Royals - Rafe Cameron

Chapter Nine - Pre-Midsummer's

I drove through a little area today that reminded me so much of The Cut- Also, thank you for being patient with this part and thank you for 1.5K! Its insane, I never thought I'd get this book this far and I'm so proud of it.

Enjoy 2.2K of my bullshit

Never in her life did Eleanor Maybank think she'd be dress shopping with Sarah Cameron. She never thought she'd be on the mainland with Rafe Cameron's credit card in her hand and his pin memorised. Kie was also there, which was weird. She wasn't one for wearing dresses and grumbled the entire time. El had snapped at her once, but after receiving Kie's judgemental glare, she kept to herself and rifled through the dresses.

Sarah already had her dress in mind, something to match whatever John B was wearing. El hadn't thought that far ahead. She was browsing through the dresses while Sarah picked out several of the same colour. "Sarah Cameron, I'm stumped," she confessed and tapped her finger against the rack.

"What about red?" She suggested, as if she had been thinking of it for a while. "To match the rose he gave you." The rose that was currently in El's pocket.

With Kie trailing along behind her, El searched through the red dresses. They were all undoubtedly beautiful, but she didn't trust herself to pick something stunning. Something that would bring her up to Rafe's level.

Most of the dresses were almost like ball gowns, which wasn't helpful. It was always hot as fuck at Midsummer's, especially with all of the dancing that apparently happened.

Dancing. El was dreading it. Even the thought of it made her sick to her stomach. The poor girl couldn't dance. She could do a bad interpretation of the sprinkler but that was about it.

At last, El found a plain dress. It was red and fell to her knees with thick straps going over her shoulders. She pulled it off the rack and held it up to her body. "Ladies, what're we thinking?" She asked and looked at herself in the mirror opposite. "I shouldn't get too hot in this, right?"

Sarah came over and felt the material. "Go try it on. If you like it, buy it. Rafe is going to love it, El."

"You think?" Not that it mattered what he thought, she tried to tell herself. Who was she kidding? She was going to the biggest Kook party on the OBX with the biggest Kook on the OBX. The only perk was she would have John B, Kie and Sarah there to help her through.

El took it to one of the empty changing rooms. She took off her own clothes, folded them and placed them on the black bench beside the mirror. Where her brother was all muscle, El was skin and bones. It was hard, being one of the poorest families on the Cut and trying to keep in shape. The two didn't go hand in hand.

She pulled the dress over her head and reached around to tie the back up. It hugged her waist, highlighting the little curves she had there, and her breast in a way that was almost classy. She loved it.

What she didn't love, however, was the price tag. $200. To some people, that wasn't too bad for such a pretty dress. To El, it was more than she could hope to make in a week. Let me treat you like a queen.

"Okay, Cameron," she muttered to herself. "You asked for this."

El got changed back into her own clothes, kept Rafe's card in her hand and went to pay for the dress. The cashier looked at El, what she was wearing, and then at the dress in her hands. She didn't bother to hide the judgement in her gaze.

Clearing her throat, she scanned the price tag. "That will be two hundred dollars," she said, drawing out the numbers, as if implying that El couldn't afford it.