Chapter Sixty-Five:
Lexi's POV
"This is barely even a dress, Kennedy. It's lingerie. Or maybe it could be considered a shirt. But I think even that would be a stretch," I say, examining the white 'dress' that Kennedy's holding.
Knox and Nathan are sitting on the velvet bench in the changing area as I try on all the dresses that Kennedy has pulled off the store racks for me to try on. They seem to agree with my opinion as they're both grimacing slightly as we all look at that terrible white dress.
Kennedy glares at me from where she's standing, just outside the changing room. "Not true! You're short, so it would probably be long enough on you."
"Probably," Knox mutters, narrowing his eyes at the offending garment.
Exasperated, Kennedy flings the white dress at me anyway. I catch it and hang it up alongside the other several atrocious dresses she has already made me try on that were a definite 'no.'
"I'm going to go find one more dress, and if you don't like it, then I give up," Kennedy announces, turning on her heel and heading back into the main area of the store.
As soon as she's out of earshot, Knox buries his face into his hands and mumbles, "Bloody hell."
Nathan chuckles at this. "My God, you're British."
Knox's eyebrows raise. "No shit, Nate."
Nathan laughs again, and Knox shoots him a final glare before standing up from the couch and taking the few steps between us towards me. He then reaches out both of his hands and rests them on my hips, pulling me a little closer towards him.
I don't feel any butterflies when he's touching me like this. The feeling is nothing like the swarm of butterflies I always felt in my stomach whenever Bryce touched me.
"I quite like this dress, actually," Knox tells me, his eyes roaming my body not so subtly.
I'm still wearing a red, satin dress, the dress that Kennedy had chosen before the white lingerie-shirt-dress, and at Knox's words, I glance down at the dress again myself.
"I don't want to wear red. Red is Bryce's favourite colour, and I used to always wear red whenever we went out together, for him. My prom dress was also red. And so was the dress I wore to the school dance the night Bryce and I made things official between us," I explain to Knox, smoothing down the front of the dress despite the fact that the material is still laying totally flat.
Knox's eyebrows furrow. "You shouldn't let that bastard turn you away from wearing an entire colour."
I sigh at this, shrugging, because I know that he's right. "I know, I know. I just don't want to be thinking about Bryce tonight. This night is about me, not him."
Knox cocks his head to the side. "I suppose that that's fair. You shouldn't have to be thinking about him all day, every day."
Just as he says this, Kennedy skips back into the changing area with a new dress in her hands.
It's quite different from all of the other dresses that she's pulled for me to try on, and I instantly love it.
The dress is velvet and it has a sweetheart neckline that I really like, as it's much more conservative then all the other dresses I've tried on but still will show a little cleavage. The straps are basic and thin, but that doesn't even matter as when Kennedy turns around the dress for me to see the back, I can see that it's almost completely backless, the thin straps crisscrossing once.
But my favourite part of it has definitely got to be the colour.
It's a deep, rich shade of emerald green.
Green, the opposite colour of red.
"This is perfect, Kennedy. I like this one the most already. And it's the perfect colour, too," I tell her with a grin, taking the dress from her hands.
She claps her hands together in excitement. "Finally! It's going to look perfect on you. The colour will bring out the little bit of green in your eyes."
I beam at her before disappearing back into the changing room, letting the door click shut after me.
I hurry to strip out of the red dress that I'm wearing, letting it fall to the floor at my feet without really thinking about it. I then pull the green dress off of its hanger before lifting it up over my head and sliding it down onto my body.
I slip my arms through the thin straps of the dress, adjusting them slightly so that they sit on my shoulders properly. I then smooth down the rest of the dress, finding that it falls to just above my knees.
Finally, I turn to face myself in the mirror.
I have to blink a few times until I'm able to comprehend what exactly I'm seeing in my reflection.
It's me, but at the same time, it isn't me.
It's a girl with the same face, the same hair, and the same body as me, but she has a gleam in her eye that's so not Lexi that I'm momentarily stunned.
Because the girl staring back at me in the mirror just looks so happy.
I don't really blame her, because she looks fantastic.
Well, I look fantastic.
The green dress is tight to my body, and it hugs my figure in the most flattering way. I was right to assume that the neckline would be perfect, and when I pull my hair over one shoulder and turn around so that I can see the back of the dress, I have to blink again.
Because to my surprise, I look sexy.
And sure enough, the colour makes the green in my hazel eyes pop.
Now very very very excited for tonight, I open the changing room door and step out of the room so that my friends can see my dress.
Three pairs of eyes simply stare at me for a moment, silently.
Then, Kennedy turns to her right and asks, "Do you have a boner yet, Knox?"
Knox's gaze remains entirely focused on me, and so for a moment, I think that he's just going to ignore Kennedy's question.
Until, to my surprise, he says, "Not quite, but it's getting there."
Kennedy laughs at this, leaning her head against Knox's shoulder. "Poor thing. We understand, though. We know that you haven't gotten laid in awhile."
Knox pinches her in the arm before turning back to me to ask, "Can we see the back, little one?"
I beam at him and spin around slowly so that they're all granted a view of my back, as all of my hair is still pulled over one shoulder.
"I can't wear a regular bra with it because of the back, and so I guess I'll just go braless tonight," I say, turning all the way so that I'm facing my friends once again.
Kennedy raises an eyebrow at this. "The Lexi I knew two months ago would never dare to go out in public without a bra on!"
I giggle at her teasing, pushing my hair back over my shoulder so that it can fall freely down my back once more. "I'm a changed woman, Kennedy. Next time you see me, my hair'll be pink and cut in a bob."
Kennedy rolls her eyes, standing up from her seat between Knox and Nathan. She takes a few steps towards and behind me, gathering my hair in her hands and lifting it up to mimic a ponytail.
"We need to put your hair up in a bun tonight. Or a braid. Something that will show your back. You really do look sexy as hell, Lexi," she says with a grin, releasing her grip on my hair.
I spin around to face her. "Thank you. I do look pretty damn hot, don't I?"
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"Are you sure that you want to wear that necklace, Lexi? There's no reason that you have to wear it. It's not like Bryce can be mad, because he won't see you," Kennedy says as she stands behind me, braiding my hair.
I had just finished helping Kennedy secure the bun atop her head with a few bobby pins, and now I'm sitting at the chair at my desk as Kennedy braids my hair for me in one long braid down my back.
"I . . . I still wear it everyday, Kennedy. Even if Bryce won't see me. It's still special to me," I tell her, reaching up to wrap my fingers around the cherry blossom pendant hanging from my neck.
Kennedy sighs. "I know it means a lot to you, Lex, but you can't wear it forever. What are you going to do when you start dating another guy? Do you think he'd want you to be wearing a necklace that was a gift from some other guy?"
I bite down on my lower lip, my eyes darting down to where my hands are folded in my lap.
"I'm wearing the earrings he gave me for Christmas too. And the ring. And the charm bracelet," I say quietly.
I feel Kennedy finish off my braid, securing the end with a hair tie. I then turn around in my seat to look at her, only to find her staring at me with one of her eyebrows raised.
"Why, Lexi? If you started dating a guy and he always wore a pair of shoes that his ex-girlfriend got him for Christmas, how would you feel?" Kennedy asks, not unkindly.
Despite how ridiculous her shoe example is, I decide to answer her question genuinely.
"I don't think I would be upset with him, because I clearly understand why he would want to do that," I say softly, then lowering my voice even more when I continue to say, "But maybe I don't want to date another guy. Maybe I enjoyed my time with Bryce and maybe that was enough for me."
Kennedy raises her eyebrows, walking around my chair so that she's standing directly in front of me before kneeling down so that our faces are level. "Do you really mean that, Lexi? You think that being in a relationship with Bryce for a year is all you want? Ever?"
I shrug at her. "That's how I feel right now. Maybe I won't always feel that way, though, because it's only been two months since we broke up. Right now, I'm just very grateful that the universe gave us a year together before our relationship went to hell."
I watch as Kennedy suddenly looks away from me to stare down at the floor, blinking rapidly.
"God, Lexi. Stop. You're going to make me cry. I've been trying so hard to be supportive of your decision to break up with him, and I know that he lied to you about something major, but . . . Fuck. You two were so happy together. You looked at him as if he were your whole world," Kennedy says before finally meeting my gaze again.
I feel my own eyes filling with tears.
"He was my whole world, but maybe that was an unhealthy way to think," I whisper.
There's suddenly three sharp knocks on our dorm room door, and so Kennedy clears her throat and straightens up from where she was kneeling on the floor in front of me.
She rests her hands on my shoulders and sighs. "Wear your necklace tonight. Wear all the jewelry he gave you, if you want. Whatever makes you happy. And even though I told you that you should try and find a guy to talk to tonight, don't bother if you aren't ready yet. Okay?"
I nod at her. "Okay."
Kennedy smiles at me again before turning around to go open the door, where Knox and Nathan are surely waiting on the other side.
I glance at my reflection in the mirror on my desk. I'm not wearing any makeup, having politely declined Kennedy's offer to do my makeup for me as that felt like a step backwards for me, and so though I don't look super glamorous, I still look pretty.
I'm already wearing the emerald green dress that I bought today, and now that my hair is secured in a braid, my back is on full display as I'm now not wearing a bra. It certainly is an outfit that I never would've left the house wearing a few months ago, but now that I'm seeing myself like this, I love the way this dress makes me feel.
I stand up from my seat, slipping my feet into the pair of heeled silver sandals that I had selected to wear with the dress. Just as I look up from zipping up my second sandal, Knox and Nathan enter the room, Kennedy shutting the door behind them.
Nathan is wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans that sort of match the midnight blue dress that Kennedy is wearing, and though I know that this wasn't intentional whatsoever, I feel my heart squeeze in my chest knowing that she still hasn't been able to figure out her feelings for him and Jules.
Meanwhile, Knox is wearing a pair of black jeans and a lavender T-shirt.
Lavender. A colour that I never would have thought I'd ever see Knox Price wearing.
As I'm ogling Knox, he's making his way across the room towards me. He pauses about a foot in front of me and grins, a wolfish, sort of predatory grin.
And yet I don't feel the butterflies in my stomach that I would be feeling if Bryce were the one looking at me this way.
"You look beautiful, Lexi. You really do. I love that dress on you," Knox says, reaching out to wrap his arms around my waist.
I shuffle a little bit closer to him. "Thank you. You look very handsome. I never took you for the kind of guy who wears purple, though."
Knox chuckles. "I thought it would match your dress. Did I do an all right job at that, little one?"
I look down at our bodies, now only a few inches apart, the emerald green velvet of my dress against the lavender material of Knox's T-shirt.
I then look back up at Knox. When our eyes meet, I grin at him like a maniac.
"I think we match quite well, actually," I say.
Knox chuckles. His fingertips brush against the exposed skin of my back, and to my surprise, I don't feel a shiver run down my spine.
This worries me a little bit, because it's the second time in the span of a couple minutes where I've been able to recognise that Bryce Bradshaw made me feel things that no other man ever could.
A/N: Thank you guys so much for 100k reads on this book! I'm honestly so overwhelmed because Something There hit 500k reads yesterday. This is so surreal to me, guys. I really want to thank you all from the very bottom of my heart for supporting my work.
I'm going to have to start doing a little bit of online schoolwork starting on Wednesday and so I'm not sure how much longer these daily updates are going to last, but I'll try to post every second day at the minimum. I find myself wanting to be writing every second of the day right now, which is very exiting as I haven't felt this creatively motivated in a very long time.