Chapter 14 | Shopping

Isabella:

"Go away," I grumble, smacking away the person who is disturbing my peaceful Saturday lie in. I press my cheek deeper into the pillow and pull the duvet up and over my head, trying to cover the bright ray of light flooding into my room through the window.

"Do you think it's a good idea to wake her up?"

"Um yes, it's literally 4pm and sis is still in bed."

"But what if she's...you know...cranky."

"But we have urgent things to discuss! Cranky Isabella is better than stressed and disorganised Bella."

"Okay fine...but if she attacks me it's on you."

I feel a gentle poke on my shoulder only a moment later. "Hey wake up."

I swat their hand away. "Nghsh."

Another poke. "Dude you need to get up, we're all waiting for you."

"Nouuh."

"Yes c'mon," I feel another jab on my shoulder, this one slightly harder. "Get up Belly."

"Mhghm," I reply falling back into my slumber.

There is peace and quiet for a short while until my brain finally catches up and begins to process the voice of the person that is attempting (and failing) to wake me up.

It's too deep to be my mom or my grandma or even Mia and Grace...Sofia can barely even say 'mama' let alone utter an entire sentence...and there's only one person who calls me by that horrendous nickname-

"ARGH!" My eyes fly open and I sit up in bed abruptly, pulling my blanket over my chest. I press a hand to my temple to stop the aching from the head rush I got from getting up too fast and continue groaning.

"Finally!" He chuckles, crossing his arms across his chest.

"What are you doing here?" I croak, prying my eyes open. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the disgusting bright light encasing my room.

"To hang out," Lucas responds pointedly, staring at me blankly like I had said something stupid.

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. "But...didn't I reject your invitation yesterday?"

There's a pause and then: "...not that I recall of no." He stops to grin widely. "In fact you seemed to be over the moon and gleefully said yes when I asked if you wanted to hang out."

I let another pause fill the air.

"...So let me get this straight." I reply after quite some time, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand so hard that I begin to see those swirly things. "First you make me do the assignment by myself...then you get me a detention...and now you're stalking and borderline harassing me?!" I narrow my eyes at Lucas, who seems unfazed by my evident anger towards him. "Do you want me to hate you even more or something?"

He waves his hand dismissively. "We'll have fun today don't you worry."

I groan and fall back into my pillow with a thud.

"I feel like we're interrupting a moment here." A hushed whisper catches my attention and I hastily turn my head to look at the two girls huddled in the corner of my room who I hadn't noticed before.

"You two," I point menacingly at Mia and Grace and they both raise their hands in mock surrender. "Which one of you invited him?"

"None of us," Mia begins to say just as Grace points frantically at Mia.

She stomps her feet childishly. "Thanks for snitching on me Grace!"

Grace scratches the back of my neck sheepishly. "I didn't want cranky Bella on my case!"

"So you put her on mine?!"

"You're the one who invited him!"

"Oh shut up the pair of you!" I seethe, running a hand through my tangled mane of hair and sitting back up, throwing the covers off of my body frustratedly. "Why are you all disturbing my precious sleep? I went to bed at 5 am you know!"

"See told you she would be cranky," Lucas hisses from the corner of his mouth and Grace hits him with a 'this is not the time' look.

"Look, we needed a drive to the mall and he has a car," Mia says, gesturing to Lucas with her thumb and trying to justify her actions.

I groan once again. This was not a nice way to wake up on a Saturday. "Why do we need to go to the mall?"

At my question Mia smiles brightly, showcasing her pearly white teeth and claps her hands together in an excited manner. "To go hoco dress shopping of course!"

***

It's been hours. The mall is near to closing time and the three of us have yet to decide on the dresses we would be wearing.

Lucas looks like he'd rather jump off of the escalator rather than be here right now and I'm thoroughly enjoying watching his pained expression as Mia asks for his opinion on the 6 millionth dress she has picked out. Karma sure is a bitch.

"You know what," he begins with a shake of his head as Mia decides, once again, against the dress she had just chosen.

He strolls over to one of the racks of dresses and briskly searches through them. "Aha." He says not long after, pulling out three identical dresses, in three different colours and shoves a dress in each of our hands before forcing us into the changing room.

"Try this on."

I tug the curtain closed with the red coloured dress clutched in my arms and turn to face the mirror adjacent.

"ARGH!" My eyes widen the moment I see the horrific creature peering back at me.

Oh...that's just me...lol.

Under the bright changing stall lighting, I look bad. My eye bags are horrendous, my clothes crumpled as I had thrown on whatever top and jeans I could find and I had barely managed to drag a comb through my hair let alone put make up on my dull skin. It was probably for the best anyways - I had grown a couple of stress spots over the course of the week, after stressing over how I would get the project done on time (all thanks to Lucas!) and I didn't want to aggravate the angry looking pimples even more by putting makeup on my skin.

Turning away from my reflection I try and stop myself from chastising my appearance any longer.

Its fine. I tell myself. Its only Mia, Grace and the 500 million other people at the mall that have seen me like this...and Lucas.

Oh God...Lucas saw me like this.

Why do you care?

I don't you.

You do.

I don't.

You d-

"SHUTUP!" I yell at myself, trying to shut down the internal conflict going on inside my head.

"Er...are you okay in there?" Lucas calls out from the other side of the curtain, concern lacing his voice.

"Uh fine!" I manage to squeak out awkwardly. I shove my embarrassment to the back of my mind and begin to briskly peel off my jeans and t-shirt and throw the dress on, not even bothering to take a good look at it. It's probably not going to be nice anyway...I mean it's Lucas who picked it out.

Once I've put it on, I adjust the neckline and the skirt so it's sitting on me in all the right places and turn back to face the mirror.

I look up and let out a surprised gasp.
(Not because of my horrible reflection but for a completely other reason this time).

Oh that...BASTARD!

I absolutely hate the guy. I finally conclude. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.

I slap a hand over my mouth as I spin around and analyse the dress in all directions.

It's saying and red and fitting and...

...absolutely perfect.

He did not just pick out the perfect dress.

He did not.

"Are you guys done in there yet?" Lucas calls out from the other side of the door and I let out an angry growl.

I tug the curtain of the changing room open aggressively and begrudgingly walk out with my hands on my hips.

Lucas smiles brightly once he see's me. "You look nice!" He exclaims. He gives me a once over. "I think I did a great job with the dress."

"I-"

"Oh my God...I LOVE IT!"

Mia flies out of her changing room just as I am about to give Lucas a piece of my mind, her screams earning her dirty looks from other shoppers and the workers who had given up trying to help us chose a dress hours ago.

She outstretches her palm and high fives Lucas enthusiastically before spinning around on the tiled floor. "Isn't it beautiful," she gushes before her gaze lands on me.

Her mouth falls open and she briskly runs over to me. "Lord have mercy...Isabella you look stunning!" She holds me at arms length, raking her eyes up and down my body.

I grin in reply. "So do you Mi! You look so elegant and classy."

"I don't I," she gushes once more, giggling happily.

We continue praising each other for a while until it dawns on us that Grace has yet to come out of the changing room.

Lucas knocks on the side of her stall. "Grace you coming out then?"

There's a muffled reply and a loud sniffle and a moment later, the curtain tugs open revealing a teary eyed Grace.

"Oh my God, what's wrong?" I ask, my face falling at her crying state.

Mia sends her a panicked look and concern is drawn on Lucas' sharp features.

Grace sniffles. "I-I," she begins.

We all look at her expectantly, waiting for her to reply.

"I LOVE IT!" She throws her arms around Lucas with so much force he almost stumbles over.

Grace sobs into his shoulder. "I love it. I love it. I love it. Thank you," she wails as Lucas pats her back awkwardly.

"Er..no problem."

After pulling back from her embrace, Grace stands back up tall and gives us a shaky smile, wiping away her happy tears with the back of her hand.

"Babe you look amazing!" I squeal and her eyes light up.

"Thank you!" She smiles gratefully, her eyes gaze over Mia and I.

"OMGYOUTWOLOOKSOBEAUTIFUL!"

"I knowww so pweerrttyy!" Lucas fake squeals from beside us, imitating us. He leans against the side of the changing room stall, his arms crossed across his broad chest. Us three girls give him blank stares.

"Now what do you have three to say to me?" He grins smugly.

"Thank you!"

"Thanks Lucas!"

"You're severely annoying and that your presence is giving me brain damage???"

That's right you guessed it, the last one was me.

He narrows his eyes at me. "Rude."

I stick my tongue back out at him immaturely.

Lucas rolls his eyes before turning back to Mia and Grace. "Okay guys can you hurry and get the dresses then, we need to go to the food court before it closes!"

"God you and the food court," Mia snorts.

Lucas pats his stomach in reply. "I'm a growing boy." He pauses to wink at the three of us. "In more ways than you can think of."

"You just admitted into have a shrimp penis," I point out. "Now come on girls let's get cracking, I wanna go home."

Lucas' smirk drops promptly. "What no I didn't."

I usher Mia and Grace towards the cashier and stand behind them in the queue. "Yeah you did." I retort, turning back to look at him. "You said that you're a growing boy, meaning you believe that you need to grow and then you insinuated that your dick needs to grow too. Hence the shrimp dick."

Lucas blinks slowly at me. "...Okay, I don't really understand your analogy but love...I do not have a shri-a small dick believe me."

"Sure," I roll my eyes playfully. "I believe you."

"You want me to prove it to you right now?"

I reply mindlessly. "Yeah sure go ahea-WAIT WHAT NO!"

I swat away Lucas' hand that beginning to open his belt.

He roars in laughter, peering at my flustered state.

"Just kidding," he says in between chuckles. "Unfortunately I guess you'll never find out the true size of my penis."

"Unlucky me," I huff jokingly, moving up the queue as both Grace and Mia finish purchasing their dresses.

I place the dress on the counter and the cashier swipes the barcode scanner thing across the tag of the dress, before neatly folding it up and placing it inside one of those fancy bags. "Is that all?" the lady asks with a smile and I mirror the gesture back.

"Yes, thank you."

"That'll be $69.99 please."

"Okay wait one sec," I respond, filing through my side bag for my purse in which my mother's credit card was located.

"Aha," I say, finally spotting it after rifling through my things. I'm about to hand the cashier the card when someone beats me too it.

Lucas briskly swipes his own card and quickly inserts his pin code as I look at him in shock

...did he really just?

"Lucas!" I exclaim in bewilderment. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

He shrugs his shoulders, the corner of his mouth curling into a little smirk. "Redemption for making you do the assignment by yourself."

My mouth falls open as Lucas briskly takes the bag from the cashier lady and quickly thanks her before ushering me out of the shop.

"Are you okay in the head?"

"Very," Lucas nods. "Now let's go the food court."

I grab his arm as he tries to speed past and he lets out a little groan, looking back at the food court in the far distance and back at me. "What?"

"You did not just pay $70 dollars for my dress as redemption! That's not redemption that's being fucking stupid!"

He waves his hand dismissively. "It's nothing now let's go." He begins to drag me over to the other side of the mall.

"You know I would've gotten over it by like tomorrow you didn't need to actually do anything to pay back! Especially not spend like 3 million dollars on me!"

He ignores me and instead lets out a frustrated groan as we approach the food court to see most of the shops beginning to close.

He presses a hand over his chest like it's physically paining him to watch the shutters close over the food stores. He spins around and points and index finger at me accusingly. "You made us late!" He cries, his eyes narrowed.

I swat his hand away. "I'm sorry but that's what you get!"

"Look just accept the present Bella please."

"I can't," I groan. "I feel bad! That's a lot of money. You know what, I'll pay you back!" I begin to whip out my phone. "Look I'm pay paling you it right now."

"Bella," he says sternly, grabbing my phone from my hand. "Look at me."

I gaze up into his greeny-brown irises before pressing my lips into a thin line.

"Bell I'm literally telling you it's all good, just accept the fucking gift already!" He says, giving my back my phone and placing his hands on my shoulders. "Please."

I let out a frustrated breath and look back and forth between his gorgeous hazel eyes. He's not going to change his mind is he.

"...Fine," I huff reluctantly.

He removes his hands from my shoulders and ruffles my already messy hair. "Fucking finally!"

I edge away from him before shooting him a grateful smile. "Thank you Lucas."

"You're welcome." A large grin breaks out onto his face and he extends his fist out so I can fist bump him. "But you owe me KFC!"