38. Mira

38

MIRA

"This dress was made for you, Mimi. You need it." Taylor drapes the tenth dress in as many minutes over my arm and rushes off to the next rack.

I'm starting to buckle under the weight of all this fabric. And the growing price tag. I have a couple paychecks from Zane in the bank now, but not enough to go on a shopping spree in a place that serves champagne in the dressing rooms.

"According to you, every dress in this store is made for me."

"Because you are the sample size." She looks over her shoulder at me with thinly veiled disgust. "Everything fits you perfectly. I would sell my soul to have legs as long as yours."

"I'm going to have to sell mine if I'm going to afford this." I deposit a few dresses to a rack as I follow behind my best friend. "I already have dresses."

"Summer dresses. Cute, daytime dresses. Nothing you can wear on a date."

"Well, maybe it's a good thing I couldn't make it last night, then. Would've been nice to know I had nothing to wear before I agreed to go."

"Blaine is so into you that he would've liked whatever outfit you chose." She whips around, a slinky velvet dress held aloft. "But this? This he will love."

Taylor adds the dress to the pile. I don't even bother to argue.

I also don't mention that I never actually chose an outfit to wear on the date. Even as the hours ticked down and I knew I needed to start getting ready, I couldn't force myself to go through the motions.

I didn't want to curl my hair and do my makeup for Blaine . What I wanted was to stay at the condo and celebrate for Zane . Watching him score the winning goal and be paraded around the ice was more exciting than anything the double not-a-date was going to offer.

I actually had half a mind to cancel—until Zane ignored my texts and stayed out all night. Even then, my anger was less about missing the night with Blaine and more about the principle of the matter.

"I don't know if Blaine is ever going to see me in any of these," I admit. "I don't think I'm going to reschedule."

Taylor slams to a stop and whips around. "You don't have to reschedule; I already did."

"What?!"

"Well, he was sitting there at the table with me and Daniel for an hour before you finally called and said you couldn't make it. It was awkward."

"Okay, but you could have filled the awkward silence by asking if he had any pets or what his favorite food is. You didn't need to set up Failed Double Date: Round Two. "

"You'd disagree if you'd seen the poor guy's face," Taylor retorts. "He definitely thought you stood him up. Even Daniel kept texting me under the table, asking if you and Zane were too busy banging to come to the phone. I was trying to preserve the poor guy's dignity."

"By selling mine?" I snap. "I can plan my own dates."

She arches a brow. "Oh? Show me the dates you've planned, Mira. Point me in the general direction of your dating life, I beg you."

"You know what I mean." I try to shuffle the dresses to my other arm, but they all slip and slide around. Finally, I drop them to the floor and shake some blood back into my tingling hands. "I'm not in a good place to date. My head is a mess. It wouldn't be fair to Blaine."

Taylor snatches one of my hands out of the air and holds it with both of hers. "Honey, pardon my language, but fuck Blaine and what is fair to him. He has slept with three-quarters of the female population of our gym. I don't think he's looking for a love match with you."

I wrinkle my nose. "Are you saying you set me up with him while knowing it would probably lead to nothing?"

"No, I set you up with him hoping you would get railed by a man whose abs have abs. I figured it would be good for you."

I yank my hand away from her. "Ew!"

"Don't act like you're not interested!" she cries out. "You've been living in that condo with Zane for weeks and you're miserable. Whatever is going on inside those walls, it is not good for you."

I want to argue, but Taylor is, against all odds, making solid, logical, irrefutable points.

I press my fingers into my eye sockets. "Zane is just… He's so frustrating. He's a good father. He tries so hard to do what's right by Aiden, but he's also… He's…"

"Smoking hot and refusing to play Hide the Pickle with your vagina?" Taylor finishes, her voice dripping with genuine sympathy.

I grimace. "Not exactly how I would have phrased it, but yeah, something like that."

Taylor scoops my pile of dresses off of the floor and returns them to my arms. "Well, newsflash, Mimi: you are also smoking hot and you can do way better than Zane Whitaker."

"He's a super famous hockey player with a trillion dollars and a jawline Michelangelo would be jealous of."

"And?"

"And he drives a Ferrari and has an assistant who delivers his suits and?—"

"And you are Mira fucking McNeil." She grabs me by the shoulders and steers me towards the dressing room. "You're going to buy these dresses, strut your stuff, and make Zane Whitaker rue the day he let this absolute smokeshow go unfucked."

I shake my head, biting back a smile. "You're like a poet, Tay."

She grins. "Tell me something I don't know."