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xx Shel
Chapter 10
After a couple of days of rehearsal, we decided the dance was perfect as far as moves went. It just needed a lot of cleaning up, which was fine because we still had two weeks before it needed to be performed. Our current biggest worry was what we were going to wear.
“It should be white,” Rayna insisted, crossing her arms over her chest.
I raised my brows at her. “You seriously want to dance in white? You realize we’re rolling all over the floor and stuff, right?”
“So?”
Danielle shook her head. “We’re not doing white. What are you boys wearing?” She leaned back against Liam who was sitting behind her. His arms immediately wound around her waist.
“Tuxes, I believe,” he said, looking to his band mates for confirmation.
Niall, who was sitting next to me eating a bag of chips, nodded. “Yep.”
I reached for the bag, stealing a handful of his snack. He playfully glared at me, laughing when I stuck my tongue out at him.
“That’s not fair.” Zayn complained. “He tries to bite us if we take his food.”
“He hasn’t bitten me,” Liam stated.
Harry rolled his eyes. “That’s because you haven’t taken his crisps before.”
Niall chuckled. “Well, Kora’s cute. You guys aren’t.”
“Hey!” They all chorused together, acting like they were offended.
I stuck my tongue out at all of them while Niall continued to laugh. “Ha! I’m adorable and you boys aren’t.”
“That’s a lie,” Raleigh growled.
Dani clapped her hands. “Guys, focus! Back on topic.”
We all muttered apologies, laughing quietly. It was becoming extremely easy for me to be my old giggly self around these boys. I wasn’t sure how, but they had made me feel like it was okay to stop being so cynical about everything. Pretty much anything could make me laugh now. Danielle insisted it had to do with breaking up with Riley and I was starting to believe her a little more each day.
“It has to be sparkly,” Bailey insisted, nodding her head for emphasis.
I snickered. “Yes, sparkles are a must for any good dance costume.”
“Okay, so we know it should be sparkly.” Danielle grabbed the notebook from the middle of our circle and started scribbling down things. “We need to figure out a color.”
“Something bright,” Rayna said, tapping her chin as she thought.
“Lime green?” Raleigh suggested, giving a bright grin.
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew, no. That would look odd. We don’t want to blind anyone.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“How about less neon and more just brightly colored?” Danielle offered.
“Hot pink?” I suggested.
Everyone’s jaw dropped as they gazed at me.
A blush colored my cheeks. “What are you guys looking at?”
Niall blinked at me, his gorgeous blue eyes showing his amusement. “Did those words really just come out of Kora Benson’s mouth?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”
“No, no, he’s right. This should have been recorded.” Danielle pulled out her cell phone, acting as though she was filming. “Attention, world! Kora just suggested the costumes be hot pink!”
I scoffed, but ended up smiling. It was true; pink was definitely not a color I normally gravitated toward, but for this performance I felt it would go perfectly. Plus, what girl hasn’t wanted a sparkly hot pink costume at some point in her life?
Danielle looked at each of the girls. “Well?”
“I think that’ll be great,” Raleigh admitted.
“I still think white would be better,” Rayna mumbled.
Bailey beamed at me. “I think it’s brilliant.”
Dani nodded. “Majority rules. Sparkly and hot pink it is. I think Kora should pick the costume because she has the most free time this week.”
I narrowed my green eyes in her direction. “Thank you for making it sound like I have no social life.”
“You don’t.”
“Yes, I know that, but you didn’t have to tell everyone…”
She laughed, giving me her typical sweet smile. “Anyway, who wants to go shopping with Kor?”
Niall’s hand instantly shot into the air.
I chuckled while Danielle said, “Looks like we have a volunteer!”
Nialler jumped up, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet as he did so. “Come on, Ra-Ra! Let’s go shopping!”
“Whoa, wait! How come he gets to call you that, but I don’t?” Dani pouted, her brown eyes adding to her puppy-dog look.
I winked at her as Niall began to drag me away from the group. “Because it’s cute when he says it!”
*****
“How about this?” Niall held up a feathered number that reminded me of an exploded bird.
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re kidding me, right?”
We were at this little boutique on the outskirts of London. It was really cute and had loads of costumes and vintage apparel. It seemed like the perfect place to look for our outfits when we walked into it.
I walked away from Niall, leaving him to search through a rack of flapper style dresses while I searched the rest of the shop. Nothing was really standing out. It was all the same stuff; feathers, feathers, and more feathers. If it didn’t have feathers it had fringe and that just wasn’t going to work for our dance.
Once I finally found an outfit that wasn’t covered in feathers or fringe, it looked like something a five year old would wear. I was beginning to feel like this was a hopeless cause when Niall decided we should check this other store he saw across the street.
After we ran across the road (and almost got ran over), Nialler led the way to a legit costume shop that was filled with pretty much any costume you could imagine.
My jaw dropped when we pushed the door open. “This. Is. Freaking. Amazing!” And with that I ran over to a circular rack dedicated to only hot pink outfits.
Niall chuckled, following me around as I collected costumes in my arms.
“None of these are right!” I yelled through the dressing room door, yanking a sequined pink dress over my head.
“Let me see,” Niall said, his feet appearing at the bottom of the door.
I rolled my eyes. “I already took it off, genius. It was hideous.”
“I’m positive it wasn’t that bad.”
I pulled my cream colored butterfly-back shirt and denim shorts back on before responding as I opened the door. “It was. I looked like I had been swallowed by a sequined monster.”
He laughed, following me back out to the clothing racks.
I sighed, shoving aside more hangers as each outfit I looked at just didn’t match the picture in my head. Why couldn’t the perfect costume just jump out and scream, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’. I mean, come on. How hard could this be?
Once again, I felt as though this was hopeless. Yeah, I get discouraged easily. I was about to tell Niall we should go when he came running up to me with one arm behind his back like he was hiding something.
“What do you have?” I asked, leaning around to try to see what he held, but he jumped back and just gave me an enthusiastic grin.
“I found your perfect costume!” He held out the thing he had been hiding. It was a sparkly hot pink mini-dress type of costume.
I squealed, snatching it out of his hand. “This looks excellent! I’ll go try it on!”
After running back to the dressing room and pulling on the outfit as quick as I could, I came back out and stood in front of the mirror. Another squeal escaped my lips when I took in the costume. It was a halter top, with a V-neck and hot pink sequins that gave it the appearance that it was only made of sequins. The back came low with a strap across the middle that almost looked like a bra, but it was very cute. The front had a narrow satiny band right under the bust-line that gave a nice contrast to the shiny sequins.
Niall came up behind me, grinning in the mirror at me. “Well? How did I do?”
I squealed yet again, turning around and tackling the Irish boy in a bear hug, giving him a kiss on the cheek when he caught me. “It’s perfect!”