Novel Palace
Chapter 109
Later that night, I thumbed through the rack of dresses. I had recently come to hate clothes shopping. since I had started putting weight on around my waist. I just felt so gross those days and like nothing looked good on me.
Maria came over with an armful of dresses. She held them out to me and I looked at them warily. These dresses looked more like the one they had forced me to wear to Chickadee’s, not something I’d wear to a nice dinner party.
1…” I started.
p every cir
“Eh eh eh,” Maria stopped me. “No excuses. Try these on. I demand to one once you do have them on, I don’t trust your judgment.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled and headed for a dressing room.
I put the first one on, which had a deeeeeeep V in the front and a slit on the side that went up so far) could see the granny panties I had chosen to wear that day.
“Maria?” I called from inside the dressing room.
“No excuses I said, get out here,” she yelled back.
“I don’t think I’m legally able to,” I said, eyeing all the skin I was now showing.
She groaned. “I’m coming in then.”
I unlocked the stall with a sigh. There would be no sense fighting her on it. She barged right in.
“What’s wrong with it?” She asked.
“What’s wrong?” I balked. “Have your eyes stopped working?”
“So it’s a little low cut,” she shrugged. “Is that it?”
“A little…a little low cut?!” I exclaimed. “Maria. If it was any lower you’d see the top of my underwear. But I guess that would be okay, because you can see the rest of it thanks to this side slit.” I pulled the slit apart to show her how high it went. “We want everyone to have a full show after all.”
“Ugh, fine,” she said. “We’ll put it in the maybe pile.” She left the dressing room and shut the door behind her.
“The maybe–we’ll–burn–it–pile,” I muttered as I pulled the dress off over my head.
“What was that?” Maria snapped.
“Nothing!”
The rest of the dresses went about the same way. They were all either too short, too tight, too low cut, too high cut, or some combination of all of the above. Maria would ask incredulously why I didn’t like it,
I and I had to point out the obvious
After the last dress I exited the dressing room, feeling like I had just come back from war. My hair was frazzled, the clothes I came in disheveled, and I was already exhausted. I handed the pile of dresses to the dressing room attendant as I left.
Chapter $100
“I think we’re going to keep looking.” I said to the attendant. “If my friend asks, someone came in and stole all of those dresses and they’re no longer available for us to buy.”
The bored–looking attendant just blinked at me, then took the clothes and hung them on a rack behind her.
Maria ran over to me, one more dress in hand. “Okay, I was just fucking with you before. This is the one, this would look amazing on you. Look, it actually covers all of your boobies.”
She held up the dress and I gasped. It was actually beautiful. I reached out to grab the skirt of it to study it. It was deep red in color with one shoulder strap, ruching around the center, and the full length skirt of it was nice and flowy.
“Oh my god Maria. This is gorgeous,” I said. My eyes flew to the price tag.
Maria saw me and grabbed the price tag before I could get a look. “Nope. Don’t look at that. Try it on first. If you
like it, Megan, Rachel, and I will cover the cost for you.”
“You guys don’t have to…”
“I know, but we’re going to. Now scoot your little self back into the dressing room,” she said, handing me the dress and pushing me by the shoulders towards the bored attendant.
“Just one this time,” I said to her. She handed me a plastic tag with the number 1 on it, never looking up at
- me.
Maria walked into the dressing room with me this time. I tore off my clothes and carefully pulled on the dress. I turned to her before looking in the mirror. “Well?”
Her jaw dropped. “Yes. This is the one. This will get you so many numbers this weekend.”
I laughed and turned to the mirror, then my own jaw dropped. I had felt like I looked gross in everything, but I had just been trying the wrong things on. This dress hugged each part of me perfectly. I felt like a princess. I tried to sneak a peek at the price tag, but Maria had eagle eyes. She grabbed it to hide it again.
“What did I say about that?” She said.
An hour later, we left the store with everything we needed for the dinner party: dresses, shoes, jewelry. It felt crazy to me to spend so much money for one night, but there was a part of me that loved getting a chance at playing dress up.
ourse
As we threw our bags into the trunk of Maria’s car, I heard my phone buzz. I pulled it from my purse and looked at the screen. My heart leapt into my throat.
Dylan!
“Why are you looking at your phone like that? Who is it? Maria said, studying my face.
I turned the phone towards her and she read the message out loud:
“Hey you, I was just wondering if you’re going to this dinner party thing too this weekend? Logan just asked me to be his plus one. I’d love to see you there,” she said. She looked at me. “Girl. This man is head over heels for you.”
I sighed and shoved my phone back into my purse, leaving his message unanswered.
Maria’s eyes grew wide. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you messaging his fine ass back?”
“Maria I can’t, the whole situation is too messy,” I said, walking around to the passenger door.
She shook her head as she stepped into the driver’s side. “Choosing this shit ass job over a man like that. You are crazy.
I bit my tongue. I wanted her to understand, but honestly I wasn’t even sure I understood myself why I felt. the need to push them both away.
We drove in silence for several minutes. I thought about it, then pulled my phone out of my purse. I opened Dylan’s message and typed:
“Yeah, I’ll be there. 🙂”
Dylan’s phone buzzed. He looked over to where it sat next to his dinner plate and smiled when he saw who it was from.
“Who’s that?” Logan asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin.
Dylan locked the screen and shook his head. “Nobody.
Logan gave him a small nod. “So is Hazel coming to the party?”
Dylan’s cheeks flushed. “Yeah, she’ll be there.” Original content from NôvelDrama.Org.
The men sat in contemplative silence for the rest of their meal, both struggling to sort out their feelings and next potential moves with Logan’s secretary.