And Then He Kissed Me Read Free

this.
    As long as Fletch wasn’t some kind of staring pervert, that is.
    She expected him to lead her to the conference room, maybe even to their HR person, but instead he stopped at a closet behind one of the new steel desks.
    “Look, we filled this job days ago,” he explained, rifling through the hangers, “but the girl we had lined up quit. Literally just walked out the door.”
    “Literally?” Audrey asked. “Because a lot of people misuse that wor—”
    “She’s gone,” Fletch interrupted, his dark brows pinched together with frustration, “and you’re about her size. With some help, you might do. The makeup artist is here now—she’ll teach you what you need to know. After today, you’re on your own, so listen to her. The gig is Monday through Friday, ten to four. Stand there, look pretty, make the hogs look even better.”
    It took her a moment to grasp what he was asking. “This isn’t a…sales position?”
    “Sure. In a manner of speaking.” He shook the clothing in his hand. It was a leather bustier and some chaps. It wasn’t just immodest. It was downright scandalous.
    Her face heated. She looked down at her long-sleeved T-shirt and track pants. Her typical uniform. If she was going to wear anything for this job, she’d thought it would be a pin-striped suit. “You want me to wear that ?”
    “It’s not hard and it pays thirty bucks an hour. You want it or not?”
    Audrey blanched. That was close to what she’d made as a teacher. With a master’s degree.
    She thought about her dwindling bank account. Her piles of unpaid bills. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, it was true, but at that rate she wouldn’t be a beggar for long. No matter how humiliating it would be to march out there dressed like Mad Max crossed with Victoria’s Secret.
    She studied the skimpy clothing. “Okay?” she said, hating the doubt in her own voice, hating the alarms that were firing, saying Leave now .
    This didn’t have to be so bad, she reasoned. After all, there had been a wilder version of herself that had loved being on the back of a Harley. That Audrey would have grabbed these clothes and worn them with pride.
    But that Audrey had existed a long time ago. And she’d been very short-lived.
    Even so, Audrey took the garments Fletch handed her. “Get changed in the employee bathroom down the hall. The makeup artist is two doors down from there.”
    The leather squeaked in her grip, as if protesting as much as she wanted to.
    *  *  *
    “Isn’t this a little much?” she asked ten minutes later as Deborah, the makeup artist, volumized her eyelashes to about seventy times their normal length.
    “Nope,” Deborah said. “It looks good.” Audrey wondered if she should trust the source, considering that Deborah’s bloodred lips were hammered through with thick posts.
    “You can just leave my hair,” Audrey said as Deborah undid her ponytail. “It’s hard to do much with.”
    “I have secret weapons,” Deborah replied, grabbing a nearby can of hairspray. “Close your eyes.”
    “But I—” She tasted hairspray and shut her mouth.
    When Audrey tried to take notes about when to use the eye-shadow primer and where to apply the bronzer, Deborah pulled the pen and paper out of her hands. “Watch, don’t write,” she said.
    Audrey didn’t know how to tell Deborah she didn’t want to watch any of this. She didn’t want to witness the humiliating aftermath of losing her job and having to dress for a part that felt downright embarrassing. But here she was. She locked eyes with the reflection in the mirror and tried not to blink.
    “Look,” Deborah said, softening after a minute, “this might not be your jam, but you need to look as dramatic and styled as those motorcycles out there. Your drugstore lip gloss isn’t going to cut it.”
    Audrey didn’t have the heart to tell Deborah it wasn’t even gloss—it was ChapStick.
    But as Deborah continued to work, Audrey found her words of protest