and she remarked how much she likes a dapper look.”

  “‘Dapper’? She said ‘dapper’?”

  I nod. “She definitely said ‘dapper.’”

  He weighs this, then nods. “Sounds like her.”

  “And it can’t hurt to impress the woman. Speaking of, how did it go when you asked her out the other night?” I ask, since he’d hinted that he had something to tell her—that he has feelings for her, I presume.

  He huffs. “It takes time. It’s like a painting. It’s not something that’s going to come together all at once.”

  I grab my coffee cup and take a fortifying drink before I turn more serious. “Look, Barrett. I’m not saying it’s going to come together all at once with you and Rachel. And maybe it never will. Maybe her feelings aren’t the same as yours. But let’s be honest—you’ve had it bad for her for a while. Do you think you might want to ask your best friend to—oh, I don’t know, call me crazy—go out with you before you graduate?”

  He sighs, sliding a hand through his floppy brown hair. “Maybe you don’t get it. It needs to feel right. When I tell her, it needs to be perfect. Know what I mean?”