Page 31 of Finding Her
“No,”I said, crossing my arms. There was a lot I was willing to do for this stupid bet, but I also had to have my limits. I had to keep my dignity somewhere, right?
“He’s going to love them,” Lilah said, holding the shorts up again. Hartwell had arranged for some buses to bring us to the mall today and while I’d been looking forward to buying some new clothes, Lilah and I didn’t agree on what those new clothes should be.
“He’s not going to love them because I’m not wearing them,” I told her, pushing them down. She groaned and threw her head back.
“Poppy, if you want to win him over, you have to give a little!”
“I am not wearing those,” I said, enunciating each word. “Find something else.”
“Saylor, where are you?” Lilah yelled into the great abyss of the store.
A voice came from three racks over, yelling, “Over here.”
“Never where I need her to be,” Lilah muttered, before turning back to the display of shorts. Deciding that I would leave Lilah to keep picking up shorts on her own, I pushed past her and went to find Saylor, who was in the men’s shirts section.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I need a jean jacket,” she said. She put her hands on her hips and stared up at the high racks of them. “I just don’t know which one.”
I wasn’t surprised she was buying one from the men’s section. I mean, they were ten times more comfortable than the women’s and had way more options to pick from.
“Maybe that one,” I suggested, pointing at one high up in the corner.
“Yeah, but there’s no way I can reach it. Unless…” She spun around in a circle. “Do you think they have a ladder somewhere that I could use.”
“I doubt it. You know, probably a matter of public safety and all that.”
“I can grab it for you,” a male voice said from behind us. I spun around to see Crossy there, grinning at Saylor. Her face immediately went cold.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
“Come on,” he said. “You can’t reach it.”
“I said, I’m good,” she snapped. “Why don’t you go find someone else to harass?”
Crossy smirked but walked off a couple of racks down, and started thumbing through some shirts, though he was still looking at us out of the corner of his eye.
She rolled her eyes and said, “Come on. Let’s go find an employee to help us.”
If Saylor was anyone else, I might have pointed out that Crossy was happy to do it or even run back and ask Crossy to do it just so that we could get the jean jacket and go. But I knew that Saylor would kill me if I did. I didn’t know exactly what was going on between the two of them, but I wasn’t about to get in the middle of it, so I followed her. Then I immediately regrettedit when I ran into Lilah, who had arms full of shorts, shoved them into my arms, and said, “Changing room. Go.”
Knowing not to argue with that tone of voice, I stumbled back towards the back of the shop. I immediately vetoed three of the shorts that Lilah gave me because they were so high that if I stood on my tiptoes or if I stretched my arms above my head, you could see my underwear under them. Absolutely no.
Lilah sat in the seats in the waiting area of the changing rooms and clearly disapproved of my decision.
“That just means they’re perfect for wearing over swim suits in the summer,” she said brightly.
“It’s almost October,” I said. “I’m not buying shorts to wear to the beach.” I slammed the curtain shut and turned back around to try on another pair of shorts.
“Poppy,” Lilah yelled from the other side of the curtain, “try on the ones that I was showing you in the store.”
I shuddered to even think of those ones, which I now realized were at the bottom of the pile. How had I not noticed them? I would have immediately vetoed them as well.
“No!” I cried back.
“Come on!” she said. She sounded like she moved closer and was standing just on the other side of the curtain. “They’re gonna look great, I promise.”
“They’re gonna look awful, and I don’t want to wear them.”
