by Amy Sparling
“If he does, just clock him in the jaw,” Ashlyn says, making a punching movement with her fist. “Teach that gorgeous boy a lesson.”
I laugh but Bennet doesn’t seem so convinced that Toby isn’t a threat. When Toby texts me a few minutes later asking what I’m up to, I get an idea. I tell him we’re getting pizza and that he should come up and hang out.
The conversation has finally drifted from my dating life to other topics by the time Toby arrives. I can smell him before I see him, as his cologne hits me just a few feet before he’s at our table.
“Hey guys,” he says, his shiny white teeth glowing in the dim lighting. He looks as gorgeous as ever and I want to reach out and touch him, but I don’t because I’m not a weirdo. “Have room for one more?”
“I’m glad you could come,” I say, nodding toward the empty chair between me and Bennet.
“Want some pizza?” Ashlyn offers.
He shakes his head. “Nah, I just ate, but thank you.”
“He’s so polite!” Ashlyn says in what is supposed to be a whisper but it’s totally loud enough for the whole freaking planet to hear.
“So, prom,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “What kind of plans do you two have?”
Toby looks at me and grins. “Well, I have a limo rented, so—”
“You what?” I don’t mean to interrupt him but I can’t believe what I just heard. “You rented a limo?”
“Yes.” His smile is so damn charming.
“For us?” I say.
He nods. “Who else would it be for? I figured we can go to dinner and then meet up at prom.” He looks over at my friends. “You guys want to come with us? There’s room in the limo.”
“No,” Bennet says at the same time Ashlyn says, “Oh hell yes.”
She frowns at Bennet. His jaw is set, a little vein in his forehead popping out. “I have to go,” he says, dropping some cash on the table to pay for his share of the bill. “I’m sure wonder boy can take ya’ll home.”
“Bennet, what the hell?” Ashlyn says, but he just storms off, leaving us sitting there awkwardly.
“I hope I didn’t insult him,” Toby says.
“What? No way. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He shrugs. “Maybe he planned on getting a limo too? I should have coordinated with him.”
“Trust me, he wasn’t going to get a limo,” I say. I leave out the part about how none of us can afford a luxury like that, but Toby doesn’t question it.
“Well, I hope he’s not mad at me,” he says.
Ashlyn grabs some more cheese bread. “Don’t worry about him. He’s been a big baby ever since we started talking about prom. I think he keeps hoping we won’t make him go.”
“He’s going,” I say.
She nods. “We’ve been a trio of best friends our whole lives, so if we go to the damn prom, he’s going too.”
“Maybe you should set him up with a date?” Toby suggests. “Then he won’t feel left out.”
“Now that’s an idea.” Ashlyn points her cheese bread at him.
I nod along even though I don’t really agree. Bennet has only dated a couple of girls and none of them lasted for very long. I think he might be even pickier than Ashlyn thinks Toby is.
Ashlyn’s phone beeps and she squeals with delight when she sees the message. “I’ll be right back,” she says, grinning at me like a lunatic. She hops off her stool and rushes outside where she stands, the phone pressed to her ear.
“Must be some girl she likes,” I say.
“Looks like it,” Toby adds.
“So, Lana,” Toby says while we watch Ashlyn practically dance around outside. “Would you mind going tux shopping with me this weekend? You could help me pick something that looks good, maybe even get a tie that matches your dress.”
“That’d be fun. I don’t have a dress yet, but it’d still be fun.”
“We could shop for you, too?” he suggests. “Unless that’s more of something you do with your girl friends? I really have no idea. I’ve never been to prom.”
I laugh. “I haven’t either, but yeah, Ashlyn will probably want to be in on that experience.”
It’s a white lie, the kind you can’t get mad about. The truth is that there’s no reason to even pretend to go dress shopping at a real store. I can’t afford it. But I make a mental note to hurry up and go through Mom’s old dresses in the attic so I have enough time to fix one up into something worthwhile.
Later, when Toby is driving us home, Ashlyn has him locked in conversation about bands they both like. I’m feeling a little guilty about Bennet, so I text him to make sure he’s okay.
Me: Hey, are you mad at me?
Bennet: Why would I be mad at you?
Me: Are you mad at anything?
Bennet: nothing you should worry about
Me: but you seemed mad earlier…
Bennet: drop it, Lana. Everything is fine. Promise.
Chapter 11
You’d think Ashlyn is the one dating Toby Fitzgerald with how excited she is. She keeps me on the phone until midnight on Friday night talking about how excited she is for me to finally have a guy to get excited about. I guess she’s right. All the other guys I’ve liked in the past have either: A) not liked me back, or B) been total jerks.
But the bad part of boy-gushing with my best friend is the consequences I face on Saturday morning. I am exhausted and sleep-deprived from hours of talking, and my alarm goes off at ten in the morning. Toby is picking me up at eleven and we’re going to the mall.
I feel like a zombie as I jump in the shower in an attempt to wake up. It doesn’t really help much. After getting dressed, and feeling slightly weird about my lack of makeup. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I had looked so great on our first date, thanks to my mom. I apply some pink lip gloss and mascara, hoping it helps a little.
Mom is in the kitchen working on Mrs. Sherry’s hair. She’s our neighbor from down the road and she’s even poorer than most people on this street, so Mom does her hair for free. Mrs. Sherry is in her fifties and has three grown kids who never visit. To make up for being so lonely, she absolutely adores me and my mom.
“Oh, sweetheart you look gorgeous!” Mrs. Shelly says when I emerge a few minutes before eleven. I check the time on my phone and know I need to get outside to meet Toby before he comes in and we get pulled into Mrs. Sherry’s very nice but very tedious talks.
“Hi, thank you!” I say, waving at her as I rush over and give Mom a quick hug. “I’m late, but I’ll be home in a few hours, okay? Love you!”
I’m not really late—I’m five minutes early, but I make the tiny white lie to save us from being stuck talking for hours, and then I dash out the front door and wait on our porch steps.
Toby arrives only a couple of minutes later. I really like a guy who is on time. I jump up and start walking toward his car, and that’s when I hear the whistle. Heat rushes to my cheeks as I look over and see Ashlyn and Bennet on his porch swing.
“Have fun, darling!” Ashlyn calls out in a fake southern twang. She’s grinning wide and waves at me.
“Shut up!” I call back, embarrassed. Hopefully Toby didn’t hear any of that.
I slip into his car the second his tires roll to a stop.
“I could have gotten out,” he says, his hand on the shifter. “You don’t have to rush to me or anything.”
“Trust me, I do.” I glance back at my friends who are watching me. “Let’s go?”
Toby sees where I’m looking and he laughs. “Ah, okay. You hungry? I was thinking we should swing by the food court and get cheese fries before we go shopping.”
“You’re never supposed to eat before clothes shopping,” I say, feeling stupid right after I say it. Toby looks at me quizzically. I shrug. “Maybe it’s a girl thing. It’ll make you fatter and the clothes won’t fit right.”
He chuckles while he drives out of my neighborhood. “Nah, guys don’t really have that problem.”
“C
heesy fries it is,” I say.
He grins, glancing at me from the corner of his eyes while he drives. “You’re a really cool girl.”
“Um, thanks?”
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Just…I don’t know, most girls are overly obsessed with things that don’t make any sense to me.”
I laugh. “Yeah, a lot of girls don’t make sense to me, either. That’s why I stick with Ashlyn. She always says we don’t need anyone else.”
“She’s probably right.” Toby frowns, his gaze focused on the road. “I haven’t really had a best friend in a few years. The last good friend I had was Brian Brown and he moved to New York in seventh grade, so can you even call a twelve-year-old a good friend? I mean, we were kids, ya know?”
Toby opening up to me is both interesting and the complete opposite of how I always thought he would be. “How can you not have good friends?” I ask. “You’re ridiculously popular.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know.” We pull to a stop at a red light and he looks over at me. “Popularity isn’t that great, really. Everyone likes you but they’ll sell you out the first chance they get. People act like your friends, but they really aren’t. I mean, we just met and you’re already a better friend than the guys I’ve known for years. And I’m really only friends with them because I feel obligated.”
This makes me feel very sad all of a sudden. Popularity is next to royalty when you’re in high school. Only the most beautiful and usually wealthy people are popular, and you just always assume those people are ridiculously happy with their amazing lives. It never occurred to me that they’d feel any differently. I wonder if other people are aware of how the other side lives.
I put my hand on his while it rests on the shifter. “I’m sorry.”
He glances over at me, a genuinely sweet smile on his face. “It’s all good.”
We get our cheesy fries, which are pretty freaking awesome as far as junk food that’s totally bad for you goes. It’s basically a basket of curly fries covered in melted cheese, ranch dressing, and bacon bits. Talk about amazing.
Afterward, we head to the men’s sections of department stores and look for tuxedos. Toby and I study the various mannequins dressed in their suits and to get a feel for what we like. For some reason, the snooty looking lady who works here ignores us. She probably thinks we’re just stupid teens with no money, which is kind of annoying, so we leave that store. Toby says she doesn’t deserve the commission of making a sale from us. I agree.
The next store is a lot better. The sales guy immediately comes up to us and he already assumes we’re prom shopping. That’s a guy who knows his client base. He’s tall and thin, with red hair and a matching red mustache.
“First question first,” he says eyeing me. “What color is your dress, dear?”
I freeze. I have no idea what color I’ll pick from the dresses in the attic. Toby must realize I’m about to panic because he takes my hand and squeezes. “She’s still deciding between a few options,” he says. “Maybe we should pick my tux and just get a color matching tie later?” he asks me. I nod, grateful that he is so cool and quick on his feet that he can get me out of awkward questions.
The sales guy smiles. “Sounds good! Let’s get you started.”
He walks us through their various types of tuxedos which is kind of funny because you always assume there’s like one basic tuxedo style. There’s so not. Then comes the fun part.
I sit in a plush blue chair while Toby tries on tuxedos. It’s a little funny to be reversed in the stereotypical roles. Usually it’s the guy watching the girl get dressed, but I don’t care. My life isn’t exactly normal, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. In fact, I have a blast.
Toby looks handsome in everything, with his wide shoulders and lean muscles. The way his slicked back hair sometimes falls over his forehead makes me smile. He’s really unbelievably cute.
It only takes a little while and we’ve found the perfect suit. It’s a slim fit that seems like it was made just for him with the way it fits him so well. Even the sales guy thinks so. He rings us up and puts the tux in a fancy plastic zippered garment bag.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Toby says as we’re walking back out to his car.
“It was fun.” I look up at him and find him watching me with that look he sometimes gets, like maybe he’s trying to figure me out. It’s a little scary and intimidating because I’d love to be some wonderful mystery of a girl, but in reality, I’m nothing special. I wonder how long it’ll take him to figure that out.
“I like hanging out with you,” he says.
I blush from head to toe. “I like hanging out with you, too.”
Chapter 12
In my little group of friends, one of our favorite TV shows is The Walking Dead. I know it’s also pretty much everyone else’s favorite show, but because me and my two best friends are never up to date on trends, we didn’t catch on to watching the show until it was already a few seasons into it. We had to wait until the show was syndicated on other channels to watch the old episodes. Ashlyn and I watched the first season during a marathon weekend last year and we were hooked instantly, despite the show being about gruesome zombies, which are normally a topic I don’t care for. Bennet was away at his uncle’s house that weekend so he started season two with us when he got back. Since then, he’s always lamented that he missed the first season, which is arguably the best season. We’ve told him what happened in those episodes, but it’s not the same as watching them.
So, on Saturday night when I see a commercial on TV saying they’re having another season one marathon starting tomorrow morning, I call Bennet to tell him the good news. He doesn’t answer, which is a little odd. He’s usually always by his phone.
I set my alarm for an hour before the marathon starts on Sunday morning and then I wake up and call him again. He loves sleeping in on the weekends but it’s important to me that he gets to watch season one. I call him again and he still doesn’t answer, so I call Ashlyn.
“Jesus, woman,” she says instead of a hello. “It is entirely too early to be calling me, Lana babe.”
“Sorry. I can’t get ahold of Bennet to tell him about the Walking Dead marathon. Do you know if he had something going on today?”
“Um,” she says, and there’s a shuffling on the other end of the phone as she gets out of bed. “His car is in his driveway. He’s probably sleeping.”
“Yeah, good call,” I say as I put on some flip flips. I’m still wearing pajamas, but who cares. “You want to watch it with us?”
“Can’t,” she says. “I’m going to work with Mom today. They’re paying me eighty bucks to mop the floors at the senior care center.”
“Sweet.”
“I know, right? Have fun though. Season one is the best.”
“Have fun mopping and making the big bucks,” I say. Then I head outside and walk down to Bennet’s house. I try calling him again on the way over, hoping the phone ringing will wake him up, but he still doesn’t answer.
Granny is making her homemade potato bread in the kitchen. I let myself inside their house because we’re the kind of friends who can do that. Even though she’s Bennet’s grandmother, we all still call her Granny and I think she likes it that way.
“Hey Granny,” I say giving her a quick hug.
“Good morning, Lana. You’re up early.”
I nod. “I need to wake up Bennet to make him watch this TV show marathon thing. It’s about to start and I know he won’t want to miss it.”
“Well, have fun,” she says, turning back to kneading her dough. “If you stay long enough, you can have some of this bread when it’s done.”
“Mmm,” I say, tossing my head back. “I will so be here. I love your bread.”
I make my way down the hallway and into Bennet’s room. I tap lightly on the door and slowly open it. “Hello, sleepy head—” I say, only to stop because now I feel ultra stupid. He’s not sleeping at all.
“I thought you were asleep?” I say, letting myself into his room. Bennet is wearing flannel pajama pants and no shirt, and he’s sitting up in bed, on top of the sheets. He’s clearly been up a while because his bed is made and there’s an empty bowl of cereal on his nightstand.
“I called you,” I say, sitting on the edge of his bed.
“I know.”
“There’s a Walking Dead marathon on today,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him.
He shrugs. “I know. I’ll watch it.”
“Why didn’t you answer my call?”
He shrugs again, his focus on his TV instead of on me. “Didn’t feel like it.”
I slide over until we’re right next to each other, both of us leaning our backs against his headboard. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re acting weird,” I say, frowning. “You’re acting like you’re mad at me and that doesn’t make sense because you’re never mad at me.”
His voice stays calm, no inflection or emotion at all. “Not mad at you.”
I groan. “You can’t even talk in full sentences with me? What did I do?”
He stares blankly at his television as if he himself has become a zombie. “You haven’t done anything. I’m fine.”
I punch him in the arm. “Have you been working out?” I say, not really meaning to change the subject but now I just realized his bicep is a lot bigger than usual.
He shrugs all nonchalantly. “A little.”
“Well, you look good,” I say, sitting back a little to admire his newly chiseled torso.
“Not good enough,” he says under his breath as he steps off his bed and grabs the empty cereal bowl.
“What’d you say?”
He glances back at me before slipping out of his room. “Nothing.”
Why is he being so freaking weird? I listen to his cereal bowl clack against the sink and then I hear his footsteps walking down the hardwood floors until he’s back in his bedroom. I fold my arms across my chest and narrow my eyes at him.
“Bennet, I demand that you tell me what’s wrong.”
