Day 96: Tales Of YSL Dresses And Relationship Debts
Day 96: Tales Of YSL Dresses And Relationship Debts
Day 96 Of How To Move On From A Man — 1LD
If you’re new here to 1 Lovelock Drive, welcome! Let me fill you in on what you’ve missed.
I’m Andie and my ex, Douglas, dumped me. This is my break-up, so to speak. Douglas is a power player in Melbourne, worth more than I could ever comprehend.
I have no idea why we broke up.
I work and live at 1 Lovelock Drive. There, my best friend James and I are building Highway, our unisex clothing line. Our two other best friends, GG and Sophia, are investors.
GG is dating Douglas’ brother. Awkward.
My friends have been acting strange since the breakup. Since things have changed, I’ve found papers in James’ briefcase outlining plans for an expensive office space for our business.
I didn’t think about my ex being at my brother’s party until I was picking out a present for the birthday boy.
I looked at the exquisite gold money clip, as I stood in the middle of Saint Laurent, and wondered if it was the same as the one Douglas bought that time we went to Sydney.
I went to say to James, as we debated over the purchase,
“Douglas won’t see it, so who cares if we give it to Taylor?”
But that didn’t make any sense. They were brothers; Taylor and Douglas.
The Gallo brothers.
As if he wouldn’t be there.
Only an hour earlier I had decided not to buy anything new for the occasion. Yet, once I realised I would come face to face with my ex, a new outfit was a necessity.
If I couldn’t quite get my mind right, or wrap my head around everything going on in my life, I could at least look like I wasn’t a mess.
Revenge dressing. Though it was hardly revenge.
James paid for the money clip with a card from his wallet. It was black. I had never seen it before. “Fancy new credit card you have there,” I probed as we left Saint Laurent.
“Care to buy me something new with it?” I laughed immediately.
My request wasn’t genuine. It was my own awkward way of pointing out to James how I wasn’t missing the changes in his life. I saw him, if not all of him, right now.
“Whatever you want, Andie. You want to go back in and get that blazer dress you were looking at?”
He couldn’t be serious. It was three thousand dollars. A limited run of sizes, too. Absurd.
“No, no, I’m joking.”
James grabbed my hand. “I’m serious. You would look amazing in that dress. Let’s go get it.”
I felt him tug at my hand further, pulling me back into the store. “James, don’t be absurd. I don’t need something so extravagant.”
Beautiful but way too much, I thought. And there was no I could owe James that much. Or afford to pay him back anytime soon.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
I stopped James just as we were about to pass through the glass doors.
“Why?”
He couldn’t shift his gaze away from inside the store. Staring at the dress, the glowing displays.
“Because. Because you need it.”
I tried to capture his gaze. I couldn’t. What wasn’t he telling me?
“Please don’t tell me,” I started to say, then found myself correcting the words. “Tell me what this is all about. He’s going to be there, is that why I need this dress?”
James nodded.
Finally some honesty. If you could call it that. Why he couldn’t just say that I have no idea.
James’ connection to my ex, and his exclusion of me from the conversation, was unnerving.
Yet, I couldn’t think of that, as I slipped on the YSL dress. I had bigger fish to fry, like saving my business.
You’re reading The Andie Chronicles, the 2023 romance-fiction series from the 1 Lovelock Drive (1LD) universe.
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