I shrugged, hoping it would make up for the heat I felt pooling into my face. “I can take it.”
Connor looked down the hallway then back to me, his weight shifting from one foot to the next. “I, um…everything okay with you and Jett?”
“What?” The bell rang out, blasting over my response. “What do you mean?”
“Crap,” he mumbled while glancing at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I’ll…we’ll talk later.” He darted around the crowd as lockers slammed and students made their way to class.
HolyAdrenalineville.My heart was going all sorts of crazy. I was mad and embarrassed all at once. Add a mass of confusion to that after Connor’s question, and you have one hot disaster.
“They don’t call them the Mean Girls for nothing,” one girl said to me as she closed a nearby locker—a pretty blonde I’d seen around school but never spoken to.
“Yeah.” I forced a smile. “I guess you’re right.”
I made my way to first period in a daze, asking myself if I could handle the dumb assembly. While Ms. Tolken took roll, I drew up a pie chart depicting my ability to handle whatever what might happen with Jett in front of the entire school. And why had Tasha acted so surprised when I said I might not go? Connor had asked if I was angry with Jett next…
I asked him to the dance, hadn’t I? Did he think I was mad at Jett for not answering yet? An idea came very close to my mind, but it flittered off as I tried to catch hold of it.
Something about the dance and the fact that Jett hadn’t answered me—that was it!He was going to answer me during the assembly, wasn’t he?
The anger clenching my arms and back gave way to a new sense of elation.
“Time to head on down to the assembly,” Ms. Tolken announced. She removed the dark-rimmed glasses, revealing a face that could possibly belong to a super model, and squared a warning look over the class. “If you get caught tryingto sneak off and step out during the assembly, youwillbe marked truant.”
Oh, there was no worry about that. Not anymore. This time I nearly floated down that hallway, carried by thoughts of Jett Bryant telling meyesin front of the entire school. I loved the idea. I loved it so much that I didn’t even care if Tasha wanted to flatter herself and say it was all some act to make her jealous. I knew better, and that’s all that mattered.
The drill team started things off with a song by Nirvana to get everyone hyped up about the Sadie Hawkins dance. It worked. By the time Coach came out to explain why we should be exceptionally proud of both our boys and girls basketball teams the gymnasium was in a state of chaos, cheering wildly after every word he said.
When he introduced the captain of the boys team, Mr. Brown Eyes himself, the school exploded. The captain of the girls team roused a similar response, and soon both captains—along with their co-captains—lined up along the front and slipped on a pair of sunglasses.
A new song kicked up with a heavy beat, this one by INXS. Suddenly the rest of the teams danced onto the court, the guys from one side, the girls from the other. Just when I thought they’d leave it at that and filter off the court, the song changed and the cheerleaders entered the scene in an array of acrobatic moves.
I tore my eyes off Jett and all of his masculine glory to check for Tasha. It’d be just like her to pair up with him somehow. Lo and behold, she was there, and shimmying her way right over to Jett. I watched in horror as four cheerleaders paired up with the captains and co-captains, male cheerleaders for the girls, female ones for the boys.
A small ache stabbed right into my chest as Jett took Tasha by the waist and lifted her off the ground in a dance move that went right to the beat. Was this thepracticehe’d stayed after for last night?
Tasha spun around then, and Jett moved down to one knee in time for Tasha to sit on his other leg and toss her arm around the back of his neck. The exact move was played out with the others as well but all I could focus on was Jett.
The song ended at last and everyone else in the gymnasium burst into applause. I began a countdown in my head, wondering how long it would take for Tasha to get her grubs off of Jett.
“I’ve been waiting until today to answer you,” came a voice from the mic over the crowd. It took me a moment to locate Kenny, another guy from the team. He stood up front, shifting his weight from one foot to the next while twisting the cord around his finger. A hush fell over the crowd. “Annie Chetler, where are you?”
A round of squeals sounded from one section of the bleachers, and a petite blonde girl came to a stand. The one from the hall, I realized.
“Come on down here, and you’ll get your answer,” Kenny said, twiddling the cord some more.
A couple of the male cheerleaders made a bench for her out of their legs where Annie took a seat and watched Kenny bust into a few dance moves with a cheerleader on either side of him. At last they spun away from her, produced some cards they’d had tucked out of sight, and spun back to reveal the lettersYES.
This time I joined in on the cheering. My heart joined in too, beating double time as I saw exactly what I’d hoped might happen becoming a very real probability. I’d forgive him for waiting so long if he’d done it to simply answer me during the assembly.
I watched two other guys answer two other girls, one of whom was on the girls basketball team. I glanced over to see if Jett would move up to the microphone between each one, but so far he’d stayed tucked into a cluster by his teammates where they watched the action.
I wasn’t sure where Tasha had gone off to, but she made her reappearance by stepping up to the microphone. While grabbing it with one hand, she cheered with the other by pumping a fist and thrusting it high over her head.
“J, E, T, T, will you go to the dance with me?”
The rest of the cheer team gathered around her and repeated the phrase while my brain tried to process what I’d just heard.
“J, E, T, T, will you go to the dance with me?”
