“Tag,” I said, out of breath for absolutely no reason. “Mr.Rudnick is his housemaster, and since he’s chaperoning, Tag is all alone in Grundy.”
“Oh,” Penny said. “Oh my.”
“Yeah!”
“Well, that is an oversight on our part,” Penny said after a moment. “Anextremeoversight.” She glanced at the motorcoaches, which students were now boarding, before warmly touching my cheek. “We will be back at midnight.”
“I know.” I nodded. “But Tag…”
Penny smiled. “Midnight,” she repeated. “He’ll be alone until midnight.”
My heart suddenly spun.Alone doesn’t just mean “alone,”I realized.It also means “unsupervised.”
I grinned as Penny left for her bus, tapping out what I knew was an all-faculty email on her phone. Not only was she letting them know Tag was unsupervised, but she was also giving himauthorizationto be unsupervised. Headmaster Bickford’s word trumped all.
Midnight, I told myself.We have until midnight.
I called Tag once I’d crossed the covered bridge. “Hey,” he answered. “I was about to text you a screenshot from this email Headmaster Bickford cc’d me on—”
Blood pounding in my ears, I let the words fall right out ofmy mouth. Just like he had freshman year. “Tag Swell?” I said. “Lily Hopper here. How are you?” I didn’t give him time to answer. “I’m fine, even though I hate history. The debate today was awful, wasn’t it? I was too quiet, way too quiet. But you were incredible, really incredible. Anyway, I was wondering—” I closed my eyes. “Would you like to go to prom with me?”
Tag was silent for a beat…then two, then three. “Yes,” he said after five seconds. “That would be nice.”
I grinned.
“Did I really mention that debate?” he asked. “When I invited you to formal?”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “You really did.”
He groaned. “God, why did you say yes?”
“Because I’d been waiting the whole year to hear your voice on the phone.”
Again, Tag was quiet.
“I’ll pick you up at 6:30,” I said before hanging up on him and breaking into a run.
I had so much to do.
My prom dress was beautiful, but I couldn’t find the enthusiasm to take it off its hanger and finally slip into it for real. I knew exactly why.
Daniel.
I had bought the light blue gown after he’d promposed to me, so I’d imagined taking pictures with him while wearing it and dancing together while wearing it. Why would I ever wear it with Tag? Maybe someday I wouldn’t think of Daniel when I looked at the dress, but that day was definitely not today.
And besides, I had something so much better. My lungs fluttered like frantic butterfly wings as I dug through my closet, and I let out a long sigh when I found the cocktail dress still hanging in its dry cleaner’s bag.
“Hello there,” I said after ripping away the plastic. “Please still fit.”
I had to suck in my breath when doing up the zipper; the hemline was a couple inches too short, but other than that, it looked perfect. I loved the deep shade of gold, the jacquard fabric’s textured but delicate floral pattern, and the sweetheart neckline with crisscrossing spaghetti straps. “You’re a daydream,” my mom had said when we’d found it at Nordstrom together. “Tag’s going to lose his shit when he sees you.”
And I suppose hehadlost his shit three years ago—tripping over a stray rock on our driveway—but when I pulled up to Grundy House later and saw him waiting out front, I almost forgot to put my golf cart in park before getting out to greet him.
That’s my man, I thought.
“Nice dress!” he called as I wobbled in my mom’s silver strappy sandals. His arms slid around my waist. “Hops, you look…”
“Like a daydream,” I said after kissing him. “You look like a daydream, Tag.”
