Choosing Love

Chapter Thirteen

Daniel nodded slowly as he looked at the sketch. "This is a beautiful design Evie. You've got a real gift here."

"Thank you," Evie said, beaming with pride at the compliment. "I just hope Mal likes it. She had said that she wanted to branch out into more Auradon styles but...it's not her style at all."

"In this instance, you have to not look at Mal as a friend and look at her as a client," Daniel said gently. "This is what she's requesting so this is what you're giving her. No matter what, it's going to look gorgeous. I saw a photo of the dress Lady Mal wore at King Ben's coronation. The caption said you had designed it?"

Evie nodded, amazed that the fashion blogs were still talking about her dress. Then again, she had made something that had stood up to a dragon attack and Mal transforming herself into a dragon. That was something worth talking about, even a couple months after the event.

That was really the only positive to come out of her actions at coronation though. Well, and she and Mal seemed to grow closer from the experience. Evie wasn't as dumb as she pretended to be after all, she could see the faint remnants of the word 'traitor' on her locker and knew there were probably only a few people who would clean it off for her.

There was one day though she had stumbled across the word freshly sprayed on her locker, before there had been a chance for anyone to clean it off.

Whoever used spray paint probably thought I'd think it was Mal doing it, Evie thought. The only thing is, I know Mal enough to know she would never use pink spray paint. If she used any color other than purple, it would be blue. You know, for Hades.

Maybe Mal would use green spray paint if she was in a bind, but it would only be if she had no other choice. With the exception of the green in her jacket and a light green dress Evie had designed, Mal had been vehemently against the color green showing up in her wardrobe.

Evie had suspected the only reason Mal okayed the dress was because of the fact that it was so light. A darker green might have gotten a harsher reaction. A darker green might have been too close to Maleficent for Mal's liking.

At least a lighter green would look closer to one of Lady Persephone's colors than Maleficent's. Evie, though, tried her hardest to keep Mal's wardrobe looking more neutral than anything else. She remembered the articles from The Gazelle and she didn't want Mal to have to go through that.

"Evie?" Daniel prompted.

"Oh!" Evie said and gave her head a little shake. "Got lost in thought."

Daniel smiled. "I know being here with your dad isn't the most exciting but I'm happy to be here with you Evie. Just knowing you're safe is more than I could ask as a father but getting to see you..."

"There's no place I'd rather be," Evie told him, smiling as she took in his words.

"Now I know that's a lie," Daniel chuckled. "Surely you'd rather be with your friends or your boyfriend than with your old man?"

Evie sighed softly and bit her lip. "I...I don't have that many friends. I use to but after coronation, the only friends I have are Mal, King Ben, Doug, Jay, Carlos, Lonnie, Ally and Jordan."

Maybe Gil but he tends to follow Uma and Harry's direction and everyone knows Uma hates the ground I walk on.

"Well, light beam, if they stopped being your friend after what happened at King Ben's coronation, then they wren't really your friends," Daniel said gently.

"But it was my fault," Evie said softly. "I'm the one who snatched the wand and I'm the one who caused Maleficent to escape the Isle. If it hadn't been for Mal and her own dragon transformation, I would have been responsible for Maleficent taking over Auradon and bringing down the barrier."