Page 8 of All I Feel

“This is easilythe best thing we’ve ever done.”

My best friend stared at herself in the mirror for a few extra beats, with me doing the same, before our eyes met, and we grinned. Lark said, “I agree. It’s just a shame we don’t have anywhere to go looking like this that would be acceptable.”

I looked at myself again, twisting my neck from one side to the other. We really did look stunning. “It does seem a waste. So, what do you think we should do?”

Lark finished inspecting herself in the mirror, turned fully to face me, and crossed her arms over her chest as a mischievous smile washed over her expression. “Why stop here?”

Arching a brow, I repeated her question. “Why stop here?”

She nodded. “Yes. Why stop here? We’ve already gone this far. I think we should just keep going.”

I had no idea what she was suggesting. “Right. And just to be certain we’re on the same page… Are you suggesting we look for the dresses?”

Shaking her head, Lark replied, “No. No, I’m starving now anyway. I think we drive back to my parents’ house, make some pizza, and spend the rest of our night planning our future weddings.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I decided there wasn’t anything I didn’t love about her idea. Doing my best to contain my excitement and not release an actual squeal of delight, I jerked my chin to the side and said, “Let’s grab our bags and get out of here.”

Lark and I didn’t waste another minute. We snatched up our bags—having been at the mall all day long, we had plenty between us—and we made our way out to my car. This was one of my favorite things about the springtime weather. My best friend and I were out of school, the weather was nice, and we could spend day after day with each other.

Our original plan for the day had been to do some shopping this afternoon, figure something out for the evening, and have a sleepover at Lark’s house tonight. Our parents had grown accustomed to our antics, so they knew that we’d spend just about every day of our break from school with each other. Either I became a temporary fixture at the Townsend residence, or Lark became a temporary fixture at the Stone residence. Occasionally, if all the girls got together, we’d stay at the Blackman or Cunningham homes.

Lark and I made it back to her house, pulled right up to the open garage door, and got out. After gathering up our bags—I took mine because I knew my Aunt Nikki would want to see what we got—we walked into the garage and tothe door that led into the house. “Ah, I have to pee so bad. And I want to turn the oven on, so we can make pizza,” Lark announced.

Just then, I heard some metal clang before a head popped out from behind the open hood of Ace’s car. Lark’s brother took one look at us, and something strange leaked onto his features. It wasn’t a look I’d ever seen before. “What the hell did you two do?” he asked.

“Sorry, Ace. I can’t talk. I’m going to explode if I don’t pee. Tessa, you can tell him.”

I nodded. “Okay. Be right in.”

Walking toward the front of the car, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Putting some performance parts on my car,” he said. “An intake, header, and exhaust. Phoenix is on his way over now to help. Why do you look like you should be living in a castle?”

“A castle?”

Nodding, Ace smiled as his eyes roamed over my face, taking me in again. “You look like a princess.”

I returned the smile. “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks.”

“Sure. But I’m still curious what happened this afternoon.”

Laughter spilled out of me. “You know Lark and me. We’re always coming up with silly ideas. This started off innocent enough today when we went to get our nails done.” Shifting my purchases into one hand, I held up the other and wiggled my fingers to show off my manicure. “Anyway, while we were deciding on polish colors, Lark and I thought we’d take things one step further. We got wedding hair and makeup done.”

Confusion washed over his expression. “Who’s getting married?”

“We are!”

That did nothing to help Ace understand what we’d done. If anything, he grew alarmed. “What? I didn’t know the two of you had started dating anyone.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, God. No. No, nothing like that. We just got the idea to get wedding hair, nails, and makeup today.” I reached over my shoulder and tugged the fabric forward. “We even got the veils to complete the look. We wanted to get an idea of how we might look on our wedding days when they happen in the future.”

Ace studied me again. While he didn’t say what was on his mind, I got the feeling he thought his sister and I were certifiably crazy.

I didn’t allow that to deter me from sharing even more craziness with him. “A wedding day is a big day in a girl’s life, Ace. Lark and I want to be prepared, to have it all planned out. So, since we’ve got nowhere special to go looking the way we do, and I’m not aware of any castles in the area, we came back here to make pizza and plan all the remaining details of our weddings. You know, like the flowers, centerpieces, dresses for the bridesmaids, our dresses…”

I trailed off as his eyes glazed over. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the things you two come up with to occupy yourselves. How can you not think that it’s strange to be planning something that’s more than ten years down the road?”

My eyes rounded. “I’ll be twenty-six in ten years, Ace!”