Romeo & What's Her Name

by Shani Petroff

  He had been checking me out. Okay, Wes, you really need to cut it out.

  “Have you been having fun?” he asked.

  “It’s been okay,” I said, trying to keep my tone friendly, like I wasn’t fazed at all, even though he was totally messing with my head. “Your brother was the first person to ask me to dance all night if that tells you anything.”

  His eyes looked thoughtful. “I’m sure a lot of guys were dying to ask.”

  This REALLY needed to end. What guys, Wes? You? You who didn’t want me? You who picked another girl?!! Do you like seeing me squirm? Is that what this is? Well, forget it. You made your decision, you don’t get to keep me pining for you while you go off living happily ever after with my least favorite person on the planet. But … what if he realized he made a mistake? What if he knew Amanda was the wrong choice?

  “Thanks,” I said. Why was he so confusing?

  “Found you,” Amanda said, sidling right up to Wes. It was as if just thinking her name summoned the devil. Of course she had to show up now. “Emily,” she said, acknowledging me, but just barely.

  “Hi, Amanda.”

  I looked for an out, for anyone I recognized, but none appeared.

  Wes looked uncomfortable. But that’s expected when your girlfriend catches you hitting on someone else. I really was an idiot. For a moment I seriously thought he might have wanted me over her. I was such a fool.

  The music changed to yet another slow song, and Amanda pulled Wes to the dance floor. “I love this one. Come dance.” I tried to ignore my emotions as I watched her put her arms around his neck and slide up close to him.

  I felt so alone. Then it got worse. Amanda turned and gave me the most pitying look I had ever seen. My blood started to boil.

  I grabbed my phone from my purse and sent out a quick text.

  Not even sixty seconds later, Cody was standing in front of me, one eyebrow raised. “So you really want to dance with me, huh?” he asked, reciting part of my text back to me. The rest of it said: Don’t keep me waiting.

  “I really do,” I said, and took his hand and led him to the dance floor, right next to Wes and Amanda.

  Cody pulled me close to him, and we swayed softly to the music. His hands started to wander a little too low, but I nudged them back to my waist. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You look hot tonight.”

  “So do you,” I answered.

  I knew Amanda must have been seething.

  When the song ended, I told Cody I had to get going, that my ride was leaving soon.

  “I can drive you,” he offered, his hands resting on my hips. “We can hang out.”

  I glanced over. Wes and Amanda were definitely watching us. Amanda looked as if she were going to spit fire in my direction. And Wes looked confused. Good, now they know how it feels. A rush went through me, and before I could stop myself, I said something I knew I would regret.

  “Not tonight, but how about we get together next week? Maybe dinner Wednesday?” I asked.

  “Dinner?” He looked slightly disappointed. I think he had been hoping for more of a Netflix and Chill night, but I was more of a let’s-eat-pizza-and-get-to-know-each-other-in-a-public-place kind of girl.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said.

  “Great, it’s a date,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  And just like that I had plans with the guy of my dream’s girlfriend’s ex. I turned back around to face Wes and Amanda and smiled. From now on, they weren’t going to be the only two flaunting their new relationship. Cody and I were going to be the new it couple. Emdy or Comily. Whatever, it didn’t matter, not as long as people knew it existed.

  26

  “Tell me again what you were thinking?” Jill asked as she drove me to my date with Cody.

  We had been through this a thousand times since the dance. “I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Not long after I proposed the idea of a date with Cody, I knew it was a bad one. I just wanted to make Amanda jealous. That look she gave me set me off. And even though she and Cody were long over, I knew she wouldn’t want to see her ex with someone else. Especially if that someone was me. She had been torturing me about her relationship with Wes for weeks. Payback seemed like the way to go. Especially with Wes right there with his arms wrapped around her. For a moment, I thought that if he knew I had a date with someone else, he’d get jealous, too. But I hadn’t thought about what my decision meant. Now I had to spend a whole night out with Cody. Our conversations in school lasted five minutes max. Trying to stretch that over the course of an entire evening was going to be impossible—or at the very least tedious. But there was no backing out now. Amanda and Wes would find out, and that would have defeated the whole purpose of setting up the date in the first place. I could handle one night.

  “Here we are,” Jill said as we pulled up in front of Serio’s, an Italian restaurant in town.

  “Thanks for taking me tonight,” I said. Cody didn’t offer to pick me up, and I really didn’t want my parents to drive me to my date. Not that that was really an option. It was Wednesday night, and they had some card tournament they took part in.

  “No problem. Want me to wait in the car for a bit?” Jill asked.

  I looked at the time. 7:14. I was meeting Cody at seven thirty. I was way early.

  “Thanks, it’s okay. I know your mom will start freaking out if you’re not home soon. I’ll be fine.” The drive over was quicker than I thought. I had hoped to get to Serio’s after Cody. I didn’t want to look too eager, as if I had been waiting all day for this. I didn’t even like him. There was a slight chance he was already inside, and we could get this date over with, but I doubted I was that lucky.

  Too bad Kayla and Jace weren’t here yet. They were going to show up around eight, and if I really needed to get away from Cody, we had a signal and they’d come rescue me.

  There was no putting it off. I had to go inside. I thanked Jill again and got out of the car. I’d walked into Serio’s a gazillion times, only this time it felt different, as if I were a death row prisoner who was about to get her final meal. Okay, I was exaggerating slightly. Dinner with Cody was probably not going to be that bad. But I could hardly expect it to be good.

  I bypassed the host and walked to the back of the restaurant. It was fairly empty. There was no sign of Cody, so instead of grabbing a table, I just took a quick right and decided to hide in the ladies’ room for a bit.

  I looked in the mirror and tried to tame my frizz while I waited. It felt as if I’d been in there forever, but when I looked at my phone, it had been only three minutes. The restroom wasn’t giant, but it was big enough to pace, which is what I did next. Why hadn’t I just canceled? But this evening was probably good for me. A date was probably exactly what I needed to get over Wes, and maybe I wasn’t giving Cody enough credit. Maybe he was supercharming and nice and not 100 percent narcissistic when you got him outside of school.

  I heard the door next to me (the men’s room) open and a voice that sounded a lot like Cody’s say, “You go to University Heights, don’t you?” University Heights was the high school in the town next door.

  “Yeah, how did you know?” a girl’s voice answered.

  “You’re on the cheerleading squad. I’ve seen you. You’re hard to miss.”

  She giggled.

  “But,” he added, “you’re cheering for the wrong side.”

  “Is that so?” she asked, her voice playful.

  “Yep. But maybe I’ll be able to convince you to switch sides.”

  Oh. My. God. My date was flirting with another girl right here in the restaurant. This was a great way to start the evening. I couldn’t believe he was doing this. I took a deep breath. Relax, Emily. It was fine. I mean, we were hardly exclusive. I didn’t even really like him. But still … he had to hit on someone here? He couldn’t wait until the next football game between Shaker Heights and University Heights to pick h
er up? This was going to be embarrassing. She was probably going to sit at the table next to us, too. I hoped this evening wouldn’t turn out worse than I had imagined.

  I jumped when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

  Shoot. Someone needed to use it, but I couldn’t walk out now. What if Cody was still standing there? I didn’t want him to know I had heard him. It would just make the whole night awkward. At least for me. He probably wouldn’t care. “Just a minute,” I said, lowering my voice, hoping to disguise it.

  I flushed the toilet for good measure, ran the faucet a minute to buy myself some more time, and then I stepped out. Fortunately, Cody wasn’t there. He had gone back into the dining area. Only, he wasn’t alone. He was standing there with Wes and Amanda.

  This could not be happening.

  I ran my fingers through my hair to get out any last clumps and tugged down on my dress. It was a little too short, but it was the first one I had pulled out of my closet. Why hadn’t I put in more effort to get ready? If I knew Wes was going to be here, I definitely would have.

  Put on a smile, put on a smile, I reminded myself as I approached them. I had to up my game. It didn’t matter that Cody had just hit on some random girl. I needed to pretend I was head over heels. I could do it. Fortunately for me, my fake-flirting skills were a lot better than my acting ones. “Hey, everyone.” I went over and kissed Cody on the cheek for good measure. He pulled me in closer, wrapping his arm around me. It caught me off guard. If he hadn’t been practically holding me up, I would have lost my balance. “Wes, Amanda,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Having dinner,” she answered.

  “Right, that makes sense. Silly question,” I started blithering. “What else would you be doing here? That’s why Cody and I are here. Dinner. It’s really good. Cleveland’s best three years running. At least as far as I know. It’s—”

  “Are you all together?” the waitress interrupted.

  “Yeah, why not,” I said without really thinking it through. No one looked happy about the idea. Amanda’s nostrils even flared, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Right this way,” the waitress said, and took us to a table for four near the middle of the room.

  “The more the merrier, right?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Wes answered, unconvincingly. This was a nightmare. As soon as Kayla got there, I would use the signal. But I couldn’t. Then Amanda would know I wasn’t really into Cody. Great, I was going to be stuck on this date all night.

  Wes took the seat across from Amanda, and Cody sat next to her. That meant I would be facing Cody and to the left of Wes. I wished I were on a date with him. No, you don’t, I reminded myself. He chose Amanda. It was even more reason to make the best of the situation and flirt up a storm with Cody.

  “Don’t you look handsome,” I said, and winked at Cody. I hoped Wes saw it and realized how annoying winking was when you weren’t on the receiving end.

  “Always do,” he answered, and winked back. That was not exactly the response I was looking for in return. It wasn’t that I needed a compliment from him, I just thought it would have been nice. Well, nice for Amanda and Wes to overhear anyway.

  “And that’s a great color on you, Amanda.” If I had to sit at a table with her all evening, at least I could try to get on her good side. Maybe it would make the night somewhat bearable. Besides, the deep blue really did look nice on her.

  “It’s one of my favorites,” she said.

  No thank-you from her, either. Nor did she try to push the conversation forward. No wonder she and Cody broke up, they probably both just sat there waiting for one to tell the other how amazing he or she looked.

  “Well, you look really pretty,” I told her as I sat down.

  “You do, too,” Wes said to me.

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed at him ever so slightly.

  I couldn’t look at Wes. I knew he was just trying to be polite, but I still turned to mush when he said things like that. “Thanks.”

  Then it got awkwardly silent. You’d think with four people sitting there, one of us would have had something to say, but you’d be wrong.

  “So…” I tried to break the ice. “Do you guys know what you want?”

  “Want to just share a pizza?” Wes asked.

  No one seemed to object, so a cheese pizza it was.

  The manager, Sal, came over and told us that our waitress would be back in a minute but that he’d get us started on drinks. Wes got a water, Amanda and Cody got Coke, and I got an orange pop.

  When he walked away, it got quiet again.

  It was a relief when the waitress took our order, but that deafening silence returned when she left.

  “I love this place,” I said, attempting one more time to get some kind of conversation going. “They really do have the best pizza in town.”

  “And the cutest waitresses, too, right, Cody?” Amanda asked.

  “Not this again,” he said.

  What was going on? Was the girl Cody was flirting with before a waitress? Had Amanda seen it? Was she just trying to make me feel uncomfortable? If she was, it was working.

  “I figured the one upside of breaking up was at least I wouldn’t have to listen to this crap anymore,” he muttered.

  Whoa. This wasn’t about me. Apparently, Cody must have had a habit of flirting with other people in front of his dates.

  “Crap?” she said, her eyes turning into little slits.

  I could not believe they were having this conversation in front of Wes and me.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You don’t answer a single call or text for like a month, and now you want to do this here? Now?”

  “So.” I turned to Wes. “Have you been here before?” I asked, pretending our dates weren’t causing a scene.

  “My family comes here all the time,” Wes said, acting as if it were just the two of us. “I agree about the pizza, but my mom is crazy about their pasta. And my dad and brother would kill for their triple-chocolate blackout cake.”

  “I’ve never had it.”

  “Well, then we’re definitely ordering it tonight.”

  “What’s that about chocolate cake?” Amanda interrupted, turning her focus back to us. Apparently, her Cody fight was on hold, and she was pretending as if it hadn’t happened. Cody just sat there sulking.

  I thought about suggesting we get another table. But we ordered together, and okay, I’ll admit, I liked being there with Wes. And it was nice not being the only problem causer for once.

  “Was just saying how good it is,” Wes said.

  The waitress brought over our drinks, but Cody didn’t even dare look at her. But when she left, it was as if something snapped to life in him, and all of a sudden I was his sun and moon.

  “You know, Em, I don’t think I told you how pretty you look. That dress makes your eyes sparkle.” He was laying it on strong, but he actually sounded sincere. He even gave me this sexy little half smile, where he bowed his head and then looked up at me through his thick lashes with his big puppy dog eyes. “I’m really glad we’re doing this tonight.” Deep down, I had a feeling he was using me for Amanda’s benefit, the way I was using him for Wes’s. That being said, he was convincing. He kind of oozed charm when he wanted to. Combine that with how hot he was, no wonder he got so many girls. I wasn’t truly falling for his act, but it had the potential to make the rest of the evening a lot more enjoyable. Who didn’t like compliments?

  “Me too,” I said.

  Then he reached over and took my hand with his left one and touched my knee with his right! Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Fake praise was one thing. Touching was a whole other category that we were not going to explore. There was no way I was letting that continue. I yanked my hand and knee away from him. Only, I was a little thrown off guard from the situation and wasn’t paying attention when I jerked away, and I wound up knocking over my orange pop. It spilled right onto my dress. Just when I thought I was all embarrassed out, that nothing could get t
o me again, I was proved wrong.

  Amanda jumped back from the table. “That better not have gotten on me. This outfit cost a fortune.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was nowhere near her. I was the mess. If anything, the collateral damage would have been Wes. He was the one next to me. “I’m sorry. Did I get it on you?”

  “No, I’m good,” he said, trying to hold up the tablecloth so more of the liquid wouldn’t rain down on me.

  The waitress brought over more napkins to soak up the spill. I started blotting my dress, and Wes tried to clean up the rest of the table.

  “You have some right here,” he said, and held the napkin on the fabric right above my knee. His thumb grazed my skin.

  It was different from when Cody did it. I actually quivered from Wes’s touch. A good kind of quiver. “Thanks, I got it.”

  “Yeah, of course,” he said, quickly pulling away. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for.” Unless it was his liking Amanda over me. “I’m going to go wash up. I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t even want to think about what the conversation at the table would be like once I was gone. Amanda snarking about what a klutz I was, Cody laughing over my reaction to a little touch, and Wes—well, I had no idea what he’d say. Maybe he’d just have to listen to them fighting some more or bonding over making fun of me.

  I locked the bathroom door (I was spending way too much time in there this evening) and pulled off the dress. I hoped I hadn’t ruined it. It wasn’t my favorite in the whole world, but I still liked it.

  I cupped my hands and filled them with water, which I tried to pour over just the spots. I wasn’t very successful. Water splattered everywhere. And because the dress was such a light shade of pink, you could see every drop. I was going to look a mess when I went back out there. At least I was making Amanda’s night better. Every disaster for me was a win for her.

  This night couldn’t end soon enough. I hoped that by the time I went back out, the pizza would be there, then we could just eat and leave. I looked at the dress. It seemed like I got it all out. I’d go over it again when I got home. Before I put the dress back on, I decided I might as well use the toilet since I was already in there.