“Christian’s worried about you,” she says. “I can tell. He lost his mom when he was young, too. That’s one of the first things that we understood about each other.”
“I know,” I say to Kay smugly. Meaning: he told me too.
She nods. “You should go easy on him. He deserves to be happy.”
“He’s not my boyfr—”
“You’re looking at him,” she says. “You might be all snuggly-wuggly with your boyfriend, but you’re looking at him.”
“I am not.”
She rolls her eyes. After a moment, she says, “He dumped me for you, you know.” I stare at her, a deer caught in the headlights.
Her mouth purses up for a minute like she’s suppressing a smile. “He didn’t say that to me, of course. He gave me a bunch of phony lines about being fair to me and what I needed and acted like he was doing me a favor. Not that I didn’t see it coming. He’d been acting weird for a while. Not himself. And I saw how you looked at him and how he looked at you.”
“He didn’t look at me,” I protest.
She scoffs. “Whatever.”
“Christian and I are friends,” I try to explain. “I have a boyfriend.”
“Maybe you do,” Kay says with a shrug of her bare shoulder. “But you still look at him.” My face must be the color of beets.
Then she looks me up and down, taking in my dress. “You’re going to have to step it up if you want to be with him.”
“Mind your own business, Kay,” I say then, pissed, and storm out.
And plow straight into Christian. Just as another slow song begins to play.
I’m starting to think that prom is forever cursed for me.
“Hi,” he says. “Dance with me, Clara?”
Insert fluttery panicky feeling in my chest.
“What. . I. . God,” I stammer, then sigh in exasperation. “Where’s Ava?”
“Ava’s not my date. I came stag.”
“Stag. You. Why?”
“So my date wouldn’t get offended when I wanted to dance with you,” he says.
That’s when I notice Tucker about five feet away, listening. “You’re forgetting one thing,” he says, moving to my side and slipping his arm around my waist. “Clara has a date. Me.
So your tough luck.”
Christian doesn’t look fazed.
“It’s one dance,” he says. “Clara and I are friends. What’s the big deal?”
“You had your chance,” Tucker replies coolly. “You blew it. So go step on someone else’s toes.”
Christian hesitates. Looks at me.
Tucker shakes his head. “Dude, don’t make me knock you around in here. I don’t want to mess up my tux.”
A muscle ticks in Christian’s cheek. I get an I-could-kick-your-sorry-butt-if-I-wanted-to vibe from him, clear as day.
God. Men.
I step between them.
“No offense, Tuck,” I say, turning to him, “but I am not a piece of meat, okay? Stop growling over me. I can handle this myself.”
I turn to Christian. “No,” I say simply. “Thank you for the offer, but I have a date.”
He nods, takes a step back.
Then I take Tucker’s hand and lead him away to the dance floor, leaving Christian standing there alone.
The dance isn’t much fun after that. I expend a huge amount of energy trying to block Christian out, while at the same time trying not to think about him at all, which turns out to be impossible. Tucker and I are both tensed up for the rest of the night, quiet, pressing close as we dance, holding on like we’re afraid we might slip away from each other.
We don’t talk on the way home.
Before I moved here, I never got the whole love-triangle thing. You know, in movies or romance novels or whatnot, where there’s one chick that all the guys are drooling over, even though you can’t see anything particularly special about her. But oh, no, they both must have her.
And she’s like, oh dear, however will I choose? William is so sensitive, he understands me, he swept me off
