Page 81 of The Kissing Booth
I’d get shoes while we were still at the mall, but that would be easy, I thought as we left the shop. I already had my eye on some silver heels nearby. We just needed to find some masks—
Oh, man.
‘What?’ Lee asked when I groaned as we left the dress shop. ‘What now?’
‘We need masks.’
‘No shit, Sherlock!’ he gasped dramatically.
I hit him with my free hand. ‘Thank you, Sergeant Sarcasm. But we need masks thatmatch our outfits. Which means you need a purple one like your tie, and I need to find a freakingapple-greenone that’ll match this dress... Or, no, ooh, maybe I could get silver...’
‘Should’ve gone for the pink dress,’ Lee said in a sing-song voice.
‘Oh, shut up.’
We managed to find a fancy dress shop that had a small selection of masks at the back. Lee instantly picked up a big bird mask with a giant beak and green feathers, thrusting it at my face.
‘How’s that?’
‘Oh, grow up.’ But I was laughing too. There was a mirror straight ahead of me and the mask looked hilarious.
We weren’t really taking this very seriously. Lee wanted to buy a purple horror mask, some kind of zombie thing. I found a mangled cyborg one that was silver so would kind of match my dress.
Eventually, though, after the manager gave us a few stern warnings, we managed to settle on our masks.
Lee found a purple mask that only covered his eyes and was all superhero style. It was pretty cool actually. My mask was a little more elaborate, covering my face all the way down to the bottom of my nose. It was almost the exact shade of my dress, only slightly darker, and had silver beads and sequins around the edges. It was perfect – if a little too expensive. But I rationalized that since the dress hadn’t been full price, I could afford to pay a little extra for the mask.
‘Now you just need a date and you’re all set,’ Lee said.
I stopped in my tracks with another groan. ‘Damn.’
How was I going to explain when I turned up with Noah? Someone was bound to recognize me, or Flynn, surely... Especially Lee.DefinitelyLee.
I was screwed.
I’d have to come up with a really good excuse.
Or you could just, you know, tell him the truth...
I sighed and shook my head. ‘Never mind.’
‘You’ve still got a week,’ he said brightly. ‘That’s plenty of time for guys to ask you—’
‘Guys have asked me,’ I said. ‘Three of them. I counted. So did you. But Noah said no before I had a chance to respond. He’s just there, hanging over my shoulder, at the most inappropriate moments, I swear.’
Lee laughed. Then he said, ‘Hey! Maybe you could go with Noah!’
I gave him a look, hoping he wasn’t aware of my racing pulse. But there was so much innocence in his smiley, open face I knew instantly that he didn’t suspect anything. ‘Why?’
‘Because he won’t have a date, and he won’t let you have one. Just make the best of you both being loners.’
I rolled my eyes. But actually... maybe I’d use that. If that’s what Lee thought we were doing when we turned up together... then why not?
Or you could tell him the truth.
If Lee told people that’s what we were doing, they’d all believe him.
Or you could just tell. Him. The. Truth!
