I come for you in the first light of the morning...
Natalie looked at herself on the three-way mirror, turning this way and that, not sure she liked the way the slinky black material hugged her hips. It made her look--large. Not petite like the rest of David's family, like his perfectly formed sisters who pretended to be happy she was marrying their brother.
David. She smiled a little at the thought of the way his blue eyes were always laughing.
"So what do you think?" David's youngest sister came up beside Natalie in the mirror, the contrast between the two of them making Natalie's stomach hurt. God! Why was she so insecure?
"I don't know," Natalie said, her shoulders drooping.
"It's up to you," Penny said, her eyebrows raised.
Natalie shrugged and returned to the dressing room to change. It was the fourth dress she'd tried on today, and no matter the style, every dress made her look like a voluptuous sexpot.
After dressing Natalie hung the slinky dress back on its hanger, letting her fingers trail down the silky soft material. The sight of her blunt fingernails abruptly brought Dennis to mind.
He loved her long fingernails, the way she'd run them up and down his back while they--
"Natalie? We're going to be late if you don't hurry up." Penny's irritated voice jolted Natalie out of her reverie.
"I'll be right there," she called, wondering what Dennis was doing now. The last she'd heard he and the band were embarking on a tour, but that was nearly two years ago.
Hurriedly, she grabbed the dress and left the dressing room, plastering a smile on her face as she joined her soon to be sister-in-law by the check out.
"You're actually going to buy that dress?" Penny's snarky, amazed tone more than anything else made Natalie whip out her debit card and hand it to the employee.
"Yes. David will like it."
"Maybe, but Mom sure won't."
"Good thing I'm not marrying your mother then, huh?" Natalie accepted the neatly wrapped dress and walked toward the exit, ignoring Penny's annoyance. Why had she agreed to go shopping with her anyway?
Because David wanted her to, of course. "I want you to get to know my sisters, Natalie," David had said just that morning. "I know you'll like them."
Right. Natalie already knew it'd be a cold day in Hell before she 'liked' any of David's three sisters, and vice versa. He had a huge blind spot when it came to the women in his family. He probably couldn't even fathom the idea that one of his sisters or mother might be unkind.
She did care for David, she really did. Whether it was actually 'love' was something she didn't worry about. At this point in her life she longed for someone to love her, to care for her. And David certainly seemed to fit the bill. He was handsome and steady, with a good job as a financial consultant. And if sometimes he was a bit stodgy, well, nobody was perfect, right?
"When are you going to wear that dress?" Penny was still going on and on about the damn dress, totally oblivious to the fact that Natalie really didn't want to talk about the dress, she didn't care about the fucking dress, she'd only bought it to irk the other woman.
She opened her mouth to suggest they leave the mall when she saw him coming out of an electronics shop. Dennis. For a moment she couldn't breathe, thought maybe her heart had stopped. People passed, blocking her view, but she never took her eyes off him, couldn't take them off him. And as if he felt her hot gaze, felt her eyes caressing his skin, he looked right at her.
Lightning struck, pinning her feet to the floor, dropping the bottom out of her stomach. All she saw was him. He hesitated, as if trying to decide whether he could pretend not to see her, but finally he sauntered toward where she stood frozen, fingers clutching the dress in its plastic covering.
Beside her Penny blathered on about something, but it was as if she spoke a foreign language.
He came close enough for her to see the stubble on his cheeks, to recognize the shirt that clung to his chest as one she'd given him. A warm feeling started in her toes and travelled up her legs.
"Hey, Nat," he said, looking her over. "It's been a while." His eyes were wary despite the friendly words.
"Two years," she said, and cringed, appalled at the coldness of her voice. He blinked, as if he wasn't expecting hostility from her, and she hastened to undo the damage. "It's good to see you, Dennis."
"Yeah." He shifted his gaze to Penny, who was watching the interplay with a perplexed expression.
"Oh. This is Penny. Penny, this is Dennis. An old--friend." Natalie stammered, blushing when Dennis raised his pierced eyebrow.
"Yeah," he said sardonically. "We're old friends." His mouth twisted, and she was sure Penny knew they weren't just old friends.
"Hi." Penny turned to Natalie. "We really need to get back," she said, trying to get Natalie to start moving, even going so far as to lay one cool hand on Natalie's wrist.
"You go ahead, Penny," Natalie said, barely looking at her.
"What? Natalie, dinner's at six, you know that."
"I'll be there. Don't worry." Dennis's eyes were dark and questioning, and truthfully, Natalie was questioning herself as well. What was she doing? What if he didn't want to talk to her and was just being polite? What if--
"There's something I need to talk to Dennis about."
"What do you want me to tell David?" The words enter Natalie's ears like a poisonous hiss, matched only by the malice in Penny's eyes. She spoke to the other woman emphatically.
"That I'll see him at dinner, Penny. Take this for me, please." She thrust the dress at Penny, not even looking at her.
And then it was just her and Dennis. He looked at her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his wrinkled pants. His hair was short on the sides, longish on top, such a change from how he used to wear it, and that more than anything else made her aware of how very long it had been.
"Who's David?" How like him to cut right to the heart of it.
She shook her head. "Not you," she said, surprising herself. Her emotions were a jumbled mix; all she was certain of was that she wanted to be next to him. As close as he'd let her.
He blinked. "Uh, okay. Not sure what that means, but whatever."
