Back Down Alpha

20: Sweet Talk

        The time passed by quickly between Ruby and I as we sat in the silence of the cafe. My good mood had been impacted by Shane's random call due to a part of me believing that he would not contact me again. The pain and sorrow that was laced with his words haunted my ears and I felt myself wanting to crawl into my bed and ignore the world around me.

        "Let's go shopping," Ruby suggested with a small smile on her face. Nodding to her, I placed the money for our drinks on the table and got up from my seat. With my bag slung over my shoulder, I led the way out of the cafe with Ruby trailing behind me. The once sunny sky was now filled with dark grey clouds that threatened to begin raining at any second. Ruby's eyes followed mine to the sky, her eyebrows knit together in disappointment.

        "Good thing the mall is only two blocks away and indoor." I grinned at her in response and looped my arm through hers as we began to walk down the sidewalk. Soon we stood in front of four large glass doors that led into the warm, indoor mall.

         From outside where we stood I could see a large Christmas tree adorned with gold, white, and silver lights with complimenting ornaments surrounding them. The tree stretched to about the second story of the mall and stopped. People were shoving against one another to take a picture with the giant tree. Two sets of escalators leading both down and up rested near the entrance and people stood on them impatiently awaiting their destination.

        Taking a deep breath, I pressed closer to Ruby and walked through one of the glass doors that opened automatically. The first thing to invade my senses was the overwhelming scent of gingerbread and Christmas music played throughout the large shopping center. Our feet brought us automatically to one of the escalators that led downstairs.

        The story that rested underground had about three stores that sported Christmas items, two bakeries that were sending out delicious pastries left and right, and five clothing stores. I immediately began to head for one of the bakeries when Ruby tugged on my arm, bringing my attention to her.

        "If you get something warm to eat for later on it'll be cold by the time we're done shopping."

        "How long do you plan on shopping?" I asked confused.

        Instead of a verbal response, an evil grin made its way onto her face. Before I could protest she began tugging me towards the nearest Christmas-themed shop.

        ~+~+~+~+~+~+~

        If I ever see another fucking Christmas ornament, I'm going to murder the person that bought it. Ruby literally purchased one large bag full of Christmas ornaments after asking me for my opinion on each freaking ornament. While we were shopping I felt myself starting to grow concerned with her holiday obsession when she turned her attention to the Christmas themed perfumes and lotions. Needless to say, she bought like the entire freaking store once she was finally satisfied.

        Clothes shopping went fairly quickly only because I was about ready to kill myself from the excessive shopping. We still had another freaking six days here.

        Surprisingly I found quite a bit of things that I bought. My shopping bags consisted of some Christmas ornaments and perfumes, t-shirts, dresses, jeans, some shoes, make up, and random accessories that I had matched up with the clothes that I purchased. Currently we were both seated in one of the bakeries munching on warm, shortbread cookies that seemed to melt away our worries.

        My eyes automatically fluttered to the people walking around the mall. Ruby was texting on her phone and we were just enjoying the cheesy holiday tunes. I had turned my phone on silent during shopping because Shane kept asking where I was so that we could talk properly. My heart tugged at the thought of how broken he probably was right now, but now he's going through what I went through for the past two weeks.