Getting Over Matt

20 - "Kiss me."

He sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed. I noticed that he was dressed very smartly again, in black jeans and a shirt with rolled up sleeves. His muscular, tanned arms protruded from within the slim-fitting shirt, drawing all attention to how sculpted and toned they were.

"Well, no, but this is different. I understand it's a big deal," Nathan replied.

I nodded and twisted back to my mirror, reapplying the straighteners to my hair so I could finish off the last couple of sections. Nathan sat patiently, in silence, as he watched me.

Finally satisfied, I flicked off the straighteners and stood up, pulling down my dress from where it had ridden up my thighs.

"Do I look okay?" I asked Nathan, turning to face him.

He remained seated, his eyes scanning my body. Even though he was clearly taking in every inch of me—the dress didn't leave too much to the imagination—his eyes didn't give anything away. They remained neutral as they observed my body, giving no indication of attraction, distaste or even just simply approval.

"Yeah," he said eventually, folding his arms over his lap as his eyes finally reached my own again. "What are you wearing on your feet?"

I pulled out two pairs of shoes, one with a low heel and the other with a high five-inch heel. Nathan pointed to the second pair immediately.

"Wear those. You can walk in them, right?"

"Just about. I've been practising."

His lips twitched at that, and he watched me with mild fascination as I slid my foot into the shoe and buckled it at the ankle.

"You look great, Bella," he said. "Really great."

I smiled in gratitude and twisted to look at myself in the mirror. I didn't want to look like I'd tried too hard but I did want to look like I'd made an effort. The red and black body-con dress clung to my figure with a diagonal hemline that raised high on my right thigh but came lower—to mid-thigh—on my left leg.

"You don't think it's too much?" I checked with Nathan, suddenly filled with doubt and insecurities again.

"I think you look amazing," he replied. "You know there'll be people at this party wearing much less than you are. You make sexy look classy, Bella."

Nathan often came out with comments that convinced me he could read my mind; maybe he just knew me better than I realised, and was able to judge my various emotions to work out how I was feeling.

"Matt hated me dressing too sexy."

"Why?" A frown drew his eyebrows together. 

"He didn't like other guys staring at me."

Nathan shook his head in disbelief, letting out a short laugh. "See, it should be the other way round. He should be proud of you. Besides, it's your body. He had no right to tell you how to dress."

"Oh well," I said. "I guess it's irrelevant now, anyway."

"Come on," Nathan said, getting up from the bed. "Let's go before you start to get sad."

-

We drove to the party—Nathan assured me he wasn't drinking—and discovered that it was already well underway. I always thought the cool thing to do with parties was to turn up fashionably late, but with many people not even eighteen yet, I supposed that they enjoyed taking advantage of access to alcohol for as long as they could.

"You ready?" Nathan asked as he cut the engine.

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."