Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

Eight.”
    Her eyes were wide, blue-gray. Looked incredible with the blonde hair. The Teen Queen people had remade her into somebody beyond her current persona. For the first time, Matt felt that Max Kinsella could be a name in a history book. For the first time, he felt like he was writing his own life, and maybe Temple’s life too.
    “I think you’re saying yes,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    He left, feeling something in his core that was deep and tender and strong, stronger than anything anyone had ever taken away from him. Strong beyond weakening. Love, surely.
    Sex. Maybe.

Caught in the Crossfire

    Temple wasn’t usually nervous before a dinner date. Dinner dates were the most formal form of coupling, easily written off as exploratory and way too public to offer anything more than mild flirtation.
    She wasn’t stepping out on Max. Just socializing, right? Besides, Max was pretty hard to step out on since he’d hardly been around lately. He’d never noticed she’d been away from the Circle Ritz. Had left her high and dry in the hot tub, his hot tub. This had nothing to do with Max and their long monogamous relationship. Right. The relationship that was turning into a monologue instead of a dialogue, with Temple asking the leading questions and Max ducking them like she was an obnoxious insurance agent. This was not about Max. No. It was about Matt, who had been ducking her for good and scary reasons but was definitely over that now.
    Maybe digging out her old purple taffeta prom dress and trying it on in the bedroom mirror was putting her on edge. At least the Teen Queen diet ensured she could easily pull up the back zipper.
    Temple surveyed her past self in the full-length mirror, ignoring the bizarre hair color above the neck. This dress was so twelve years ago. Strapless, close-fitting ruched princess torso. Sheer chic then, today it felt like wearing curtain from an Austrian whorehouse. Belled skirt like an exotic blossom with her legs the stem. This dress had been selected after she’d been invited to the prom by a dorkish date. Temple, too soft-hearted to just say no, had chosen the full crackling skirt so she wouldn’t be afflicted during slow dances by knowledge of the casual date in homo erectus state. It was icky to think of oneself as a blowup doll for the socially challenged set. Poor guys, hormones will... well, out. That didn’t mean she had to be the scene of the crime.
    Back to now and a definitely nondorky guy. Being a vintage-everything lover, Temple wasn’t bothered by the dress’s dated look. But something bothered her. Maybe it was her unadorned chest and neck. She couldn’t remember what she’d worn with the dress to her real prom back in Minnesota, which showed how unmemorable that had been. In fact, it had been the usual night of uneasy embarrassment, having been asked by someone she wouldn’t have asked to the prom if girls could do the selecting.
    So... she needed a fresh necklace anyway. Her three-tier costume jewelry chest didn’t offer anything right. And then she remembered... Should she? It would be a nice gesture. Maybe it would be too nice a gesture. Take a look, she told herself. If it goes with the dress and the Gamier hair...
    She pawed through her scarf drawer, a repository of all the gifts she’d never used because she couldn’t tie an attractive knot to save her soul. A little round box. What was that? She opened it and found the old gold ring of a dragon biting its tail she had been mistakenly given at the women’s exhibition. Way too big to wear and way too clunky and not-her.
    Her fingers found the shape of another box. She opened the velvet case and pulled out the black cat necklace of crushed black opal Matt had given to her months and months ago. She had given it to her scarf drawer in turn because she was an almost-married woman. In her own mind. Then.
    Now... if he wanted her to wear this dress, he’d want her to wear his present. She fought the tiny clasp to a TKO and went to the mirror to adjust the lay of the delicate centerpiece on her collarbones.
    Maybe a bit subdued for the dress but not bad. She shook her head. The curl was creeping back into her colored hair but she still looked so radically different to herself. Max wouldn’t believe it. Maybe she’d keep the color. It made what she’d always considered her lukewarm blue-gray eyes look startlingly strong. Why be a Lucille Ball redhead forever, even if hers was natural?
    Temple scavenged