* * *
I’d like to say my gym had transformed into something other than my gym for the dance, but apparently the decoration committee had really taxed themselves hanging streamers and a few balloons.
Jolene had barely blinked since walking through the doors. I tried to see what she saw with such bright eyes. Students spit shined to uncomfortable perfection, some swaying under a basketball hoop, others crowded around tables. Squealing over dresses, high-fiving over dates or lack thereof.
My small-town high school had only a few hundred students, and most of us had known each other since kindergarten. We were a pretty incestuous bunch—take my brother showing up with my ex-girlfriend, for instance. I was one of maybe a dozen who’d brought an outside date. And not just a date, Jolene Timber.
My gym was a gussied-up gym full of gussied-up kids.
Jolene, on the other hand...
Her hair shone in soft brown waves that fell to her hips, and every time she turned, it flowed around her to dizzying effect. I could feel my pupils dilate, and Jolene took full advantage.
“The hair,” I said, lifting a strand and letting it run through my fingers.
She grinned. “You like it.” Not a question, but I nodded anyway.
I would say it took two turns, three tops, before every guy I knew was coming up to meet her. After one even asked her to dance, I pulled her away to meet my actual friends.
“Hey, man,” Gideon said, trying not to look at Jolene. He was lanky with thick brown hair that he was constantly shaking back from his tanned face. He’d been one of my best friends since we played T-ball together. I’d told him a little about Jolene, but I still felt nervous introducing them for the first time. Jolene couldn’t help but be impressive, and she could be nice when she wanted to be—which she apparently wanted that night—but after Erica, I had no idea how my two separate lives would hold up meeting each other.
I introduced everyone, including Gideon’s date, a girl named Julie from my chemistry class, and then Rory, the pretty boy of our friends, with his sandy-blond hair, brown eyes, and easy grin. And while he might not have come with a date, several girls were watching him while we all talked, and they encircled him the second I pulled Jolene away. I introduced her to a few more people until I felt like she had enough names to remember and we headed for the dance floor.
I wouldn’t call her a great dancer, but the way she moved—and that hair—it was mesmerizing.
“We need to stop,” I told her as the fifth fast song ended.
“Don’t tell me you’re tired already.” She twirled around in front of me, heedless of the people gazing at her, or maybe because of the people gazing at her.
“I’m pretty sure even my brother is eyeing you at this point.” He wasn’t, but that might have been only because Erica was laughing at something he’d said. Or not. I couldn’t actually remember seeing him glance at another girl all night.
Jolene made a face and tugged me away from the dancing. “I cannot believe how much fun I’m having. Yet another reason that private schools suck.”
“Maybe you just need me.” I grinned as she slugged me, ridiculously happy that I was the cause of her happiness. “You’re stunning, you know that?”
“It’s the hair.”
It was so much more than the hair.
Jolene scanned the room. “Are you going to point out your ex-girlfriends to me? I mean, besides Erica.”
I played dumb. “Who?”
“How quickly he forgets. The latest of your conquests, she of the shattered heart, the jilted one. You know, the girl currently making out with your brother.”
I didn’t glance in Jeremy and Erica’s direction. Whether it was true or not, Jolene was testing me, and I honestly didn’t mind if they were kissing. Instead I said, “Where do I start?” I pretended to wink at a girl over Jolene’s shoulder. She laughed and almost choked on her drink.
“Exactly how many of the girls here are in love with you?”
“Including you?”
“You wish.”
Was I that obvious?
A slow song came on that I knew she loved, so I got to put my arms around her. With the added height from her shoes, I could lean my head down and reach her ear. She shivered when I spoke. “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t care if Erica was kissing my brother?” Which was 100 percent true. From the moment Jolene had opened her front door, it had been impossible to take my eyes off her.
“Either way, you get mad points for saying it.” She didn’t lift her head when she spoke, so I couldn’t see her expression, but I could feel her happiness.
“Yeah? Are these points redeemable?”
“Sure. Earn enough and I’ll get you something pretty.”
I could joke about winking at girls who weren’t actually there, and teasing with Jolene was just the way we were—usually it was the other way around—but ever since that almost kiss in the snow—longer than that, really—I’d been the one trying to ruffle her composure. At first it was just to see if I could, to see if I possessed over her even a fraction of the power she held over me. But it wasn’t a game to me. I wanted it not to be a game to her either.
I don’t know if it was the lights or the music or the fact that I was getting drunk on her laughter, but I tightened my arms around her without a moment of hesitation. “I can think of something.”
Her breath caught, and she pulled back to look at me. All her bravado fell away as I held her. Not in a joking or a teasing embrace. Not catching her when she tripped or while we posed for a photo. We were in a gym that still smelled like sweat under swirling clouds of cologne and perfume, surrounded by hundreds of people and the seizure-inducing flash from the world’s fastest photographer in the corner.
All I could think was, how long would she let me hold her?
But then a smile crept onto her face, and I felt the shift even before her words confirmed that the game was back on. And it was over. Whatever it was. Whatever it might have been.
“Well, okay. I’m not sure it will fit, but if you like the dress that much, Adam, it’s yours.” I didn’t resist when she stepped out of my arms mid-song. Her eyes were too wide, and her fingers were twisting in her hair like she wanted desperately to braid it. Seeing her unnerved made it easier for me to let go. For now.
“You want to get in line for photos?”
“Yes!” she said.
When it was our turn, we took our place in front of the winter-wonderland backdrop, and the photographer started maneuvering us into one of the standard awkward poses, but Jolene was having none of that. Her eyes sparked back to life as she shrugged off whatever had dimmed them when I’d pulled her close.