“If you don’t like it, I can change it, we still have time to?—”
“How could you… you’re going to make me cry.”
My chest tightens, my eyes sting as my stomach falls the rest of the way through the floor.I thought she looked beautiful.Fucksake.I knew it wouldn’t be good enough.Nothing ever is.
“I’m so—” I start and turn to leave, but I’m hauled back, Morrigan’s arms flung around my neck as she face plants us into the sofa.All while still squeezing the life out of me.
“I look incredible.You have no idea how hard it is not to cry with gratitude,” she mumbles into my neck.
“Oh!”I say relief washing through me.“Gods, Morrigan, how about start with that next time.I thought you hated it.”
She shoves me in the arm before scrambling to get up.“Will you help me into my dress?”
“Of course.”I smile, and she extends her hand to pull me off the sofa and leads me into the side room where her dress hangs on a mannequin.
I gasp.“Gods.It’s stunning.”The bulk of her dress is black.The corset has a sweetheart bustline, leaving her décolletage free of fabric.It has a layer of lace and tiny black crystals stitched into the fabric giving it a gorgeous textured effect.It cinches into a tiny waist and then poofs out into a stunning ruched skirt.Most of the skirt is black, but there are folds of fabric in two different blue colours that swoop around and meet in the middle kind of like waves.
“It means something.Between Stirling and I, that is,” she says.
“The dress?”I ask, confused.
“No, the blue colours.I saw you looking at the wave-like ruches.”
I nod.“It’s kind of like your beach house.”
She smiles, her eyes soft.“You got it.”
I loosen the corset and help her step into the dress.
“This thing weighs a fucking tonne.I hope you’ve been working out,” I moan as I lift the dress up to sit on her hips.
We shuffle to the mirror, and I can’t help but let out another gasp.
She smiles at me.“Thank you for today.”
“Oh, shut up.You can pay me back by making sure I have the pinkest, most girly princess wedding any girl could dream of.”
She smiles.“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
She wriggles into the dress, and I tug at the corset ribbons to cinch the waist in.
“Tighter, Pen.”
I pull and wrench, my face turning red with the effort.
“Tighter,” she whines.
“Fuck’s sake, Morrigan, you need to be able to breathe too.”
“Do I?Just make me look good.”
“Could you sound any more like me today?”
She laughs and I do too.
“Besides, I think I already made you look perfect.”
“Agreed.”She smiles at me through the mirror as I put my foot in the small of her back and yank one last time.
