Then, at last, he found Bethany. She was in a dark-red dress that was fitted at the top and had a full skirt that brushed the tops of her knees. Her hair was in a complicated-looking bun. She looked like a ballerina and the prettiest girl in the whole gym.
She was also staring directly at him.
Everything inside of him kind of shut down and then opened again. He liked her. He liked her a lot. And what did it matter if half the school was going to be gossiping about them? They already were.
And hadn’t he been through a whole lot worse? Thinking of Kimber and Gunnar, he felt his cheeks redden. What did a little bit of embarrassment have to do with what they’d just gone through?
All the sudden, he stopped worrying about what everybody thought and started through the crowd.
Jeremy knew the instant Bethany realized he was walking directly toward her. Her eyes widened and then she smiled.
He felt his confidence rise and he picked up his pace. “Sorry,” he murmured as he almost ran over a pair of freshman.
Still obviously watching him, Bethany’s smile grew.
And that had been all he’d needed to see. It was going to be okay. Whatever happened next, it was all going to be okay.
Hopefully.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m really sorry I didn’t see you walk in. I was standing at the other door.”
“It’s okay. I meant to look for you right away, but everyone started talking to me. And my phone died. I’m sorry I didn’t text you.”
“It’s fine.” And that was true, because it was fine now.
She smiled up at him. She had on more makeup than usual and her brown eyes looked bright.
“You look really pretty.”
“Thanks.” She looked away.
“I brought you a corsage.”
Her eyes widened. “Have you been holding it this whole time?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but it’s okay. Here.” He handed her the box, silently thanking Kimber for suggesting a wrist corsage instead of one that had to be pinned on. He could only imagine how awkward that would be, with half the school watching him attempt to pin the flowers on the tiny strap of her dress.
She carefully opened the plastic container and pulled out the flowers. He set the box on a nearby table and helped her put it on her wrist. When it was in place, she looked up at him and smiled. “I love it. Thank you.”
Even though he felt all their friends watching them, he reached for her hand. “It looks better on you than in the box.”
She laughed. “So . . .”
“So do you want to dance?” he asked. When she nodded, he carefully led her through all the other couples who were slow dancing.
Holding her hand in his, seeing his buddies’ looks of approval, Jeremy felt like everything in his world had changed again.
This time for the better.
CHAPTER 36
“It is never too late to live happily ever after.”
—Unknown
It had been the craziest night. Rehearsal had been so long and chaotic, which was saying a lot since everyone knew that Miss Kimber had been abducted the night before. Everything that had gone wrong had, and one of the girls in her main ballet had come down with strep throat and had to quit, which had meant that they’d had to rechoreograph the whole thing.
By the time they’d finished the run-through, Bethany had grabbed her dress and followed Gwen into a private bathroom in the back of the building. Gwen had let Bethany store her things there. She’d even offered to take Bethany’s dance things back to the dance studio at the end of the night so she could head right over to the dance.
She’d been so ready to get out of there and go to the dance, Bethany had hardly cared if Miss Shannon was going to be mad at her or not.
When she’d finally walked into the gym, she’d thought Jeremy was going to be at the door. When she didn’t see him at first, she’d really thought Jeremy had decided to skip the dance. Or worse—that he’d take some other girl and was going to ignore her the whole time.
Of course, that had been stupid. He was there, he’d just been waiting at the other side.
And now, here she was, with her hands linked around his neck, his hands loosely holding her waist, and they were swaying to Bruno Mars. It was awesome.
Even better than all of that, he hadn’t looked away from her once, like he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world than with her. And that was perfect, but she didn’t want to be anywhere else either.
“Hey, are you okay?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Very sure.” She smiled up at him. “I’m really glad you still wanted to go to the dance with me even though I had to come so late.”
He looked away, like he was trying to come up with the right words but he couldn’t think of what they were. “I wasn’t sure what to do about twenty minutes ago, if you want to know the truth. A couple of hours ago, sitting at home, I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have made Gunnar buy me clothes for it and everything.”
“You look really nice.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t know if you were going to show up. I thought maybe you would ditch me.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I was being an idiot.”
“I’ll tell you about rehearsal later, but for now, I’ll just share that it was terrible. I’m glad we’re dancing now.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He pulled her a little bit closer. And his hand kind of felt heavier on her back, like he suddenly didn’t want to let her go. Looking troubled, he said, “I kind of lied about worrying about my clothes. The fact is, Gunnar said that there was no way I couldn’t not come.” He lowered his voice. “He told me that I needed to see this through.”
“This?”
“You and me.”
She liked the sound of that. She liked that they were a “you and me.” It sounded permanent. Good.
As more couples joined them, the space got even more confined and he pulled her closer so the couple to her right didn’t knock her over. Now her chest was practically touching his and her lips were almost against his neck. She could feel the heat from his body and smell the soap on his skin. It felt good to be right next to him. Good and a little intense. She wondered if everyone around them was watching.
“Sorry,” Jeremy said when he stepped back. “I thought he was going to step on your foot.”