CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As I closed the garage door, my phone beeped. It was a text from Jake. I was already smiling before I had even opened it.

Pick you up in an hour?

I texted him back some emojis with the hearts for eyes and said:

Sounds good. Can’t wait.

Which meant he had only an hour left to pull off his promposal. I wondered how he was going to manage that, especially since I needed to get ready.

“Is that Jake? When is he coming?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Ella could have been a freaking ninja if she wanted to be. “He says he’ll be here in an hour.”

“An hour?” Much as she had yesterday, Ella pounced on me. I had only a second to notice the rollers in her hair and her totally made-up face before she said, “We’re running out of time! Let’s go!”

She shoved me into the bathroom and told me to take a shower and blow-dry my hair. I did as I was told, knowing better than to mess with my sister when she was this fired up. I stayed in the soothing hot water of the shower until Ella started banging on the door. Hard. “Come on, Mattie!”

Oh, she was serious. She was calling me Mattie. That meant she had entered the I’m-not-screwing-around portion of the evening. I got out of the shower, put on my robe, and towel-dried my hair. I then used her hairdryer to get the rest of the moisture out.

Apparently deciding my time was up, Ella opened the door and told me I was finished. She dragged me down the hall to her bedroom and had me sit in at her vanity table.

“Up or down?”

The world? A little bit of both at the moment. “What?”

“Do you want your hair up or down?”

I didn’t care, but I sensed that saying so would be wrong. “You choose.”

“Up. Definitely up. That way it shows off your back and you won’t get too hot while you’re dancing. Having sweaty hair stick to your neck is the worst.”

She ran her brush through my hair, gathering it up into a big ponytail. I kind of lost interest as she started curling the ends and using bobby pins to loop them under. The final effect was pretty, but I didn’t dare say anything to the currently muttering Ella.

She tackled my makeup next. I got eye shadow, blush, powder, eyeliner, mascara, the works. Makeup wasn’t really my thing, but I decided not to say anything while she wielded sharp objects dangerously close to my eyeballs.

She handed me some tissue and instructed me to blot.

Then she sprayed me with glitter.

That was a step too far.

“I don’t need to be bedazzled!” But all my protest got me was a mouthful of the stuff. It tasted terrible. I studied my reflection. “I look like one of those candy strippers sneezed on me.”

“Striper. And it looks great. Now go get changed while I finish up in here.”

Ella had made me all beautiful, like she did for every dance we went to. It always gave me an extra little boost of confidence. And much as I knew Jake enjoyed it, one of my favorite things about him was that he thought I was just as beautiful without all this stuff on my face.

He loved me for me.

I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to totally forgetting that.

As I looked at my prom dress, now hanging on my closet door, a thought occurred to me.

“Ella?” I yelled.

“What?”

“How am I supposed to wear a bra in this thing?”

“You’re not!” she shouted.

That made me go back into her room. “Are you serious?”

She was sitting at her vanity table, pulling the rollers out of her hair. “Yes. I’m serious.”

“I don’t really let the girls go free range.”

“First time for everything,” she said. “I put lining in there for you, which should help. I also have these cup things you can use where you stick them onto your skin to keep your boobs in place.”

“And how do you get them back off?” I asked, alarmed.

Her expression told me all I needed to know. Free range, it was. “What if I have a wardrobe malfunction?”

At that, she rolled her eyes and sighed. I really was rubbing off on her. “You won’t. And even if you did, it would make the prom super memorable. Which is what you want, right?”

Time-crunched Ella was no fun. I retreated back to my room and finished getting ready. “What shoes should I wear?” I hollered.

She came into my room, totally ready and looking much calmer. Her hair hung in perfect soft ringlets so that when the sun hit her hair, it made her look like she was glowing. “You’ve got those black heels you can use. It would have been better if we’d gone out and bought you, like, a pair of strappy silver sandals, but it totally slipped my mind that you don’t have a lot of appropriate shoes.”

Having big feet was kind of a hindrance to owning cute shoes. I found the heels in the back of my closet. “Got ’em! And it doesn’t really matter. I’ll just kick them off when we get there so that I can dance.”

She nodded. “Jake’s boutonniere is in the fridge, FYI. Deacon’s going to be here any minute.” She put a lipstick in my hand. “This is your color.”

“Wait, you got a boutonniere for me?”

“Don’t get too excited,” she said, giving me a silver clutch to put the lipstick and my phone in. “I just grabbed them from the grocery store. But the guys are not going to care.”

She was right.

The doorbell rang, and Ella let out a shaky breath. I realized she was actually nervous. “Deacon’s a good-looking guy,” I commented nonchalantly.

“Yes, he’s hot, and yes, I’ve noticed, and yes, it’s kind of freaking me out a little.”

“That just makes it more fun.”

She seemed to agree as she grinned at me.

“Ella?” my dad called out. He had insisted on inspecting our dates, but we had vetoed him interrogating the guys. He settled on answering the door when they came, figuring that would be enough of a show of force to make them behave.

I followed behind her and saw my dad standing there, arms folded, sporting a frown. Deacon didn’t seem even a little intimidated, which was probably helped by the fact that he had at least an inch on my father.

That, and all his attention was focused on Ella. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks. So do you.”

“We need pictures!” Jennifer declared, and started documenting Deacon and Ella’s entire interaction. Deacon opened up the plastic box and slid the wrist corsage onto Ella’s arm. She took her boutonniere and pinned it to the lapel of his tuxedo. They were so cute.

Her date wasn’t what she had originally wanted, but I could see that she was happy and excited. It was still good even if it was different.

Like me and my promposal. Because Jake was due to arrive any minute, and there was no way he was going to be able to ask me before the actual dance. I wasn’t getting a promposal, and I had really wanted one, but I was going to spend the night dancing in the arms of my adorable boyfriend. Which was even better than “still good.”

Then Jennifer had Deacon and Ella stand together and put their arms around each other while she took picture after picture with her camera. Like she was a professional or something and couldn’t use her phone like any other parent would.

“Okay, I think we’re good!” Ella finally decided, which got Jennifer to stop acting like they were models in Jennifer’s photo shoot. I sighed because I knew my turn was coming.

We told them good night and waved and watched as Deacon took her out to the waiting limo. “Good thing he brought that instead of the horse.”

“Why would he bring a horse?” my dad asked, sounding super confused.

“Never mind. I’ll be in my room.”

Since we lived in a one-story home, we didn’t have a staircase. Which I found especially devastating considering I couldn’t have a 1980s movie-worthy prom dramatic reveal. So I’d settled for walking slowly down the hallway to the front door so that Jake could admire me.

I’d been in my room for only a few minutes when I heard the doorbell. My heart leaped with excitement.

My prom was about to officially begin.

Well, not technically, since there was at least another hour before the prom doors officially opened, but I guessed that Jake had made reservations for dinner somewhere, and that would count as part of the whole prom experience.

“Uh, Mattie? I think the door’s for you.”

My dad still sounded confused. Maybe I should have explained the horse comment.

I grabbed my clutch, gave myself the once-over in my mirror, and then headed down the hallway. Slowly. Like I was a bride marching down the aisle.

My father stood in the doorway, blocking Jake and ruining the entire effect. With a sigh, I began to walk normally and put my hand on Dad’s shoulder to move him to one side. “You’re totally killing my . . . oh my Buddha.”

I actually felt my jaw hit the floor.

Because it wasn’t Jake standing at my front door.

It was the only person in the whole world who might possibly be better than him.