Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns whatever you recognize.

It was raining.

The last day of my Christmas Break, and it was raining. And I was buying lace.

I knew it was basically my fault. If I hadn't mentioned our lack of a white Christmas, Alice probably wouldn't have realized that she wanted to accent this week's outfit with white lace. Then we would never have noticed our monochromatic stock, and I wouldn't be on my way to the store to buy more lace. I really was all to blame. My. Fault.

I didn't even know we had a "lace store." Who sets up a store just to sell one type of cloth? I could understand a fabric store or a craft store, but just lace? If that wasn't obsessive, I didn't know what was. And why lace? I hated lace- it reminded me of itchy underwear and smelly great-aunts.

I almost missed the shop due to my inward rambling.

I parked my truck in one of the 10 minute spots- wishful thinking on my part. I hoped that I wouldn't have to spend more than 5 minutes in this… place. After soaking myself while running through the rain, I made under the awning of the store. I glanced at the sign- "Lizzie's Lace." Nice alliteration, Lizzie. Finally, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

So. Much. Color.

The walls were exploding. Everywhere I looked, there was some kind of lace falling off the shelves. There were neons, pastels, earth tones, and primary colors. This place had more colors than a color wheel! I could see why Alice liked the shop so much. It was delicious!

Slightly giddy, I began to glance around for the shades Alice had requested. Off-white, Robin-blue, Blush… I had wondered why they bothered with such randomly specific names, but one look around and it made sense. White… Off-white… Where were you? Where, where, where- Oh!

I looked up to see a wall of white lace with every shade imaginable (and unimaginable). Luckily for me, each type had a nice little name-card tagged under its respective shelf. I scanned the rows and realized that MY Off-white was on the very top shelf… Dammit.

Giving a grunt, I jumped, trying to reach just one spool… and fell back laceless. I knew that the flimsy shelves couldn't hold my weight- what to do? I glanced around looking for a stool and spotted an old folding chair. That would do nicely! No one seemed to be around; the absentee clerk surely wouldn't mind if I borrowed the chair for just a moment! I looked around a final time, then dragged the chair under the shelf and climbed onto the seat. Still. Couldn't. Reach. Slowly I rolled onto my toes and-

CRACK! I felt myself falling and I grabbed the only thing I could think of- the lace spools, which came crashing down with me. I braced myself for the inevitable impact but landed on one of the lace dummies instead.

I lay there for a moment, nursing my bruised pride, when I heard the dummy give off a soft groan. I jumped up and looked down to realize it was no dummy! Dammit, I had landed on the clerk!

"Oh, shit, I am so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. I should know better than to mess with gravity, shit, I'm so sorry, are you hurt?" I rambled on as I started picking up the spilled spools, finally unearthing a very rumpled human.

"Relax, it's fine, really. Let me get those," said the dummy- I mean clerk- as he started taking the spools from my hands. Blushing, I finally looked up to see the person I had squashed.

Double shit.

Did he have to be cute?

"I-I-I'm so sorry. Are you ok?" I repeated again, inwardly cursing my stuttering. I stole another look at the guy's face. His eyes were so green. They had to be contacts. Seriously. With messy bronze hair. How much time did he spend getting ready in the morning? Jeez.

As if he could read my thoughts, the guy smirked and took the rest of the lace from my hands.

"I'm fine- my arm might bruise, but it'll be gone in a day or two. You? And how much of this did you actually want?"

I blushed even more at the mention of bruises. I really didn't want to have hurt him. Then I realized his question.

"Oh, just two spools. Sorry I messed up your lace."

"Really, it's fine. They needed dusting anyway." He gave a small chuckle and started re-shelving the lace. Without a stool. Dang, he was tall…

"So, do you need help reaching anything else? Or is this it?"

I gave him a small smile. "I think I've pushed my luck as it is in the lace department. My friend really only needs this right now anyway."

"Ok then, I'll ring you up."

Shyly, I followed him to the front register. After I paid for the spools, he put them in a bag and handed them to me. Then a question occurred to me.

"Are you new around here?"

He gave me a strange look, but seemed about to answer. Then I noticed the flashing red and blue lights outside the shop.

"Dammit! My truck!" I raced outside in the rain, only to find a little white ticket already stuck to the windshield. Grumbling, I climbed inside the cab, slammed the door and started back home. I had just reached my driveway when I remembered the green-eyed clerk.

There you go! Another chapter. I'm going to try to update as often as I can, but I'm currently cramming for AP tests, so it might not be extremely often. I'm also not much of a fashionista, so if anyone has any ideas for lace outfits, feel free to suggest. I will listen! Otherwise, I'm not planning on going into huge detail with the outfits. I'm thinking of focusing on the actual plot, not the weekly outfits. They're going to be more of a background. :D Thanks for reading!