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“It’s nice,” I say as I shrug out of the T-shirt and boxers, then slip the blue sundress over my head.
I need a bra, but it fits me perfectly, the hem of the skirt hitting my calves, and the thin straps—which confirms I definitely need a bra—sit perfectly on my shoulders.
“It fits,” I call back. “Thanks.”
I move to change back into my T-shirt and boxers.
“You can’t just say that. Let me see.”
I hesitate. “Um…”
“What good is a fashion show if no one gets to see it?”
Fashion show?
“Uh…”
“Please…” Hali wheedles through the door. “I’ll tell you something super spicy about the alphas if you let me see.”
She draws a smile from me. Della was like that. I think they’re even close to the same age. Della is nineteen now, and I missed her birthday.
We celebrated every birthday together. Every birthday except her nineteenth and my twenty-second. I was with Lawrence then. He threw me a fancy party where he could show me off. I hated every second of it. Did Mom bake her a birthday cake the way I used to or did she buy one?
Della would always get her way by dangling juicy gossip about what happened in school if I showed her a new drawing I wasn’t sure was any good.
Della went to school. I was homeschooled, so the offer of juicy gossip would always tempt me to show her my drawing. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know these people personally. Their lives excited me. I guess it was a way for me to live vicariously through them in stories I’m almost positive Della made up.
Like the girl who took her new kitten to school and hoped she could get through a full day without any of the teachers noticing its meowing at the back of the room. I accused Della of lying. She was insistent it had happened, going so far as to meow in the same way the kitten had.
I laughed nonstop for ten minutes at her version of a kitten meowing. After a lonely day in the house with just Mom and me, it was always exactly what I had needed. Della must have known it.
But the offer of spicy gossip about the three alphas no one in the city knows anything about except that they share a woman?
Della must have softened me up with her ways because I open the bathroom door and immediately step out.
Hali’s jaw hangs open. “Wow.” And then she scrambles to her feet. “You look amazing.”
I peer down at it and shrug. “It’s a beautiful dress.”
“Well, it suits you. Here.” She holds a yummy-smelling white paper bag toward me.
“What is it?”
“I stopped at a drive-thru on the way back. Breakfast was a while ago, and the guys said they were sorting out dinner. Mom usually makes something, but sometimes a burger hits the spot. Here.”
The guys are sorting out their own dinner? Alphas who have servants to do all the sorting for them?
“Is that usual for them?” I eye the bag, not really wanting to eat. It smells good, so I mentally shrug, taking it before I settle on the floor with my legs crossed. Lawrence would kill me if he ever saw me sitting like this. Maybe that’s why I do it.
“Not really. Mom does all the cooking, or they order out. Maybe they’re ordering out.” Hali is back to riffling through more bags. She stops to narrow her eyes at me. “Whenever I saw pictures of you, I always thought you’d look better with your hair down. Like not all the way down. Just… relaxed.”
The reminder of Lawrence steals my growing appetite, and I set the takeout bag down. “Thanks.”
Her eyes dip, landing on my nails. “Oh, I brought you stuff to do a manicure if you want. The alphas said get whatever you might want, and I passed a beauty store.”
I take in the ragged nails from my multiple failed attempts to scale Lawrence’s hedge. I tore off the worst of them before I slept last night, but between the chipped dusky pink polish and ragged ends, I would not be winning any beauty contests. Lawrence’s staff would be horrified. I’m almost tempted to leave them this way. “Thanks.”
“Is he as much of an ass as he looks on TV?” Hali asks as she rummages through more bags.
