Page 10 of Operation Prom Date
Cooper
I knocked on the door to Kate’s house Friday night and then kicked a stray rock off the cement block that acted as their porch. We’d gone for our usual practice on the lake this afternoon, but right as we were getting into a good groove with our pacing, Dad called to remind me I was supposed to meet him at his office.
So we’d cut it short, and I was still reeling from the news that Dad arranged an internship for me with his firm over the summer when Kate called me in a panic. “It’s been four days!” she’d shouted into the phone, loud enough I’d yanked it away from my ear. “And I still haven’t even talked to Mick, and now it’s the weekend…”
Honestly, after that, I didn’t catch many more actual words. Let’s just say she was freaking out.
So I’d offered to come over to talk strategy. It was better than dwelling on my planned-out future that was suddenly starting sooner than expected, and the suffocating feeling the internship news had brought on.
The guy standing in the yard next door bent over the hood of an RV, a tool in his hand, and I saw not just plumber’s crack, but most of his grand canyon.
The door swung open. “Oh good, you’re here.” Kate grabbed my arm and yanked me inside so fast I almost tripped on the threshold. “I hope you have a plan, and this one better be more foolproof than your last one.”
“You mean my one about starting a conversation with him?”
“Technically, that was my goal first, you know.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
She threw up her hands. “It’s not. I need more than you telling me to try to talk to him. I need the actual conversation fed to me.”
“I hear that that’s bad for you.” I gave a dramatic sigh. “All empty calories, possible link to diabetes…”
She tilted her head and shot daggers at me. And she wondered why people assumed she was serious.
“I thought you were going to go with the football angle.” We’d discussed as much yesterday on the lake.
“Yeah, but then I realized that’d work if, like, I’d just watched one of the games last weekend and could bring up what’d happened during it. But it’s not football season anymore, and if I mention that I’ve seen him playing after school, doesn’t that sound totally stalkerish?”
Oh, hell. She’s giving me that deadly determined look. The one that says she wants me to actually answer.“Not if you word it right,” I said, hoping I’d wordedmyresponse correctly. With her, questions I assumed were rhetorical weren’t, and honest answers weren’t always appreciated, either.
She ran a hand through her hair, switching the bulk of it to the other side. Several strands fell in her face and I had the urge to brush it back for her and see if it was as silky as it looked.
“It’s just so hard to approach him when he’s got all his friends around, or worse—all the girls,” she said. “How is someone like me supposed to have a chance when every other girl in the school is practically throwing herself at him?”
“Because you’re not like every other girl.” I put my hands on her shoulders. She was wearing a tank top, and her skin was smooth and soft, and whatever perfume or soap she’d used smelled girly and awesome, and…delicious. That was the best way to describe it. So good I wanted to take a lick.
Clearly it’s been too long since any girl threw herself atme.
I quickly dropped my hands. “But before he can see that, we have to get him to see you. That involves talking to him. Making him think about you.” Man, this conversation was weird, and one I hoped I’d never have to have. Or, I guess more like I’d never known I would need to hope for that, but I definitely did now. “And I do have a plan for that.”
She nodded over and over and some of the tension leaked out of her posture. “It’s just that prom is only getting closer.”
“I know.”
“Which means we’re on a tight deadline.”
“I understand.”
Her lips pressed together, the shimmery lip stuff on them drawing my attention for a moment before I snapped out of it. My focus was crap today. I blamed the bomb Dad dropped and the fact that it’d been a while since I’d kissed anyone. As soon as I got Pecker to notice Kate, I really needed to find a girl for myself. Hell, maybe I’d even go to prom.
I thought about the hoopla, from the tux with the matching vest or cumber-whatever-the-hell-it-was to the expectation of a fancy dinner and limo rides, and ruled it out.No thanks.
“But do you? Do you really?” Kate asked. “I don’t think you understand how important this is to me. I feel like you think prom is just a silly dance.”
She wasn’t far off. “I get it, it’s a rite of passage or whatever, but to me, it’s more like…”A big waste of time.I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I softened it to, “A lot of time and effort for one little night you’ll barely remember in a few years.”
Dealing with things like the big dance and other high school drama would only cut into time on the lake, and now I had even less of it. I’d fulfill my end of the bargain, but I wasn’t going to let anything else get in the way.
