The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(43)

She wasted no time tearing off the wrapping and revealing the tube of Trish McEvoy designer lip gloss that I had bought her for her birthday. "Yes!" she exclaimed, opening up the box and removing the contents. "This is exactly what I wanted!"

Hannah turned to the mirror and applied a thin layer of the gloss, and then handed the tube to Olivia, who eagerly applied the next forbidden coat.

"Nick is going to flip when he sees you in this," Rachel said to Hannah, admiring the color.

I suddenly felt my stomach flip slightly. "Nick? Who's Nick?" I tried to sound casual and curious, as any girl talk participant would.

Hannah turned to me, her eyes immediately lighting up. "This boy at school that I like but barely even knows who I am."

"She doesn't just like him. She's obsessed with him!" Olivia clarified, and then passed the lip gloss to Rachel. "His third-period class is right next to her locker, so she always takes an extra-long time to get her books for that period."

I looked to Hannah for a sign of admission. She bowed her head shamefully in acknowledgment of the truth. "I think he might be the one."

I nearly choked on my own saliva. "The what?"

"You know, the one perfect person I'm meant to spend my life with."

"Like Big and Carrie on Sex and the City," Rachel explained, as if the concept of "the one" was a new idea that had yet to hit the masses.

"You watch Sex and the City?" My voice was starting to rise. I could feel a lump forming in my throat. Hannah nodded, looking at me strangely. As if to insinuate "What's gotten into you? You're starting to sound like my mother."

"Rachel's parents have all the seasons on DVD," Olivia informed me. "We watch them in her room when her mom's at work."

I suddenly found a deeper appreciation for my parents' "No TV in your room until you're thirteen" rule.

"Oh," I said quietly. But my mind was far from quiet. It was rapidly indexing every single sex scene in that entire series, and then my stomach felt the corresponding lurch that came with the thought of my innocent little niece watching any one of them.

But I found myself trapped. Trapped between being the cool aunt, who buys illegal lip gloss, and the jaded, bitter, fidelity inspector aunt, who wants to somehow, somewhere along the way, convince her niece to "get thee to a nunnery" and never trust any man in the world except for God. And even that's negotiable.

"Anyway," Hannah continued, "Nick is my Mr. Big. He's tall and cute and—"

"And probably an *?" I burst out suddenly. "Like every other man on this planet. Trust me on this one, Hannah. One day they're promising you the world and the next day, it's 'Oh, I'm sorry. I just don't think I'm the monogamous type.'"

I heard a small clank as the tube of designer lip gloss rolled out of Rachel's hands and hit the hard tile floor of the bathroom. And then... silence. They all stared at me in disbelief. Jaws hanging open, eyes wide. Then Olivia and Rachel looked at Hannah accusingly. I thought you said she was cool.

Hannah's eyes pleaded with me. I thought you were cool.

Olivia leaned over to Rachel and whispered, "What does monogamous mean?" To which Rachel just subtly shook her head, either in an effort to say "I don't know" or "Don't do this now, the woman's crazy!"

I quickly tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, cleared my throat, and painted a smile across my face. Then I let out a laugh that I prayed sounded like a mocking insult. As if I couldn't believe these girls had actually fallen for my pathetically talentless performance.

"I'm just kidding, you guys! C'mon, lighten up." I reached down to pick up the lip gloss and then nonchalantly applied an extra-thick coat, hoping that the sticky liquid from the tube might actually cover up what had just burst forth from my mouth.

Their uneasiness hesitantly turned into smiles, but they still eyed me with caution. Ready and waiting for me to explode again. Hannah gave me a confused look, so I patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and whipped out my best slumber party advice. "The best thing you can do is play it cool. Don't let him know that you like him too much. Men are funny like that. The minute they know you have feelings, they lose interest. So pretend that you don't like him and you'll drive him crazy!"

"Really?" Rachel looked at me in bewilderment, as if I had just revealed an eleventh commandment. A new rule that had never even existed in her world until now. It was the one that came right after "Thou shall not take American Idol's name in vain."

I couldn't stop my niece from dating. And I definitely couldn't stop her from loving. So I figured the best thing I could do was at least make sure she was armored before sending her out to fight the emotional Crusades.

"Really," I confirmed decisively, relieved that I had managed to steer their focus away from the fact that I had just totally lost it... for the second time in one week.

"Now," I said, pulling a wad of paper towels from the nearby dispenser and handing one to each of the girls. "Wipe off the lip gloss so your mother doesn't see it."

As I watched Hannah and her two friends file out of the restroom ahead of me, I wondered how I would be able to continue to prepare her for the real world. Obviously my previous impromptu tactic hadn't gone over so well. Today it was just glossy pink makeup and a middle-school crush. But what about tomorrow? And the next day? What would those days bring? She was so eager to grow up. Just as I had been.