Hell's Rayne (Book 1)

Chapter 15

Frances had not been at all happy with me when I'd asked for the following evening off. I'd mentioned it to Alan when I saw him in passing, come the end of my lunchtime shift and he had promised me a voice in my corner, but he had also made it clear that the final decision would be up to Frances. She was the one in charge of the business and he didn't overstep the carefully laid boundaries they had set out; apparently it made living and working together all the time enjoyable and kept them off of each others backs.

It was encouraging to know that he would support me in my request, but I was sure that I'd have to approach things from a different angle with Frances herself. She'd ranted at me for a while about the short notice of my request and claimed to have already made plans for that evening, but when I made some mention about having to go just one night without jumping Alan's bones for the first time in almost two weeks, she suddenly became rather quiet. In the end she reluctantly agreed to let me have the night off, but not without making some enquiry about whether I'd had any luck in finding somewhere more permanent to stay.

I'd known that line of questioning would start at some point, I'd already been there far longer than I had intended, and I certainly hadn't helped my cause any by using Frances' embarrassment to my own advantage, it just wasn't a situation I could worry about at that moment. I had bigger fish to fry.

Getting ready to go out proved to be a more difficult task than getting 'permission' to go in the first place. I'd requested that we go somewhere other than the pub and Jesse had agreed to think of something suitable, what that something was, however, I had no idea. This left me stuck with a very human – a very female – problem, what the hell was I going to wear? I wanted to make a bit of an effort, well more of an effort than I would make for a night behind the bar, but not so much so I was dressed up to the nines. Something suitable for most possible 'date' scenarios.

Though it wasn't a 'date' in the conventional sense, so I wasn't expecting we'd go somewhere like a fine dining restaurant, but I also didn't want to assume we'd just be going out for a pizza. It really was a horrible dilemma, and made me amazingly pleased that I didn't have to go through it on a regular basis. How humans coped with the stresses of dating and relationships I would never know.

In the end I found something simple and yet classy to wear, something that also wasn't dirty or creased up in the crammed mess that was my wardrobe. After my case with Shane I'd had no time to reorganise and sort through the laundry that I had dumped back in there during my weeks stint at the strip club, so it was really some miracle that I managed to find my black tailored trousers in pretty good condition. I paired these with a long-sleeved V-neck shirt in royal blue, it had a plunging neckline that dropped perhaps a little too low to be appropriate, but I'd learned – from Angelo during my last case in fact – that showing a little skin could often be of benefit. I ditched the black leather jacket in favour of something smarter, black military style jacket lined with blue silk. I hoped I wouldn't regret the loss of warmth without the leather once the sun went down; it was like my security blanket.

I was dressed and ready to go quite a while earlier than I needed to be, just so I had time to ensure that I was properly prepared for the evening; I had slightly more to consider than the average person on the verge of a night out. My blue contact lenses were securely in place, my make up was done, I'd even taken the time to re-colour my hair. The cherry red had looked old and faded before I'd arrived in the village – roots showing was an understatement – so it was in desperate need of attention. I went for a much more sedate colour this time; the red had been good for the strip club, but it felt too out of place in the quiet country village.

Usually I would have more time in between cases to perfect my character and a look to match, but Lucifer's insistence that I leave so quickly had left me no time to prepare even the most mundane of things. The rich mahogany colour I'd chosen looked pretty good with my pale skin tone and the blue of my shirt. On the whole I felt fit for a date, I just had to hope I wouldn't have as much trouble leading Jesse in a conversation as I had picking out my outfit.