Gun Games by Faye Kellerman Page B

horrified. “Oh, my God! I look like a freak!”
    “You look fine—”
    “I’m totally embarrassing . . . like I came off a binge in Intervention .” She pulled out a premoistened lotion wipe from her purse and started blotting her eyes. All that did was make it worse. Her lower lip began to tremble. “God, I’m a mess.”
    She began to attack her face with the towelette, taking off gobs of gook. With each swipe, she smeared more and more makeup. Tears began to trickle down her cheek.
    Gabe rolled his eyes. “Stop, stop, stop.” He took the wipe from her. “Just calm down. You look fine. Hold still.” Carefully, he started removing the paint from her skin until it was gone. “There you go.”
    With trepidation, she looked in the mirror and said nothing.
    “I don’t know why you’d want to cover your face in all this shit,” Gabe told her. “You’re much cuter without it.”
    “I told you Persians dress up for occasions. Besides, now I look around ten.”
    “But a very cute ten.”
    She finally smiled and then carefully applied some lip gloss. “Thanks for bearing with me.”
    Gabe shrugged. “You know, as long as you’re making changes, you should take your hair down. No one our age wears their hair like that unless they’re in a bridal party.”
    She made a sour face and started pulling bobby pins out of her hair.
    “Need help?” he asked.
    “I think you’ve done quite enough, thank you—”
    “You’re gonna tear your hair if you keep yanking on it like that.” He reached toward her, but she backed away. He rolled his eyes. “Hold still. I’m trying to help you, okay?”
    She suddenly stopped, and her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Do whatever you want.”
    Never say that to a guy . He stifled a smile. “You’ve got a lot of hair.”
    “I can see you know nothing about Persian girls. We all have lots of hair and much of it in unwanted places.”
    He let out an unexpected laugh. “Ever think about stand-up?”
    “Glad I’m amusing.”
    “Hold still.” He closed the distance between them as he carefully picked bobby pins out of her hair, one by one by one. His face was inches from her. He could taste her breath. He inhaled her perfume. Her dress was a scoop neck that had exposed her collarbones. After he took out all the clips, he pretended to smooth out her hair, letting his fingers dance over her bony protrusions. He raked his fingers through the long strands—downy soft, black and wavy. He pulled out a few loose tresses from the back of her sweater, feeling the nape of her neck.
    And there it was: that all-too-familiar jolt below his waistline. Not that his pants were tight, but he was tall and, lucky him, he was proportional. All she had to do was look down to see it. Thankfully, she was too naive to notice. It was going to go to waste, but it did feel good to get a buzz from something other than porno.
    “There you go.” He laid the strands over her shoulders and sat back. “Now you look hot.”
    “Yeah, right!” Yasmine turned away. It was hard for her to look at his face without blushing. He was the most gorgeous boy she had ever seen in her entire life.
    Gabe checked his watch and became irritated again. Which was good but it was hard to be aroused and angry at the same time. He tapped his foot as the taxi sped to its destination. He checked his watch as they approached the Music Center. By the time the taxi pulled over, they had five minutes to go.
    They were at the Ahmanson Theatre side of the block instead of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the opera was. Rather than redirect the cabbie, it was quicker to run it.
    Gabe peeled out five twenties for a sixty-two-dollar bill. “Thanks.” He threw open the door. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
    He began to run across the pavement, assuming she was with him. But a moment later, when he looked over his shoulder, she was twenty paces behind. Her dress was too tight to allow unrestricted movement and her heels