The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient #1)(33)

She looped her purse and bag of clothes over her shoulder and clicked over the asphalt toward the dry cleaners. A tiny old lady with a hunched back, chipmunk cheeks, and sunken lips stood before the doors. A paisley scarf had been folded along the diagonal, wrapped around her head, and tied beneath her chin. She was quite possibly the cutest grown human Stella had ever seen.

She held a massive pair of lawn shears in her gnarled hands, brandishing them ineffectually at the oak tree in front of the store.

When Stella halted, bewildered and amazed by the sight, the old lady flipped the shears around with a dangerous swinging motion, nearly slicing her own leg off in the process, and offered the handles to her. She pointed at Stella and then the tree.

Stella looked over her shoulder, but, as she’d suspected, the old lady truly meant her. “I don’t think I should . . .”

The old lady pointed at a low branch on the tree. “Cut.”

Stella searched about the parking lot, but there wasn’t anyone else here. She stepped onto the sidewalk and took the giant and very heavy shears from the lady. These things were a lawsuit waiting to happen. “Maybe we should call the landscaping company. They’d probably be happy to send someone . . .”

The old lady shook her head. Once again, she pointed at Stella’s chest and then the tree. “Cut.”

“Cut this?” She indicated the low branch with the tip of the shears.

“Mmmmm.” The old lady nodded enthusiastically, her black eyes shining within her wrinkled face.

It appeared Stella had no choice. If she didn’t do it, she feared the old lady would try doing it herself and mortally wound herself in the process. How she managed to hold the shears without slipping all the discs in her spine was a mystery.

Moving awkwardly in her high heels with her bags over her shoulder and enormous shears in her hands, she prepared to step into the landscaping at the base of the tree so she could get near enough to cut the branch down.

“No no no no no.”

Stella froze with one foot in the air, her heart hopping around her chest like a Mexican jumping bean.

The old lady pointed at the landscaping, which, now that she looked more closely, was not landscaping at all. It looked like . . . an herb garden.

Teetering, Stella dropped her foot in the dirt between plants.

“Mmmmm,” the old lady murmured before pointing at the branch again. “You cut.”

Through a miracle or adrenaline-induced superhuman strength, Stella lifted the shears above her head, wedged them around the base of the small branch, and snipped it free. The branch fell onto the cement sidewalk like a felled bird. When the old lady set a hand on her knee and prepared to bend over to retrieve it, Stella hurried away from the tree and grabbed it for her.

The old lady smiled as she took the branch and patted Stella’s shoulder. Then she eyed Stella’s laundry bag, pulled the lip open so she could peer inside, and placed her hand on the strap, steering Stella toward the front doors of the dry cleaners. The old lady pushed the glass door open with surprising strength. After Stella entered, the old lady snatched the shears, hid them behind her back like no one would notice them there, and disappeared through a door behind the vacant front counter.

Stella gazed about, taking in the two headless mannequins in the window display who modeled a precisely constructed black tux and a form-fitting lace wedding gown. The interior of the store was calming blue-gray walls, soft white draping curtains, and lots of natural light.

A fitting was going on in an adjacent room. A respectable-looking matron in a sleeveless white jumpsuit stood on a raised platform before a trifold of mirrors.

Stella went numb with astonishment.

At the woman’s feet kneeled Michael.

He wore loose jeans and a plain white T-shirt that stretched around his biceps, looking wholesome and beautiful and completely at home. A measuring tape looped behind his neck and dangled down his chest, and his sculpted wrist sported a small pincushion, replete with dozens of protruding pins. Balanced over his right ear was a blue chalk pencil.

“What kind of heels are you planning to wear with this?” he asked.

“I was planning on these, actually.” The lady pulled her pant leg up to reveal regular white pumps.

“You should go open toe, Margie. And one inch higher.”

Margie’s lips thinned, and she angled her foot, turned it side to side. After a moment, she nodded. “You’re right. I have just the pair.”

“I’m going to add another inch to the hem, then. How does the waist feel?”

“It’s too comfortable.”

“I figured you planned to eat in this.”

“My tailor thinks of everything.” She pivoted and stared at the profile of her pinned-up waistline in the mirrors.

Michael rolled his eyes, but he smiled. “Remember the lipstick.”

“Yes, yes, how could I forget? Fire-engine red. You’ll have this ready by next Friday?”

“Yeah, it’ll be ready.”

“Excellent.”

She slinked off to a changing room in the jumpsuit, and Michael picked up a floral print garment that had been draped over the back of a chair. He adjusted the pins and snatched the chalk pencil from above his ear to mark the fabric, his eyes focused and his hands competent.

Inside Stella’s mind, missing pieces clicked into place. This was Michael in his natural state. This was what he did when he wasn’t escorting. Michael was a tailor.