Page 22 of Finding Her

poppy

“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 regretted it 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.”

“Please,” she begged. “For me, just try them on. You don’t have to buy them if you don’t like them.”

I couldn’t keep arguing with her forever. Lilah was too stubborn for her own good and there was no way she would go away until I just gave in. So I grabbed the stupid shorts, which looked fine from the front, but had “cutie” bedazzled on the butt,.

When I pulled them on, I realized they were barely longer than the ones that I had vetoed before, which gave me good ammunition for them.

Although, when I stood sideways and looked at myself in the mirror, raising my arms, I had to admit they didn’t rise too high on my butt.

Not enough that I thought I would get in extreme trouble for it.

Still, these weren’t good, and I wasn’t comfortable in them, and there was no way I was wearing them anywhere. But for the time being, I guess I could show off to Lilah. Even if with the crop top that I was wearing, it meant that half my body was showing.

I threw open the curtain and stepped outside. “Happy?”

“You look amazing,” Lilah said, and strangely, it seemed like she actually meant it, which I didn’t understand at all, because how could anybody look good in these?

“Spin around. I want to see.”

I suppressed a groan as I turned around, showing her the bedazzled side of the shorts. She squealed, and I couldn’t tell when I wasn’t facing her whether it was happiness or actually just laughing at me. I spun around again and put my hands on my hips.

“You are ridiculous, you know that? I mean, honestly, why would anybody?—”

I cut myself off as I heard footsteps coming up behind me. Loud footsteps. And I knew, without having to look, exactly who was there. Because if Crossy was in the store, then all the hockey players had to be close by.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just coming to try on?—”

I spun around quickly so that he wouldn’t have a reason to keep staring at my butt, and then realized, as I did, that was a mistake because his eyes immediately drifted down to my bare stomach, and I crossed my arms over it to cover it up.

“She made me try them on,” I said, jerking my head at Lilah because I didn’t have a hand to gesture at her with.

Bear just nodded once. His eyes were tight, and I wondered whether he thought that I shouldn’t be wearing shorts like this.

Maybe he thought it was inappropriate. I was sure there were tons of people who did.

But he just said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can wait out there if you want.”

He glanced towards the opening towards the rest of the store. But then his eyes returned to me just as quickly, and his eyes ran up and down my legs.

Okay, maybe I had misread the signals. Maybe he didn’t think this was inappropriate, but he thought they looked... good. I really thought hell would freeze over before Lilah was right about how to seduce Bear. But clearly, I was wrong.

“Doesn’t she?” Lilah squealed. She bounced up beside me and threw an arm around my shoulder. “I mean, I think she should get these for gym class, don’t you?”

She was laying it on thick, her voice all sweet. I elbowed her in the side as subtly as I could. Bear dragged his eyes up my legs again, then landed on my arms crossed over my stomach before finally looking at my face.

“Yeah,” he said. “I agree.” And then he brushed past me, found an open changing room, and walked inside. There was a weird sound of metal scraping on metal as he pulled the curtain shut.

Lilah looked at me and mouthed, “Oh. My. Gosh.” I just elbowed her again.

She laughed, and I immediately spun on my heel and ran back into the changing room, putting back on my regular long pants that I’d been wearing before.

I was not buying these shorts. I was not wearing them to gym class. There was no chance in hell.