by L A Tavares
“I’m ready to go.” She is as confident as ever. “If that’s what everyone else wants.”
Theo and Dom both vote yes and Xander decides he’s in.
“I guess I’m in too,” I say, and Cooper closes his folder.
“That’s that then. I’ll let them know.” As he heads to the door, I think of one more question.
“Coop?” I say and he turns, leaning into the door frame. “What dates did you say the show is?”
“The twelfth to the fourteenth.” His phone rings and he takes the call in the hallway.
Xander pushes himself next to me, the wheels of his chair moving easily across the tile floor. “You fucked up, didn’t you?” he asks. I put my foot on the seat of his chair and push him back to where he came from.
He’s not wrong, though.
When I arrive home, I recap the meeting and detail the rock and hard place I’m stuck between.
“Blake”—Kelly sighs—“that’s our anniversary weekend. We made our hotel reservations like four months ago.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll call and get us reservations for the following weekend.”
“What if they’re booked? They’re always booked.”
“I said I promise, right? I’ll make it happen.” I take her hand to my lips and kiss every knuckle.
“Okay, but I’m going to hold you to it.” She goes to her tip-toes to close the distance between us and I lean down to meet her, placing my lips against hers.
* * * *
Then
I can hear Debbie and Xander yelling at each other before I get through the door. It’s not loud or aggressive. It’s par for the course with them. That’s just how they talk to each other. In a way, it’s kind of comical. They get along so well, but they get loud with each other too.
“I don’t care, Alexander,” she yells up the stairs. “I don’t care if it’s the biggest tour that has ever existed. If you don’t graduate, you’re not going.”
“It’s just Xander,” he yells, appearing at the top of the stairs.
“Your birth certificate says ‘Alexander’ and so will your headstone if you don’t pass this semester.”
I laugh, giving myself away. She looks over her shoulder and smiles at me, but her smile dissipates as she turns back to the staircase and resumes her stance against her stubborn son. I’d never say it out loud, but he gets it from her.
“Maybe Blake can help you,” she says. “He’s passing all his courses.”
Xander flies down the stairs, practically riding the banister.
“You’re…studying?” He places his hands at my shoulders and shakes me gently. “Traitor!” he yells. I laugh but he doesn’t.
“You. Books. Now,” Debbie says in her most intimidating voice. Xander sits at the table in a heap of disinterest and frustration.
“So,” she says, “Blake, who are you asking to prom?”
“He’s asking Kelly Montoy.” Xander opens a book so the cover slams against the table. I take an apple from the bowl on the counter.
“I am not.”
“If you don’t ask her, I will.” Xander places a pencil above his ear.
“You wouldn’t,” I say through a bite full of apple and a narrowed glare.
“I would.”
“You know what? Go for it.”
The following Monday, he accepts the challenge. I shouldn’t have said anything. I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.
“Watch me,” he says, finalizing the back and forth exchange we carried on all weekend.
He clears his throat as he leaves my locker, straightens out his jacket and walks toward Kelly.
“Kelly.” He runs his hand through his hair and gives her the nod. My stomach turns. I know how she used to see him. She knew him as the awkward loner version of Alexander Varro. He’s becoming something—we all are—but he has changed the most. People know his name and they talk about him everywhere he goes. He got louder as he got more well-known and more arrogant in many ways. I stayed the same.
“Yes, Xander?”
“I was wondering—” He looks over his shoulder to make sure I am still watching. “Do you have a date to prom?”
“I don’t.” Her mouth grows into a glowing smile.
“Great, that’s good. I was wondering if you would go with me.”
She laughs. Laughs. Then I laugh too, covering my mouth to stifle the sound.
“I can’t, Xander. I’m sorry. I—” And I swear, for a moment, her eyes meet mine in a quick, stolen glance that I almost missed. “I’m going with someone.”
“But you said—”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I have to get to class.”
She walks away, leaving him standing there alone in his stupid leather boots and flashy jacket. He shuffles back toward me with his hands in his pockets.
“Xander?” a voice says, catching us both off-guard. Rina Amell leans into a locker a few doors down from Kelly’s. “I don’t have a date to prom yet.” He looks to me in surprise. I nod and he turns on his heel, walking over to Rina and leaving me behind at our lockers.
Later in the lunchroom, I sit by myself watching as Xander sits at a separate table laughing with Rina Amell and her friends like he belongs there. Maybe he does.
“Blake?”
My gaze leaves Xander’s table to find Kelly standing beside me. I shift into a better posture, trying to make myself as presentable as possible.
“I was wondering…” She twirls a piece of hair on her finger. “Do you have a date to prom?”
I panic. My mouth goes so dry I can’t speak. This is a joke, just like the night I shaving creamed Principal Wheeler’s car. There has to be someone waiting to jump out and laugh at me the minute I fall for this again.
“I’m not going.” Her smile turns to a tight line.
“Oh, okay then.” The air between us is heavy, each of us waiting for the other to say something worth cutting through the awkwardness between us but neither of us do.
She just walks away. I turn to find Xander glaring at me, shrugging his shoulders and mouthing ‘What the fuck, man?’ from across the room.
Maybe the opportunity was real after all, a train with a promising destination, and I let the doors close, waving it onward without ever trying to get on it, as my reservations kept me cemented to the platform.
Chapter Sixteen
Now
It is hot in Miami. Stepping off the plane, the humidity engulfs us in a cloud of heavy, thick air, the kind that hurts a person’s chest when they try to inhale it.
The house Most Of Us had rented to share is like a small hotel in itself. It boasts eight bedrooms, waterfront views and beach access, two hot tubs, a private pool and a game room with a full theater attached. Kelly would love it here.
The room I choose has high ceilings, arched doorways and a view prettier than a painting. The balcony is beautiful and serene. I can see myself sitting out here while making music and enjoying the sun. It’s the first time I’ve stepped into a home that made me toy with the idea of leaving Boston.
That’s a dream for someday, though. I’m still rooted deeply in Massachusetts for now.
“You settled in there, Blake?” Cooper says after he knocks on the open door.
“Yeah, this is gorgeous. I can’t believe the views here.”
Cooper joins me at the balcony, leaning into the railing.
“How are you holding up?”
I swallow hard and look away from him. I’d be better if everyone would stop asking me how I am doing. It wasn’t even a big deal. It was a few hands of poker.
“I’m fine.” It’s all I can manage. I keep telling everyone that I’m fine. I keep saying it’s not a problem and it isn’t. But every time someone asks, every time someone keeps tabs on me, I think about it more and more. Then I’m itching to open my computer, join a virtual table and play my way into the next morning. Every time I get a few days away from the last time I played, so
meone asks how I’m holding up, and I want to run to the nearest casino.
I enjoy it.
Admittedly, my cigarette intake goes up the more my gambling time goes down. I need to occupy my hands and head with something, so I replace one bad habit with another.
“I’m fine,” I say again, chewing a fingernail. He claps a hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s make this a good weekend, make it through a whole show. A whole weekend with no drama, no news outlets—just a damn good show.”
“Oh, Coop,” I say, shaking my head as he walks away.
“What?” He turns in the doorway.
“You can’t go around saying those kinds of things out loud,” I say with an added tsk tsk. “We’re all screwed now. You’ve doomed us.”
“You’re probably right about that with this lot.” He nods and leaves me with my thoughts.
“No fair.” Stasia’s voice echoes as she joins me on the balcony who knows how long later. The views have me losing track of time. She places two glasses, an ice bucket and a bottle of whiskey on the table. “Why do you get the best views in the house?”
Stasia pours two cups of the good stuff and rejoins me, handing me a glass.
“Cooper likes me the best,” I say through a half-assed smile. Everyone knows Xander is Cooper’s favorite.
“I don’t think he likes me very much.” She takes a sip of her drink.
“You don’t think anyone likes you.” I turn to the table to refill my glass. “He likes you. He just doesn’t know you. Give it time. He’s been dealing with the rest of us for thirteen years.”
We’re silent for a while, watching the sun dip into the earth where the sun meets the water from lounge chairs on the balcony.
Stasia’s phone buzzes and she leans over to glance at the screen. A light smile appears at her lips and her cheeks flush a light pink. She doesn’t answer the text though. She simply laughs and closes the screen to a black backdrop.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” she says, and yet she laughs again. “Just a silly text.”
Since she won’t give me any real information, I try to take it. I lunge forward fast enough that I spill a drop of my drink and grab her phone. The screen illuminates and I catch a glimpse of the notification before she jumps forward and tears the device out of my hands.
“Who the hell is Arthur?” I scrunch my forehead at her. “You can’t date a guy named Arthur.”
“You’re right. I can’t.” Her voice gets quieter for a moment. A hint of heartache laces the words. “But not because his name is Arthur.” Though I think I hit a nerve with the subject, she seems to have returned to her kidding ways. “Besides, that’s not even his real name.”
“What is his real name?” I’m genuinely curious, but she doesn’t budge.
“It doesn’t matter. We can’t be together.”
“Maybe it won’t always be that way.”
She looks at me with an eyebrow raised.
“Look at me and Kelly. I never thought it would happen for us. We had everything in the world working against us, but we found a way. You will too.”
She smiles a thankful grin and nods—but she still seems unconvinced.
“I didn’t realize you were seeing somebody.” I’m surprised she’s never mentioned this guy. I tell her all about Kelly, but she hardly ever interjects with details of her own love life.
“You’ve never asked,” she hisses, exaggerating the word as she reaches for the whiskey bottle, but I pull it away. She plunges her hand into the ice bucket and throws cold water and frozen cubes my direction. I return fire, grabbing ice from the bucket and tossing it at her as she runs to the other side of the balcony. She screeches loudly and runs back toward me, grabbing the bucket. She lifts it high above her head to dump its contents over me, but I put the bottle down and grab her wrists just in time to change the direction of the bucket, pouring it over her instead.
“You’re so dead,” she whispers, combing her wet hair back off her face.
“It’s just a little water,” I say, continuing the laughter, though hers is muted.
“That’s not what I meant.” Stasia points past me and I turn to see Kelly standing in the doorway of the vacation home at the entrance to the balcony.
“I thought I’d surprise you for our anniversary.” Her voice was lost somewhere between sad and pissed.
“Surprise.” Stasia picks the bottle up from the table and chugs the final drops.
* * * *
Then
Hundreds of balloons float across the ceiling. I sit in a chair at the edge of the dance floor at an empty table. Everyone else is dancing, laughing and having a good time. Xander and Rina have been inseparable for weeks, and now that I think about it, they’re nowhere to be found now. Probably in the back of the limo, if I had to guess.
Kelly dances with a group of girls in the middle of the dance floor. The lights catch the gems adhered to her dress, scattering rainbows across the floor like prisms as she dances and sways and twirls.
She’s perfect. She laughs, dropping her head back at something a friend did or said and then her eyes find mine and the laughter fades. Her smile disappears.
My date, Carissa—I’m not sure of her last name—joins me at the table, but instead of taking one of ten empty seats, she sits on my lap. I shift uncomfortably underneath her.
“Come dance.” She pouts a pink-tinted bottom lip.
“I don’t dance.” It’s not completely true, but I’m not in the mood.
“Then why did you ask me to prom?” She rolls her eyes.
“I didn’t,” I say, not withholding my annoyance.
“Xander said—”
“Yeah, I know what Xander said. If you’ll excuse me, I have to take a p— I have to use the restroom.”
She removes herself from my lap, reluctantly, and I head to the main doors.
As I exit and turn toward the bathrooms, I run directly into another body.
“I’m sorry, Kelly.” I put my hands at her upper arms and steady her from our collision.
She pushes past me and heads to the door but pauses before re-entering.
“If you didn’t want to be my date, you should have said that.” Her voice trembles as she speaks. Sadness drapes every word.
“I didn’t say that.” I step toward her, shortening the distance between us.
“You said you weren’t coming to prom.” She crosses her arms. “Then you show up with Carissa Kennedy.”
Kennedy. Right. That’s her last name.
“I didn’t want to come!” My voice gains volume. “Xander told Carissa I would, and his mother told me I couldn’t back out on her. Trust me. I tried faking sick. I tried cancelling.”
She smiles a bit at that but it fades again.
“Why didn’t you ask me, Blake?” she asks in a whisper so quiet I almost think I heard her wrong.
“I’ve never thought I was good enough for you. I didn’t want to set myself up for any kind of embarrassment.” I step forward, taking her hands in mine. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be here with anyone else, Kelly.” She steps toward me, only inches away and reaches her face toward mine. I lean forward, mustering up any courage I have ever had to use in this moment. Finally, I might get the kiss I’ve been dreaming of for so long with the girl who has captured all my attention since I walked into our school all those years ago.
The music stops on the other side of the doors. “Ladies and gentlemen”, the deejay says, “your prom king and queen, Miss Kelly Montoy and—”
Some guy who’s not me.
“I have to go,” she says, pushing the door open and canceling any hope of what might have come next.
“Blake,” she says, “meet me on the balcony at Rina’s after-party.”
And the glimmer of hope sparkles once more.
I dance with Carissa while Kelly shares her dance with the prom king, but both of us keep our eyes on each other across the dance floor, though the
re are other bodies between us. When the night ends, my group of friends and their dates pile into the limo and Carissa, once again, tries to sit on my lap rather than take a seat. I move at the last second so we’re on separate benches. Thankfully, I have the spot nearest the door, because as soon as we arrive and the driver opens it, I’m jumping out and moving as fast as my legs will allow.
Rina’s house looks different when you’re attending the party and not playing it. Loud music blares through the speakers, couples are draped all over each other at every turn and the house smells like liquor and weed.
I take each step to the upstairs and wonder if she will really be there. I overthink it, I know, but my palms sweat and my neck runs hot. Nothing can go wrong this time. Each time I’ve had my chance to be with her, something has gotten in the way or I’ve gotten in the way of myself. Not this time.
I stand on the balcony overlooking the lush greens of the expansive backyard of the Amell house and hear the click clack of high heels join me. Hands are at my shoulders, running the length of the tux jacket I wear.
“I saw you come upstairs,” she says, the loud music making her words hard to hear. “I figured that meant I should come too.”
I turn to face her, ready to pick up where we left off, only it’s not Kelly’s hands that are on me. It’s Carissa’s.
I look over Carissa’s shoulder to see Kelly standing at the doorway. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be here with anyone else, Kelly,” she says in a tone that mocks my original sentiment. “You’re a liar, Blake. Stay away from me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Now
“Stasia,” Kelly says, “let’s go.”
My mind moves like a ping pong ball in a fast-paced match.
“Go…where?” Stasia’s words are slow and cautious as she talks to Kelly.
“I’m taking you out.”
“Can you be a tad more specific? ‘Taking me out’ sounds like it’s not going to end well for me.” Stasia talks with her hands and rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet.