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Or was that too vain?
"Let’s see it Stel!" Piper called from the other side of the door I took onesleeve, blood red velvet number she had de up at the end in extra fabric that re dress had enough fabric to spread out in a long train behind me and the color completely washed outto suppressher foot She looked as equally ridiculous as I did in a white, chiffon ruffled disaster The tight bodice fit her aardly and made her look like she had the chest of a little boy, while the ruffles tuave her the hips of a wo birth to at least twelve children
"Are those feathers?" I burst into laughter at the realization Piper looked like a partially plucked chicken
She gave les "You look like Valentine’s Day threw up on you!" she wheezed, clutching at her sto to laugh atrooh!"
"We proh," Piper swore stoically She swatted my hand away as I tried to pull on one of her shredded, dilapidated feathers, poking out frole escaped Piper as Bree opened the slatted wood door and stepped tenuously through the narrow doorway Piper and I held our breath for three whole seconds before exploding in laughter, tears strea from the corners of our eyes We leaned on each other for support, sucking oxygen in through laughter that had become completely silent as it racked our bodies in hysteria
Bree stood before us in a vintage, as in eighties, Pepto-Bisiant puffs that sat unevenly on her shoulder blades, the sweetheart neckline, dipping crassly into her cleavage, the skirt sed her body in folds of wrinkled fabric and the apron of lace both seeether Under her wounded scowl, Piper and I tried to pull ourselves together, but then she turned to get a better look at herself in the three fold antic skirt swooped around and whipped Piper in the side Piper took an exaggerated side step and we dissolved intopart
"This was such a terrible idea," Bree whined e had come back to ourselves and the sales clerk had stopped to check on us twice, not understanding our sense of hu," Piper defended her thrift-store idea, although she was still laughing so neither Bree nor I took her seriously Suddenly she stood up straight and cocked her head to the side exaain "This could work…"
"What could work?" I asked, feeling the flare of panic at the look in Piper’s eyes
"This," she gestured to the three of us "We could splash black paint over all of the dresses and then wear like corsages with dead flowers in the-card holiday that defines the awfulness that is Valentine’s Day" Piper proclai passionate at the end of a speech that fell on Bree’s deaf ears and my vain ones
"Absolutely not!" Bree shrieked, i to rip off her dress before Piper could pull out soht ahead and protest consumeris Piper wouldn’t look pretty covered in black paint, carrying dead flowers?" I gasped "For the record, Pi, I think you look gorgeous in any color of death"
"I’ to get Tristan to noticeof a very angry, desperate beast that seeainst my stomach that was determined to make me sick A darkness settled on ed to me, what I could never have but wanted ferociously anyway I sed against the hole inout by irrational jealousy Tristan wasn’t mine Could never be ave her a suggestive look and we all burst into laughter And just like that I foundon here?" the sales attendant poked her head in for the third tietic se back into the clothes we ca in
Two hours later, shopping bags stored in the trunk of Piper’s parents Durango, we uys at a city based pizza chain We had ridden together into the city, since Piper’s SUV had three rows of seating and was big enough to hold us all, but we had dropped the guys off at an arcade to kill the time while we shopped When we met back up at the restaurant all of thee, even Lincoln
We ordered at the counter, the boys respectfully paying, even Seth, and then went to the back to find a table big enough to fit us all Unlike at our designated lunch table, where we sat definitively segregated, we ether here so we could sit by our dates I was thankful the petty iht So we sat boy, girl, boy, girl around a large circular table
"Did you ladies get your dresses picked out?" Tristan asked, breaking what had turned into an unco sorely disappointed
"Do you not like yours?" Lincoln asked quietly, picking up on her tone She leaned into hi him squirm just a little before he relaxed too and put his ar to look hot," she bragged and I hid reat idea for really sticking it to Valentine’s Day, but they didn’t want anything to do with it" She pursed her lips and shot both Bree and I a look proled
"Piper, we loved your idea, seriously, it’s just that personally, I don’t have anything against Valentine’s Day," Bree explained, giving Tristan a look that made me thankful I hadn’t eaten yet
Tristan pretended not to notice
I giggled again
He elbowed o to the dance?" Lincoln asked Piper in a quiet, shy voice