Page 11 of Broken Pieces
Sophia walks into my apartment while I throw three bags full of clothes on my couch, sighing in frustration as I'm placing them.
“Well, hello to you too,”she says while sitting on the couch, peeking inside the bags. “What’s this?”
“All the outfits I could come up with on such short notice.” I groan, sitting on the floor since the bags and Sophia has taken all the couch space.
I’m not a fashionista, but I do have some dresses saved in plastic bags for occasions like these. My dating life is the worst—not that this is a date, but knowingMr. Billionairehe’ll probably take me to a fancy-ass restaurant—so I have to dress up the part.
Excuses. Excuses.
“You look stressed,” Sophia points out.
“Wow, nice deducting skills. You sure you want to be a writer? You’d make agreatdetective,” I quip.
She punches me jokingly in the shoulder, and we both laugh. “Why are you so stressed, though?”
“Hestressesmeout. Being near him with the constant bickering is exhausting. And call me crazy, but I swear he enjoys pissing me off,” I say in an exasperated breath.
Sophia grins mischievously. “Nah, I think he makes you nervous. You are so into him!”
“I am not.” The lie just comes naturally at this point. I’m hoping if I say it enough times, I’ll start believing it.
There’s no denying the man is hot in the sense that I wouldn’t mind if I matched with him on a dating app and had a casual hook-up type of hot. The bantering between us is entertaining, and in a masochistic way, turns meon, especially when he combines that banter with one of his killer smiles that makes him ten times sexier. But on the other side of the coin, his cockiness makes him ten times more annoying. I couldn’t be with someone so insufferable.
She raises an eyebrow. “Ari, we have been best friends for how long now? You know you can’t lie to me like that.”
I pick one of the dresses that is almost falling from the bag and throw it at her. “Whatever.”
Sophia stands up, placing a hand on her hips. “Okay, so what are we working with here?”
When it comes to fashion, Sophia is the gifted one. I tend to dress like a quirky librarian most of the time, so I come to her when I need fashion guidance.
We go through the bags for a good fifteen minutes, until she finally finds something we can work with. A cami flared dress with shoulder knots. It's simple, yet it looks really nice with the right accessories.
As I try it on, Sophia does a circle motion with her finger for me to do a 360-degree turn.
“Perfect! Looks really good,” she squeaks.
“And it has pockets!” I say excitedly while placing my hands in them.
“Please don’t mention that during the date,” Sophia replies with a dry tone.
I furrow my eyebrows. “One, this is not a date,” I say while pointing one finger up. “Two,” I point a secondfinger up, “I will always be excited about pocket dresses. Leave me be.”
It’s the little things in life, you know?
She bites her lip, trying to hold back her laugh.
I look at the time, and I have about one more hour to finish getting ready. If I'm going to this insufferable dinner, I might as well have fun, so I ask, “Wanna help me get ready?”
“Always,” she says as we both walk to my bedroom.
So we do just that. As I do my makeup, she styles my hair.
She hums mischievously as she straightens my hair. “For not being a date, you sure are putting in a lot of effort.”
I shrug. “I want to look hot when I turn his offer down for the thirtieth time.” I finish my makeup with my signature red lip that I love so much. It makes me feel confident every time I wear it and God knows I could use some of that.
Sophia finishes with my hair and applies some oil to it as she says, “I don't know why you insist on having your hair straight. Your curls are so beautiful.”
