Love In Destin ✎

44 - make you mine

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━~

𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒂

~━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

IT'S THE DAY of the summer ball. It's a Friday, and school closed early so we could prep. Two weeks in advance, we were told that our rival school, Whale Coast High, would be hosting this year's summer ball. The announcement received a lot of groans and whines from a few people, but everyone got over it eventually.

For the past two weeks the girls and I have been visiting thrift store after thrift store in search of some really good dresses. At first, the whole thing was exciting, but then it became more of a chore as some of the girls found dresses and others didn't. Thank the heavens the rest of us were able to get our hands on some before today.

Two days ago, Aunt Abby sent my dress in for dry cleaning, so she's going to head out to get it for me. When Lana honks the car to signal her arrival, I lock the house and head for the car.

She expresses her excitement to me about having the guy she's been talking to, Caleb, be her date to the ball while we drive to Dawn's place. When we get there, her mom has snacks ready for us.

As soon as the other girls arrive, we start painting each other's toenails and helping one another put on press—ons except for Miche, who isn't all about it. We're playing songs from Mamma Mia again while chit-chatting over the music.

At some point, Lana and I have to leave to get ready for the ball. The rest of the girls stay as they've brought their outfits and shoes to Dawn's place. Plus, her mother happens to be an expert at doing makeup, so they're all set.

Lana drops me off at home where I start baking chocolate chip cookies while waiting for Aunt Abby to come home. When the cookies are in the oven, I go outside to water the rose bushes since Aunt Abby didn't have time to do it this morning.

I'm humming to a song when the meow catches my attention, and before I can turn around, soft fur touches my ankles. Looking down, a black cat purs and rubs itself against me. "Grumpy, is that you?"

Just when I'm picking up Grumpy, Aunt Abby's scooter rolls into the driveway. She takes off her helmet, shaking her bright red hair, and says, "There's no way you're watering the roses when you've only got an hour left to get ready,"

She grabs the garment bag with my dress and walks toward me, "Is that Grumpy?"

"Yeah," I reply, rubbing behind his ears.

"Come on, princess, let's get you ready before you miss your ball,"

I feed Grumpy some food while Aunt Abby takes the cookies out of the oven, muttering, "ridiculous" playfully under her breath.

She makes one of her favorite masks, the green one, as it's supposed to brighten my skin. After applying the mask, she gets me seated in front of her vanity with Grumpy snuggling in my lap, and she puts rollers in my hair. 

After she's finished with the rollers, she's laying my dress on the bed when I get a text from Rick. 

Please tell me you'll be ready when I pick you up. You girls always say one thing but do the opposite.

The text makes me giggle, and I tell Aunt Abby as I text him back, "He's asking me not to be the typical girl and actually be ready on time,"

"You're lucky I'm here to push you because he for sure would've been waiting with you practically taking your sweet time earlier,"