Shutout

Fashion Shows

"Excuse me girls, I'd prefer if you actually bought something and didn't go around scaring the other customers with your," The sales lady purses her lips, looking at Briar paused mid strut, "less than appealing cat walking."

Ramona quietly nods, her well practiced poker face showing the utmost respect for the woman and her establishment. Briar, on the other hand, has to bite her bottom lip and stare at the ground to stop herself from dying laughing. She can only hold it for so long, only waiting for the sales lady to retreat back to the cashier to attend to a sour faced middle aged woman waiting to purchase her cheetah print blouse before laughing so hard she has to hold on to Ramona's shoulder to stay up right.

Taking their handful of good finds and, much to the sales lady's dismay, other articles of clothing they were trying on for less than serious matters Briar and Ramona pushed past the tinsel curtain enclosing the fitting rooms. There's a few flower printed sofas and other assorted seating on top of the brightly colored carpeting in front of the several fitting rooms. Splitting their haul in half, the two part ways into two adjacent closet sized rooms.

The next half hour is filled with more strutting and hairflips from Briar. Ramona shakes her head but can't overcome the primal instinct to pretend she's a Victoria's Secret model on the runway. Briar whistles when Ramona slowly brings her hands up the outline of the sides of her torso, doing a little shimmy in front of the mirror in a little red dress.

"You're gonna love this," Briar chirps before disappearing behind the white door of her changing room. When she emerges again she's wearing a pair of Minnie Mouse printed leggings topped with a white and yellow tie dye skirt and an aggressively ruffled shirt.

"Wow Bri," Ramona says, making a show of raking her eyes down Briar's body and suggestively running her tongue over her upper lip.

"It gets better!" Briar pulls a pink boa around her neck, her sharp movements causing several feathers to fly. When Ramona lets out an amazed gasp, Briar holds up one finger to signal her to hold her comment. From behind her back Briar brings out a pair of atrociously wonderful 70's era sunglasses and pushes them over the bridge of her nose.

A tongue click brings the girl's attention over to the same sales lady, arms crossed over her chest, standing at the entry of the fitting room area. She looks around, disgusted and lets out a heavy sigh before walking out.

Ramona and Briar secure the goods, approaching the cash register with as much grace as possible. Ramona can see Briar's jaw physically drop when their total racks all the way up to 400 dollars.

"Jesus fucking Christ I better have everyone crawling at my feet on Saturday," Briar comments.

Standing outside waiting for Lucas to pick them up (in exchange for his constant chauffeuring Ramona does at least half of his homework in any given week), Ramona shivers. "Hey, do you think these outfits are gonna make us freeze our tits off before we can even get in the front door of the party?"

Briar laughs, lightly slapping Ramona's shoulder, "Yes, very much so." Her words are light with a soft giggle making it through her tone, but her smile flips to a slightly pained grimace. "Beauty is pain, Romie."

"Do you hear that?" Ramona says, a soft ringing flowing through the air. She hastedly grabbed at the pockets of her coat until pulling out her phone, the ringing immediately amplifying.

*Incoming call - BE*

"Is that Lucas? It's actually really fucking cold out here" Briar whines while rising to her tip toes to look over Ramona's shoulder at the caller ID. Ramona shoves her away before slowly swiping her finger over the screen to accept the call.

"Hello?"

"Mona! Guess what!" Beau's loud voice comes muffled through the phone and Ramona can only guess how loud he must be talking by the way he cuts in and out, breaking the sound barrier.

"What?"

"No, guess." He says. Ramona looks around, trying to find something amusing to reply with but before she can think of a full thought her mental timer with an acceptable amount of time to take to reply alarms.

So her response comes out as a loud blurt, "No." Ramona winces slightly at the way her answer passes by her lips with an overwhelming amount of severity. She can't overthink it too much because, interrupting her thoughts, is a hearty chuckle from Beau's end of the phone.

"You know you are really funny, you know that? No matter what people say." Ramona doesn't know how to reply to that. She knows that most things said about her are probably unsavory but normally it doesn't bother her. Ramona agrees with most rumors about her that she hears, even if they aren't true most of them keep people dissuaded from picking up a conversation with her. A much approved social interaction (which is no interaction, to clarify).

"Ok well, drum roll please," Beau is met with silence, as he had expected. He continues with the same enthusiasm, "I got a B plus on the chem test." Ramona doesn't know what she thought he was calling to say, but it wasn't that. She didn't think he would just call her, he didn't have to. He could've texted, or just waited until he saw her at school. Surprisingly Ramona didn't even care. She even let a grin escape her at Beau's words.

"Oh really?" Ramona hums. "That's great, Beau." Ramona comments, her small smile ever so slightly comprehensible in her annunciation.

"Are you smiling? Please tell me you're smiling. Oh I should've waited until I saw you to say it." Beau's rambling questions bring Ramona's hand to rub the back of her neck. Her smile hasn't yet left her face.

"I'm frowning." Ramona jokes, with her habitual dead pan delivery.

"Are you now? Well I guess we'll just have to study more, until I get an A plus that'll make your jaw drop."

"Uh huh."

"Okay well, I gotta go. I'll text you!" Ramona's phone continues to be held against her cheek even after the call ends. She keeps staring ahead, thinking over what she said, and what he said. She doesn't know what to think. Were they friends? No. Acquaintances? Strictly tutor and student? But if they had some strictly professional relationship he wouldn't drive her to movies or take her to a party. Right? But the movies were stringently situational. Beau only drove her there because he could tell she was upset. Right? But then what about the movie? Ramona remembers he just wanted to pay her back for the tutoring sessions, to help her have a little fun. She was doing it for free after all. And by now Ashley seemed to be doing fine, posting her new 'nose job' all over her Instagram story. So really her punishment could be over by now. But Ramona never asked for payment, or for Beau to 'help her have fun'.

Ramona is brought out of her trance by Briar snapping her fingers in front of her face, "Hellooooooo? Earth to Ramona?" Ramona begrudgingly turns her head to Briar. "Lucas has been here for like two minutes and you've been all lalaland since the end of that call. Who was that anyway?" Briar narrows her eyes for a second, her eye line dropping down below Ramona's eyes. "And are you blushing?"

ok hello everyone!! i know its been a minute, i'm sorry. hope ur all still with me!!! i promise the next chapter will be out sooner. idk if you guys will like this chapter bc there's not a lot of beau but i love briar sooooooo wth. also if you guys wanna ask some silly little questions i think i might do a little qna at some point (about the characters or me or whatever else you might wanna know!), don't worry i'll still be writing actual plot too. but omg thank u am for 500 followers on here and 2000 on tiktok!! check in a little bc i will def be posting some silly little tiktok later. again pls be nice i don't really proof read so ykykyk. but just to explain why this took so long, a) writer's block b) i'm low key sick + bad air quality the last few days has made me feel terrible c) started my summer job anyways bye!!!! love u all hope u enjoy