Chapter Nine
LOGAN
She did it. Emma agreed to go along with my plan. It was a miracle.
It was also a miracle that we’d made it through an entire meal together, alone, without killing each other. Now we’d have to make it through our shopping trip without killing each other, which was probably going to be difficult as soon as I began pointing out the type of clothes Emma would have to start wearing to attract Matt’s attention.
It was safe to say she was not going to like it.
We entered a boutique I’d unfortunately been in many times in the last year. It was Grace’s favorite store, and she often liked to drag me in there and make me stand around waiting for her while she tried on fifty different outfits, only to leave empty-handed most of the time. That was a typical Saturday afternoon for us.
As soon as Emma and I walked in, the girls behind the front registers stopped whatever conversation they were having and made a beeline for us. Or, more accurately, for me.
“Hello, welcome to Ashley’s Boutique!” The two girls spoke at the exact same time, a fact neither apparently liked very much, judging from the glares they shot at each other.
The brunette girl quickly stood in front of the redhead and smiled brightly up at me. “Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with.”
“Or me,” the redhead chimed in, nudging the other girl out of the way.
“Thanks,” I said, holding back a snort. We were in a clothing store for women, yet these girls were speaking directly to me instead of Emma. What could they possibly help me with?
Emma smirked and shook her head as we walked away. “Seriously?”
“What?” I asked.
“Is there anywhere we can go where girls don’t throw themselves at you?”
I thought about it for a moment. “A gay bar, maybe?” I paused for a moment before adding, “But then it would be guys throwing themselves at me.”
She laughed, but I detected no humor in her reaction. “Unbelievable.”
I sighed as I mistakenly asked, “What?” again.
Emma ran her hand down the length of a floral sundress on the rack in front of her. It was a similar style to the blue one she’d worn the other night. “Nothing,” she muttered. She cleared her throat and said, “So what are we looking for here, exactly?”
“Clothes,” I replied, glad that she wanted to change the subject. “Low-cut, form-fitting. Something that will showcase your…assets.”
Emma blushed and I think she knew exactly what I was referring to. If there was one thing that could be said about Emma—and one thing that would work to her advantage with the whole Matt thing—it was that the girl had a decent body. Granted, it was hard to see it beneath all the layers of loose-fitting clothing she liked to wear on any given day, but I knew it was there. That sundress she’d worn the other night had proven it.
But that was why we were shopping for a new wardrobe. Matt was more of a boob guy, and Emma had more going on around the back, but I could work with that. Matt was still a hot-blooded male and at the end of the day he would take what he could get.
“Okay, then…start picking stuff out,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I don’t know what kind of clothes Matt likes to see on girls. You claim you do, so go start picking stuff out for me to try on.”
“Um…” I glanced at our surroundings. Ashley’s Boutique was a small store, but it was filled with so many racks of clothing it was hard to even walk around. I guess I hadn’t thought this part of the plan through.
“Well?” Emma said, hands on hips, tapping her foot against the tiled floor.
She was getting impatient, so I had to act fast. Luckily, thanks to Grace, I knew the layout of the place like the back of my hand. I knew where all the good stuff was, so I started going over to every rack and pointing to what I knew Matt would like. Emma picked out her size for each one and within three minutes she was holding onto an armful of clothing to try on.
“See? That wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
Emma glanced down at my choices. “Actually, I—”
“Hold that thought,” I interrupted. I waved to the brunette who’d greeted us when we walked in. “She’d like to try these on,” I said, motioning to Emma.
“Absolutely,” the brunette said with a big smile, once again directed at me, not Emma. She grabbed the set of keys she had dangling from the lanyard around her neck. “Follow me.”
We followed her to the back of the store where the dressing rooms were. “How many items do you have?”
Emma glanced down at the pile of clothes in her arm and counted. “Six.”
The girl went and grabbed a tag with the number 6 on it, unlocked one of the dressing room doors, and hung the tag on the doorknob. “There you go!” she said to Emma. She turned to me with a wink before walking off, purposely swaying her hips from side to side in hopes that I was looking.
I was.
Emma groaned behind me. “Can we just get this over with, please?”
I returned my attention to her. “Yes. Get in there and start trying things on. But I want you to show me everything as you go, so I can help you decide what to get. Just because it looks good on the rack, that doesn’t mean it’s going to look good on you.”
Honestly, I didn’t mean that to come out sounding as much of an insult as it did, but Emma took it the wrong way. With a huff, she stepped inside the dressing room and slammed the door shut.
“I’ll be waiting right here,” I informed her, but I was met with total silence.
I stood there for a moment and glanced around the store. One good thing that could be said about Emma was that she wasn’t into this scene. She seemed like the type of girl who would go to the nearest department store, blindly grab clothes off the rack, and bring them to the nearest register without even trying them on. That would explain why her outfits sometimes looked mismatched and why a lot of her shirts were too big for her. The girl obviously didn’t care about how she looked.
I was about to turn back around to face the dressing rooms when I caught something—or, rather, someone—out of the corner of my eye that instantly filled me with fear and dread.
Grace. She had just walked in with a few of her friends.
Muttering a few swears under my breath, I turned so that she wouldn’t be able to see my face. This was bad. I couldn’t let Grace see me at her favorite clothing store—and with another girl no less. Especially after I’d been avoiding her calls and texts for the last couple of days. This would no doubt end badly for me.
“Um, Emma,” I said quietly through the dressing room door. “Are you almost done?”
“Are you rushing me?” Emma asked, sounding irritated.
Yes, I was rushing her. Because this was a small store, and there was nowhere for me to hide from Grace. I needed to disappear, and fast. I had maybe a few seconds before her gaze fell upon me and all hell broke loose.
“Emma, open up,” I said, my voice low. “Please. It’s an emergency.”
“A what?” She opened the door. She was wearing the floral sundress she’d been admiring earlier.
As soon as the door was open, I grabbed her shoulders and gently nudged her into the back of the tiny dressing room and shut the door behind us.
She gasped. “Logan! What the hell are you doing?”
“Shh,” I hissed, placing a finger against her lips to indicate I wanted her to shut up. She quickly—and quite angrily—swatted it away.
“You can’t be in here!” she whispered frantically. “Why are you in here?”
“Grace is out there,” I whispered back.
Emma’s face twisted into an expression full of annoyance. “You’re hiding from your girlfriend? Why would you be hiding from your girlfriend?” She paused. “Sorry—sometimes-girlfriend.”
I smirked. She was finally learning. “Because,” I said, “we got into a big fight the other night and I’ve been sort of ignoring all her calls and texts since then. I don’t even know if she’s my girlfriend right now, but what I do know is that if she sees me here without her—and with another girl—I’m a dead man. And trust me, you won’t want to deal with her wrath either.”
Emma bit her bottom lip as she glanced in the direction of the dressing room door. She knew I was right. While she and Grace had probably never spoken one word to each other, I was sure she was aware of Grace’s reputation.
“Please, let me hang out in here for a little while?” The request was ludicrous, but I had no other option.
She seemed to be considering it, although I could tell she wanted to murder me. So, to get her to agree, I decided to sweeten the deal.
“If you let me stay in here until Grace leaves, we’ll call it a day on the clothes shopping after we leave here, and I’ll take you to the bookstore next door and let you spend as much time there as you’d like. What do you say?”
Her face lit up at the suggestion and I couldn’t help but smile. Apparently, the way to Emma’s heart was through her reading glasses.
“Okay, fine,” she said finally. “But how long are we going to have stay in here?”
“It could be awhile,” I admitted. “This is her favorite store.”
Emma face-palmed. “I’m not sure even a trip to the bookstore is worth putting up with you in a small enclosed space for an undisclosed amount of time.”
“Boy, you sure know how to flatter a guy,” I said dryly, taking a seat on the bench in front of the mirror. “Feel free to keep trying stuff on.”
Her jaw dropped slightly. “No way am I undressing in front of you.”
“Don’t worry, Emma, I have no desire to see any of your bits and pieces. I’ll close my eyes and turn around.” I stopped for a moment as I took in her appearance. The dress she’d already tried on looked good on her. Like, really good. It was much shorter than the blue one she’d worn the other night, with the hem coming down to only mid-thigh, and the fabric clung to her every curve, revealing a respectable hourglass figure I didn’t know she had.
Paired with the right hair style and some makeup, this dress could most certainly grab Matt’s attention.
“You need to buy that dress,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah?” She looked at herself in the mirror. “You think so?”
I nodded. “I know so. Matt would love this.”
She smiled as she turned slightly to see as much as she could from the back. “It’s actually kind of cute.”
“See? This isn’t so bad, is it? I know what I’m doing.”
She shook her head. “I’m the one who picked this dress out, not you.”
“But I approved it, so I should be able to at least take half-credit for it.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever. Now get up and turn around so I can try on something else.”
I was surprised she was going along with this so willingly, and that she trusted me to stay turned around while she undressed. Truth be told, while I wasn’t actively seeking out a glimpse of her ‘bits and pieces’, I also wouldn’t turn down the opportunity if it was presented to me. She was, after all, a girl, and I was, after all, a guy. And it wasn’t like she was grotesque or anything.
She just wasn’t my type.
Standing up from the bench, I turned around to face the wall. I could hear the rustling of clothing behind me as she removed the dress, and I had to make sure to think about something else—anything else—to prevent me from thinking impure thoughts. Impure thoughts like how, if I were in this situation with any other girl besides Emma right now, things would be going a little bit differently—such as, she’d be taking off the dress, but she wouldn’t be putting anything else back on for a while.
Luckily, Emma was a fast dresser. In less than thirty seconds, she said, “Okay, you can turn around.”
The next outfit she’d chosen to try on was a white halter top that left an inch or two of her abdomen exposed above the pair of very short jean shorts I’d picked out. Once again, I hated to admit she looked good. Like her dress the other night, the shorts really showcased those long legs…
“Well? What do you think?” She spun around for me.
“Um,” I said, clearing my throat. Those shorts looked even better from the back. And with that realization, I suddenly wanted out of that dressing room.
“Looks fine,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “Hey, could you peek out and see if Grace is still out there? I’m getting kind of claustrophobic in here.”
She gave me a funny look before saying, “Gladly.” She cracked open the door and peered out. “Looks like you’re in luck. Grace has left the building.”
“Thank God,” I breathed. “I’m gonna go wait for you outside the store. I think you can handle it from here. Get the dress, get that outfit, get whatever else you think looks good.”
“Okay…” Emma tilted her head to one side and glanced at me curiously. “I’ll meet you out there in a few minutes?”
“Yeah, sure, okay.” I glanced out the crack in the door myself to make sure the coast was clear before exiting. “Bye.”
She opened her mouth to probably say goodbye back, but as soon as I was out of the dressing room, I bolted for the exit before I could hear her.
Well, at least I could say I learned something from our little adventure: Emma looked damn good in normal teenage girl clothes. And if I could think that, Matt could, too.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought.