Page 50 of Stuck with You

I laughed and glanced up at him. Even when Aiden was dressed impeccably and posing seriously for a picture, he couldn’t help but misbehave.

He grinned as he caught my eye. “What? It’s the truth.”

I shook my head before turning to his brother once more. “Did you get the picture?”

“Oh, I got it,” Elliot replied, with a grin, before he turned the phone toward me. He’d snapped the picture when I was looking up at Aiden and laughing, and he was grinning down at me. The photo was fun and natural, and anyone who didn’t know us would have thought we were a couple. It showed how deceptive pictures could be. Still, it was a really cute photo.

“I’m going to get changed,” Elliot said, passing the phone back to Aiden. “Don’t start iso-prom without me!” He bolted from the room before either of us could respond.

Aiden had his eyes locked on his phone and wasn’t paying attention.

“Can you send that to me?” I asked, nodding at the picture that was still displayed on the screen. “I think my mom would like to see us all dressed up for iso-prom.”

“Sure.” His fingers flashed across the screen before he looked up at me. “Done,” he replied. “Now, for stage two of iso-prom. It wouldn’t be prom if we didn’t sneak a little alcohol.”

He opened his jacket and pulled out a hipflask. He knocked back a sip before offering it to me.

“I guess one shot won’t hurt.” I took the flask and sniffed it. A sweet, tangy smell greeted me. “Do I even want to know what’s in here?”

Aiden laughed at the expression on my face. “All I could find in Mom’s cupboard was peach schnapps, so it’s really not too bad.”

I nodded and took a small sip from the flask. The peach flavor was nice, but the liquid still burned as it went down my throat. I passed the flask straight back to Aiden. “Okay, stage two is complete. Now what?”

“Now, my lady, if you would like to come with me…” He held out an elbow, and I linked my hand through it. It was a little old-fashioned, but I kind of liked how seriously he was taking it.

“Where are we going?”

“The grand ballroom,” he replied.

“Oh, of course, I should have known.”

Aiden shot me a smirk before he started down the corridor that led past the stairs. He guided me toward the back of the house, which was an area I hadn’t ventured into yet. I just thought it led to his mom’s bedroom, so I hadn’t bothered to explore it. But, as Aiden opened the door ahead of us, I jerked to a stop.

The room before me was large and completely dominated by a projector screen that took up one entire wall. Thick curtains covered the windows, and a huge sofa sat in the middle of the room. There was even a small bar area across the back wall. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know this was in the house.

I glanced up at Aiden. “You have a home theatre?”

He laughed as he took in my surprised expression. “And I thought you’d be more impressed with the decorations than the projector screen.”

As I looked back at the room, I noticed the decorations he was talking about. They consisted of three sad-looking balloons that had “iso-prom” scrawled across them in black marker.

“Well, the decorations are pretty impressive,” I replied.

“I definitely thought so.”

He let go of my arm as we entered the room and went over to a laptop sitting on a table near the projector. He fiddled around with it for several moments before soft music started playing through the speakers. Hearing the music made me suddenly nervous. Prom wasn’t just about dressing up for the night. There was so much more to it than that. And as I stared at Aiden, I realized that when it came to dancing there wasn’t much choice in partners.

The projector screen flickered to life, pulling my attention away from Aiden. I walked farther into the room to get a better look at it and gasped when I saw a video call was displayed on the screen. There were little boxes all over the screen, and within each box were friends from school. They were all dressed in their prom dresses and suits.

“Say hello to everyone,” Aiden said, facing his laptop toward me.

I laughed and waved at the camera. “Hey, everyone!”

A series of greetings all echoed out of the speakers, along with a squeal that could only belong to Zoey. I grinned when I finally found her face on the screen. She still had her prom makeup on from her tutorial this morning and was wearing her hot pink prom dress. She looked gorgeous. I continued looking over the screen, searching for the rest of my friends. Most of my girlfriends were there, and so were almost all the guys Aiden was friends with as well as other seniors.

It felt like more than half our class was on the call. I walked over to the laptop and pressed the mute button so I could talk to Aiden. “Who exactly did you invite to this?” I asked. “And when on Earth did you put this together?”

“Well, I invited everyone at school. And I put this together while you were packing up your room.”

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