It Started With A Book

Chapter 12

Try to sound more excited, will you?
___

Finishing her last braid, she examined herself in the mirror.

Her deep brown eyes (often mistaken for black) were teeming with delight. Heck, even her usually wavering smile was brighter.

She brought her fingers to her lips, remembering how close they were to his.

Following a backwards descent, her back graced the bedsheets. In the midst of giddiness, she squealed shielding her face with her hands.

She couldn't believe it.

She was--

"Brin," Betty called out from the hallway, "are you ready to go?"

"Go where?"

A bombardment of high energy thrusted through the door dressed in a kaleidoscope of fuscia and periwinkle fabric.

"Shopping silly. Take it from me, from someone who loves you. Your wardrobe is drab."

"Excuse me?"

"That was the nice version," Elliott sauntered in underneath Betty's arm. He played with the ridges of his car keys. "Come on slow poke, we haven't all day."

"And where do you think you're going?" Betty tugged at the collar of Elliott's baseball tee.

"To start the car."

"No can do, sport. Catey specifically (utterance of the word specifically catapulted spit into the air, Elliott dodging it by the tiniest of margins) mentioned how important you two getting to Elmsville was. You're not wasting gas on a shopping spree. We're taking my car."

____

"Here try this on for size."

Elliott had heard that sentence more times than he'd have liked in the 45 minutes the trio had spent combing through the mall.

Brin on the other hand couldn't be more thrilled.

Waltzing through the automatic glass doors, Brin hadn't stopped grinning. In fact Elliott was almost sure he'd heard an angelic choir the moment they entered.

"This isn't going to take long, is it?" Elliott wondered.

"Don't know yet," Brin sang. Off a nearby table, she grabbed an orange dress, a green shirt, a pair of shorts and an oversized sweater and headed for the change room.

A short time later she poked her coily head out scanning for something.

She found Elliott slumped in a chair with his hand resting his temple, currently in an intense staring contest with the floor.

"Psst! Elliott!"

No answer.

"Elliott!"

This time his foot moved but nothing else.

She lobbed a plastic hanger in his direction narrowly avoiding his curved fingers but earning herself a scowl from him.

"What do you want my significant annoyance?"

"Ignoring that. Do you know where my Aunt went?"