Page 11 of Where We Fall

I put my hand out. "You can call me Marcus."

She takes my hand and offers me a warm smile. "Marcus. You can call me Trudy."

"Trudy. This is Lexi."

"Lexi. I hear we have some gowns we need to find for you as well as some other odds and ends that can accommodate a couple of different occasions."

Lexi's cheeks turn a light shade of pink. I do my best to fight off a smirk.

Trudy starts to lead Lexi out of the room to begin selecting gowns to try on.

I'm about to take a seat on the couch when Lexi stops and looks at me.

"You're not coming with us?" she asks, sounding slightly disappointed.

I stop myself from sitting and stand up straight.

"Do you want me to?"

She nods her head.

I smile. "Well, let's get this party started then."

She bites the inside of her cheek, but I know she wanted to smile. I laugh behind her, loving her reactions. Making her laugh is going to become my new goal in life.

Then I see her shake her head in front of me as she continues to follow Trudy, and I laugh even harder.

"Okay, so what are we thinking? Long or short?" Trudy stops and turns to us.

Lexi turns to me to answer the question.

"In the past, most women were in long dresses."

"Okay. What size are you, dear?"

Lexi begins to fidget with her hands behind her back.

"Umm, I'm a four."

Trudy seems to do a double take at Lexi, like she doesn't believe her.

"Well, let's start over here. We will pull together some classic black dresses then maybe some statement pieces. How about this one?"

She pulls at the fabric of a black dress that has thicker straps at the shoulders. It seems plain in my opinion, but I also don't know how comfortable Lexi would be in something that showed off more of her body.

"I think we can pull it as an option," I say. "What do you think?"

Lexi shrugs. "It looks nice."

I realize quickly that Lexi isn't going to open up and give her opinion easily. As we walk through the dress section, I pull things and hand them to Trudy. There's a wide range of options. Surely, one of the dresses will work.

Once we get back to the changing area, I take a seat on the couch.

"Alright. Let's get this fashion show started," I say with a smile on my face then proceed to sing the Pretty Woman song.

Trudy giggles while Lexi glares at me and rolls her eyes.

Okay. Make that two reactions I like to pull from Lexi. Laughter and annoyance. She's always so buttoned up at work. It's nice to get a different reaction from her.

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