“Can I get clothes for work here?” She batted her eyelashes at me.
“Maybe?” I looked around and started assembling some things that were her style but fit the Compass BioTekscientist professional casualdress code well enough.
Riley tried on some outfits, and I got her a few. After all, I had a paycheck now. I also found a couple of cute swimsuits since I'd thrown out the ones I’d gotten for the PIIP symposium.
“I need stickers for my truck,” I added. Yes, I wanted to put fun stickers all over my brand new truck.
“I know just the place.” Riley took me to a shop with a lot of obscene stickers that I wouldn’t put on my truck, but I picked up a few to stick on the e-reader that Spencer got me. We went to another store, where I found a few good ones.
She then led me to another shop. “Here, this is where Sonja found her dress for her elopement.”
The shop was filled with wedding and formal dresses. While Eunice the fancy wedding planner had sent me ideas of what to wear for my party with Spencer, as had Evan, I still wasn’t sure. A lot of brides wore gold, but that also varied by culture and preference.
Riley found some things, but nothing I tried on was quite what I wanted.
“I like.” Riley came out in a flowy green dressy romper that had long pants but was sleeveless. The party's colors were mauve, green, and lavender to go with our fancy summer picnic theme.
“You look great. I’m not sure about this one.” I looked down. The sleek minimalist dress was lovely, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.
“You’re not doing something poofy?” Riley asked.
“For the one with your brother and Wes, yes. For this one, I was thinking of something simple and elegant.”
“Okay, I see that,” she agreed.
We finished up, bought the pantsuit, looked in another store that didn’t have what I wanted, grabbed some lunch, and found some shoes.
She checked the time. “You know we’re being followed, right?”
“By which one?” I checked the location app on my phone. “Never mind. It’s Brennan.”
“We’re going to ignore him.” Riley took me into a really nice department store. “This is where I got my black dress that I wore to the other dance.”
We looked through all the racks of dresses. I tried some on. But nothing wasright.
“We have time. Maybe the fancy mall will have something. There’s a store I have in mind, but this was fun,” she told me as we went to the theater to see our movie.
“I’m having a great time.” I bought popcorn, soda, and candy.
“Need help?” Brennan stood there in one of his work suits.
Riley eyed him. “We can go to the movies ourselves, you overprotective fuck.”
“I know. I wasn’t going to see the movie with you, because I have an online meeting with one of my overseas properties. ButI was in the area, so I just thought I’d stop by to make sure that everyone was okay.” He gave me a kiss.
“Thanks.” That was sweet.
“Sure.” Riley rolled her eyes.
“Are you going to shop more after this?” he asked me.
“I actually need to get some work done today. So probably not. We’ll be safe. And I can carry the snacks. Thanks.” I got the snacks. Riley and I went into the theatre, which had stadium seats and a gigantic screen.
“Such a sap.” Riley snorted. “You know he's probably going to do his meeting from the work lounge here or something.”
“Probably.” I texted him.
Me
