AS204 Glory Days Chapter Four, a dark angel fanfic

Glory Days by Star24

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Chapter Four

789 6th Avenue

"Sugah, you sure this is where you wanna go? Original Cindy has a feelin' these rags gonna cost more than your next five year's paychecks at Jam Pony."

"I'm the one making Logan go to this thing. I don't wanna embarrass him in front of his snooty friends."

"You want my estimation, its doubtful Logan thinks of them as exactly friends. When's the last time he's had one over to his place? Not countin' this buddy who just dropped in for the shindig."

Max looked at Cindy, unable to refute her words.

Cindy nodded and continued, "Just like he wouldn't care if you wore a potato sack. You could be dressed like some bag lady, and he'd still be lookin' at you like you were God's gift to the world."

"Maybe, but I still want to look good for him. Like a normal girl for once."

"For him or for you? Seems to me like maybe it's you freakin' over facin his peeps, and not him."

Max shrugged but didn't answer. The two girls strolled into the exclusive little boutique. The floor was covered with a thick cream carpet that muffled their steps, and the walls were covered in rich, cream satin wallpaper. Glass cases displayed glittering jewelry and several circular racks held elegant clothing.

A tall thin redhead came over to the girls as they came into the store. "May I help you?" she asked in a patrician accent.

"I'm looking for a cocktail dress." Max responded. "For my boyfriend's reunion," she added when the salesgirl didn't respond.

"I think you may have the wrong place. There's a Wal Mart over in Sector Six that would probably be more in your price range." the girl said as she turned in dismissal.

"Hold on just a minute there." Original Cindy reached out and took her arm, preventing her from leaving. "You mean to tell me you ain't gonna take my boo's cheddar? It's as good as anyone's."

"I hardly think your boo has enough cheddar for one of our scarves, much less one of our cocktail dresses." The girl said in freezing tones. "Now take your hand off of me, before I call security."

Max reached over and pulled Cindy's hand away. She gave the girl a saccharin sweet smile and said in dulcet tones. "Maybe you should check this out before you rush to call security." She handed the girl a silver colored plastic card.

The salesgirl hesitated, and then took the card and walked into the rear of the store. Max winked at Original Cindy. Within moments a middle aged woman hurried out, followed by the girl. She gave Max and Original Cindy a beaming smile.

"Welcome, Miss Guevara," she said in tones that exuded warmth.

Max smiled smugly back at her and at the salesgirl.

"Please accept my apologies for the mix up. Marietta didn't realize who you were. I'm sure we have something that will be simply perfect for you for Mr. Cale's reunion." She turned to the salesgirl. "Marietta, she's a size 4. Bring the dresses to room number 3."

Marietta left and the woman turned back to Max and Original Cindy. "Come along, girls. Let me make you comfortable. Would you like tea or perhaps a nice glass of wine…?" she led them into a large dressing room, chatting the entire time. When she had them settled with a promise to send in refreshments, she bestowed another smile on them and then bustled out.

Max and Original Cindy looked at each other and burst into laughter. "Did you see the look on the redheaded bitch's face when she followed her out of the back?" Max said.

"Like someone just gave that stick she had stuck up her designer posterior a nice hard twist." Original Cindy agreed.

"Told you this was gonna be fun." Max winked.

"Now we gotta get down to the serious business of finding you the dress. We gonna make sure that Logan don't know what hit him, when he sees you all fixed up for this thing."

"Speaking of Logan…" Max started. She stopped as Marietta brought an armload of dresses into the room and hung them on a rack that was standing in the corner.

"Do you need help trying these on, Miss Guevara?" she asked.

"My boo can dress herself. But she gonna need some essentials to go under some a these. Why don't you go fetch her some? Some hot ones. Lace and satin, stuff that's gonna make a male's eyes pop."

"Of course." Marietta straightened and left the room in a hurry.

"OC!"

Original Cindy gave Max a hard stare. "You in my hands now, so hush and do what you're told."

The next hour was spent with Max slipping into one beautiful dress after another. Their wine arrived and Cindy sat on the soft couch sipping it, and critically evaluating each dress.

Max was growing impatient. She would have settled on any one of the dresses she had tried on but Original Cindy was adamant. Finally they were down to the last three dresses. Max pulled one of the hangars from the rack and looked at it doubtfully. "This doesn't look like much of anything." She started to put it back.

"Put it on."

Max sighed, but she could see from Cindy's face that she had no choice. She slipped the dress off of the hanger and slid it over her head. She started to turn to look in the mirror but before she could Original Cindy sighed. "That's the one."

Max turned to look at herself. Before she could say anything, there was a loud slam from the showroom.

"Don't move." A rough male voice said.

Max and Original Cindy exchanged glances. Max slipped over to the door and cracked it open. She quickly closed it.

"What?"
"There're two guys out there wearing nylon masks over their faces, holding some nasty looking guns on Marietta and the manager." Max was stripping out of the dress as she spoke and donning her own clothes. "Here, hang this up where it won't get wrinkled."

She tossed the dress to Cindy who hurried to comply. Just as Max finished zipping her jeans and pulling her t-shirt down into place, the door to the dressing room was thrown open.

"Looks like we got two more in here," the masked man standing in the doorway called out to his partner. "Get out here and don't make a peep." He motioned with the gun. Max nodded to Cindy to go along with him.

When they got outside, the second man was smashing the glass cases and pulling out handfuls of jewelry.

"Stand over there with them. We'll be gone in five minutes and nobody gets hurt." The man motioned with his gun to Max and Original Cindy. They started to walk over to the two saleswomen, when there was the sound of sirens and several police cars pulled up outside.

"Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up. You are surrounded." The tinny sound of a bullhorn amplified voice sounded from the street outside the store.

The man emptying the cases straightened with a curse. "Which one of you bitches called the cops?"

"There's a silent alarm on the jewelry cases," the older woman stammered.

"There's no way out. They're in back as well." The second man came back from a reconnaissance. "What do we do now?"

"We got hostages." The first man walked over and grabbed a shaking Marietta. He marched her to the front door of the store. Using her as a shield, he opened it and called out to the police.
"We got four women in here. You try anything stupid and we shoot them."

Fogle Towers

Gavin had been strangely silent since he had gotten up that morning. Logan hadn't minded since he tended not to be a morning person himself, preferring to sleep in and work into the late hours.

He had left Gavin to entertain himself, while he went into his computer room. He couldn't do much in the way of Eyes Only work with Gavin around, but he had been able to read through his email and note to himself some things that he wanted to look into.

When he finished reading and answering his mail and looked at the clock, he realized that it was already past noon.

"Hey, Gavin, you want some lunch?" he called out as he walked into the kitchen.

"Sure. Be right there." Gavin responded.

Logan busied himself putting out sandwich ingredients and pulling a few cans of beer from the refrigerator. He was just about to sit down with Gavin when his phone rang.

"Hello. Yes this is he." He listened a moment, smiling. "Yes, that's fine. Oh and be sure to give Miss Guevara your special treatment if you will. Exactly. Thank you." He was still smiling as he hung up the phone. Gavin watched him closely.

"That was about Max?" he asked Logan.

"She's shopping for a dress for the reunion."

"And you're buying it."

Logan looked sharply at Gavin, "Max can't exactly afford the kind of dresses that people will be wearing. I don't want her to feel uncomfortable."

"Max means a lot to you, doesn't she?" Gavin pursued. "She seems a bit different from your usual…"

Logan shot him a look. "Do you have some kind of a problem with that? You never used to be a snob, Gavin. Don't tell me you've become one now."

"I don't have any problem with, Max. She's beautiful and smart. It's just that… no, never mind."

"It's just that what?"

"You can't tell me you haven't noticed her resemblance to Carly?"

"What?" Logan looked at him in amazement. "Are you saying that…"

"Hey, I commented on her resemblance to my sister, is all. It's just that I wouldn't want to see Max hurt because you…" He paused, "I'm sure you know what you're doing. Forget I said anything." Gavin shrugged.

"Yeah I'll do that." Logan said as he gave Gavin a hard look.

End of Chapter Four