A Prom to Remember(8)

“It didn’t fade, it was overtaken with relief that I didn’t have to stop being lazy and actually help a customer.”

Madison looked over to Paisley, who nodded. “It’s true. We’ve had a quiet evening, so it would suck to have to, you know, do our jobs.”

“What if I actually wanted a potato?” Madison asked.

“Do you want a potato?”

“Nah, I had dinner,” Madison said as she slid across the counter. “So what did I miss with you two?” She sat on the little stool in the corner out of the line of vision of anyone passing. Someday Paisley and Lizzie would get in trouble for letting their friend go behind the counter, but hopefully tonight was not that night.

“Lizzie’s in love with Mystery Boy,” Paisley said.

“Paisley’s an emotionless robot,” Lizzie answered as Paisley threw a piece of bacon at her and missed.

“Don’t waste that!” Madison said. “Bacon is delicious and shouldn’t be wasted. Also Paisley’s not an emotionless robot. But Lizzie is totally in love with Mystery Boy.”

“Aw, thanks, Madison,” Paisley said as Lizzie hit her square in the face with a limp piece of broccoli.





Chapter 4

Otis

Otis Sorenson was doing his calc homework Sunday afternoon. At least, his calc homework was open on his desk in front of him. If you wanted to get technical about it, he was paying far more attention to the conversation he was having via text with his friend Tag.

Tag was having girl trouble. Or “women problems” as Tag liked to say.





Before Tag’s answer came through, Otis heard a few strains of music. He checked the volume on his computer, but it seemed like the noise was actually coming from outside.

Otis might not have even bothered to check, but it was a really familiar song. A song he couldn’t quite put his finger on. At least not until he looked outside.

Otis’s bedroom window faced onto the street, and standing outside, leaning against his car, was his boyfriend, Luke, holding up his iPhone that was hooked to his car’s speakers and blasting Peter Gabriel’s seminal classic, “In Your Eyes.”

Otis couldn’t help but laugh as he opened his window, stuck his head out, and looked down at his dark-eyed, smooth-skinned, awesome-haired boyfriend. “Like a young Ricky Martin,” Otis’s mom once said in passing. So Otis then googled young Ricky Martin and was not disappointed.

Luke had used what Otis hoped was masking tape to spell out the word PROM on the roof of his car. If it was not masking tape and it took the paint off, then Luke was definitely going to be in trouble. His parents were sticklers about that car. They were better than Otis’s parents, though, because Otis didn’t even have a car and instead was forced to share with his older sister whenever she deigned to come home from college for the weekend.

Otis leaned his elbows on the windowsill and smiled down at Luke, who grinned up at him.

“Have you ever even seen Say Anything?” Otis asked, knowing full well that the answer was no.

“No, but I know an iconic romantic scene when I see it, even if it’s only a GIF on Tumblr. And I know you love this no matter how much you want to pretend that you don’t.”

Otis’s smile only grew, like he couldn’t even contain it on his face. He’d had braces for a ridiculously long time, and his teeth were incredibly straight thanks to that, but when he smiled, he still had a tendency to keep his lips pressed firmly together. But right now, even after seven years of braces and being embarrassed about how terrible they looked, he smiled so wide, he had no choice but to open his mouth.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” he called out to Luke while waving at a neighbor walking his dog. “It’s completely awesome.”

“Good, I’m glad you think so,” Luke said. They’d been together for about six months now but had been friends much longer. Back in middle school they were on the same baseball team and they hung out sometimes. But in high school Otis got super into baseball and Luke drifted toward the theater kids. They didn’t spend much time together in high school. At least not until they were at a party junior year and Luke drunkenly told Otis that he was gay.

Otis, at that point, had no idea he himself was gay. But when he realized he was into guys last fall, the first person he wanted to tell was Luke. They’ve been together ever since. Sort of.

It took Luke a few tries to crack Otis. Not so much because Otis didn’t like him but because even though Otis was out, he wasn’t sure how out he wanted to be. It took him a little while to find a balance. And once Otis went looking for the balance, he found a lot of support.

It helped that there was some other major high school drama going on around the time Otis and Luke started dating publicly. (The vice principal resigned out of nowhere, and there were tons of rumors swirling around about the cause.) By the time everyone got around to noticing Luke and Otis, it didn’t feel like a big deal.

All of Otis’s worries were for nothing. There wasn’t any hate or homophobia to be found. Not within the senior class, at least. There were some underclassmen who seemed intent on making Luke’s life a bit of a nightmare, but a few well-placed words and some intimidation from the guys on the baseball team fixed it right up. Otis wasn’t sure how he got so lucky.