Code Blue

Lexi vs. The Designer Gown

Standing in front of my hole in the wall which doubled as a closet, I sorted through my dresses for the fifth time, thinking that maybe I wouldn’t be able to get out of going shopping. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy trying on dozens of beautiful gowns, but I knew that I’d have a hard time choosing and I didn’t have much time to make a decision. The ball was tonight and I’d put off finding something to wear until the last minute and now I was a few hours away from showing up to a crime lord’s mansion in the department store dress I’d worn to winter formal my senior year of high school.

I sighed in frustration as I started from the far left of the rack again, wondering if maybe I’d find something new this time. My quest was cut short by a knock on the dorm room door and I pulled it open to find Max on the other side, grinning over the top of a rectangular box with a white satin bow on top.

“Hey!” I lifted my eyebrows in surprise, stepping aside to let him in and turning to face him once the door was closed. “What are you doing here?”

“You know, Evie,” he laughed softly, setting the box down on my bed, “you almost don’t sound happy to see me.”

“Of course I’m happy to see you,” I backpedaled, stepping forward to flatten my palms against his chest and looking up at him, “I just thought you were gonna be at your parents’ place all day.”

Apparently his mother got super stressed whenever they had events at the house, so he liked to go home early to keep her calm during the preparations. From what I gathered, tonight was extremely important for everyone involved, so Claudia Stafford was more on edge than usual.

“Yeah, I’m about to head over there,” he nodded, lacing his fingers together at the base of my back and pulling me against the length of his torso and nodding towards the package on the bed, “I just dropped by because I have something for you.”

Following his gaze, I smiled widely as I pushed away from him to step towards the bed, “Oooh, what is it?”

“Before you open it,” he called out just as I was reaching towards the edge of the ribbon, “I should probably tell you that it’s from my mother.”

Those words caused me to freeze and I cautiously played with the end of the ribbon as I looked over my shoulder at him in surprise, wondering why the hell his mother would give me a gift. “Your mother sent me a present?”

“She’s just really excited to meet you,” he shrugged, smiling sheepishly.

That was adorable. Really, it was. But technically speaking, Max and I had been dating for all of two weeks, so it seemed a little soon for his mother to be trying to get on my good side. So maybe it was a tactic. After all, Evan had said that Claudia was just as cunning as her husband, which meant that this gift might be part of some master plan; something to butter me up so that I was more inclined to trust her when we met. Objectively, I knew that sounded paranoid and ridiculous, but I needed to evaluate every option because the truth was that I had no idea what I was about to walk into.

“Don’t bring many girls home, huh?” I teased, beginning to pull at the end of the ribbon to cause it to unravel.

Laughing, he shook his head. “My parents can be kinda intense, so I generally avoid it.”

Intense seemed like a bit of an understatement. But it made sense that Max wasn’t in the habit of bringing every female companion he had around his family. “I guess I just got lucky, then, huh? That your dad invited me.”

“I don’t know that lucky is the word I would use,” he tilted his head to the side, looking a bit nervous as he watched the ribbon come undone. “Go ahead, open it.”

Obliging, I pulled the ribbon to the side and lifted the lid of the box, opening the white tissue paper inside to reveal the wine colored bodice of what looked to be an evening gown. To make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, I carefully took it in my hands and lifted the garment out of the box entirely, allowing the skirt to billow to the floor and confirm my suspicions. I stared at it in awestruck wonder as I spoke. “Max, this is…”

“I don’t really know much about dresses,” he piped up when I couldn’t seem to finish my sentence, “but my mum thought you’d like it.”

“It’s gorgeous,” I assured him, because he seemed anxious that I hated it, “but this is…this is designer.”

He blinked, showing no signs that he understood why I was flummoxed. “So?”

“So?” I repeated, completely bewildered by his nonchalance, “do you have any idea how much a dress like this costs?”

“No.”

Of course not. He was the heir to a crime syndicate worth billions of dollars, so why would he have any concept of money. “Well, it’s a lot. And I can’t accept this.”

He parted his lips then pressed them together and then parted them once more, tilting his head to the side and letting out a soft sigh. “Why not?”

“Because it’s too much,” I insisted, carefully folding the dress and placing it back in the box, hiding it from my sight with the tissue paper so I wouldn’t stare at it longingly, “I mean, your mother doesn’t even know me. I could be a gold digger who makes you miserable.”

He contemplated that for a moment before stepping forward to place his hands at my hips, squeezing comfortingly and keeping his voice soft and reassuring. “Yeah, but she does know me, and she trusts my judgments about people. So keep the dress.”

I wondered if it could really be that easy; if Max could really trust me after knowing me for such a short amount of time. Maybe I shouldn’t have been questioning the ease of our relationship thus far, but it seemed to go against every assumption I’d made about how he handled people he didn’t know. So despite his reassurance, I decided to treat meeting his mother as kind of a test. Just because she trusted his ability to choose a girlfriend didn’t mean that she was going to like me in person, which meant I needed to make a good first impression and accepting her gift was a good start.

Smiling up at him, I scratched the pads of my fingers against the panels of his white button down. “Fine. If you insist.”

“I do,” he laughed, leaning in to kiss me quickly, “I better get going,” his actions said otherwise, because he kissed me even slower this time, “I’ll see you tonight.”

Keeping with the theme, I smiled as I pressed my lips to his again, mumbling against his mouth. “Can’t wait.”

He laughed softly before pecking my lips one more time and taking a step backwards so he wouldn’t be tempted to kiss me again, or at least, that’s what I liked to think. Lifting a hand in a wave, he turned towards the door, pulling it open, but pausing before he stepped into the hallway and speaking to me over his shoulder. “You don’t, by the way.”

“I don’t what?” I asked.

“Make me miserable,” he replied.

The amount of sincerity in his tone made my heart stutter and my mouth go dry, so I swallowed before I let out a cracked laugh. “How would you know? We’ve been dating for like five minutes.”

“I know,” he assured me, keeping his expression soft for about three seconds before a smirk kinked his lips and he dropped one eye in a wink. “Later, gorgeous.”

And then he was gone, as always, leaving me completely speechless.

Shaking my head, I made my way to the bathroom to shower and wash my hair and shave my legs, glad that Quinn had gone home for the weekend, so I wouldn’t feel guilty about telling her that I was getting ready at Evan’s.

He was expecting me when I arrived at his decoy apartment an hour later, opening the door about three seconds after I knocked and lifting his eyebrows in surprise when he noted the gift box I was carrying, along with my bags full of makeup and hair product and a large selection of shoes.

“Hey…,” he said, stepping aside to allow me to enter and nodding towards the box in my arms, “what’s that?”

“My dress for the evening,” I replied, setting down the box on the coffee table once I was inside and dropping my duffel bag to the floor before I turned to face him, “courtesy of Claudia Stafford.”

He blinked blankly at me, crossing his arms over his chest. “You met her already?”

“No,” I assured him, knowing full well that if I had met her, he’d be the first to know, “Max brought it over this morning. It’s designer.”

“Wow,” he let out a low whistle, “She’s really on top of this game, huh?”

“So it seems,” I sighed, wondering if I was a bit in over my head, “Should I be worried? Does this mean she doesn’t trust me already?”

I’d been doing a lot of over analyzing of what this gift could possibly mean since I received it two hours ago. My first thought was just that she was the nicest person ever, but despite Evan’s claim that everyone who had ever met her seemed to adore her, I couldn’t help but think that she had some sort of ulterior motive.

“Well, of course she doesn’t trust you,” he replied, as though it were completely obvious, “she doesn’t know you. I don’t think she’s suspicious, though, if that’s what concerns you.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” I agreed, because if she was suspicious of me, I’d probably have a tail on me by now, something I most definitely would have noticed, “I just don’t know why she’s trying so hard to win over her son’s girlfriend of two weeks.”

“Because you’re her son’s girlfriend,” Evan deadpanned, “If Daniel can convince Max to take over, Max is poised to be one of the most powerful men in this country, which means that if the two of you are still together when that happens, you’ll be just as powerful by association and that’s probably terrifying to Claudia and Daniel – the idea that a girl they hardly know could one day be in charge of everything they’ve built. So she’s trying to win you over because she’s hoping that if and when that happens, you’ll either be on her side or she’ll be able to control you.”

I blinked. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot, huh?”

“Haven’t you?”

“Yes, actually,” I replied quietly. It had been slowly dawning on me over the course of the past couple days that I was about to be thrown head first into Max’s world, and the thought was only slightly terrifying.

Shooting me a closed lip smile, Evan’s eyes lit as though he was having an epiphany and he turned towards the couch, handing me a shopping bag with two boxes inside. “I got you a present, too.”

“You shouldn’t have!” I exclaimed, taking the bag from him and excitedly removing the box on top. Slipping the straps of the bag over my arm, I lifted lid and felt my initial joy at receiving a gift drain rapidly at the sight of the lacy black band within. Scrunching my nose in disgust, I held it up by one finger as I glared at him. “Evan, it’s a little creepy that you got me lingerie.”

He rolled his eyes, nodding towards the bag. “I figured you’d want something pretty to hold your daggers.”

Grinning in excitement, I placed the box and garter strap down on the arm of the couch and removed the second box, opening it up to reveal three, small, crooked daggers and smiled at him widely. “You know me so well.”

Fixing me with a stern glare, he let out a frustrated sigh. “Go get ready.”

Unlike most times, I did as Evan instructed, wading through a pile of cosmetic products slowly and deliberately until my hair was perfectly curled and the wing tips on my eyeliner as sharp as possible. Once my head was beautified, I pulled the garter up my leg and fit it snugly around my thigh before carefully placing each dagger in its holder around my leg and wiggling into the designer gown. After performing a series of acrobatic tricks to zip up the back, I grabbed my heels by their straps and headed back out to the common area to get Evan’s approval.

He was sitting on the couch, studying something on his laptop screen, but he looked up as I entered, blinking blankly before a wide grin stretched his lips as he pushed himself to his feet and stepped towards me. “Wow, beautiful.”

“Yeah?” I grinned, dropping my shoes to the floor and reaching out to use his shoulder for support as I slipped the straps over my heels.

“Definitely,” he nodded, waiting until I was standing steady to turn towards the coffee table, this time handing me a silver beaded clutch. “Here, more presents.”

“This is cute,” I said, inspecting it from all sides before opening the snap to find it empty.

“And functional,” he added, pointing to the designer label towards the top left corner, “Your gun is sewed in to the lining. Pull on the label and that section should come undone.” I nodded, keeping quiet as he added an assortment of accessories to my purse. First was a small bottle of perfume, “Pepper spray,” then what looked like a lipstick container, “Taser,” and lastly, a tube of mascara, “And in case you need it, yet another dagger.”

I held in a laugh, leaning over to the side table to grab the phone I’d left there earlier and toss it in the purse before snapping the clutch shut. “Well, I guess it’s always good to have options.”

“Especially if you’re about to walk into the house of a criminal mastermind,” he said solemnly, reminding how much was at stake for this evening.

“Fair enough,” I replied, “No comms?”

Shorter undercover operations often used in ear communication devices to allow agents to communicate with their handlers while in the field, but because my mission was more long term, I hadn’t been using them thus far. But if there was ever a time to bust them out, it was now.

Evan shook his head, shooting me an apologetic glance. “Too risky, especially if you’re gonna be with Max the whole night.”

I supposed that made sense. Playing the part of his girlfriend meant we’d be close the entire night and he’d more than likely notice if I had something stuck in my ear. “Okay.”

A knock on the door signaled the arrival of my car for the evening and kept me from asking any more questions. Stepping forward, Evan quickly wrapped his arms around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze, whispering in my ear, “Knock em dead.”

“Thanks, Evan,” I said quietly, feeling my heart rate spike as I made my way towards the door.

“Good luck,” he called out, “And be safe, okay?”

Over my shoulder, I shot him a smile, “Will do.”

With one last deep breath, I opened the door to the chauffer and stretched my lips into my friendliest smile as I stepped outside, following him down the front steps and towards the car waiting on the street, which would take me to the most pivotal party I would ever attend.