Page 61 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“Why not just ask me?”
“Because you’re too stubborn for your own good, Bennet.”
I stopped and jerked on his hand to make him stop, too. “Does this mean we’re…dating?”
He took another step towards me so that I had to crane my neck to see his face.
“No,” he said imperiously, like the high school God he was. “Too soon for you. Let’s just say we’re exploring.”
“Wait a minute. Who says you get to decide what we’re doing?” I asked him.
He barked out a laugh and bent down to kiss me. A firm, but brief peck on my lips. “I do. Now, we’re going to go in there, drink beer and flirt with one another. Then we might try to find a private spot and make out for a while. Work for you?”
I shrugged, having no real sense of what I felt other than wanting to make out with him some more.
“I guess. The world has just turned upside down for me, so I imagine I’ll just go with it. For now. But we should still spend some time spying on people.”
“Fine,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Spying first, then flirting and making out second.”
The party was as expected. Loud, cramped and even barely after eight o’clock it appeared as if everyone was already drunk.
“You should know I don’t like parties!” I said loud enough for him to hear, which was basically shouting. “You probably don’t want toexplorewith someone who doesn’t like parties!”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he shouted back. “I don’t like parties, either. Especially during football season when I’m sober and everyone else is shitfaced.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because we’re teenagers. We’re supposed to like parties. So let’s pretend!”
He moved us through the crowd effortlessly. I wasn’t completely oblivious to my fellow classmates reacting to the fact that Fitz and I had arrived together holding hands. My first instinct was to hide that Fitz and I were together in some way. I knew what my classmates thought of me. I knew what they thought of Fitz. He was the Homecoming King, and I wasn’t supposed to be within ten feet of the court.
Didn’t he realize that? How vastly different our social status was. Yes, we were two teenagers who lived in Haddonfield, but that’s where it ended. Things would be said to me. Things like, I wasn’t worthy of him. He could do better.
Just like I wasn’tworthyto MC the fashion show. The difference was I could care less about the fashion show. That hadn’t been worth it at all.
But Fitz was different.
We wound our way to the kitchen. Chas was sitting at his dining room table with Star on his lap. She was drinking a beer and laughing, her arm around his shoulders, as if nothing bad had happened to her last week. It could have been a brave show, but I didn’t think it was. After the trauma of the event itself, we’d been cracking jokes about it ever since.
If anyone said anything to her about it, her response was always the same.
“Yes, they’re real and they’re spectacular.”A nod to Seinfeld re-runs.
Because Star was above it. Always above it all. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of her confidence right now.
“Beer?” Fitz asked me.
I nodded. I didn’t particularly care for taste of it, but alcohol of any kind seemed like a solid plan.
“Fitz!” Chas called out when he saw him.
Fitz gave him a chin nod, while he filled two cups from the keg that had been placed in the center of the kitchen.
“Beth!” my sister called to me. “You came to a party! That’s so…un-Beth of you.”
I smiled and walked over to her. At least I had one friend here.
“Fitz insisted,” I said. “He says they are supposed to be loads of fun.”
