I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Ace. For everything.”
“Lia, I’ve been in love with you my whole life,” he says. “I didn’t know it, not really. Not when we were kids and you cried when Petey Dillon took the last chocolate milk at lunch and I got detention for kicking him in the dick. Not when we were twelve and you punched a boy in the throat for calling me a loser. Not even when we were sixteen and you danced with me at prom in that sparkly pink dress that made you look like a fucking angel.”
His smile is small. Reverent.
“But now, I see it. All of it. Every moment—every stupid, beautiful, ridiculous moment—I’ve ever loved you.”
Tears well up in my eyes.
“I love you,” he says again.
“I love you too.”
He leans in and kisses me.
It’s soft at first. Sure. Steady. But the second I melt into it, Ace deepens the kiss like he’s making up for every second he waited too long. I fist my hands in his sweater, he wraps his arms around my waist, and we…fall.
We fall all the way in. To each other. To our hearts. To the love we’vealwayshad for each other.
Behind us, someone lets out a whoop.
“Finally!” Blake shouts.
Finn claps. Scottie cheers. “Get it, Sandy!”
Kayla starts chanting something that might be our names mashed together, and Finn yells something that might be “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, Trav! Right now?” but I don’t hear any of it enough to pass a test.
For me, it’s just Ace and this kiss. When Ace finally pulls back and rests his forehead on mine, I’m breathless.
“So…can we get the fuck out of here now?” he whispers, “I want to kiss you in more places than your mouth.”
My brain short-circuits. “Oh boy.”
He smirks. “That a yes?”
“Obviously.”
We’re already walking out before the word fully leaves my mouth. His dad, dressed like a gorilla, is pulling off the mask to wipe tears of joy from his eyes and waves from his spot in the bushes as we go.
It’s no Cinderella story, but it’s ours—and I wouldn’t change a single thing.
Ace
I don’t remember much after she said it. Not the music. Not the crowd. Not the ridiculous frat-party chaos happening around us. All I remember is Julia Brooks, in a blond Sandy wig and skintight black pants, looking me in the eyes and saying,“I love you.”
Everything tilted. My heart, my head, the fucking axis of Earth.
She loves me.
She. Loves. Me.
Thank fucking everything.
Still in our stupid costumes, still drunk on the high of that moment, and riding the elevator up to my apartment like we’re trying not to combust before we make it to the finish line.
She’s standing close, her Sandy curls brushing my shoulder, red lipstick a little smudged from where I kissed her senseless in front of all our friends.
And I can’t stop looking at her.
