**Lainie's POV**

"Jace, you are a miracle worker! I can't believe you got her to agree to this." My sister squeals as she barges through the door of my apartment, arms laden with bags.

"Courtney, why do we need so much stuff?" I ask.

"She's trying to make you look less like a cement truck and more like a "Brick House", yow!!"

"Shut your trap, Jace!" I yell, throwing an empty soda bottle at his head.

"Lainie, chill. Trust me, all this stuff is necessary, now let's get started." Courtney immediately starts digging into the bags to pull out a box of hair dye and some rubber gloves.

"Whoa, what are gonna do to my hair? I protest.

"Lainie, don't you remember I went to cosmetology school for eight months, I know what I'm doing."

"You dropped out!"

"So? The last four months are just for practice. They teach you everything you need to know in the first six months." Courtney explains.

I shake my head, "I'm pretty sure that's not how cosmetology school works, Court."

"Lainie, sit." Courtney scowls at me.

I shoot Jace a "save me" look, but he just goes back to his video game. Traitor.

******

"See, I told you I know what I'm doing! Your hair looks amazing!"

I had to give her credit, her eight months of cosmetology school actually paid off. She had given my dull brown hair a beautiful, rich auburn color with subtle red undertones. She even added some layers to my hair and after she curled it, I looked like I walked out of a shampoo commercial.

"You were right. I'm sorry I doubted you, Court. My hair does look amazing."

"Apology accepted. Now let's move on to make-up." Courtney begins rummaging through her bags again.

"All I ask is that you don't cake it on. I don't want to look like I belong at a kids birthday party making balloon animals." I beg.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Lainie. You have an amazing complexion. I'm just gonna add a little here and there to make you glow."

After make-up, it was clothes. Courtney bought everything: dresses, skirts, shirts, jackets, pants, shoes. She even bought me new underwear. According to Jace, grannie panties aren't cool if you're younger than 65. Gee, I sure am glad we've got him around for his valuable input.

When all was said and done, I chose a sea foam green sun dress and some sandles.

"Jace, turn off your game and come see our girl." Courtney yells to him from the bedroom.

Jace peeks his head in my room to see me standing in from of the full body mirror. I twirl around so he can get a full view. Jace just stands there, no facial expression, no sound, nothing.

"Earth to Jace!" Courtney waves a hand in front of his face to get his attention. "So what do you think? Doesn't she look hot?"

Jace finally snaps out of his trance-like state. "You look nice, Lainie."

"Nice? Jace are you blind? She's gorgeous!"

"We can't waste this, Lainie let's go down to the boardwalk, it's a beautiful day. We'll see if you can score some phone numbers!" Courtney begins to pull me toward the door.

"You coming with us, Jace?" I ask.

"I don't think so. If you don't mind, I'll just hang here and play video games." Jace falls back onto the couch.

"Sure, that's fine. We'll be back later."

*********

**Jace's POV**

The door to Lainie's apartment closes  and I pull a throw pillow up to my face. "S**T, S**T, S**T, S**T, S**T!" I scream into the pillow.

This cannot be happening. A week ago, Lainie was just my best friend. The thought of kissing her had never even crossed my mind. I didn't even really think of her as a girl. She was just Lainie. And now....one kiss and a dress and suddenly I want to throw her on the bed and do unspeakable things to her.

I promised her I would talk to her if things started to get weird, but I can't do that. It would ruin our friendship.

Hey, Lainie, I know you're my best friend, but I wanna bang you senseless.

I'm pretty sure she'd deck me.

Now what do I do? I can't back out of these "lessons" or she'll suspect something. I also can't go through with them because I'll for sure develop feelings for her and if she doesn't feel the same way, our friendship is over.

There's only one thing to do, but I need a plan and an outsiders perspective.

Jace: Hey Mike, I need your help with something. Can you meet me at Pete's in 15?

Mike: Sure man, on my way.

********

"What's up, Jace?" Mike pulls up a chair across from me.

"I kinda got a girl problem. I could really use some advice."

"Ok, what's the problem?" Mike asks.

"Well, I think I'm starting to have feelings for this one girl." I start.

"So ask her out." Mike suggests.

"It's not that simple."

Mike furrows his brows. "Why not? She got a boyfriend? Married? Lesbian?"

"No, it's nothing like that."

"So what's the problem?"

I take a deep breath, "She's my best friend." I admit.

"Lainie? Are you serious Jace?" He asks in disbelief.

"Keep it down, Mike. People around here know her. Be cool."

"I don't get it, Jace, why can't you just ask Lainie out? Seems to me you two would be perfect together."

"If she's not interested and says "no", our friendship is over. Things would be so awkward between us. I don't know if I could recover from that." I hang my head not wanting to think about not having Lainie as a friend.

"Sounds to me like you need to get her to fall in love with you."

"How the hell do I do that?"

"The way I see it, you have two options. Either you start dating someone else and try to make Lainie jealous or you try to win her over on your own." Mike explains.

"I've had girlfriends around Lainie before and it really didn't seem to faze her."

"Then it sounds to me like you're doin' this the old fashioned way, Jace. Start slow, maybe start treating her like a pretty girl and not so much like one of the guys."

"I can do that. That's good, Mike. What else?"

"Well, Lainie's smart as hell with computers, but her common sense isn't up to par. What's that saying? Book smart, street stupid. That's Lainie. So you may have to be a little more obvious, lay it on thick so she'll pick up what you're layin' down. Good luck, Jace. I hope you get your girl. You've got your work cut out for you though.

"Thanks for your help, Mike. I've actually got plans with Lainie today, so hopefully I can put some of your advice into action."