A Prom to Remember(65)

“What are you thinking?” Otis asked.

Luke propped his head in his hand on the edge of the table. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to come to this with me, but I guess I was wrong. And I was just thinking that I still don’t understand why you were hesitating. Why you seemed like you didn’t really want to come when you were willing to totally go against your parents tonight.”

Luke didn’t look him in the eyes.

“It’s kind of a long explanation, but I promise I always wanted to go to the prom with you. We have all night to talk about the other stuff. I promise.”

Luke looked as happy to be sitting there at the table with Otis as he had all night on the dance floor. There was something about how Luke could literally be happy anywhere, anytime that made Otis lean over and kiss him.

“What was that for?” Luke asked.

“Oh, you know, just because,” Otis said. Before he could say more, Luke’s face wrinkled. He sniffed.

“Do you smell something?” Luke asked.

Otis inhaled sharply, trying to figure out what Luke smelled and doing his best not to make a he-who-smelt-it-dealt-it joke, considering mere seconds ago he was about to maybe tell his boyfriend he loved him.

“Mostly I smell too much cologne and a lot of carpet cleaner. And sweat.”

“There’s something else,” Luke said.

Otis stood up. Now he did smell something, but he couldn’t place it.

While he was standing he heard a crack, followed by a whooshing sound from behind him. When he turned back, water was gushing from the wall next to one of the tables. And then another hole opened up, and another, and another, until water was coming from everywhere. Someone started to scream.

“Oh my god,” Luke said, standing when he saw the deluge. “What is that?”

“A broken pipe?” Otis offered.

“Why is Amelia Vaughn sitting there screaming instead of getting out of the way?” Luke asked.

Otis hadn’t noticed who the screaming person was, but Luke was correct. Amelia sat beneath the spray of water, screaming her head off.

Otis stepped into action, abandoning his shoes under the table and jogging over to Amelia.

He held his hand out. “Come on,” he said to her.

“My dress is stuck on the table!” she cried. “This is literally the worst prom ever.”

“Oh, for the love,” he said, ducking down and finding that yes, her dress was stuck to the table, on a screw, more specifically. He worked the material back around the screw and then yanked.

She stood up and Otis joined her.

“Oh my god, thank you so much!” She grabbed her tiara from the table and ran.

At that point other people, hotel workers and even a police officer, had arrived on the scene and the ballroom was being evacuated.

Otis followed the crowd out of the room and into the parking lot in search of Luke. It was rough seeing as how he was barefoot and he forgot to look for his dad’s shoes on the way out the door. He’d just add losing those shoes to the list of reasons he was in big trouble with his parents.

Luke waited for him at the edge of the crowd outside, with the shoes tied together and thrown casually around his neck.

“My hero!” Luke said, giving Otis a kiss on the lips.

“You’re my hero for saving those shoes,” Otis said, taking them from Luke and sliding them onto his feet.





Chapter 31

Lizzie

Lizzie leaned in to shout-whisper to Madison. “Where are Otis and Luke?”

Madison shrugged and kept dancing. Thank god for Madison. Through the majority of the prom she’d kept Lizzie laughing and dancing and thinking about things besides getting stood up.

She would shake and shimmy her blues away until she got some concrete information about what happened with Mystery Boy. She’d keep dancing for the rest of her life if she had to, just to keep the sad thoughts at bay.

As one song moved into the next, Lizzie heard a crack and a whoosh from somewhere at the perimeter of the dance floor. She tried to stand on her tiptoes to see over the heads of the people around her, but it was no use.

Someone screamed, which seemed odd to Lizzie, that whatever was happening hadn’t made more people scream. Lizzie spun in a quick circle but couldn’t locate where the sound was coming from.

But then she saw it. There was water gushing from every direction in multiple places along one wall. It was like geysers had spouted from behind the wall and ceiling, and it was raining on one half of the room.

Lizzie ran to their table where she’d left the clutch her mom had lent her with her precious phone inside. It could not drown; that would be one more terrible thing in a night of terrible things.

Madison ran after her, skidding and slipping on the wide legs of her jumpsuit and nearly pulling them both down in a heap. Lizzie grabbed her clutch from the table. It had only gotten dripped on by that point, and she shoved it down the front of her dress just as another geyser broke above her.

This time she did slip, and she and Madison both ended up in a heap on the soaked carpet.

“Did you get your phone?” Madison asked, almost having to yell over the sound of rushing water.

“Yes!” Lizzie said, pointing at her boobs. “Did you?”

Madison shook her head. “It’s under the table! I’m gonna crawl over.”