Sugar

49

chapter forty nine
florence thompson
song: señorita - shawn mendes ft. camila cabello

After a long morning of debating what I was going to wear, I finally found myself ready to go, dressed in a blue summery dress that had spaghetti straps - and pockets - and a pair of white slip on shoes.

I threw my hair back into a ponytail and decided to brush on a little mascara and swipe on some tinted lip balm before I called it good.

As if on cue, a knock sounded at my door, startling me slightly as I stood in front of my mirror. With a sigh, I flattened my hands over my dress and then headed in the direction of my door after grabbing my phone and keys and pocketing them both.

Freaking dresses with pockets, my dudes.

I swung the door open, a polite smile on my face as I came face to face with none other than Sebastian Vanderbilt who was looking rather handsome, as per usual.

He was in a pressed suit - also as usual - and his hair was just as curly and beautiful as I remembered it, along with his blazing eyes.

"Florence," he greeted me, a smile on his lips. "You look beautiful," he complimented me, glancing over my dress.

"Thank you, you don't look so bad yourself," I smiled softly, gazing over his face.

I stepped out and made sure to lock the door behind me before we silently walked down to Sebastian's car, sitting in the parking lot that looked much dingier since the sun was setting. Of course it was a black SUV with a driver sitting in the front, looking stern and honestly quite grumpy.

Sebastian politely held my door open for me, ushering me in before closing it and rounding the car and slipping into the vehicle himself. It was oddly silent as the three of us pulled back out onto the main road and started in the direction of our mystery destination.

The days leading up to today, I had been so busy dreading the day itself and wanting to fight Rico, that I'd completely and totally just brushed off the fact that I had absolutely no idea where we were going. Sebastian mentioned it was an event of some type, but he hadn't expressed whether it was casual or dressy, so I was praying that my sundress was not about to embarrass the living hell out of me even though ninety percent of my wardrobe embarrasses me when I'm around these people.

"So, where are we going?" I decided to break the deafening silence in the vehicle, turning to face Sebastian who's gaze was trained on my face.

"A friend's birthday party, it shouldn't be too long," he informed me, looking rather bored with the information himself. "Thank you for coming with me, by the way, I appreciate it."

I nodded, smiling tightly.

"Of course, it's no problem."

Just kidding, it's a big problem, and I'd much rather be in my Olaf onesie back at home but apparently thats not adulty enough.

It took us roughly thirty minutes to arrive to our destination. In those thirty minutes all I could think about was a burning blue and brown gaze that was partnered with brown, tousled hair.

No matter how hard I'd tried in the days since leaving Vincent's apartment complex with tear stained cheeks, I couldn't get him out of my mind. I thought about him just as much now as I did when I laid in my bed crying for days. I was just getting used to it, I was able to hide the pain more.

So imagine my complete and utter shock when we pulled up to Vincent freaking De Bellis' apartment complex.

I'll admit, when we got closer to our destination, I was thinking about how similar the route was to the one I used to get to Vincent's but figured I was just being paranoid, it's freaking Chicago, for christ's sake, theres more places than just Vincent's apartment complex.