A new box to fit in.

Chapter 13

As soon as we'd sat down to get our nails done after choosing our nail colours Angela turned to me with a giant smile on her face. "So how was your date last night? Huh, huh" She said wiggling her eyebrows. It made me laugh, and sort of jealous. I wish I could do that.

The night before Joe and I had gone to a fancy restaurant, and it was nice to go out on a date with him without being interrupted by Malcolm. "It was pretty awesome actually." Not elaborating got Angela into a tizzy.

"Oh come on, don't hold back now!" She said desperately waiting for more details, I laughed at her excitement. "Please, I'm dying here. We don't do anything anymore and I need to live vicariously through you." She pleaded.

"Okay, fine. Joe picked me up and took me to this cozy thai restaurant downtown. He was sweet and romantic looking handsome in a dress shirt and pants. He looked........ wow." He made me speechless just thinking about him. That had never happened to me before.

I shook my head trying to clear my mind so that I could finish my story

"We sat at a round tabled booth, squished together. I'd never eaten much thai before so we ordered a few different dishes trying as many as we could." I smiled, remembering as Joe had encouraged me to order as many as I'd like and try them all. I'd only laughed and he only encouraged me more. Calling the waitress over he'd ordered the few dishes that I'd talked about, along with a bottle of wine. As I talked it all slowly gushed out.

By the time that we were done with our nails I'd finally finished gushing and had talked myself dry. "It sounds like you had a great time. When are you seeing him again?" She asked as we headed towards the front door.

"I did have a great time, I'll probably go for a work out tomorrow and I'll see him then."

We headed out to Angela's silver Ford Explorer and made our way towards the Halloween stores to hunt down our costumes. Joe and Malcolm's club was having a huge roger Halloween night, and they've added us to the guest list.

I was excited about this party and I knew exactly what I was going to be, Mary Queen of Scots from the T.V. show Reign.

I'd done some research and figured out exactly what I was going to wear. An off white bustier with black high waisted shorts underneath a black mesh top with a waterfall train covered in blood red flowers embroidered all over, with a pair of killer heels. All I had to do was find it all.

We headed towards the costume shop, Angie's costume was going to be the easiest to find but we were going to have to search a little harder to find mine. We found Angela's in the second shop that we checked out before we went in search of mine. "I can't believe how many different kinds there are for one character, and how cheap of fabric they use to make half of them. I mean I get that I'm probably only going to wear it once but I don't want it to rip halfway through the night because of shitty ass fabric that they used. I mean really." Angela ranted as we walked around the mall.

I agreed with her as went on. It was true, they did use some shitty fabric, but you had to shell out the big bucks to get the good costumes. "Oh! Look at those tops, one of those would be perfect for your costume!" Angie squealed veering towards a small boutique. "Oh it's the perfect colour." I said as I headed straight for the rack of tops.

They were bustier style tube crop tops in about 10 different colours. I grabbed the white, off white, beige and black not too sure which colour I wanted to go with.

"Oh my gosh! I've hit the motherload, over here!" Angie called from the back of the store. "Hurry!" She whined when I didn't sprint over. "What? What did you find?" I asked walking up behind her. "Look at these shorts, they are perfect and they also have that over coat top thingy that you wanted on a mannequin over there." She said pointing it out, and she was right they were perfect.

"Well I'll be damned. We are on a roll today." I said as I grabbed a pair of shorts in my size and hunted down the last piece that she'd pointed out.

"Wow, I couldn't really picture it all together when you were describing it to me, but now that I'm seeing it all together. It looks amazing, now I just can't wait to find the shoes. You always pick out the best shoes." Angie said as we headed out of the shop with our purchases.

We stopped for a coffee before checking out the other stores. Angela had a few other things that we needed to talk about. She had this sneaking suspicion that her boyfriend was going to propose, ie. the ring box that she'd found in one of his drawers the other week. They've been together for two years now and she's just waiting for him to take the next move.

"You know you could always be the one to make the next move. You could talk to him about moving in together, or even propose to him yourself." I said without thinking. She looked aghast. Angela is the kind of girl who's been dreaming about her wedding day since she was five and wants it all to be traditional. The big dress, wedding in a church, her father walking her down the aisle. She also really wants the picturesque proposal.

"Never! Thats sacrilege!" She said looking at me as if I just asked her to burn down her church. "I know, I know, I know. But you could always drop some hints. Leave magazines open to pages or an engagement rings and bring over wedding magazines." I said trying to rectify the situation.

"It's okay, but you do have a good idea about leaving magazines out for him to see."

I don't know how we lucked out finding most of it all in one store, but I sure as hell am glad. When Angela finally dropped me back at my place I was tired, we'd gone to two other malls in search of the perfect pair of boots for her costume. Thank god we'd found them. A pair of knee high black leather six inch boots. Surprisingly my shoes had been the easy ones to find, two stores in and I'd found them. Black platform six inch ankle boots.

After we spent hours searching for the perfect shoes we spent another couple on the accessories, hair and make up. Sephora had been our saviour on that one.

After depositing my bags in my closet I lied down on my bed with my cell phone. I hadn't had a chance to check it all day. There was a voice mail in my inbox from Joe. "Hey Miranda. I know that you're having your girls day with Angie I just wanted to make sure that you had fun and to tell you that I had a great time last night, and that I hope we can do it again soon. I'm going to be at the gym all day tomorrow. Stop by if you can and maybe we can do lunch or coffee or something. Anyways, hope you had fun and that you found your costume. I've already got mine. See you tomorrow, hopefully."

I played his message twice, I loved his voice and could listen to him talk for hours. By the time that I'd finally got my self out of bed the next day it was already noon. I grabbed my phone and sent Joe a quick text. - Hey. Sorry being a lazy ass today, how about coffee. I can pick something up on my way over?-

After hitting send I quickly changed into a pair of black and blue lululemon capris, a sports bra and a off the shoulder workout t-shirt.

Just as I was tossing my hair up and heading into the bathroom to brush my teeth my phone buzzed. Joe -Hey, Coffee sounds great. There's a coffee shop just around the corner. meet me here and we'll walk over. PS. sometimes you just need a lazy day. -

I laughed as I read the last part, it was true sometimes you really did need a lazy day. After brushing my teeth and putting on some cover up and waterproof mascara I grabbed my runners and my bag and headed out.

Joe was talking to Susan at her desk when I got there. "Hey." I said walking up. "Hi." Joe said as he put his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek. "So, how's it going Susan?" I asked out of politeness and for Joe, he knows that she doesn't like me but he's hoping that we can change that.

"We were just talking about Halloween. I'm going as Khaleesi from Game of Thrones. I've already got the costume and I'm going to totally win the costume contest!" She boasted. "I didn't know that there was going to be a contest." I said looking at Joe. "Malcolm and I just decided on it this morning." He said with a big smile.

"Come on we should get going before something happens that needs my attention. Susan I'll be on my cell if you need me." Joe called over his shoulder to his sister as he lead me outside.