Page 97 of Inception

“You’ve done it, haven’t you? How did you get around the check-in?” I asked without waiting for the confirmation. “Is there a way to do it, like some kind of loophole?”

He looked back at me as a quiet war waged in his eyes, the deep blue’s churning up dangerous winds that promised oblivion to anyone who dared enter, and suddenly I wanted to do nothing else but dance in the eye of the storm.

He let out a long and depleted breath, “There’s always loopholes, Jemma. Always.”

28. ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND

“Feel like doing a mall crawl tomorrow?” asked Taylor first thing Monday morning as I unpacked my books in front of my locker. “We can pick out your dress for the dance.”

“I can’t. I have detention.”

“For what?”

“For being tardy.Thrice. Mr. Gillman’s words, not mine.”

She nodded knowingly. “I had him last semester...major anal retentiveness. What about after detention?”

I shook my head. “I have to fill in for Paula tomorrow. She has a doctor’s appointment or something, and then I’m meeting up with Gabriel.”

“Gabriel, huh? Oh la la,” she gushed, making kissing noises.

“That’s incredibly mature. And super attractive.”

“I know, right?” She batted her eyelashes at me. “So is he taking you to the dance Friday night?”

Just the thought of Gabriel being forced to attend some high school dance was enough to induce a fit of laughter.

“I think he’s a little old for that,” I reminded her, although in actuality, I wasn’t sure if he was twenty-one, twenty-five, or four? “Besides, we’re just friends. I’m sure he has much better things to do on a Friday night than take me to a high school dance.”

“So you’re going stag?” she asked and then nodded over to someone behind me.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, turning to follow her gaze. “I’m not even sure I want to—”

“Hey, Blackburn,” smiled Caleb, the apparent target. He looked dapper as usual, in a frat-boy sort of way.

“Hi, Caleb.”

“Well, I gotta go. I’ll catch you two after class,” smiled Taylor before jetting off down the hall in typical Taylor fashion; bubbly and forever up to no good.

I closed my locker and started towards my first periodchemclass. Caleb followed.

“So, a little birdie told me you don’t have a date for the dance this Friday.”

I shook my head.Freaking Taylor.

“I was thinking maybe we could go together.”

I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Isn’t there someone you’d rather go with? I mean, we barely even know each other,” I pointed out.

“Are you saying you don’t want to go with me?” There was an ample amount of hurt and surprise in his expression, like he honest-to-God never heard the word ‘no’ before.

“I just thought that maybe there was someone else, you know, someone youlike…more than friends.” It took everything in me not to blurt out Nikki’s name right there in the hallway, in the middle of all the morning chaos.

“Nope. Can’t think of anyone,” he smiled.

Either he was in serious denial or he was the world’s greatest liar. Neither one sounded like an appealing trait.

“We can just go as friends if you want. I’d be okay with that,” he added with a modest shrug.

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