Thirty Reasons Not to Date a Player

04. He Creeps into Your Conversations

"If you don't get down here in ten seconds, we're leaving without you!" Melanie warns me. Her voice sounds deeper than usual on speaker phone. 

"Give me a minute!" I call back, struggling to pull on a pair of skinny jeans. It's finally Saturday, and Mel, April, and I made plans to go shopping for Halloween costumes. I can hardly believe that it’s only two weeks away.

"Thirty seconds!" It's April's voice this time. I figure that Mel already picked her up on the way over here.

"Okay, I'm coming!" I grab my keys and wallet off the night stand and shove them into my bag. I know most girls like big purses, but I prefer to travel light.

"I'm leaving now," I call, stepping out into the hallway. My parents are in the kitchen, and I figure that my sister is still sleeping.

I give them quick goodbyes and promise to be home for dinner before dashing out the door. I live on the fourth floor, so I don't bother waiting for the elevator. I take the stairs instead, and I'm feeling pretty good about myself when I make it down to Mel's bright red Honda in thirty seconds flat. 

"Someone slept in," Mel says, as I climb into the back seat. April already called shotgun. 

"Sorry!" I laugh, "You guys know I'm not a morning person!" 

"Yeah, but we have to get there early or we're not going to find anything in our size," Mel says, pulling into the road. "You know how busy it gets on Saturdays." 

April rolls down her window and turns on the radio. 'Talk Dirty' by Jason Derulo fills the car. I see Mel roll her eyes through the rear view mirror. 

"He is such a pig," she complains, turning down the volume. Mel is very particular about being a safe driver and she says that loud music is distracting. April, on the other hand, begins jamming out to the music. She moves her body to the beat but she looks funny, trying to dance in such a confined space.

The driver next to us honks and waves when we come to a stoplight. In the car to our right, there’s smiling African-American man, probably in his early twenties. April turns the color of Mel's car and rolls up the window. Mel and I laugh. 

"That was not funny!" April shrieks. "I'm never dancing again!" 

* 

We get to the mall at around 10:30, so there are plenty of open spots left in the parking lot. Mel parks closest to the Nordstrom entrance. 

"Not a scratch," she comments proudly, examining her car. If I had a car of my own, I'd want to take good care of it too. 

The three of us make our way into the mall, and luckily for us, it's less crowded than usual. We dash in and out of a few stores before we reach our final destination: Ricky's Costume Store. It's one of the biggest Halloween department stores across the country, and it's where we come every couple of years to get brand-new costumes. 

For the past couple of years, I've rotated between being a vampire, a witch, a zombie, nothing too exciting. Most of the girls in my school dress up as anything with the word "sexy" written on the advertisement. Sexy nurse. Sexy warewolf. Sexy hot dog. 

Okay, just kidding about the last one. But you get the point I'm trying to make here. 

"This is cute," Mel says, shuffling through one of the costume racks. She holds up a Superwoman costume. The model wearing it has an excessive amount of cleavage spilling out, and I almost confuse the skirt for a belt. I shoot April a look, but Mel just continues looking. 

"My mother would disown me if she caught me in that," I whisper to April as we make our way to the junior section of the store. We're both on the smaller size (height and chest-wise), and we already know we wouldn't fit anything that Mel might pick up.