Rhymes With Cupid by Anna Humphrey Page A

shift there? And even if I did work there, did she truly believe I’d be buying her skanky jeans with my employee discount after she stole my boyfriend and stabbed me in the back?
    “Yeah,” I said, looking at her squarely. “I get an awesome employee discount. Forty percent.” Then I turned, marched into the changing room, and slammed the door so hard the mirrors shook. I hugged my arms around myself and pressed my back into the corner, closing my eyes tightly against the tears that were threatening to start flowing.
    Outside in the hallway, I could hear Tabby and Matt talking.
    “God! Hold a grudge much?” Tabby was saying. “If I had a forty percent employee discount, I’d totally offer to buy her stuff. I mean, we used to be friends. I used to do everything for her.”
    “Let it go.” Matt tried to soothe her. “She really liked me, okay? She’s just still pissed about what happened.”
    “That was ages ago. It’s been, like, almost an entire year.” They were close enough that I could hear the sound of Tabby’s gum squishing between her teeth. “But I guess some people never get over stuff.” She sighed, then seemed to brighten. “Oh my God, though. That just made me realize. Can you even believe it, Matty? We’ve been together almost an entire year. I’m getting these. They look hot, right? I’m totally going to wear them on our anniversary.” I bit hard on my bottom lip to keep a sob from escaping. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of her changing room door closing.
    “Elyse?” Dina whispered from the hallway. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t risk opening my mouth. I was determined that Matt Love was not going to hear my voice crack. Tabby was not going to know she’d made me cry. Another door closed. “Elyse?” I heard the whisper again, this time near my feet. I jumped. There was Dina’s face, sticking through the gap underneath the partition between our two changing rooms. “Are you okay?”
    The tears started running down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. “Elyse,” she whispered again. “I’m coming over.” If I hadn’t been so totally destroyed, I might even have laughed. Instead of standing up and coming through the door, like a normal person might have, Dina pushed her head all the way through the gap, then wriggled her shoulders frantically until they somehow slid through. The rest of her body followed more easily, but it still wasn’t pretty—especially considering how small both changing rooms were, and the fact that she was wearing a see-through minidress.
    Finally, she pushed herself to her feet and put her arms around me. She didn’t ask a single question while I cried, soaking the barely existent fabric covering her shoulder.
    We stood there, huddled in the corner, until we heard the changing room door opening and closing again, and Matt’s and Tabby’s voices receding down the hallway toward the cash.
    Dina stepped back and brushed a strand of tear-soaked hair off my cheek.
    “Sorry. Those people were—” I started to explain, but the words got choked off by my sobs.
    “Matt Love, right? And Tabby? Your ex and your former best friend.” I nodded. “Yeah. I figured. Assholes,” she muttered under her breath.
    Hearing sweet, sensitive Dina use a swear word caught me so off guard that I actually stopped crying for a second.
    “What?” she said, looking at me indignantly. “They are! I’m sorry, but you don’t treat a friend that way. And you definitely, definitely don’t do that to someone you claim to love. Come on,” she said, moving another chunk of tear-soaked hair off my face. “Get changed. I’ll go out first to make sure the coast is clear.” I nodded and she lay down on the floor, starting to rewriggle into her own changing room, feet first.
    “Dina?” I said. She stopped and looked up. There were so many things I wanted to say to her right then. “Thank you” was near the top of the list. And “I promise I’ll never do something