Promised by Prom

by Jessica Bucher

  Max smiled, shaking his head lightly. “Nora, Nora, Nora. How many duds have you dated that you think spending time with you is a chore?”

  I started counting on my fingers.

  “Stop!” cried Max. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Six? Maybe six duds.” I answered “Freddy, Dean, Patrick from sixth grade, Arden from Homecoming…” I paused trying to remember the rest.

  “Luke,” said Max with a grimace. “If there is a president elect of the duds, Luke wins both the electoral college and the popular vote.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I agreed. We were now on our third lap around the park. The rodeo attendees had all gone home, leaving just Max and I on the path. I probably should have suggested we go home, but I liked being with him like this, away from the others.

  “Oh man, and Landon!” said Max. “What on earth were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking he had an X-files collectible lunch box and one of the best cosplays I had ever seen,” I answered.

  “Right,” snickered Max. “He also smelled like wet dog most of the time and literally forgot to drive you home from the winter formal.”

  “Very true,” I admitted. “And I had no idea you were paying such close attention.” I snuck a peek at him through the corner of my eye, wanting to see his expression when I called him on it.

  I expected his knee jerk reaction to be a joke, a blush, maybe even some kind of a ‘who else is going to look out for you’ comment. Max was younger, but it didn’t stop him from acting like Addy’s older, protective brother when it really came down to it.

  I didn’t expect him to look at me the way he was. Like he had a thousand things to say and no words to say them.

  The two of us walked in silence, stealing glances at one another every now and again. Winter was leaving Minnesota and the crocus were sneaking up all around us as the ground thawed. Pretty soon it would be full on spring, and then summer, and then goodbye. Change was inevitable, but tonight, tonight I just wanted to hold on to every thing and one around me.

  I had an urge to thread my arm through Max’s and rest my head on his shoulder. If Lucy hadn’t said what she had, I would. It wasn’t like Max and I had never touched before. Lord knows we had spent plenty of evenings watching movies, cuddled under blankets in Addy’s den, but now that there was this idea out there that he maybe wanted more from me than friendship, I didn’t know how to act around him.

  Things were different now that I suspected he had feelings for me. It was like everything he said had a double meaning. The weather wasn’t the only thing changing. Either he was exactly who I was searching for to fill the void of Addy and Lucy leaving, or I was about to cross a line I couldn’t take back, only to lose another person in the process. Possibly, the most important person.

  Max said when, but I was afraid of what would happen if.

  Chapter Nine

  Max

  I couldn’t get the look on Nora’s face out of my head on the entire drive home. It was a dangerous thing to be thinking, but tonight felt like a date. Much like the night at Joey’s. Which meant the line between friends and something more was starting to blur between Nora and I...which was exactly what I wanted.

  But then that sobering hint of doubt crept in and made me question everything. Did she feel the same way? That’s why she texted me, I reminded myself. It had to be.

  When I pulled into the driveway, the house looked quiet. I looked down to realize it was twenty minutes past my curfew, but my phone was still silent in my pocket. It was possible that my parents did not even noticing I was late, but nevertheless, they wouldn’t hesitate to rip me a new one once they realize that I’d broken the sacred rules that normal parents would enforce.

  Addy’s light was out which meant she was asleep...which meant I couldn’t text her to help me out. When I had been on late dates before, I would just send her a heads-up and she would easily distract Mom and Dad with childhood reminiscing or talk about her moving out after high school. They loved that nostalgic stuff. Then, I could sneak in unnoticed and claim I was in my room the entire time.

  Tonight, I chose not to text her and slip in the front door unprepared and unarmed. The second my foot hit the wood panelling on the floor, the front room lamp clicked on and a stern face stared at me, bellowing, “And where do you think you’ve been, mister?”

  It was Addy, giving me her best dad impression...other normal dads of course, not ours.

  “You see...I lost track of time,” I say, trying to look as innocent as possible.

  “You’ve had me worried sick!” she continued, keeping up the act.

  I tossed my keys at her, but she caught them without effort. “No, seriously, where were you?”

  “That is none of your business,” I answered, rubbing my arms from the chilly night air.

  “Ever heard of a jacket?” she teased. Standing up, she followed me into the kitchen where I scavenged for snacks in the bright light from the refrigerator.

  I had to hide my sly smirk in an open pizza box as I pulled out a cold piece and shoved it into my mouth. Addy’s question made me think about Nora looking like my girlfriend in my oversized sweatshirt. I didn’t even bother asking for it back. Instead, I just thought about her keeping it, sleeping in it, smelling it, and thinking of me.

  Oh that was creepy, wasn’t it?

  What can I say? I had it bad.

  “Who were you with?” Addy asked, jumping up on the counter and looking at me with a smile. “Please don’t tell me you’re talking to Nicki again.”

  I scowled at her. “Please, Ad. You really think I’d do that?”

  “I know she broke your heart. I just don’t want to see you going back down that path again.”

  I shook my head, avoiding eye contact with my sister as I grabbed a soda and hopped up on the opposite counter. Addy had no idea. She thought Nicki broke my heart. My feelings for Nicki were nothing compared to Nora. Not even in the same league.

  When I looked up, I noticed Addy staring at me, scrutinizing me.

  “What are you doing?”

  Before she could answer, the front door opened and our parents walked in the house, their laughter filling the front room. They flipped on the lights as they trailed into the kitchen to find us pigging out at almost midnight.

  “What are you two doing?” my mom asked with a smile.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” I answered, ignoring her question.

  “We’ve been worried sick!” Addy said again, this time really putting on a show.

  “Ha-ha,” my dad laughed, stealing my half-eaten pizza and shoving it in his mouth.

  “Rude,” I muttered.

  “What are you two talking about?” Mom asked, leaning next to Addy.

  “I was just trying to figure out how Max’s date went tonight,” my sister added, making my jaw drop.

  “Max had a date?” Dad said, a little too enthusiastically for my taste. All I could do was roll my eyes and try to pretend I didn’t exist.

  “Yeah, and here’s what I have so far…” Addy drawled, still squinting at me. “He’s late...so she must have liked him. He’s in a good mood, so he must have liked her.”

  “Keep going,” Mom said, scrutinizing with a similar expression.

  At this point, all I could do was laugh and try to hide my blushing cheeks. If only they knew…

  “His hair isn’t messed up, so there was no heavy canoodling.”

  “Let’s leave that part out,” my mother added quickly.

  “Please,” Dad and I said in unison.

  Then, my sister’s face softened, and for a moment, I was actually worried she figured it out. It was like she stopped messing around and a light came on.

  “He usually brags about his dates, but he’s not telling us about this one, so he must really, really like her.”

  My cheeks burned as my sister stared at me. I wanted to tell her she was right. Spot on about everything actually. But I couldn
’t. Because if my sister found out I was pursuing her best friend, she’d lose her mind. Nothing was more important to Addy than her squad, and for the first time, I realized just how serious it would be to her if I messed that up.

  “Well, you’re all wrong,” I said, hopping down from the counter. “Because I wasn’t even on a date. I went to see that new heist movie all by myself.”

  “Not buying it,” she answered.

  “I believe you, Maxie poo,” my mom said as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and messed with my curls.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I laughed. “Someone here has to accept that my social life is pathetic.”

  Nora

  I closed the door quietly and tiptoed across the hardwood floor toward the staircase. It was five minutes to eleven. Technically I wasn’t breaking curfew, but I’d never come this close before, and I didn’t want Dad to come flying out of his office to warn me about the dangers of teen pregnancy.

  Why was it adults always jumped to the drugs, alcohol, and pregnancy conclusion? If I were to accidentally break curfew, it was a lot more likely to be Addy’s fault than a boy’s. I managed to get into my room, click the door shut and change into my pajamas before a soft knock came at the door.

  My father cleared his throat before speaking. “Nora.”

  So much for making it through the evening without a Dad recap.

  “Come in,” I called, plunking down on my twin bed. I grabbed one of those fluffy sequin pillows from the end of my bed and fiddled with the beads while my dad looked for a place to sit to offer his fatherly perspective on teen dating. I snickered when he finally grabbed the pink chair from in front of my vanity and sat down, his legs stretched out long in front of him like a giant on a chair made for a doll.

  I couldn’t tell if Dean being a cowboy comforted Dad or made him even more worried. He hadn’t come into my room after my date with Freddy. But then again, I’d been home by ten that night.

  “How did it go?” he asked, struggling to cross his arms over his chest without tipping the chair over.

  “We went to the rodeo,” I replied. “The smell of livestock was in the air.”

  Dad didn’t crack a smile, “What about love, any of that in the air?”

  I scrunched my face into a frown and concentrated on flipping the sequins back and forth.

  “If you count Dean realizing he wasn’t over his ex-girlfriend yet, then I guess you could say it was.”

  Dad inhaled deeply. If he weren’t in the same room with me, he probably would have been sighing with relief, but he knew better than that. You didn’t raise two girls to 17 and 14 alone by mocking their distress. Dad may not have liked having to let his softer side out so often, but he understood it was necessary if we wanted us to be able to talk to him.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s alright,” I answered honestly. “Max met me there for the second half.”

  Dad’s lips formed a tight smile. “Rodeo ended at nine.”

  It wasn’t like Max and I had been out on a date, but based on my dad’s raised eyebrow and the change in his tone of voice, being out with Max till eleven was a little closer to a date than Dad liked.

  “Sorry I got in so late. I wasn’t expecting to, but Max was cheering me up and…”

  Dad’s eyes went wide with alarm.

  I shook my head. It felt like I had been telling Dad not to worry about Max since grade school and yet the older we got, the more paranoid he got.

  “We were just walking Dad. Walking and talking.”

  “That’s how it starts,” said Dad. “I was a teenage boy. Trust me, I know.”

  My cheeks went pink. For once, Dad wasn’t one hundred percent off. In fact, he was pretty close to the truth. There is a little thing I do when I want to give myself a gut check. If I could have the same conversation with my dad in the room, then I wasn’t doing anything iffy, but if my dad being in the room would change how I act, then I was totally taking a risk. Not that taking a risk was bad. It was just a good way of knowing things might get complicated.

  I definitely would not have talked about kissing in front of my dad.

  Dad stood to go, stretching his arms above his head and yawning before leveling me with a Dad stare I knew all too well.

  “I trust you, Nora. I trust you to make the right choices for yourself, but I caution you to remember that you’re a beautiful girl, who makes the world a slightly better place for the people around her.”

  I rolled my eyes, the standard Nora reaction to a compliment I didn’t think I deserved. “You may think I’m biased, but I know you better than anyone. I’ve seen your best and your worst and you want to make sure you save that for the right guy. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, keeping my head down so he couldn’t tell his little Dad talk was making me all misty eyed.

  “I’m going to bed now. But think about what I said. If Max has any brains at all, he likes you more than you think.”

  I waited for my dad to leave the room before laying back on the bed, shoving the pillow over my face and screaming into the void. Even my dad knew Max had feelings for me. What if I couldn’t keep putting it off? What if the moment when I had to choose between being Max’s friend and being more was coming sooner than I wanted? It was a lot more fun when this happened to characters in movies!

  Chapter Ten

  Max

  To say I was roped into Sunday’s shopping day with the rest of the group would be mostly false. Addy didn’t even really invite me. She only let her plans slip that morning, and naturally, I invited myself along.

  “We’re dress shopping,” she snapped at me from the bathroom where she had a curling iron twisted in her long hair.

  “With the guys,” I quipped.

  “Well, yes. They’re our dates.”

  “Sounds riveting. I’m going,” I said with a smile.

  She scoffed at me while I quickly fixed my hair and sprayed a little musky body spray right in front of her. I never did come clean last night as to why I had been out so late last night, walking along the riverwalk with Nora past eleven. She wouldn’t have taken it very well anyway.

  After making the rounds and picking everyone up, we pulled up to the mall where the girls all jumped out of the SUV and started walking ahead of the guys like we didn’t exist. Gray and Simon both looked at me expectantly. I almost forgot I had told them about my Nora-dating plans.

  When the girls ran into a shoe store, the guys stopped by the pretzel stand where they finally ambushed me.

  “So, how are things going on your goals?” Simon asked first.

  “Uh, fine. No thanks to you, by the way. Giving Lucy Dean’s number was super helpful.”

  “I had a feeling he wasn’t ready to start dating. I practically set you up for success,” he answered before taking a drink of his extra-large strawberry lemonade.

  “So your girlfriend does know about my deal with Nora,” I said pointedly to Simon.

  “She does.”

  “But not yours,” I aimed at Gray.

  “Uh, no. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

  “Good plan,” I said as the girls came back out of the shoe shop empty-handed. Simon linked his hand with Lucy’s while Gray and Addy fused their bodies together like walking magnets. Meanwhile, Nora and I meandered behind them awkwardly.

  “Didn’t find any shoes?” I asked, pointing back at the stiletto store we just left.

  “Nah. I’m probably not going anyway.” Her lips twisted in a sad pout that broke my stupid little heart.

  “Sure you are! Don’t miss out on your prom because the guys in Delinki are lame.”

  “What? And go with them?” She motioned to the happy little couples that walked in front of us. It was like we didn’t exist anymore, and that did kind of suck.

  I’d be the first to admit, I wanted what they had as much as Nora did. And not the relationships I’d had so far. Those were superficial, fun, and a lot
like going through the motions.

  “Oh, they’re the worst. I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Then, a thought occurred to me. I wouldn't even let my mind think it through before I blurted out, “I’ll take you.”

  Her head snapped in my direction. “What?”

  “If you don’t find a guy by then, I mean. I’ll be your backup so at least you can buy a dress and go with the girls.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked, stopping for a moment. I grabbed her sleeve and pulled her along.

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s a pity date.” I laughed, but her serious face didn’t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies. “I’m kidding! It’s not a pity date. You’re my friend. Of course I’ll go with you. We’ll have a blast.”

  “What was that?” Addy squealed at us from where they stopped by the elevator.

  “Oh, nothing,” Nora answered. “Max and I decided that if neither of us have dates by prom, then we’ll go together. It’s better than going alone.”

  Minor ouch.

  “Well, that won’t be necessary,” Addy quipped. “Because Nora is gorgeous and will find a date by then. So don’t go buying that suit just yet.” She looked at me with a playful scowl, which I repeated back to her.

  I loved my sister. This is what we did, shot each other down in jest, but she had no idea how badly I wanted to be the arm Nora clung to on prom night. I wanted our cheesy picture together more than I wanted anything. I’d even do one of those uber cheesy promposals and ask her with a lame song or video. I’d make the biggest fool of myself to make her smile.

  My face fell as we climbed into the elevator. I felt Addy’s eyes on me, and I tried my hardest to act natural, but I was stuck. If I asked Nora to prom, for real, Addy would hate me. She would never see me as a potential, serious boyfriend for Nora.

  But she would never see this—the serious side of her idiotic brother. She wouldn’t understand that I really wanted Nora, like really wanted her. That Nora would never be the short-lived fling that I had with those other girls.