For The Love Of The Game

LACEY'S POV

A week later and Lacey was sitting in the fitting room at the mall. Somehow she had managed to allow her friends to drag her there to try on dresses. Sighing heavily she realized where she had made her first mistake. Her friends had been on her for the past week and a half that they needed to go and find dresses for the fast approaching dance that was only two weeks away. Lacey had always used basketball as an excuse to get out of going to try on all of the dresses, but she accidentally let it slip that Temple had canceled practice. There was no going back once Nicole knew that Lacey was free.

"You're coming and that is final!" she said staring Lacey down.

Stammering Lacey had tried to come up with an excuse. She was holding hands with Aaron so she attempted to pull out the 'spending time with my boyfriend' excuse. But Aaron had let her down.

"I can't Nicole. I promised Aaron that we would spend time together." Lacey smiled as she saw Nicole's face fall. She couldn't say anything to that. Since her and DJ were an official couple she had bailed on everyone plenty of times. Lacey's smile faltered as she heard Aaron speak.

"Sorry babe, but I have to go and get my tux for homecoming. And then I have to go see Coach Stewart at Rockhill to get the last part of my scholarship together before I sign it."

Laey looked up at Aaron accusingly. He gave her his best 'sorry' smile.

"Then it's settled. Come on Lacey, you're coming with me, Tara, and Tristin." Nicole grabbed Lacey's wrist. She knew she had lost the battle so she turned to Aaron. She reached up on her tip toes and planted a small kiss there.

"You had better not sign that scholarship without me," she said giving him a stern look. "And you owe me for this."

"Don't worry I would never sign it without you! And I buy next time we go to Ms. Anderson's!" he yelled as Lacey was towed away by her friends.

"What do you guys think of this one?" asked Tara walking out of the fitting room. She wore a bright pink number with thin straps tha went down to her knees. It was a silky material that seemed to gleam in the bright flourescent light. As she twirled in a circle the material flowed out to her sides. Lacey smiled, Tara looked great.

"I think that you've found the one," she said walking towards her.

"You said that about the last three." Tara said giving her a disapproving look.

"But I mean it this time. You look great!!"

Tara smiled widely, stepping closer to the mirror outside the fitting room. "It does look nice doesn't it?"

"Definitely," said Tristin who had stepped out in a long black dress. It had a slit up to her thigh with sequence around the top. It was strapless, and it gave a sexy yet elegant type of look to Tristin. Lacey smiled when she saw her.  

"And I think that you just found your dress too!" Lacey said standing and walking over to her.

"Agreed!" Tara said looking Tristin up and down.

Just then Nicole stepped out of her fitting room. She wore a short bright red strapless number. It came to just above her knees. It silky material scrunched in the middle and then hung loosely around her waist. Lacey felt her eyes widen. Nicole looked drop dead sexy.

"Dang Nicole! If I could wolf whistle right now I would!" Tristin said.

"I second that!" Lacey laughed.

"I think I've found the one for me." Nicole said spinning in front of the mirrors.

"Ok well now that we have all found our dresses can we go?" Lacey asked trying to sneak out of the fitting room.

"What do you mean we've all found our dresses?" Nicole asked. "You have yet to even try one on!"

Lacey hung her head. "I really just don't feel like it today guys. I'll do it next week." Lacey looked at them with pleading eyes. "Let's just go to the food court and get something to eat. Auntie Ann's Pretzles on me."

"Not so fast. You are trying on some dresses, and you are gonna find the right one today. So you might as well go and pick some out."

Lacey huffed and puffed as she made her way back out to the store. There were racks and racks lined with all different sorts of dresses. Not really paying attention she flipped through them. It's not that she didn't like dresses per say, it was the whole fact of trying to find the perfect one and spending tons of money on it to only wear it once. She marched to the very back corner of the store and hid herself among the racks of dresses. They wouldn't find her for a while back there. Leaning against the wall she sighed. She would never admit it out loud but she was nervous to find a dress, because it HAD to be perfect. She was going with Aaron and there were no ifs, ands, or buts, she had to look perfect. Anytime she stood next to Aaron she always felt like she wasn't good enough. Like, he was just glowing with all of his 'perfectness' and when she stood next to him she felt like she dimmed his glow. Like, she was dull compared to him. And she didn't think any dress, no matter how perfect it was, could change that. Closing her eyes she thought about Aaron. She knew that if he ever found out that that was how she felt he would be upset. Lacey could hear him now, "You have it all wrong. If I shine at all it's only because you're with me." Unable to keep the smile from her face she opened her eyes. She had no idea how she got so lucky.

Looking sideways, a bit of lime green material caught her eye. It was sticking out of  one of the racks next to her. Pushing dresses aside she pulled out a big lime green dress. Lacey figured, "What the hell?" and marched back to the fitting room to put it on. After getting it on with the assistance of Tara, she walked out to the mirrors. The breath caught in Lacey's throat. She couldn't deny it, even to herself, she looked great. The dress came all the way to the floor. The skirt was full and it was in the style of a pick up skirt. The top of it had fancy beading that was embroidered on. It had two skinny straps that went over her shoulders, criss crossed in the back and hooked on to the back of the dress.

"Lace, it's..." Tristin trailed.

"Beautiful!" Nicole finished.

"Absolutely! I won't let you try anything else on, this is the one." Tara said.

Lacey couldn't help the smile that was plastered to her face. Even though she felt like no dress could make her look as good as Aaron, even on his worst day, with this dress, she had hope. Smiling, she turned to her friends. "Ok, this is the one."