Emerson

Chapter 22.

Valencia's POV

Waking up in Emerson's guest room was weird. I blacked out at the foot of my stairs and woke up in the nicest bed to exist. I wonder if all their beds are like this. I would think that your guest room would have an average bed. 

Dinner at their house was awkward just like the last time. We ate in silence, with Mr. Stone asking me questions trying to get me involved. I told him the bare minimum trying to get him to stop talking to me. My head was killing me last night. 

I guess anyone would be after being bounced off the stairs. 

I got dressed in the same clothes as yesterday since the brothers didn't grab any of my stuff yesterday. Mr. Stone's daughter-in-law should be here soon to get me to go shopping. 

I walk out of the room and go downstairs sitting in the living room in silence waiting. The front door opens and a pretty redhead walks in. 

"Hi, you be Valencia. Reece was right you are pretty." She says very animated. 

"Hi." I keep my greeting simple not knowing what else to do. 

"Hi, I'm Veronica. You haven't met my husband yet, but he's Reece's oldest son. Are you ready to go?" I nod and stand up. She continues to tell me a few fun facts about the family as we head to her car. 

"I was thinking we could go to the mall and then see from there where we are at." She peeks a glance at me, before going back to the road. 

"Sure, anything works for me," I tell her. Wherever she wants to take me is fine. Reece had a long discussion last night with me about the rules everyone follows in the house. He also informed me how he was giving Veroinca a credit card to get me everything I needed.

"Well, I don't know about you but I love shopping. Especially with Reece's money." She laughs at her joke. "What kinda clothes do you like?" She asks me. 

"Mainly hoodies and jeans. Didn't have a lot." I look out the window not wanting to see her pity. I took a look at her clothes when she picked me up. Her red-bottomed heels, her form-fitting jeans, and shirt, and her luxury purse. Everything about her from her styled hair to her fresh manicure screams I have money. 

If her husband is even half as successful as Reece the money is sickening. We eventually make it to the mall. She parks the car and we get out with me slightly behind her letting her lead me around. 

"We'll start here. This a good store." I nod as she talks not having any opinion. We walk in and look around. I stick to a few simple items that are more my style. Veronica looks around too, I go over to her when I'm done looking. 

"Veronica, I'm done." 

"Okay, here you go why don't you try these on." She gives me a stack of clothing. I look at the pile of clothing in my arms. "Go on. We have a long day ahead of us." She pushes me to the dressing room. 

I take a while trying on the pile of clothing, a few things I like most I don't. I bring out the pile of clothes I like giving them to Veronica. She leads us up to the register to pay. She made me go away while she paid telling me to not worry about the amount we spent today.

She comes towards me and hands me a few of the bags. We walk around the mall repeating this for each store, collecting more and more bags every hour. I get more and more nervous as she swipes the card without a care in the world. We leave the sixth store when I speak up. 

"Veronica I think I have enough stuff," I suggest to her trying to juggle the bags. 

"Nonsense. You have a giant closet we have to fill up. If this is about money, Reece has plenty to spend." She tells me. 

"Well actually I'm getting kind of hungry," I tell her. She clearly doesn't understand that I'm tired of shopping and the amount of clothing I have is more than I've ever had. 

"Of course. Let's go." She says excitedly and leads me to the food court. Thankfully it's a weekday so the mall is pretty dead. Most of the people are moms with young children. We get our food and sit down in silence eating. 

"When you're ready I have a few more stores I think we should hit up." I force a smile at her. She beams back at me clearly loving this shopping trip. I wonder what she does for work?

We finish eating quickly and get back to shopping. Veronica drags me to a fancy dress shop. 

"Why are we here?" I ask looking around at the racks of sparkles. 

"Well, I think every girl should have a collection of dresses for any occasion. Never know when you'll need one." She winks at me. "Come on, I see a gorgeous red one that you'll look great in."

She grabs my hand and drags me around the store holding up things to me. Veronica holds up a few dresses, putting some back when she shakes her head, but most of them she hangs on her arm. 

"Go try these on." She orders me. I get pushed into the dressing room with an ungrateful amount of dresses. I walk in and pull on the dresses checking myself out in the mirror. Like everything else I've tried on today, it takes me a minute to pull it all on. I try to avoid hitting my bruises, being unsuccessful most of the time. 

A few of the pieces don't look good on, and a few show off too much skin for me to be comfortable. I don't mind showing skin, but I'm 15 some things just aren't appropriate. 

I walk out with a smaller stack handing them to Veronica. She pays and we finally leave the mall She helps me carry all the bags up to my room before leaving since her husband is off work. I start putting the new clothes away in the large walk-in closet until the Stone family comes home. 

Someone knocks on my door. I open it to see Reece standing there. 

"Hey," I say waving my hand. 

"Hi, how was shopping?" He asks me. 

"Good, sorry if we spent too much money. Veronica just kept going." I look down at the ground sheepishly, while he chuckles. 

"Don't worry about it. Emerson is back if you two want to hang out." He walks away.