Page 12 of The Promposal

Right up until the moment I saw Jake leaning against our classroom door. He grinned at me like nothing was wrong.

And even though I was frustrated by his recent behavior, my heart still skipped a beat at the fire in his dark brown eyes.

“There’s my girl. I’ve been looking for you.”

What did that mean? I’d been where I was supposed to be. In class (mostly) at school. I hadn’t been AWOL the entire day.

But then he wrapped me up in his arms, and I was again forced to reconsider my stance on hugs. I loved being held by him. It was the safest, warmest, most butterfly-inducing feeling in the whole world.

“Where have you been?” I asked, and watched as some of the light in his eyes died.

“Around.”

Not an answer, but he didn’t seem inclined to say more. Which frustrated me.

“Let’s go grab our seats,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

I wouldn’t say no to that! His large hand enclosed mine, and I couldn’t help but happy sigh. I followed him into the classroom, and it was only then that I noticed Ella wasn’t with us. I wondered where she had disappeared off to.

Jake ran his thumb along the inside of my wrist after we’d sat down, and my entire arm went limp in response. He winked at me. “Looks like I make you feel weak.”

“If you must know, it’s this classroom. I think I’m getting math-related physical disorders. Like fibromyalgebra.”

Encouraged by his laughter, I kept talking. “I’ve also self-diagnosed a possible arithmia. And percentile dysfunction.”

“I hear they make a pill for that.”

I wished they made a pill for passing calculus. It would make my life so much easier.

The bell rang, and the other students filed into the classroom, chatting as they took their seats. Our teacher, Ms. Elias, began to talk over us as she passed out sheets of paper. “Today we’re having a pop quiz.” I was one of the people who groaned in response to her news. “Multiple choice. Or in your case, Mr. McIver, multiple guess. This quiz is something of a review and will cover some trig, some geometry, and a bit of probability and statistics.”

Jake handed my quiz to me. He mouthed the words “good luck” before facing front.

The instructions at the top of the quiz told us to show our work. The first question was about finding the cosine. I wished I could tell math to grow up and solve its own problems. Or that a cosine was what you did to a bank check and not something I would ever, ever use in my real life and, thus, did not need to find it.

I worked my way through the first two problems, filling in the bubble next to what I hoped was the right answer.

When I got to the third question, I put my pencil down. It read:

3. Jonah Peterson wants to ask Amy Feldman to the prom. There is a 100 percent chance that he went to a lot of effort to get Ms. Elias to hand out a fake pop quiz. He predicts that there is at least an 85 percent chance that Amy will like his promposal and will say yes. What is the probability that Jonah and Amy will go to the prom together?

I looked up to see a nervous Jonah standing at the front of the classroom, clutching a single pink rose.

“A hundred percent!” Amy said from the front row, running up to Jonah and throwing her arms around his neck. More applause and “aws” from the female members of the class. I looked at Jake, wondering if any of this had inspired him.

Or at least reminded him.

But instead of watching Jonah and Amy get their picture taken by multiple people, Jake looked at his phone intently. Something was bothering him.

I’d spent all this time impatiently waiting for him to step up. Life was too short, and mothers pretended like you weren’t real. I should ask about prom and whatever else was going on with him instead of hoping things would just work themselves out.

“That was some promposal, huh?”

Jake made the sound he made when he wanted to pretend like he was listening to me but actually wasn’t.

I said his name, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. His eyes flashed with what looked like worry, followed by irritation.

“About prom ...”

---