“Oh, there’s Diane and Robert,” my mom says, pointing toward where Andrew’s parents are standing. “Let’s go say hi.”
I try to dig my heels into the ground to keep her from dragging me over there, because the thought of seeing Andrew after last night is excruciating. When I do see him, standing with his parents, my breath catches. He’s in a navy blue suit, his hair combed flat to his head. I miss the way it usually flops down into his eyes. He spins around and puts a leg up on the fence post for a silly picture and I hear his mom’s voice as we approach.
“Can’t we at least get one serious picture?”
“Mom,” he says. “Just wait until Danielle gets here.” At the mention of her name, I feel something sharp in my chest.
“I just want one nice picture of my son in a suit,” she says. He shakes his head, laughing as she snaps furiously with the camera. And then he turns and looks right at me and I stop walking, like I’ve run into an invisible brick wall. The smile is frozen on his face, his eyes are dancing, and they’re so green, and I can’t help but think back to last night when there were drops of water in his eyelashes like morning dew on grass. My parents keep walking, meeting up with his, greeting each other with hugs and handshakes, but I’m barely registering it because I can’t move, can’t stop looking at him, can’t breathe. All I can think about, looking into his eyes, is how badly I want to kiss him. I want to be right back in that bathtub, his skin slick against mine, his hands threading through my hair, pulling me tight against him, so tight that it’s like we’re made out of the same particles.
And I realize Hannah is right. Hannah is so, so right, has always been right. I’m in love with him.
But I don’t want to be just like Cecilia, just like so many other girls who fell for him the same way and were tossed aside. I don’t want to just be the girl he made out with in a bathtub at a party after too many margaritas, the girl who fell for his stupid lines even though she knew better. Because I’m not in love with Party Andrew. I’m just in love with Andrew. My best friend.
But that doesn’t make it any easier.
He must realize I’m having trouble moving, because he walks toward me, closing the distance between us.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” I say, suddenly shy.
“You look . . .” he says, but then doesn’t finish the sentence. I want him to say that I’m beautiful, but I know if he does it’ll just be another line.
“Thanks,” I say instead, like he already has.
“We need a picture of you two for the fridge!” My mom waves her camera. “Get together.” Our parents surge forward and push us into each other, smoothing down the waves in my hair, picking imaginary lint off his suit jacket so that we look perfect.
“Drew, put your arm around her,” my dad says. “What are you scared of?”
“Look how grown up you both are,” Andrew’s mom says, her voice going misty.
“You’re both so beautiful,” my mom says.
It’s weird to me how our parents have no idea what’s going on between us. Once, they knew everything about our lives, and now there’s so much right under the surface they’ll never understand. My dad is so clueless he can casually tell Andrew to put his arm around me, not realizing Andrew’s arm around me is both the best and the worst thing in the entire world.
Andrew looks at me and then back at our parents and then dutifully obeys, placing his arm gently around my waist, his hand just barely resting against the fabric on my hip. I think of how many times he’s slung his arm over my shoulder in the past, leaning on me at parties, pulling me tightly against him like it’s no big deal. I think of the hammock in his backyard, all the times we lay there together, letting gravity pull us practically on top of each other. Touching him now shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t be a problem, but his hand on my hip is hot and heavy and it’s all I can think about.
Our parents take about a million photos, and then we pull away as fast as possible so we’re not touching. I wonder for a heartbreaking moment if we’ll ever touch again. I can’t be around him, not if it’s going to feel like this.
I glance toward the parking lot. Danielle is here now, with Ava, and she looks like someone you’d want to paint, her gown the color of red wine with a slit practically up to her neck. Ryder is behind them, not very discreetly drinking out of a flask. Even though he and Ava are here together, they’re Not Together as dates; Ava wanted to go stag. Chase walks up to them then, his arm around Cecilia.
When your school is small, in the end it’s all just one big game of spin the bottle.
I start to move toward the group, but Andrew holds out a hand to stop me.
“Wait,” he says. “Before we . . . I mean.” He lowers his voice so our parents can’t hear, but they’re not paying much attention anyway, too busy looking through the pictures in the digital camera. “About last night,” he says. “I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, I did mean to, I wanted to, I just . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I was about eighty percent made of tequila by that point, so—”
“I know,” he says. His voice is so quiet, and he’s leaning close to me so our parents can’t hear, and it hurts because his lips are only about three inches away from mine. It’s funny how something can be so close but actually so far away. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I kissed you back,” I say, my voice catching.
“But you were drunk.”
“So were you.” It’s like we’re talking in circles. “Let’s just forget it happened, okay? All of it.” And then I walk away from him and over to the parking lot. When I turn around, I’m surprised to see he hasn’t followed. He’s just standing there, scuffing one of his nice shoes into the grass. Then he nods and moves past me right to Danielle. She smiles when she sees him and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him into her body so they’re plastered together. It feels a bit like someone is stabbing me repeatedly with a blunt knife.
There’s the rumbling of an engine and then a motorcycle peels into the parking lot, and thank God, it’s Dean. He looks good—better than good. It’s like he’s straight out of an action movie in his black tuxedo. He’s not James Dean anymore. He’s James Bond.
I make my way over to him just as he’s stepping off the bike, and I can feel his eyes sizing me up, his gaze slowly traveling down the length of my body, lingering in all the places that are a bit more exposed than usual.
“You clean up nice, Prom Date.” He tries to reach for me, to kiss me in front of everyone, but I back away from him because I know my parents are watching.