Prom King

by Penny Wylder

  “I still can’t believe we’re going here.”

  “The owner is a family friend,” I say.

  She shakes her head in disbelief. “Good friends to have.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” I take her hand again, and we enter the restaurant. “Carlisle,” I say to the hostess, and we don’t have to wait at all. We’re led back to one of their more private tables on a balcony that overlooks the Hudson River, and the breeze off the water is the perfect antidote to the remaining afternoon heat. I pull out Ollie’s chair and she sits, her dress puffing out beneath her.

  I have an image in my head of us sinking into bed together, and fucking her while surrounded by all those layers of skirt. I wonder if I can make that happen later tonight.

  Sitting across from her, the light is streaming from behind her and it’s such a perfect picture that I pull out my phone. “I need a picture of this,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “Because the lighting is perfect, and I need a picture of you for my long and lonely nights at the hospital.”

  Ollie blushes, and I snap the picture right as she looks away toward the river. It’s perfect. Gorgeous. A person is suddenly by our table, and I look up. “Anton,” I say, “hello.” I stand and hug him. “I didn’t know you would be here tonight.”

  “When you called for a reservation, I thought it had been so long that I needed to see you and say hello.” He looks over at Ollie. “And who is your lovely companion?”

  “This is Olivia Mitchell.”

  He holds out a hand and she takes it. “It’s nice to meet you, Olivia Mitchell. I hope you know that you have an excellent young man here.”

  “I do know that,” she says, smiling.

  Anton turns back to me. “Tonight you’re getting the chef’s finest. I’ll make sure they take care of you.”

  I shake his hand. “I appreciate that. Next time I come, you and I will have a drink.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” Nodding to Ollie, he says, “It was lovely to meet you.”

  “You too,” she says.

  And then he’s gone as quickly as he appeared. “Anton never stops moving,” I say. “He’s always chatting with patrons and his friends and sometimes he cooks too. He cares more about this restaurant and food more than any person I’ve ever met.”

  “He seems nice,” she says, laughing. “From the thirty seconds he was here.”

  “He is, and if he says that he’s making sure our food is amazing, it will be.”

  Our waiter appears with wine, and pours us each a glass. “So,” she says, “you have a couple days off now?”

  “I do, and I was actually going to ask you about that.”

  Ollie makes a sarcastic face. “You were going to ask me about your days off?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Okay?”

  “I actually have two things that I need to ask you.” I take a sip of wine ad clear my throat. “I was wondering if you wanted to go away this weekend. My family has a house out on the island. No one is there, and I want to just—”

  “Yes,” she says. “Hell yes. Did you think I would say no?”

  “I mean, I know it’s fast.”

  She shakes her head, and the sun catches her hair, distracting me. “Seriously, I’d love to.” Then she lowers her voice. “We can’t seem to keep our hands off each other, and a big house where we’re all alone seems like the perfect place to get some of that out of our system.”

  I grin. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  I sigh, this one is trickier. “My mother is hosting a party next week. I’d like you to come.”

  “You don’t sound as happy about that one.”

  “I’m not,” I say. “Though that has nothing to do with you. I generally don’t love my parents’ parties. Imagine all the parents of the people in our class and you have the people that populate those circles.”

  “Oh.”

  I laugh. “Yeah. It’s a real fun time.”

  Ollie spins her wineglass on the table, and watches the watery reflection of light on the table. The truth is, I don’t know how I’ll be able to get myself out of my predicament by the party, but if worse comes to worse, I want Ollie to be there. But I need some way to warn her about what might happen if she goes. How can I tell her about Sasha without breaking her heart all over again? That’s the last thing that I want, especially since what we have is so new and so good. I don’t want to break it.

  “Hey,” Ollie says gently. “Where’d you go?”

  “Sorry.”

  She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for. But you can tell me what’s wrong.”

  How can I? “I’m not sure how.”

  “Is it a problem at work?”

  “Kind of,” I sigh. “I…agreed to something a few years ago that I thought would help my career. But it wasn’t the right choice to make. It’s kind of so obvious now that I’m not sure how I didn’t see it then. But because of that choice, there’s a couple people, my father included, who are making it hard to get off that path.”

  “Did it help?”

  “My career?” She nods. “Maybe. I think I probably could have done just fine on my own.”

  She takes another sip of her wine, the breeze catching her hair and blowing it into her eyes for a second while she looks at the river. “And you can’t…get out of this?”

  “I’m trying.”

  The way she’s looking at me, searching, it’s like I can feel her stare in my chest. “What’s stopping you?”

  “I’m not sure that doing what I did helped my career, but it’s made clear to me that reversing it would definitely hurt it.”

  Ollie frowns. “And you can’t tell me what it is? Maybe I could help.”

  I brush my thumb across the back of her hand. “I wish I could,” I say, and I really do. “But I can’t right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, trying to pull her hand away. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  I don’t let her pull away. “Of course you should have. Believe me, this would be easier if I could just talk about it. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to.”

  She smiles, and it’s a little sad. “Well I’m sorry that you have to deal with it at all.”

  “Me too.”

  I look out over the river for a second, and then back at Ollie. My eyes follow the line of her dress, and I’m distracted by her collarbones, sweeping gracefully out to her shoulders. “So… is Italian your favorite?” I say, asking a question to try to change the subject and bring back the lighthearted feeling that got lost in me almost admitting everything.

  “Yeah,” she says. “I love Italian. I think my second favorite is probably traditional American diner food. I can really go for a burger now and then.” Our waiter appears with the first course, what looks like a small portion of artisanal fettuccini alfredo, and Ollie grins. “But yeah, Italian is my favorite.”

  “It’s my favorite too,” I say. “Though I can always go for Thai too.”

  “Mmm.” She groans as she takes a bite the pasta. “This is amazing. And so is Thai.”

  I take my own bite, and she’s right. The pasta is creamy with the right proportion of pasta and sauce. Anton really has a talented chef here. I have to make sure that I tell him that the next time I see him.

  “Now you can tell me about your parents,” I say.

  She laughs. “They’re fine. They still live in the same house, still have the same routines. I think you’d like them.”

  “I’m sure I would.”

  She shakes her head. “They’re definitely not in the same circles as your parents.”

  “I think that probably ensures that I’ll like them more.”

  “Maybe,” she laughs. “They’ll do their best to embarrass me when you meet them. Be forewarned.”

  “If I get to see you blush more, it works in my favor.”

  At my comment, she blushes, and
just like that, our magic is back. We fall back into the get-to-know-you game, and it’s easier to forget the little blip. I wish I could confide in Ollie, I wish that I’d had the strength to say no when my father insisted. I wish that it were anyone but Sasha that was the problem. If it were anyone but her, this would be so much easier.

  But it’s not.

  And I can’t let tonight be about that. If I let it take over my mind, I’ll go mad with guilt and I’ll end up exploding the nuclear bomb that is my life. So I focus on Ollie and how beautiful she is, and everything that I’m learning about her.

  She’s an only child, which I knew. Her parents moved out of the city to rural Pennsylvania to retire. Her favorite vacation spot is the beach, any beach, and besides her love of World’s Waterfall, she’s also hugely and nerdily obsessed with origami. I didn’t see any at her apartment, but then I wasn’t looking for it.

  I tell her about medical school and some of the crazy shenanigans that my friends and I got into while we were there. I tell her the story of how we played a prank on one of our teachers using a live goldfish, and the story of how I nearly broke my spine out of stupidity.

  We laugh together, and drink wine, and by the time all of the five courses have passed we’re both stuffed with delicious Italian food and just drunk enough that everything is perfect and glowing and happy. “My place?” I ask as we exit the restaurant into the gathering cool of evening.

  “Yes,” she says, pulling me down for a kiss in the middle of the street.

  And that’s that.

  20

  Ollie

  I knew that Adam and his family were rich, but wasn’t expecting the absolutely gorgeous apartment building that the cab lets us out in front of on the Upper West Side. Old architecture and a quiet street, it’s almost unassuming but it still speaks of the kind of wealth that a lot of the established families of New York have. It’s on Riverside Drive, which means it’s going to have my second gorgeous view of the river today.

  We go inside, and unlike my building, Adam’s has an elevator. Thank god, I’m so stuffed full of Italian food that I’m not sure I could walk up six flights of stairs right now. I can’t help but notice that we’re in comfortable silence. That’s not typical, at least for me. Most of my silences are awkward. But this feels nice, just existing next to each other without having to fill up the space with words words words.

  Adam unlocks the door to the apartment, and…holy shit. It’s giant and tastefully decorated in shades of grey and blue, with big windows in the living room, and it’s spotless.

  My jaw drops. “First, this place is amazing. Second, you told me your place was messy!”

  Adam grins, “I told you that to make you feel better. You were freaking out because you thought your apartment was messy.”

  “It was messy.”

  “You and I have different ideas about what’s messy,” he chuckles.

  I move further into the living room and look out the windows that overlook the Hudson and Riverside Park. It’s so beautiful. And then I turn my attention to the other gorgeous thing in the room: a massive built-in bookshelf with a truly great collection of books. There are quite a few of the same books that I have, and some that I’ve been wanting to read. And then, I see them. On the top shelf, the entire World’s Waterfall series.

  “Wait a second,” I say, pointing. “You’ve read those?”

  Adam smiles, seeming almost embarrassed. “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  He laughs. “I was obsessed with them the same time you were, in high school.”

  My mind flashes back to that day in the gym when he told me that he hoped I had a chance to finish the book. It was because he loved that book too! “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “My father hated them,” he says. “He didn’t want his kid to be a nerd, or rather, he didn’t want a kid that would read those type of books. He wanted someone masculine and smart. Someone who could become a successful doctor.

  “In his defense, I think it was at least partially out of love and not ego. He was afraid that I’d be bullied the same way he was, and he didn’t want that for me. So I hid my inner nerd and moved on, and it’s honestly just become a habit to not talk about it.”

  I cross the room to him and pull him into a kiss, “I wish I’d known this then,” I say. “I wouldn’t have been so afraid to talk to you.”

  “You were afraid to talk to me?”

  “You were Mr. Popular, and I was very, very not. Of course I was afraid to talk to you.”

  He laughs. “I’m sorry. Guess we were both freaking out about the same things. I was so nervous to talk to you. I thought you’d blow me off because I was popular. But I guess what matters is what we know now, right?”

  “Right,” I say. “We’re both nerds. I’m glad I know.” Suddenly I freeze. “So, at the reunion, I guess that you noticed that—”

  “The dress you were wearing is shockingly similar to the one Rienne wears when she and Colbert first have sex? Yeah, I noticed.”

  I’m really blushing, truly fiery red. “Lor found it and she knew that it was like that dress and she thought it would make me more confident.”

  Adam pulls back, taking me in. “You don’t have to justify why you were wearing it. You looked beautiful. You would have looked beautiful whatever you were wearing. I can’t say that it didn’t cross my mind though.”

  “I can’t believe that I didn’t know.” I look back at the bookshelf and suddenly my stomach drops. The books on the shelf are the same kind of gorgeous copies like he gave me, and the first book is missing. “Did you give me your signed copy?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wow. “That’s…amazing. But don’t you want it?”

  “I want you to have it. The copy you have is still the beat up ones from ten years ago.”

  “Thanks.” It was a nice gesture when I thought that he bought it for me. Now that I know it is one of his own books, it feels completely different. Way more intimate and special.

  Adam heads towards the kitchen. “Let me grab us some drinks,” he says. I think he needs a moment, and I let him go. I keep looking through his bookshelf. I’ve found that you can tell a lot about a person by which books they do—or don’t—read. John Waters famously said, ‘If you go home with somebody and they don’t have any books, don’t fuck ‘em.’

  Adam, thankfully, seems to have a lot of good books. On the table by the couch I see a copy of the business book that I’ve been reading. “Did you just buy this?” I ask him as he comes back into the room.

  “Yeah, I picked it up on my way home yesterday. What you said about it seemed interesting.”

  I laugh, and suddenly I can’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe you were actually listening.”

  “Why?” he asks. “Because I happened to be inside you at the time?”

  “Yes, that would be why.”

  He toasts me with his glass and pulls me close to whisper in my ear. “It turns out that I’m a pretty good multi-tasker.”

  “Oh?” His breath tickles my ear and I laugh, but I lean into him. “You have any plans to multi-task tonight?”

  “I might.”

  "Are you going to tell me?"

  "How I'm going to multi-task?"

  "Yeah."

  He smiles. "I thought I'd surprise you."

  I make a face. "I told you before, I don't love surprises."

  "Given our particular history," he says, "I get that. I was going to ask if you wanted to watch a movie with me. Then we can make out like the teenage sweethearts that we never got to be." He leads me over to the couch, and I manage to kick off my shoes before I sink onto the couch, careful not to spill my wine.

  "Does it need to be a scary movie so I can pretend to be afraid just so that I can have you hold me?"

  He laughs, purposely putting his arm around me on the couch. "It can be whatever kind of movie you like."

  "Hmmm." I turn so I can see him a little bette
r. "One more question. Does the end of this end up with me in your bed?"

  "In many very compromising positions," he says.

  "Then bring on the movie," I say, downing the rest of my glass.

  Adam turns on the TV, and I tuck my feet up onto the couch, leaning into him. "Now I have two questions for you."

  "I might have two answers." I'm feeling the wine from dinner, and with this glass, I'm in perfectly, blissfully tipsy territory. I can tell that I'm smiley, maybe too smiley, but I don't care because I'm happy and I love that I'm here in Adam's apartment and that somehow we're together after all this time doing what we might have done in one or the other of our parents’ basements.

  "Do you want more wine?"

  "Yes."

  I feel the vibration of his laughter in his chest. "And do you want to care about the movie?"

  "What do you mean?"

  He clears his throat. "I mean, do you want a movie that—despite any making out that will happen—we'll want to finish? Or do you want something we can heartlessly abandon halfway through?"

  I think about it for a second. "Let's watch the movie," I say. "It's been a long time since I've actually watched a movie with anyone outside a theater. It might be nice."

  Adam stands, taking my wine glass. "It will be more than nice," he calls behind him. "It will be excellent." He fills both our glasses and comes back, shrugging off the jacket of his suit before he sits down again. Flicking through movies on the TV, he chooses one that I vaguely remember from the theaters a few months ago, a fluffy romantic comedy that looked funny. “How about this?”

  “You really want to watch it?”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrug. “I guess I didn’t think this would be your kind of movie.”

  Adam slides his arm around my waist, settling his hand on my hip. “I don’t really have just one kind of movie. I think that any genre can be good if done well.”