Chapter 171 | Your Opinion Will Be Used Against You

"Aurora."

"Hmm?"

"Why are we at Rosalina’s Secret?"

The store sat between a coffee shop and a watch boutique on Ventura’s main shopping strip, its window display featuring mannequins wearing approximately forty percent of a complete outfit. Pink cursive lettering on frosted glass. A doorway that smelled like vanilla and expensive perfume. The kind of store where a single bra costs three hundred credits and comes with a card that says congratulations on your terrible financial decision.

Aurora didn’t even slow down. "Quick stop."

"For what?"

"I need something to wear under my dress tonight." She pushed the door open. "Won’t take long."

I looked at Addison. Addison looked at me with violet eyes that said absolutely nothing helpful.

"I can wait outside," I offered.

"I want your opinion." Aurora grabbed my wrist and pulled. "Come on."

The store hit me all at once. Soft pink lighting that made everything look like the inside of a dream sequence. Silk and lace arranged on velvet displays. Staff in matching black uniforms moving through the floor like they were choreographed. And absolutely nowhere to stand that didn’t make me feel like an intruder in a place specifically designed to exclude me.

Every single person in Rosalina’s Secret was either female or a very confused boyfriend who’d made the same mistake I was making right now.

I was the second kind.

"This is a terrible idea," I said.

"You’ll survive." Aurora released my wrist and walked straight to a display table covered in silk sets, running her fingers across the fabric with the familiarity of someone who’d done this a hundred times. "I need something that works under a backless dress. Black or deep red."

Addison had already drifted away from us entirely, now three displays over, holding up a set of black fishnet thigh-highs against her leg and tilting her head critically. A saleswoman appeared at her side. Addison said something I couldn’t hear. The saleswoman laughed and pointed toward the back of the store.

So much for company.

Aurora picked up a small scrap of black silk that probably cost more than my first apartment. She held it against her hip, then turned to me. "What do you think?"

"I think that’s barely fabric."

"That’s the point." She placed it back. "Spaghetti strap or strapless?"

"For what?"

"The bra, Jace."

"I genuinely cannot help you with this."

She gave me a look that said she disagreed. "Yes you can. You’ve seen me. You know what looks good." She tilted her head. "Unless you’d rather I just pick something randomly?"

This was a trap. I could see the trap from where I was standing. The trap had a neon sign over it reading YOUR OPINION WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU.

"Whatever you pick will look good," I said carefully.

Her eyes narrowed. "That’s not an opinion. That’s a survival response."

"It’s both."

She made a sound that was half laugh, half exasperation, and turned back to the display. I stood there with my hands in my jacket pockets, watching her work through the rack with the same focused energy she brought to combat drills. Holding things up, examining cut and fabric, putting things back. She had opinions about all of it. Strong ones, based on the small sounds she made.

My problem was that she was right. Everything she picked up looked devastating.

Burnt orange silk with thin straps that would probably match her hair perfectly. A deep emerald set with delicate lace along the edges that would bring out the green in her eyes. A black strapless piece that looked simple until the light hit and you realized it was covered in microscopic texture that changed the entire surface.

She held up the black one. "This."

"Yeah," I said, because what else was I going to say. No, Aurora, that’s terrible, please don’t.

She studied my face. "You didn’t even look properly."

"I looked."

"You looked at my face, not the lingerie."

"Can you blame me?"

She blinked. Then smiled in a way that felt like winning something. "That was almost smooth."

"I have my moments."

She took the black set toward a different rack and started pulling matching pieces. I followed at a distance that felt both appropriate and cowardly. The store was warm and quiet except for soft music and the occasional rustle of fabric. A couple near the front was having the same conversation Addison had warned me about. The guy had the same expression I was probably wearing.

Brother, I thought at him. I feel your pain.

Addison reappeared from somewhere behind a curtained archway, carrying three hangers with the satisfied energy of someone who’d found buried treasure. She’d added a cola lollipop to the mix at some point. Green cellophane wrapper shoved in her jacket pocket.

She held up the first item for Aurora’s inspection. Black lace bodysuit, thin straps, intricate paneling that probably had a technical name I didn’t know.

"For reference," Addison said.

Aurora tilted her head, considering. "Cute. Not tonight."

"Obviously not tonight. Tonight is his." Addison’s lollipop clicked against her teeth as she glanced at me. "I’m building a personal collection."

"You have three drawers full already."

"Four drawers." She turned back to the hanger. "The fourth one I keep locked because you have no filter."

"Excuse me, I’m extremely filtered."

"You described the contents of my lingerie drawer to my ex like a sports commentator."

"He asked what I was wearing!"

"He was asking for himself, Addy, not for a documentary."

I watched this exchange with the quiet wonder of someone witnessing a natural phenomenon. They moved around each other with the easy chaos of people who’d been navigating the same space for years. Finishing each other’s sentences without trying to. Disagreeing with zero actual heat behind it. Addison handed Aurora pieces without being asked. Aurora rejected or accepted with a single look.

It was entirely different from how girls acted with me. Or with each other in front of me. This was the real version. Unperformed.

Addison held up the second item she’d collected. Black and deep purple set, structured cups, wide straps with small hardware details. She pressed it against her chest over her band tee and turned to examine herself in a nearby mirror.

"What about this one."

"On you? Yes. On me? Too structured." Aurora selected a pair of matching underwear from a bottom display and added it to her growing pile. "You’ve got the right shape for that hardware."

"I know." Addison tilted her head, examining herself in the mirror with calm confidence. "My problem is I need something for under tactical gear that doesn’t chafe."

"That’s why I told you to try the seamless collection."

"The seamless collection is boring."

"Not dying of chafing after a four-hour gate isn’t boring, it’s practical."

"I can be practical and also have opinions about aesthetics."

"No one is disputing your aesthetic opinions."

"You were literally just about to."

"I was going to suggest compromise."

"That’s the same thing."

Addison switched lollipops with the efficiency of someone who’d made it a habit, unwrapping the cola one and depositing the spent cherry wrapper in her jacket pocket instead of looking for a trash can. She turned to me suddenly, catching me watching.

"What," she said.

"Nothing."

"You’re doing that thing where you watch people and try to figure them out."

"I wasn’t—"

"You were." She pulled the lollipop to one side of her mouth. "What’ve you figured out so far?"

I weighed honesty against diplomacy. Honesty won, mostly because she’d see through anything else.

"You’re more careful about Aurora than you let on," I said. "Everything you do in her direction has an extra layer of attention in it."

Addison went still for exactly one second. Then she resumed examining a nearby display like I hadn’t said anything worth acknowledging. "Fascinating theory."

"I’m just observant."

"Mm." She held up a black lace garter belt, considered it, put it back. "And what else?"

"You’re also the kind of person who’d buy four things for herself while helping someone else shop. You’re not selfless. You’re just good at parallel processing."

She looked at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow up. "Aurora said you were smart."

"Aurora says a lot of things."

"True." She turned back to the display. Then, quieter: "She also says you’re one of the only people who’s surprised her recently. She doesn’t say that about many people."