A Prom to Remember(54)

“Well, this is surprising,” Otis said.

“Romeo, Romeo? I hope you don’t think I hate you, Romeo,” Luke said.

“Wow, you went old school with this latest movie reference.” Otis laughed. “I don’t think you hate me. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you on prom night and tell you that I promise to take a million pictures.”

“Thanks,” Otis said, looking sad.

“I wish you were coming!” Luke yelled.

“I wish I was coming, too.” And then a light went on behind Otis’s eyes. “Wait right there.”

Lizzie felt like she was watching a great love story unfold, even if she was slightly annoyed that time was ticking by. She kept reminding herself they still had almost an hour before the dance even started.

Otis

Otis leaned on the windowsill and looked down at his friends, Luke in his white dinner jacket, Lizzie in her red dress, and Madison in her sparkly jumpsuit. He wanted to be with them more than anything he’d wanted in his life.

“I wish I was coming too,” Otis said. And he meant it. But then he had an idea. “Wait right there.”

He threw on his navy-blue suit. He’d had every intention of renting a tux, but once he realized his parents weren’t budging, that had fallen apart. He looked in the mirror above his dresser and ran a hand through his hair, hoping the messy look would work for Luke. He stopped in the bathroom and swallowed some Listerine because there was no time to swish and spit. He’d grown out of his own dress shoes, so he stopped by his dad’s closet and borrowed a pair of his.

There was no way Otis wanted to live the rest of his life with this level of guilt about missing the prom. It was time to be brave.

He’d promised Luke a grand romantic gesture to make things up to him. It might as well be now.

Otis was prepared to go out in a blaze of glory.

His parents were in the living room, watching the evening news.

Otis grabbed the remote and muted it, then stood in front of them and made sure he had his parents’ full attention. He folded his hands in front of him as if preparing for a presidential address.

“Hello and good evening,” he said formally. “I know I’m grounded. But I have to go to the prom. My boyfriend is outside, and I know I’ll regret it forever if I don’t go.”

His dad opened his mouth to speak, but Otis held up his finger. “For the record, I didn’t plan this rebellion and neither did Luke. He loves grand romantic gestures, so he stopped on his way to prom to throw pebbles at my window and tell me that he wasn’t mad. This mutiny is my idea.”

He tried to gauge his parents’ response to his monologue, but they were both sitting on the couch with their jaws dropped.

“You can ground me for the rest of the school year, for the entire summer, I don’t really care. You can even ground me while I’m away at college, though I’m not sure how you would accomplish that. But suffice it to say, I need to go to the prom with my boyfriend. I said yes to him when he asked. And it is a responsibility I’m going to uphold.”

His dad stood up with a grimace, but his mom tugged on his hand.

Otis began inching toward the front door. He cleared his throat, preparing for further declarations, but then he caught his mom’s eye and she mouthed, “Just go.”

So, he went.

Otis opened the front door and called over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow!”

He jogged down his front walk, yelling at Madison, Lizzie, and Luke to get in the car. The girls slid into the back seat, and Otis made a dramatic leap through the already-open passenger door. It was like something out of an action movie even though no one was chasing him.

“Go, go, go!” Otis said, drumming on the dashboard, full of too much energy.

Luke drove off, and it wasn’t until they were stopped at a light on Main Street that what happened finally got through Otis’s brain and he started to laugh.

Lizzie and Madison started to laugh in the back seat.

Luke started to laugh so hard he had to actually pull over out of fear of crashing because he couldn’t see through his tears of laughter.

Luke took Otis’s hand and threaded their fingers together over the center console.

“And you say you never do anything grand or romantic,” Luke said, kissing him square on the mouth. “That was by far the most romantic thing I could have imagined.”

“Thanks,” Otis said.

Madison leaned up from the back seat. “So like how much trouble do you think you’re going to be in, when this all shakes out?”

“So much trouble,” Otis said, leaning against the headrest and laughing again.

“Do you think it’ll be worth it?” Lizzie asked.

Otis squeezed Luke’s hand. “I know for a fact that it will be.”

“Aw, that’s so cute. I love it when you’re so cute,” Luke said.

An I love you was on the tip of Otis’s tongue. But he’d save it for a better time, when Madison and Lizzie weren’t staring at them from the back seat of the car.

“Well, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Madison said to Lizzie in the back seat.

“So darn cute,” Lizzie agreed.

“We should probably get the hell out of Dodge before your dad comes after us,” Luke said, pulling out of the spot where he’d stopped.