Page 109 of Better Than the Movies
“Puh-leeze; like I’m going to do time for a guy in a Levi’s suit.” She gave a little shrug and said, “Iamleaving his ass here, though. I drove since he doesn’t have a license, and my goal is to stay missing until it’s too late for him to find another ride. Make the fool call his mom for a ride.”
We both lost it then. We were cackling so hard that we were both crying when the doors to the stairwell flew open. We gasped in unison as Wes’s friend Noah stepped into our space.
He looked as confused by our presence as we were about his. I said, “Noah?” at the same time he said, “Dammit, you guys scared me.”
Jocelyn leaned back on her elbows, and I gestured to the step below us and said, “What are you doing all the way down here? I thought the cool kids were still down in the ballroom.”
He sat down and said, “I couldn’t take it anymore. Prom is painful. You can either stand around with your friends and talk while wearing uncomfortable tuxedos, or you can dance to shitty music while your friends talk aboutyouand think they’re funny. And so much planning and money goes into this one night, but there is no way the joy derived equals the effort. Absolutely no way.”
Was it weird that I still thought it was possible that the joy could equal the effort? Even though it hadn’t worked out for me, my heart still thought prom magic was a sparkling thing. Maybe thatwas just my obnoxious optimism messing with my head.
“So why did you come?” Jocelyn had a smirk on her face, but looked interested in how he’d answer. “I totally agree, by the way, but why did you come if you feel that way?”
“Same reason as you.”
“And that is…?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know why you’re here?”
She rolled her eyes. “I know why I’m here, but you don’t, so there’s no way you could know that we share a reason.”
I crossed my arms and watched them. The little I knew of Noah was that he was the king of arguing; he seemed to enjoy the debate process. Joss, on the other hand, had no patience for people who argued with her.
Most didn’t because they knew better.
He said, “You sure?”
She gave him a look.
He said around a smart-ass grin, “I thought we both came to see what a clown in a denim tuxedo actually looks like.”
That made her chuckle. “You came here for Charlie too?”
“Oh, yeah.” His face went into his natural sarcastic state as he smirked and said, “That blue suit really makes his eyes pop.”
“What could he have been thinking?” Jocelyn started laughing again and Noah’s smirk turned into a full-fledged smile. I felt like I should slip away, but I knew that would ruin the moment. Also, I wasn’t ready to put space between me and Joss.
He kicked his legs out and leaned back on his elbows too, the male version of Jocelyn’s lean. “That guy was thinking with his ego.He knew he looked good in denim, so much so that he wanted to be swathed from head to toe in that scratchy, rigid, unstretching fabric that totally shows off his amazing ass.”
“Oh my God,” Jocelyn said. “Youhaveto shut up. You have to.”
We spent the next hour in the stairwell, just talking. It would have been fun if my brain hadn’t been so stuck on reminding me about Wes and Alex. I’d let him go before I’d ever fully realized that I even wanted him, and now Alex was making him forget he’d ever kissed me.
After laugh-crying at Jocelyn’s impression of the PE teacher, we decided we were done with prom. We each texted our respective dates with excuses, and Michael seemed fine with it. He even sent a thank you, btw message, which gave me hope that he and Laney would be official before morning.
I was counting the minutes until I could be warm in my bed, dwelling on my mistakes while Fitz attacked my feet under the blanket. Jocelyn and Noah, however, decided as we got closer to my house that they wanted to go to post-prom at the school gym. They’d both been planning to blow it off, but now that Noah was convinced he could make more free throws than Jocelyn, my uber-competitive best friend justhadto go.
And she would totally beat him.
“You sure you don’t want to join?” Jocelyn pulled into my driveway and put her car in park. “I promise we’ll make it fun.”
“No, thanks.” I got out and slammed the door, then came around to her window and gave her a half hug. “But call me when you get home. Whenever that is.”
“Bennett won’t be there.” Noah gave me a pitying look and said, “He told me this morning that post-prom is a waste of time and he needs a good weekend of sleep before the big game Monday, so he’s coming home at midnight like a grandma.”
I appreciated his attempt to cheer me up. It was kind of sweet. I said, “I have a date with a movie and some ice cream. Nothing tops that, but thanks.”
“Let me guess.” Joss rolled her eyes. “Bridget Jones?”
