Outside, the clouds had cleared away. It looked as if was going to be a nice afternoon and evening. Kelly and Nate walked back to Buchanan Street, its shops not quite so busy now that the lunch hour was over and workers had returned to their offices.
"Have you got clients to see this afternoon?" Kelly asked and he shook his head. "Nah – nice wee freebie. I'm done for the day."
"Oh? Me too," Kelly said and then cursed herself. It made her sound... as if she was angling for something.
She began to babble. "I'll need to get some lunch. Woman can't live on chocolate cake alone. Then I'll make a start on your report and I've got a press release for another client I could send off for approval, and then I'll –"
"I need to get some new gear," Nate interrupted. "Would you mind helping me? A female opinion would be good." He sighed. "Mind you, the last time I asked for a female opinion, I ended up looking like a twat."
She burst out laughing. "Oh, you mean the pink hoodie and chino shorts? You're about the only guy in Glasgow who could pull that look off. It kind of suited you."
He had stopped, looking at her in appalled disbelief. "Seriously? Maybe I shouldn't take you shopping with me after all..." He let the sentence tail off, his eyebrows raised playfully.
"Oh no! Please, please, please take me shopping with you Nate. It's what I've always wanted to do. My life has lacked meaning until now." She hammed it up furiously. His last sentence had sounded a bit conceited. Once upon a time, Kelly found arrogance attractive. Her new-found self-help book knowledge convinced her it was not.
Nate burst out laughing. "Okay, okay. I didnae mean like that, I promise. I just need to get some kegs and whenever I ask my teenage daughter what she thinks, she rolls her eyes at whatever I pick out."
"Well, that's teenage girls for you," Kelly said lightly, and then wondered if she sounded presumptive. She wasn't a mother after all.
"Aye, that's another thing," Nate stopped walking. They had reached Fraser's, the department store at the bottom of Buchanan Street. "Teenage girls. Bringing them up – as in, how do you?"
She assumed it was a rhetorical question. Kelly had no idea. Her oldest sister had teenage boys and, from what she could see of them, parenthood involved feeding them copious amounts of food, setting some light rules and sticking to them, and making sure their internet access was always, always monitored.
She hadn't yet agreed to the shopping expedition, but when he pulled open one of the doors to Fraser's she entered the shop anyway.
"She's on Instagram – my daughter." Nate said. They were in the beauty department, one of Kelly's favourite retail spaces in Glasgow. Several of the women at the counters nodded or waved to her as the two of them walked past.
"Aren't most teenagers?" Kelly said. She was on Instagram herself, but only so she could figure it out and advise clients accordingly. Yes, you need this social media account. No, you don't need to bother with this platform, it's waste of time for you.
"She's doing this, though." He thrust his phone at her, the Instagram app open. Kelly stopped walking.
"Ah." Thumbing through the newsfeed on the account, she saw that Erin mainly posted up selfies. And in most of those pictures she wasn't wearing a great deal of clothes. Even those pictures where she was wearing clothes featured overtly sexual poses, sexuality as young girls thought it should be – pouts, breasts thrust forward, head back and hands on hips. Yet again, Kelly thanked the stars social media hadn't been around when she was a teenager. It had been complicated enough then. Imagine adding the pressures of social media to that hormonal mess.
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High Heels and Pink Glitter (18+) COMPLETE, FREE TO READ CHICK LIT
ChickLit"The characters were very real and i guess that's what kept me glued to it.so cheers to everyone is not perfect and u should accept the people for what they really are" "A great read - can't wait to see it in paperback!" "This is so good 🥺" High...
