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“You bought me a gift?” I repeated, hoping and praying that this had been what he was planning all along. And if this was true, how utterly foolish I felt for spending the last few days worrying.
I reached out and ran my hand along the box but before I could ask, his lips came to my ear and he whispered in an amused tone,
“It's a dress, babe.”
“A dress… you bought me a dress?”
He laughed again at this, pulling my back to his front, where he stood behind me.
“Yes, sweetheart, I bought you a dress. It's a New Year's Eve party, even I know that I can't get away with jeans and biker boots.” He then nodded to the front of the car where I could see a garment bag lying over the passenger seat.
Jared would be wearing a suit.
Suddenly all worry and fears fled me, and all just from the idea of getting to see Jared in a suit for the first time. It was a completely irrational reason to make all my worry disappear.
I knew that if my fears did come true and this hadn’t been the only thing he was planning, then our time together was limited. But as for tonight, well at the very least I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of us having a good time. By the Gods we needed it, especially after what we had been through.
“Well let's hope this party goes better than the last one did and no wars break out.”
He turned me to face him, tipped my chin up and told me,
“Oh, I think this will be one night we'll never forget and hopefully, for all the right reasons.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, then he whispered,
“I finally get to see in the new year with you.”
The kiss that followed was just as sweet as his words.
We said our goodbyes to my parents, telling them that we would see them later at the party before getting in the car and making our way to Afterlife. Like I said, my aunt had already told me the plan, so it wasn't then surprising that not long after we made it inside, I found myself being led away from Jared by a flurry of female excitement.
My aunt had embraced me first, and as always, she was a figure of beauty in her causal tight gray jeans and oversized, black-knit sweater. One that had a cowl neck and was tucked at the front into her waistband in a fashionable way. Of course, I was still trying to get used to seeing her looking so young, because clearly there was no longer a reason to hide her true self from me.
Just like my uncle, who had been handsome as an older guy but now, well it wasn’t surprising he had caught the eye of my aunt. Hell, according to her, he had caught the eye of the whole damn town, and every town they were ever in for that matter. A statement I knew now hadn’t been over-exaggerated. But as for my uncle, he was nowhere to be found, which meant he was no doubt ready for Jared to join him at the Table of the Kings meeting.
Then, after one of her famous Aunty mega hugs, she walked over to Jared and relieved him of the dress box. However, when Pip emerged, seemingly from nowhere, and grabbed the shoes, Sophia emerged just as quickly and promptly took it off her.
“You are wearing too many candy rings and made your hands sticky,” Sophia warned, making Pip pout, and well, it did have to be said that she was wearing too much candy to make it safe when being around designer shoes. Something I discovered after Pip complained,
“Aww no fair, I love new shoes but then I also love old shoes, but not the smelly ones, or those sneakers Toots has that are nearly falling apart and over thirty years old.” At this my aunt rolled her eyes and complained,
“Oh great, this again… jeez, I mean it’s not like I wear them anymore.”
“Yes, because people usually keep scruffy old shoes for the sentimental value,” Sophia mocked, making my aunt fake her outrage.
“Hey now, it’s not like I have them in a glass box and keep them as a shrine to my former life and, besides, whose side are you on anyway? Are you really going to defend the person whose idea of spring cleaning is parting with her chewed gum collection?” I instantly looked to Jared and made an ick face, making him grin back at me.
“Hey, that was a rough day for me, one of those suckers looked like the spitting image of Darth Vader… get it? Spitting image!” she said, laughing at her own joke and making some of the candy gumballs stuck to her dress fall off. Gumballs, I should mention, that were strategically placed in lines around the maze of her Pacman skater dress. Black, ripped fishnet tights over a hot pink legging and spiked white PVC ankle boots completed today’s mad look.
As for Sophia, as usual she was the picture of perfection, in her long-sleeve, black and white houndstooth print, pencil dress. One that had a gold zip that went from the hem of her skirt all the way up the center to the sweetheart neckline. Her long, black curly hair, was pinned artfully to one side without a single strand of it out of place. This was a complete contrast to Pip, whose hair was tied up in eight bunches over her head in what look to be a random pattern.
But as fun as it always was seeing my aunt and co, the one person I was most excited to see, was my cousin Amelia. Hence why I ran into her arms the second she appeared at the bottom of the club’s staircase, after squealing her name. And just like me, she did the same, crying out my name and meeting me halfway.
Because we had always been so close in age, it had been more like growing up with a sister, and I most certainly loved her like one. Since we had made it back from our separate trips though time we hadn’t yet seen each other. It seemed like we had both needed time to process everything that happened. Unsurprisingly, her husband stepped up behind her before nodding to me in acknowledgement.
“Ella, a pleasure to see you looking so well, especially after such turbulent events,” he said in that smooth as silk tone of his.
“Ohh, you mean when we all took a supernatural trip down memory lane and scared the living shit out of our men…? Those turbulent events?” Amelia said, making me laugh because she never held back, and that was one of the things that I loved most about her. Lucius grumbled before commenting dryly,
