friends (rick riley and scott holland)(INDEFINITE HIATUS)

chapter ten

Laney hits Alexa on the chest and demands she be nice as Rachel swivels on her heel to stare at Gwen, who is too busy staring at Alexa with wide eyes to regard her.

"Seriously?"

"What?" Alexa huffs, chastised. "They were going to find out eventually."

"Brody?" Rachel asks, her mind reeling. "Like, I don't want to yuck anybody's yum but don't you, like, hate him?"

Laney wears a matching look of apprehensive inquiry.

"It was just a mistake. Okay?"

"That's a big freaking mistake——"

"Oh, hey, look! It's Cole!" Gwen jumps up at the sight of their guest of honor, relieved to put an end to the conversation.

The mention of her newest crush has Rachel's mouth snapping shut. Gwen takes what's left of their cigarette back from her and takes a quick final drag, dropping it and crushing it beneath the toe of her sneaker as the enforcer weaves through the crowd to reach them.

"What's he doing here?" Alexa asks before he's in earshot.

"Manual labor." Gwen hums. She feels Cole's presence behind her and turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Isn't that right, Cole?"

He, seemingly out of breath, gives an awkward thumbs up.

"Sorry, it took me so long. Coach got mad because Orion complained about something we did to the JV dweebs, so he threw a big fit and told us to come back for an extra hour of practice—— Man, I'm gonna get reamed for skipping it."

Eyebrows pinched together, Gwen glances up at him. Before she can ask him what he means, she gets interrupted by Alexa.

"It's whatever. You're forgiven. Can we please go inside, now?"

Cole takes half a second longer than the rest to process what she just said before he gestures for them to go before him. Feeling pleased with her decision to bring him along (and her ability to play matchmaker), Gwen, as she usually does, takes the lead, Laney and Alexa right behind her, and Rachel hanging back so she can walk with Cole.

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Phillip normally gives Gwen a budget for this kind of shopping. His philosophy, as she understands it, is that, while he gets paid more than decently and his savings are more than enough, he doesn't want her to get used to spending and depending on his money.

(Which is funny, in retrospect, because when has Gwen ever been able to depend on him?)

But, this isn't any normal time, and Phillip hasn't spoken to his daughter in days.

So, as she wandered the aisles of a store built just for dress shopping, Gwen didn't pay any mind to the price tags.

She tried on more than a few—— a purple one that turned her into a giant pompom, a handful of yellow ones that made her look washed out, and exactly one pink one that made her look like Talking Barbie, to be exact—— in the time it took Laney to choose a light blue dress and then Alexa a stunning white gown. By the time she's picked out what might be her final contestant, Rachel is even close to being done, deliberating between two black dresses, one of which she's wearing.