Page 41 of Switching Skates
God, she issobeautiful. Her soft yet somehow striking features. Sharp blue eyes, plump and round lips, a skinny button nose.
I have to force myself from letting my eyes wander lower than her face, however tempting it might be. I respect Daphne too much to look at her body without her explicit consent.
Turning my back to the mirror, I change into the outfit she chose, staring straight at the door to avoid looking anywhere I shouldn’t.
“Daphne?” Daphne calls out to me, and I push open the door to find her with yet another armful of clothes. “Look, you can’t be mad. If you want, we can try on clothes for you next.”
“I’m good. There isn’t anything I don’t look good in.” I smirk, and she flips me off beneath the pile of clothes.
“Are you saying that I don’t look good in everything, which is why I have to try them on?” she retorts without skipping a beat.
I force a breath through my teeth. “Fuck no. There’s nothing in this world you wouldn’t look absolutely perfect in.”
Her gaze softens, and a light smile tips up her lips before she shakes the vulnerability away. “All right, now give me a little spin.”
Holding my arms out at my sides, I slowly twirl around, giving her the full view.
She gasps when my back turns to her, and I whip around to see what’s wrong, but her eyes are widened with excitement, planted low on my body.
“God, my ass looks amazing in those.”
I roll my eyes. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“Oh, we’re definitely getting both.” She juts the other stack of clothes at me, and I take the heaping pile as she orders me, “Next.”
She plops down onto one of the small chairs in the waiting area, pulling her legs up in a crisscross-applesauce position, which looks hilarious since she’s twice the size of the chair right now. I head back into the room to put on the next outfit.
Two hours later, I’m mentally exhausted from being Daphne’s dress-up doll, trying and retrying things on until she made up her mind. I’m not sure whether she dragged it out just to spite me or if she actually needed the time to think.
God, I felt like I was in a fashion montage, but instead of running the good and bad outfits over a thirty-second segment, I was stuck in a never-ending loop forhours.
I’m pretty sure that we went through the entire local boutique before I was allowed to leave the fitting room.
But I couldn’t say no to her every time she came back with more to try on. She was having a blast, and I surely wasn’t going to be the one to kill the mood.
Our arms are loaded up as we walk outside of the boutique, bags locked and loaded.
I unlock my pickup with my keys and reach over, unlocking her door. She squeezes into the seat, setting all of the bags at her feet, on her lap, and between us, including the ones I add to the pile.
As I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine, Daphne asks, “Why do you still drive this old thing? I know you could have something nicer if you wanted.”
I swallow hard at the unexpected question, coughing on my spit like an idiot. I try my best to nonchalantly clear my throat, failing miserably.
How can I tell her that I’ve held on to this truck for all these years because of the memories it has, specifically the ones with her? And that I had this pretty, old truck colored the same shade of blue to match her eyes.
This truck isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Mason?” she murmurs.
Shit, I got lost in thought.
Hurriedly, I pull an answer out of my ass. “I just like it. No point in getting rid of something that works great.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she mumbles, looking around the cab. “I can’t believe we all used to squeeze in here for school.”
Neither can I. I laugh at the thought of Daphne squished between Maeve and me on the small bench seat. Especially on the days they were running late and trying to do their makeup together in my rearview mirror.
But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
