(Zara)
Mia held the dress up to the light in the shop and went quiet, which for Mia was its own kind of verdict.
It was deep green, the color of something expensive and sure of itself, cut simple enough that it didn't need to try. I'd walked past it twice pretending I wasn't looking. Both times she'd caught me. The third time she just took it off the rack and pushed me toward the fitting room without a word.
"Put it on," she said. "Stop pretending you don't already know."
I put it on. I came out. Mia looked at me in the mirror for a long moment, and something crossed her face that wasn't only about the dress.
"Well," she said. "That settles that."
"This isn't a work dress."
"It's exactly enough. Which is worse, for our purposes." She stepped behind me to meet my eyes in the glass. "
