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“He’ll be at his honorary ball, won’t he?” Chloe asked, reaching for a pair of scissors and cutting off a few wayward threads.
My face heated all over again. “I don’t know.”
She slammed the scissors onto the table a little too hard. “Would you stop acting completely uninterested already? The blush in your cheeks is totally giving you away.”
I flattened my hands over my face. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t let a guy in again, not after what had happened with Pris and Derek. With Dad and Stina.
I couldn’t let anyone get close to me again.
“Will you give me a break about it?”
Brandy and Chloe exchanged grins. “Someone’s touchy. I thought you said nothing happened with him.”
“Nothing did.”
“Yet.” Brandy smirked.
“And nothingwill,” I added, though the statement didn’t ring as true as I wanted it to.
“You’ll never know,” Chloe teased, reaching over and tapping a finger against my phone, “unless you go.”
I lowered the piles of paper I was sifting through and glared.
Some friends they were.
“You’re both crazy. Christmas Eve is in two days. You know how many pillowcases we have to finish before then.”
“Why would pillowcases hold you back?” Brandy leaned against the table, resting her cheek on her fist.
“Because,” Chloe said, folding her arms. “Knowing our girl, Ella, if she goes to a ball, she’s going to insist on making her own dress. And she doesn’t have time if she’s got to sew pillowcases.”
She’d hit the spot on that one.
What could I say? I liked the experimentation,the design of things. Outdated as the show was,Project Runwaywas one of my favorites. I even attempted some of their challenges sometimes, giving myself the same parameters and timeframe.
It was one reason I was “fabric poor” and why I was trying to be better at saving money.
I’d shown Hawk several of my designs, and he’d seemed impressed. What if I made one and wore it? Would he recognize it?
I shook that thought away, too.
“You’re making this a bigger deal than it actually is.” I folded the pillowcase I’d just finished and moseyed over to add it to the stack.
There were fifty-seven children in that hospital ward. Fifty-seven kids who had to spend Christmas in the hospital, and I wasn’t about to let a single one of them down just so I could make an exquisite gown that would be the perfect ensemble to win a certain man’s attention at this ball.
No—I didn’t need to go. It was one more thing to add to my to-do list.
I still had packing to do, preparations for the move, deep cleaning the apartment, not to mention the emotional change of uprooting my life.
The thought of Hawk unhinged me enough as it was. I didn’t need the complete derailing seeing him again would bring.
And let’s not even mentiondancingwith him again. I hadn’t been able to forget the feel of his hands around me, the directness of his blue eyes, the dazzle of his smile.
I’d have to push all thoughts of Hawk Danielson aside, and that meant pushing all thoughts of attending the ball aside, too. I wasn’t going.
No matter how badly I wanted to.
THIRTEEN
