Prologue
Elsie
Five Years Ago
“Don’t chew your nails,” I hissed at myself, clasping my hands together.
Had I ever been this nervous slash excited and anxious in my life?At least my mother was in her office and not witnessing this.She’d likely get her phone and video it all.
I might want a video of what was about to happen—or what I thought was about to happen.What I hoped with all my heart was going to happen.My palms were starting to sweat now.He might touch my hands!Quickly, I began to wipe them on the front of my jeans.
The flash of black from the familiar Mustang had me standing straighter as I took a deep breath.He was here.I had to calm down, act cool.But it wasn’t every day that a girl’s best friend, who she had secretly harbored a crush on for years, came over to ask her to prom.
I mean … Calvin hadn’t said that was why he was coming over when he texted me.He’d said it was important and to meet him on the front porch.
Calvin Sawlan had been showing up unannounced at my house for years.The fact that he had told me to meet him on the front porch was what clued me in that something was up.
I placed a hand over my heart, hoping that the rapid beating wasn’t as loud as I feared it was.I’d die if he heard it.
I watched as he climbed out of the driver’s side, and a smile spread across my cheeks so big that it hurt.I might need to tame that too.Looking at myself in the mirror, that hung in the foyer, I tried to look less excited.
“Act cool,” I whispered to myself as I walked to the door to go outside, like he’d requested.
Over-the-top prom proposals had been going on all week at school.I watched each one, envious but not hopeful that I’d be on the receiving end of one from Calvin.I feared Johnny Marsh or Baron Strum might ask me, and I didn’t want to say yes to either of them.I was holding out hope that Calvin would ask.Every day that passed and he hadn’t asked another girl, my daydreaming of this coming moment had gotten stronger.
Just yesterday, Calvin had asked me if I thought Josh Towle’s flash mob with the soccer team, asking Nyla Jacobs to prom, was cheesy or not.He’d seemed very interested in my response.
Was that what he was going to do?Was there going to be a group of football players doing a flash mob in my front yard?
Calvin had been torn between both his parents after their divorce.He was a people pleaser—at least where they were concerned.His father wanted him to play football.His mother nurtured his talent in acting, dance, and music.He had chosen to live with his father when they split—or that was what he said.I often wondered if she had just left without asking him to go with her.Whatever the case, once she was gone, he had allowed football to take over his life, and I hated to see him not use his other gifts.
Perhaps he was going to today!For me.
Reaching for the doorknob, I twisted it and hoped my face wasn’t as flushed as it had been.Swinging open the door, I tried not to blind him with my overbright smile and prayed I looked casual as I stepped onto the front porch.
Calvin was almost at the bottom of the steps.His curly, dark brown hair was messy from driving with his windows down, and his chocolate eyes flashed with mischief.His lips curled up at the corners, awakening the flutters in my stomach.It was easier when he had a girlfriend.My reactions to him were kept under control, although my heart ached frequently.I didn’t obsess over every smile or glint in his eyes, trying to read more into it when he was in a relationship.
Since he’d broken up with his last girlfriend a month ago, however, I had been letting my guard down a little at a time.Wanting more than anything to see the tiniest spark in his eyes that told me he saw me as something more than his best friend, his buddy.
My eyes did a quick glance around the yard and down the street.I didn’t see any other people who could be hiding or preparing to join him in a flash mob.That was okay.I didn’t need some grand gesture.I just wanted my prom to finally be with Calvin.I’d wanted it since I’d hit puberty.Just like I wanted him to see me as more than his friend.Other guys noticed me.His friends did, but none of them asked me out.I liked to think he had marked me as off-limits.
“You sure look happy,” he said.
I was!
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Good.Then your creative juices will be flowing, and I need help,” he told me, then nodded toward his Mustang.“I have seven handwritten notes in my car that I want to hide, and I need your help to make it special.You know what girls like,” he explained.
My heart slowly started to sink.This didn’t sound like a prom proposal.
“Okay,” I replied, then cleared my throat, no longer smiling.
“I want to ask Kirsten to prom, but last year, she went with Mike Halloway, and his daddy’s money had paid for that damn helicopter banner to be flown over the field during cheerleading practice so he could ask her.Dad is not gonna pay for me to do shit like that.”He wagged his brows mischievously.“So, I’m going to send her on a scavenger hunt.I need it to be a fucking epic one though.Help me?”
My heart began to crack, and a lump swelled up in my throat.Why had I let myself believe that Calvin was seeing me the way I saw him?It had been stupid, and now I would have to suffer the pain in silence.
I nodded.“Sure.I’ll help.”While you prepare a prom proposal for some other girl.No problem.
