wild life | l.p

Chapter Four.

When they finished making her bed. Lydia nodded towards the door, “Come on, Ninny. There’s still a waffle with your name on it.”

After less than reluctantly eating the breakfast that Lydia had prepared for her, the two girls stood on either side of the island in the large kitchen. Arianne had a mug of coffee in front of her-- her second of the morning-- and Lydia, a freshly pressed green juice. Lydia was typing away on her computer, sending off a confirmation email of some sort for Ari’s dad. Arianne was flipping mindlessly through a copy of Bite magazine, seeing whether or not her dating ritual had anything to do with her star sign.

Lydia hit send on her email, closing her laptop and peering over at Arianne. “Oh, please. When was the last time you went on a date? Let alone enough dates to have a ritual?”

“I could have a dating ritual.” Arianne counters, smirking down at the stupid article letting her know that she should consider ‘putting herself out there more!’.

“What would it be?” Lydia laughs, taking the straw of her green juice into her mouth, “Sulk, put on an ugly pair of shoes, and then text to cancel on him anyways?”

Arianne cocks her head to the side, “Him? What makes you think that I’m interested in men?”

“Your crush on Jesse McCartney as a young girl, mostly. But, swing however you want to, babe. You still haven’t been on a date since… well, the last time I went on a date.”

Arianne nods at this, satisfied with the answer because there’s no sense in being upset over it. She’s honestly right. The last date that Arianne went on was when she was in high school, and she only said yes because she knew that Zayn had a good relationship with this guy Matt, and he wanted to take her out so badly that she would feel terrible if she didn’t say yes to at least one date.

Afterwards, he had told Zayn that she was too shy and didn’t seem interested in him at all. Which, Ari said to her defense, was kind of true. But her feelings were still a little hurt that he didn’t bother calling her for a second date.

“Speaking of dates…” Lydia says, leaning even further onto the island. “What are you wearing to this dinner on Wednesday night?”

“This?” Arianne says as though this were obvious as she points down to her onesie and greasy, messy hair.

Lydia rolls her eyes, “Come on, girl. You need to dress a little nicer than a onesie and yesterday’s underwear. This Liam guy is pretty handsome.” She winks, emphasizing the syllables on her last two words.

Arianne grimaces. For one thing, this “Liam” guy had a girlfriend already. That was what got them into this whole disaster in the first place. Second, she had no idea how old he was, but he was definitely older than she was. Who was to say that he even cared what she looked like, anyways? His girlfriend dressed in Juicy track suits and slippers. She highly doubted that she needed to dress to impress.

But Lydia reminds her with a gentle nudge on her arm, “He’s still a work colleague and you know how your father can be. You need to dress for the occasion.”

“I don’t need to do anything.” Arianne clarifies, closing her magazine and tossing it onto the chair next to her.

“Tell you what.” Lydia smiles, wrapping her hands around one of Arianne’s. “I have to head to the mall right away to pick up a new wallet for your dad. His is hanging onto the wire and for some reason he doesn’t want to pick one up himself. Come with me, we’ll find you a dress to wear for dinner, then we’ll return it on Thursday, and you can keep the cash. That way, you can continue to keep to this whole minimalism trend you're on and you can make some money through this whole dreadful dinner. Deal?”