Trusting Aden | ✓

twenty: Black Friday

twenty: Black Friday

"Belle, you know me," I whine, "tell her!"

"You have to! It's Black Friday. Lottie, Lottie, listen to me. Imagine all the deals," Alice pleads.

I huff and look over to Belle. "Alice, it's never going to happen. Do you know how many times I've tried to convince this girl to come with me? Too many times to count!" Belle rolls her eyes.

"Luna, please," Alice pleads.

"Oh, no. No, no. Do not pull the Luna card. Just because you call me Luna doesn't mean I'll do what you ask. If anything, it means that I make the rules! And I say no," I shout.

"Fine, I'll go tell Aden," Alice smirks.

"What will he do?" I stare at her. "You act like he's a threat."

"I mean, I'm pretty scary," a voice says from behind me. I spin around to see Aden sauntering in here, "why do you have such good timing?"

"Nah, Belle mind linked me to come and convince you to go shopping with them," he admitted.

"Liabelle!" I shouted. "Charlotte," she mimicked.

"C'mon you have to go with them. You haven't left the house since you got here and this will be like a little bonding time for you girls," Aden tries.

"But I don't even like shopping," I groan. I'm slowly losing this fight.

"Just come with us!" Alice and Belle chorus. I groan in defeat and they squeal in delight.

I sigh in Aden's arms and groan, "I don't even like shopping."

"It's fine. You need to learn to bond with other people besides me," he says. I look up at him and furrow my brows in confusion. "I don't mean to sound cocky, but you don't seem to do anything besides hang around by me. Not that I mind, but I know that's the mate bond doing its work. You need to branch out and make friends with others."

"That's not true," I dismissed.

"I bet that if I said I would go with you guys, you'd be more opened to give it a chance," he theorized. Although the idea sounded nice, it didn't mean that I was attached to him.

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes. I learned my attention to the girls, "girls, to your dillydallying, and let's go to the mall before I change my mind."

I knew it. The mall was absolutely packed to the brim with people. Of course, every store had some kind of deal, but it was not worth this. Everyone was packed like sardines in these halls. It was worse than last time Belle and I came by ourselves. Obviously it wasn't as packed because it was near Halloween, but now it's unbearable. Between the smell of body odor and greasy foods, I was ready to chuck up my breakfast.

Alice and Belle dragged me from store to store, begging me to try on different outfits and dresses. I refused every single time, except once.

We had walked into Cabela's, a hunting store. Belle and I never went in here when it was just us, but Alice brought us along. "You have to get stuff for our upcoming hunting trip! It's going to be so much fun. Instead of deer, we're going to go for either moose or bear. I don't think there are many bears around us, but there are lots of moose," Alice rambled.

Going into the store, there was a lot of camouflage and hunting gear. From fishing poles to rifles, they had everything. My favorite part of the store was the animal exhibit. There were taxidermy animals all in a forest scene, much like the Christmas Nativity scene. "Whoa, this place is huge," I gasped.

"Yeah, the boys and I use to come here all the time and run around the store looking at the dirt bikes and mountain carts," Alice confessed.

"We never came in here because there was never anything in here for us," Belle awed.

"Whoa," I awed. "This is so cute. Look at the stitching." On the mannequin was a full forest camo outfit. The print wasn't the military one, it was Mossy Oak print that looked exactly like the forest floor. The zippers and seams had the prettiest purple. The mannequin also had a matching hat.

"You should get it!" Belle encouraged.

"It is so cute, you'll blend right in!" Alice smiled. She picked out a set from the racks and panted them to me.

"Oh, heck no. This set is $120. No way," I put it back on the rack.

"No, you haven't picked anything from any store. Aden told you you could spend however much money you wanted. You deserve this! It's only right," Alice tried to convince me.

"C'mon, C, you never splurge," Belle pulled the set out from where I put them and went to the register. She looked back at me and motioned me to come over.

"Is this all, ma'am?" the cashier asked.

"Uh, yes. Sorry, yeah, that's all," I looked up at him. A young kid, maybe sixteen checked me out.

Once I paid, we left the store and they still wanted to shop. "Please, Luna," Alice tried.

"Alice, no. I'm so tired, I want to go to sleep," I whined.

"Char, c'mon it's still-" Belle stopped talking. Alice and Belle both snapped their heads in the same direction and subtly sniffed the air.

Both of them grabbed my hands and started to speed walk towards the nearest exit. "Wait, what's going on?" I tried to ask while being dragged outside.

"Rogues," they chorused. And we bolted.