SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was official.

Shopping with Tiffany was going to be a nightmare. I swallowed as she perused the makeup aisle and selected four things my sister once said no girl should be without: a tube of mascara, no-sharpening-needed-thank-you eyeliner, tinted lip balm, and a powder compact.

Lemon flavored chap stick made its way into her basket as well, as did pairs of fingernail clippers and tweezers and a small metal case containing three coordinated shades of eye shadow. Then she started testing foundations, contouring make-up, highlighters, and concealers on my skin.

One, after the other, after the other.

"So, what is this?" I asked, looking at the varying shades of color being caked on my pasty arm.

"A test," she said absently, picking up more makeup and drawing it across my flesh. "To see what matches your skin tone... you're super pale, so it'll be hard, but I think... aha! Yep!"

I watched as she put the rest away and grabbed several specific items off a shelf, throwing them and a few matching items into the basket. Then we were off, and I was being tugged towards the self-care isle of the store we were in. Shampoo, conditioner, a blow dryer, body butter, face-wash, exfoliant, moisturizer... all of them made their way into the basket. She didn't skimp on the amount of items I needed, but she did make an effort to hunt for bargains.

Kyle found us just as she was checking out the stuff with the cashier.

He ogled the contents of the baskets.

"I would ask if you needed all of that," he said in a voice laced with humor, "but there's a lot of makeup in there, so I assume some of it is Tiff's."

"Nope," the blonde trilled, smirking. "I'm giving him a super hot makeover."

Kyle did a double take and looked at me, but I didn't meet his stare.

"Is she serious?" he asked. "You're going to let her put makeup on you?"

"Why not?" I said dryly. "Not being myself for a little while might be a good way to escape. I feel like I want to crawl out of my own skin anyway, so I don't see a problem with it."

His face settled into a very disquieted expression but he said nothing further. When the salesperson announced the price, his jaw dropped, but Tiffany handed the man Sebastian's credit card with a look of triumph, and as we walked out of the store I shook my head.

"Come on, Aerin, it's clothes time now!" Tiffany said, dumping all of the shopping bags onto Kyle and shattering his look of poise the way a brick shatters a pane of glass; she immediately grabbed my wrist. "This way—there's a store over here with clothes you might like!"

Unfortunately, her idea of 'clothes you might like' did not mesh with my own idea of preferred dress: she seemed to favor frilly boutiques dripping with sequins and pink and ribbons, and the store she dragged me in overflowed with so much lace and frill that I initially mistook the place for a bridal store. She went nuts over their selection, grabbing tops and pants off the racks.

"Um, Tiffany," I began, but she cut me off.

"The dressing rooms are back here—this way, this way!"

"But this is a girl's store!"

Before I knew it she had shoved me inside a small sweet-smelling closet lined with mirrors and was throwing things at me over the short white door. Resigned to playing dress-up with the werewolf, I tugged off the shirt I was wearing and slipped a lacy smock over my head.