I wouldn’t normally skive off work and go shopping.
But it was a Friday and James needed some new jeans. We decided the only place to go was Chadstone, because they had everything there.
And it was an excuse to go into the designer stores and pretend like we could afford everything in there.
When we got there, Gucci had a massive line out the front. So did YSL and Tiffany’s.
“I thought it was only busy like this on the weekends and during school holidays. What the fuck is with the lines?”
“Bus tours,” I said. “Bloody shopping tours that drop people off here at ass o’clock in the morning and they don’t pick them up until five. They shop all day. And they come here because it literally has everything.”
I once got caught behind one of those buses on a Wednesday morning, making my way in for some sneaky midweek shopping. I couldn’t get over how many people got off this oversized coach.
“Should we come back later? Walk around and then try them after lunch?”
“Sure.”
But I had no intentions of living up to my bargain. I knew by the time we walked around the rest of the palatial shopping center; we wouldn’t feel like it. And besides, I couldn’t fathom walking into Tiffany’s and pretending it didn’t remind me of my fair-weathered boyfriend who wasn’t exactly telling me why out relationship was crumbling around me.
No, thank you.
I’ll save that for a time when I’m boozed up and getting laid.
“Do you ever think we will have a store in Chaddy?”
I hadn’t contemplated it before. Probably because I thought retail spaces were dead, although the shopping tours were suggesting otherwise. But I guess I hadn’t got so far past finding a name and getting a supplier to even think about a store.
“I mean it would be cool. A flagship store. Next to the designer ones?” We laughed. Hopefully one day we could call our idea of a fashion line designer. But not anytime soon.
“Why don’t we get you a new outfit?”
“What on earth for?”
James looked at me with a frustrated glare.
“Did you check your emails? GG wants us to have dinner at Bar Americano tomorrow night. Taylor is paying and she said some of his very chic friends will be there.”
“What about Douglas?”
I could only assume Taylor would want to invite his brother there. Yet, if he was going to be there, I wouldn’t be. I wasn’t going to subject our friends to immense awkwardness and ridiculous tension. Nor was I going to subject me to it either.
“No, he’s in Singapore this weekend.” The disbelief on my face said it all.
“He’s where?”
You’re reading The Andie Chronicles, the 2023 romance-fiction series from the 1 Lovelock Drive (1LD) universe.
By the way, this all started when Andie turned thirty-five, and her then-boyfriend didn’t call her.
Or the day after that.
Or the day after that, too.
Everything started to unravel when her BFFs got into bed with her ex, too… ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
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