Page 38 of The Promposal

And I seemed off? That was very pot and kettle of him. I didn’t know quite how to respond as I was trying to make this a happy day.

“Are you worried about Trent and Ella?”

That was a safer area to venture into. “Yeah. She seems to be doing okay, despite Trent being a Cheater McCheatington.” We walked in silence for a few minutes as I wondered what had driven Trent to this. Why he’d made this choice. “Jake, you’re a guy.”

“Your powers of observation are especially keen today, for I am indeed a guy.”

“Then tell me, why did Trent do it? What makes a guy cheat, especially one who has a girlfriend as great as Ella?” Or as great as me?

“I can’t really say why that Night’s Watch wannabe does anything. I don’t know. Boredom? Fell out of love? He’s self-destructive and ruining all the good things in his life?”

Was it that I really wanted to know the reason for Trent’s behavior, or was it a preemptive strike so that I would understand it when I found out what Jake had been up to?

“I would go and beat him up for you, but you already took care of that.”

I nudged his shoulder with mine and couldn’t help but smile. “I kind of did, didn’t I?”

“And everybody knows about it.”

That made me come to a complete stop. “What do you mean everybody knows about it?”

Jake tugged on my hand to get me to start walking again. “People are talking about it at school. You know how fast stuff like this spreads.”

So Ella’s breakup and me punching Trent were making the rounds, but nobody was bothering to say anything to our faces. Lovely. “Not much we can do about that, I guess. And I think Ella’s sadness has less to do with Trent cheating and more to do with not having a date to prom.”

“There are a lot of guys who would ask her if they thought she would say yes.”

I didn’t doubt that. “But she wanted to go with someone she loves.”

Just like I did.

“At this point, I think her options are to either stay home, go solo, or go with someone she doesn’t love.”

“I know. She knows, too. And she can’t exactly stay home since she’s overseeing everything. She has to get dressed up and go. I feel bad that she’s in this position.”

His hand tightened on mine. “Me too.”

We arrived at the ice-cream shop and placed our orders—chocolate with M&M’s for me, vanilla and pieces of Oreo cookies for Jake. We didn’t have long to wait as we were the only customers, and we sat down at a table outside.

In an alternate dimension/perfect world, this was when I would have brought us up and asked him about my nonexistent promposal. (Although, realistically, in an alternate dimension/perfect world, Jake would have already asked me and wouldn’t be skulking around hospitals in the middle of the day.)

But as I studied our interlaced fingers on the table, I realized that this day was going just as I’d hoped. We were both relaxed, having fun, and enjoying each other.

While I told Jake about the manga series I hoped to complete—all based on characters from classic novels who I would manga-ize—Jake finished his ice cream. Then he reached over with his spoon to get a bite of mine.

I smacked his spoon with my own. “The last person who tried that pulled back a bloody stump.”

He cocked his head and smiled at me playfully. “I thought you weren’t a violent person.”

“Not normally. But unless you have a death wish, leave my chocolate alone. You’ve personally witnessed what I do to people who cross me. And that extends to boyfriends who try to steal my ice cream. It’s an unpardonable sin.”

He threw his head back and laughed, and ice-cream-covered butterflies tried to take wing in my stomach. I loved that he could still make me feel all fluttery with something as simple as his laugh.

“How about after you finish, we head back to my place?” Jake offered, a familiar, hungry gleam in his eye that made my insides excitedly twist into ribbons.

“We’re not going to watch football again, are we?”

“No.” He shook his head, that light in his eyes growing brighter and brighter, like two dark brown flames. “I can think of one or two other things we might do in my empty, empty house.”

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