Promposal (3 page)

God, this was super boring. I shoved the material into my backpack. Eh, maybe homework tomorrow. Or more likely, Sunday night right before bed. I sipped my drink and then sent Ethan a text.
Whatcha doin?

My phone buzzed a minute later.
Homework. :-P You?

Attempting it. Blech. So what are we doin tmrw night?

It's a surprise. Be ready at 5.

Tingles swept across my skin. Ethan was unpredictable, to say the least. I could only venture a guess on what he was planning. Maybe an outing somewhere fun or a cool new coffee shop he'd discovered.

My phone buzzed again; another message from him.
Looking forward to talking to you—have important Q to ask.

With that, my heart skipped a beat or two, then began a furious gallop in my chest. A big question? What could it be?

Surely it wasn't . . .

No. Don't go down that road,
I chided myself. Just because Camilla got asked to prom didn't mean Ethan was going to ask me. Our friendship was solid—okay, his side was solid, while mine
was smoldering with unrequited love—but there hadn't been any indicators Ethan was into me that way. To my eternal sadness.

Then again, Camilla's promposal had come out of the blue. It did happen sometimes. Why couldn't it happen for me?

Whatever it was, it was probably important. Ethan wasn't one to mince words. My hands shook, and I fumbled the letters but managed to type out
I'll be ready
.

And if he didn't ask me, I would take the chance and ask him—fate was giving me an opportunity I couldn't let go. I put my phone on the table and tried to focus on homework. But all I could think about was him.

I
hope you appreciate how hard I'm working,” I said to my mom as I put the last of the pasta in the pantry. “These shelves were heinous.”

“Well, you are a good girl, and you listen to your mama,” she replied from her crouched position on the floor in front of the fridge. I could hear her huffing, the rhythmic sweeps of her scrubbing the interior.

Saturday mornings and early afternoons were made for cleaning, according to my mom. Sadly, I disagreed and felt that time was much better for sleeping or giving in to my rare bouts of lazy time, but I wasn't in any position to argue with her. Over the years I learned if I did a burst of activity for an hour or two, she usually backed off enough so I could spend the rest of my weekend how I wanted.

Mom started singing an old Romanian song, and I found myself humming along. It was one she'd brought with her from the “old country” when she moved to the United States as a teenager with her parents and younger brother, my uncle Andre. Mom still had an accent, despite having lived here for so long, and when she got
in a pissy mood, she'd speak a flurry of Romanian to me.

Not that I always understood what she was saying, of course. Dad, who was American, only spoke English, so that was our main language in the house.

“—college,” Mom was saying.

I snapped my attention back to her. “Um, what?”

She slit her eyes as she peered at me. “We need to pick which college you are going to attend. Time is running out to accept the offers.”

“I know, I know.” Technically, we had until early May to accept, but Mom had been hounding me every week since December to choose which school I was going to start in the fall. I'd gotten accepted into three different colleges, but I was torn about which one would be right for me.

There was a good state school twenty minutes from our house that had a great K–12 education program so I could follow my dream of becoming a history teacher. The second school was in southern Ohio, about three and a half hours away. And the third was in Chicago.

“Well, we are all waiting on you,” she said. “I don't understand what is taking so long. It's not like you are picking a husband or anything.”

I turned my attention back to the pantry and rolled my eyes. Her pushiness made me want to choose Chicago, which was a good seven-hour drive away from home. “I promise you won't have to wait much longer.”

“Where is Joshua going to go? Did he decide yet?”

“Columbia University in New York City told him a couple of weeks ago that he got in.” I chuckled. “And that was the end
of the search for him.” When Joshua had gotten his acceptance letter, he'd legit started tearing up in excitement. We'd both danced around his house for a full ten minutes. Doing music
and
living in NYC for four years? A total win-win.

Though it was going to be so, so hard to be that far from my best friend.

“I'm glad to hear it.”
Scrub, scrub.
“Your father won't be home until this evening. One of his employees called in sick, so he's working late.”

“That's too bad. Maybe I can run him up some dinner later.”

“You are a good girl.” I heard the smile in my mother's voice. “He would appreciate it, I am sure.”

My dad owned a small but thriving jewelry store in a bustling strip plaza. Five years ago, he'd declared to me and Mom that he was quitting his job at an accounting firm to start his own company. I'd assumed Mom would have a stroke when he told her, but she'd stayed surprisingly calm and told him she would support him in this. We both had seen far too many nights when Dad would come home tired and miserable.

Now he was still tired, but I'd never seen him happier. My parents had stopped fighting as much, even. Crazy how taking a risk and following your dreams led to happiness all around.

I straightened up the pantry a bit more, stalling. I knew Mom was going to tell me to tackle the bathroom next, and I
so
did not feel like scrubbing toilets. As I pondered how to get out of the task today, the doorbell rang.

“Will you get that, please?” Mom asked.

I glanced down at my clothes with a wrinkle of my nose. Stained sweatpants and a beat-up T-shirt. “But I look like ass.”

She whipped her head around to eye me with a stern glare, and I instantly regretted the cuss word. “Language, miss.”

“Sorry,” I said in a soothing tone. “That slipped out.”

The doorbell rang again.

Her eyebrow rose.

With a sigh, I clomped my way to the door and whipped it open. There stood Zach, a broad grin on his face.

“Hey,” he said.

My eyes widened, and it was so hard not to just slam the door in his face and run to my room to change. Despite my mom's huff of displeasure at my word choice, I
did
look like ass. In general, I preferred that people at school not see me in a state of assiness. Even Joshua knew better than to come over until later in the afternoon on Saturdays. “Um. Sorry. I'm in the middle of cleaning,” I said with an apologetic wave of my hand over my outfit.

His gaze raked my form, and it didn't seem like he cared what I was wearing. “No biggie. Need help?”

“Who is at the door?” my mom asked loudly. She couldn't see us from her spot in the kitchen.

Zach peered over my shoulder.

“It's a friend, Mom.” I squeezed the door a bit closer around me. “Thanks, but I'm good. Did . . . you need something?”

He cleared his throat, and a gust of brisk wind whipped his hair around. His cheeks pinkened, and goose bumps broke out on my flesh from the chilly air. “I came to talk about prom with you,” he said in a low voice.

It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since he'd asked me. He already wanted to start talking about it? I'd barely accepted the fact that I'd said yes.

“Invite your friend in, Camilla,” Mom hollered. “What are you, being rude? Leaving her standing in this cold weather?”

It was hard to dampen down the sudden swell of irritation. “Please, come inside.” I opened the door wider and let him in.

He sighed in relief when he stepped in, then looked around the room. Stripped his coat off and held it out to me to hang up.
Make yourself at home, why don't you.
“Your place is great.”

I hung his coat up. “Can I get you something to drink?” See, even pissed off, I could remember my manners.

“What do you have?”

Mom walked into the living room and stopped. “Oh, it is a boy, not a girl.” She swatted my arm, then fluffed her hair and smoothed the front of her shirt and pants. “Why didn't you tell me you had a male guest?” By the hungry gleam in her eye, I could tell she was already planning our wedding.

Zach thrust out his hand to her. “Hello. I'm Zach. I go to school with Camilla.”

“Yes, he and I are in statistics together,” I interjected. I was so not ready for Mom to find out we were prom dates. Because, to be honest, part of my brain had been scrabbling since yesterday for ideas on how to get out of going with him. Which sounded awful, I knew, but I couldn't help it.

“Are you hungry?” Mom grabbed his arm and sat him down on the couch. Her smile was so big that she looked almost crazy. “Would you like a sandwich? Or I can make you some chicken or—”

“Mom,” I said as I shot her a look.

I knew why she was so excited about Zach being here. I never had guys over, ever. Well, except Joshua, but she'd stopped trying to matchmake us in seventh grade when we finally told her he was
gay. Though she did try to point out attractive guys to the two of us when we were out in public.

“I'm good on food, thank you,” Zach said. “But . . . maybe a soda?”

With a quick nod, she ran into the kitchen.

I sat on the chair opposite the couch. “I'm sorry,” I said with an awkward laugh. “She doesn't get out of the house much.”

“That is not true,” Mom called from the kitchen. “I have book club and movie club
and
wine club.”

I gave a real laugh this time. “Okay, her social life is better than mine, if I'm honest.” After clearing my throat, I rested my clenched hands in my lap. I knew my discomfort had to be radiating from me, because my back was one big knot of tension, but Zach didn't seem to notice. He just stared at me with a blasé expression.

Mom gave him the drink, then stood behind the couch, eyeing us closely.

“Thanks,” I told her.

Awkward silence.

“Well. I guess I will leave you two to talk.” She shuffled back into the kitchen, and I heard the scrubbing start again.

“Um. So. What did you need to see me about?” I asked him.

He took a sip of his drink, then put it on the coffee table. Twisted the cuff of his sweater. Sipped again. Was he nervous? “Well, I was talking to my mom—”

“The newscaster.” Boy, had the woman looked excited in her segment last night. I'd watched it up in my room. Thankfully, it had been the ten o'clock news, and my mom and dad had already been sawing logs in bed. So they'd missed the hubbub, hadn't seen my
beet-red face and painful smile as I agreed to go to prom with Zach. Though it seemed like half the school had seen the segment and had blown up my phone and Facebook page with messages about it last night and this morning.

“Yeah. She said we should get working early on coordinating our outfits. Picking what colors we want, where we should go to dinner, and so on. She found your address and suggested I drop by.”

“I see.” I dropped my gaze to where my fingers picked at the hem of my T-shirt. “I wasn't quite prepared to start talking about this yet,” I admitted. I sucked in a steadying breath. Maybe now that we were alone, I could tell him I wasn't so crazy about being his date. Tell him that it was one thing to do a big promposal like that when you and the person were dating. Or at least knew more about each other than first and last names.

“What do you think about blue?” he continued. “We could do light or dark. Or maybe a nice royal blue.”

God, was he not even listening to me? I glanced up at him, a few frustrated words on the tip of my tongue, and saw the excitement in his eyes, the sweet smile on his face as his eyes met mine. My gut pinched, and the anger fell away.

No, I didn't have any feelings for this guy. No attraction whatsoever. But that didn't mean we couldn't go as friends, right? Maybe I should use this time to get to know him instead of letting bitter disappointment sour the rest of my senior year.

Benjamin was a pipe dream, that ungettable get so far out of the realm of possibility that he wasn't real. But I could attempt to build a friendship with Zach so we would at least somewhat enjoy prom together.

“Blue's not bad, but I really like red,” I finally said.

I saw the moment the tension leaked out of his body. He nodded. “Yeah. Red's nice too.”

I grabbed a sheet of paper off the side table, ripped a corner off, and scribbled my cell phone number down. “I really don't mean to be rude, but I have a bunch of chores I have to finish today. Can we talk about this sometime next week?”

He glanced down at the number, then stuffed it in his pocket and stood. “That'd be great. Sure. No problem.”

After getting his coat, I walked him to the door. He gave me a quick nod and headed outside. I closed the door behind him, shivering with the slip of brisk wind that snuck in. Then I leaned my back against the slab of wood and sighed. This wasn't how I'd envisioned things going, but I could work with it. Or at least give it a damn good try.

And maybe if I kept telling myself that, I'd finally start to feel it.

The house was silent. Too silent.

Mom crept into the living room. The grin on her face was so big that I knew she'd overheard. “Oh, my baby!” she said as she clapped her hands to her chest. “You have your date to prom! And we have so much planning to do. But we really should talk about red—I don't find it flattering for your skin.”

“Mom,” I started, but she kept talking.

“I'm going to call your aunt,” she continued. “She will help us find the perfect fabric.”