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chapter ten: little red dress
a/n:
this is very lighthearted! don't get used to it.
tw(s) — one joke about suicidal gestures, smoking, faint homoeroticism, cole is a human being in this fic, suggestive content ;)
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"So, we're just not going to talk about it?" Rachel breaks the silence, squinting as a too cold for mid autumn breeze blows past them.
The four of them—— Rachel, Laney, Alexa, and Gwen—— have been standing outside one of the entrances to the Mall of America for half an hour. With homecoming (and, more importantly to the upperclassmen, the after-parties) just over the horizon, they clambered into Rachel's little sedan after a grueling cheer practice and set out to buy dresses that fit for both. Gwen, for reasons that none of the three of them could discern, insisted that they didn't go inside just yet, leaving them stranded out here in the cold and quiet for a long thirty minutes now.
And Rachel, who can barely handle being quiet through exams, just couldn't handle it anymore.
Dancing from one foot to the other, Gwen hands the cigarette back to Rachel, "Talk about what?"
The smoke burns in her throat and her chest like bad whiskey but it warms her from the inside.
(Besides, the familiar stench of Marlboro lites has become nothing more than a comfort to her in the past few years.)
"The flowers." Rachel says matter of factly. Her teeth chatter against one another uncomfortably until she puts the smoke between her lips. "Some secret admirer left you flowers and you didn't call them, and we're just, like, not talking about it?"
Gwen elects not to answer.
"That's what you want to talk about?" Laney asks as she rubs her arms through her sleeves. She has tucked herself into Alexa's side and is pouting at the two of them.
"What else is there to talk about?"
"I don't know," Alexa's comment is more of a sigh than anything real, "maybe you could start with why we're waiting here in the first place?"
"I'm waiting for someone. They'll be here any minute."
"You've been saying that for fifteen——"
"Why won't you talk about it, though? That's what I don't get."
"Gwen doesn't talk about her love life." Laney interjects again, sounding miserable, not unlike one of the puppies from 101 Dalmatians.
"Okay, now you're making me out to be a snob." Gwen scoffs, hugging herself tightly. "I supply plenty of gossip when it's worth it."
"How is this not worth it, though? Flowers are, like, the peak of romance!"
"Oh, my god," Alexa groans. "Gwen isn't talking because she didn't call the number because she's scared that the guy who left them is Brody slash the guy she slept with after the end of summer party slash the captain of the Golden Garden Wolverines slash Rick's nemesis slash my wrists if I have to hear this again."
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.
Cole, looking thoroughly exhausted by Rachel, looks up at Gwen as she walks back into the dressing room area. The other two girls are still too busy staring at Rachel's two dresses like they are scholars studying a piece of art to notice her.
"So, what do you think?" Gwen's question just seems to dismay Cole further. He glances at the dress as she lifts it over her head. "Is red my color?"
"... I'd be stupid to say if I knew or not."
She nods as if to say she understands and brings her arm down.
"You should try it on, Gwen," Laney says gently, eyebrows scrunched as she studies the intricate details of the bodices of both of Rachel's dresses, "we'll be with you in a second."
Alexa bobs her head along with the girl's words. She is evidently not putting as much energy into the task as the redhead.
"Okay." Gwen grins, voice thick with amusement, and ducks into the closest dressing stall.
This newest dress is made of loosely bunched red satin, just long enough that it won't break every dress code but still be sexy. It has a sweetheart neckline and no back, just two very long laces that loop through holes all the way down. She'll need help with that later, she thinks, but for now, holding the pieces in place, she thinks she might just buy this.
She pokes her head through the curtain. "Hey, can one of you come in and help me lace this thing up?"
"Yeah, sure," Laney says immediately, "if I keep looking at these dresses, I'll puke."
Gwen smiles thankfully, and then at the two girls and Cole, before disappearing back into the stall. Laney comes in a moment later.
"Oh, wow, Gwen."
"Gee, I hope everyone else reacts that way."
She holds her arms up as the redhead tackles the laces.
The occasional brush of Laney's fingertips on the skin of her back makes her shiver.
"Y'know, your butt looks good in this."
Gwen breathes a laugh. "Thanks."
"So," Laney asks, then, as she ties the laces into a pretty bow, "Brody Cargill?"
Gwen sighs but, before the bitter retort could get past her teeth, Laney continues.
"That's not a thing, is it?"
"No." She shakes her head. "It never is. I don't, like, date."
"Why not?"
That makes Gwen pause. Then, after a moment, she shrugs, adjusting the neckline of the dress. "I don't know. I can't help it, I guess. Dating is too... real. Comes with too many expectations."
Laney nods.
After a beat of silence, the redhead wraps her arms around Gwen.
"I wish you saw yourself the way the rest of the world sees you."
The contact and the topic of conversation both make Gwen writhe in her skin but she doesn't do anything to shake Laney's arms from around her. She just stands there and lets her shorter friend hug her until Laney feels she's provided enough comfort.
"I think I'm going to get this dress." She sniffs, breaking the silence.
"I really think you should."
As soon as Gwen pays for her stuff, she's able to help Rachel make her final decision and get all of them out before Cole has a nervous breakdown.
Standing just outside the store, most of their stuff in Cole's arms, they make the decision to go do a thing that he wants to do before they get shoes. He says he wants to get food—— he hasn't eaten anything since their lunch period, and they just put him through an extra hour of work after his hockey practice—— and Alexa agrees, feeling a bit hungry herself. Before they can get more than a couple feet from the store, though, they bump into some familiar faces.
"Knew we'd find you here." Rick's voice somehow carries over the murmur of the crowd. Smoothly, in one fluid motion as he passes by, he takes the hanger from Gwen and holds the dress bag so it's resting against his back.
"Hey——"
"We're going to take this one off your hands, if you don't mind." Scott wears a lazy grin as he throws his arm over her shoulders.
The three girls wear matching looks of disbelief but Cole doesn't appear to be upset about the loss of one girl.
"We're kind of busy here, Scott——"
"Yeah, well," Rick hums, almost condescending, "you should've thought about that before you double booked us and told us to meet you at yours to study."
"Oh."
(The fact that she had forgotten something also happened to slip her mind.)
"Oh is right. Can't be in two places, baby, no matter how hard you try." Scott boops her nose with his opposite hand.
She narrows her eyes up at him.
Alexa glances between the three a few times and starts to say something, but Laney beats her to it.
"You guys really should go study. We can handle it from here."
Alexa turns to her, confused. Laney and Rachel exchange a glance around the middle girl, and then Rachel is turning to them, too.
"Mhm. You're a size nine, right, Gwen? I'll get you the perfect pair of heels to go with your dress."
Gwen opens her mouth and then closes it.
It feels wrong to ditch them in the middle of this. They're friends, after all, and they're meant to be doing this together—— not to mention that she did all the planning for this barely planned outing, anyway. She doesn't want to be one of those girls who always ditches her friends for a boy (even though it's totally not like that with Rick and Scott.)
But, on the other hand, she did promise to study with the boys, first.
She did also get them in trouble with Orion for something that she (mostly) orchestrated.
And she does trust Rachel...
"Could you? I'll pay you back."
Alexa, perturbed, tries to speak up again, only to make a strange sound as Laney pinches her arm.
"No sweat, babe." Rachel winks. "Go get nerdy."
Gwen blows her girls kisses, and waves at Cole, before allowing Scott and Rick to escort her out of the mall.
"What the hell was that about?" Alexa says as soon as they're out of earshot, rubbing the spot on her arm that got pinched.
"We're testing a theory," Laney replies and then smiles apologetically, also rubbing that spot.
"What theory?"
"A theory about them."
"A theory about them? Seriously?" Alexa echoes. "I am very sure they've explored each other's bodies—— and if they haven't, they will. "
Cole is, surprisingly, the first person to agree.
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Dressed in her pajamas, Gwen sits and stares blankly up the length of her bed at the boys. Their various calculus papers and books have been laid out across the expanse of her sheets, and, while Scott does have some stuff written down, she's the only one with a full page filled out.
They've been at this for over an hour now and, with the speed they're going, they'll be studying all night.
"It's really not that hard."
Rick, lying across her bed, looks up from his textbook to give her a look. Scott just grunts and lets his attention remain elsewhere.
Studying with Rick and Scott could be considered an Olympic sport in of itself. Rick, who has never been the biggest academic and avoids thinking about his future better than people avoid getting strep throat, usually checks out thirty minutes into it, only getting his work done when bribed and riding the coattails of his best friends for most of high school. Scott, on the other hand, is so much of an academic that it makes Gwen look laid back. He insists upon being perfect at every single thing, even things that he's just learned, and gets frustrated when he doesn't pick things up immediately. And when he gets frustrated, he gets mean.
"Shut up," Scott mumbles, rubbing his eyes with the heels of her palms, "just shut up."
"Don't tell me to shut up, Scott."
"Yeah, Scott, stop being a dick."
Gwen lurches forward to grab Scott's wrist and keep him from throwing his pencil at Rick.
"I think we need to take a break."
She stepped out to order pizza half an hour ago. It should be coming any minute now.
"I don't need to take a break. I need to find this answer."
She sighs shortly. The last time she tried to explain the work to him, he snapped at her.
"How about this," Gwen speaks slowly, but not slowly enough to let him get a word in, "you try the problem my way and, if you get it right, I'll reward you."
Rick, who was fiddling with his pen and not even looking at his book anymore, looked at her.
"Reward?"
"Yeah."
"Like I'm a dog?" Scott asks, eyebrows pinched together to the middle of his forehead.
"How?" Rick ignores Scott.
"I don't know... I'll, like, flash you guys or something."
It's a joke, but they obviously don't take it that way.
With Rick's interest piqued and Scott having a new drive to work, they both present her with a piece of paper a few minutes later. Gwen takes them and reads over them.
Then, and she's not sure if it's a good or a bad thing, the doorbell rings.
"Oh, would you look at that? I have to leave the room." Gwen teases. "What a shame."
She swings her leg over the side of the bed to the sound of their grumbling and they get back to work as she walks over to her bedroom door.
Scott looks up again when she hesitates in the doorway, though, and Rick follows his gaze.
"Shouldn't you go get that? What if it's the pizza?"
"I'm going..." Gwen hums. "Just wanted to do something first."
Scott doesn't get the opportunity to ask her what she meant, though, because she lifted the hem of her shirt to her shoulders before he could get a word out. Then, as quickly as it happened, she was gone, the door shut behind her.
In her absence, Rick rolls over onto his back and rubs his hands down his face.
Scott stares with wide eyes, watching her little red dress sway on its hanger, at the place she occupied only moments before.
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a/n:
word count — 2720
how i pictured scott in that last scene —
cole and gwen's... friendship(?)... is so weirdly wholesome. I hate it.
LANEY DESERVES EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD CAUSE THAT SCENE BROUGHT TEARS TO MY EYES!!!
god, the next few chapters give me heartburn. gotta take tums like the old ass lady I am and get to writing.