Page 15 of Going the Distance
Chapter 5
I plucked the pickle out of my burger, dropping it onto Lee’s plate with a look of disgust. Now that that was disposed of, I dug into my cheeseburger with extra bacon and gave a moan of appreciation, grease dribbling down my fingers.
“I should hope you’re enjoying it, for eighteen dollars,” Lee muttered, but when I looked up, he was grinning. We were at the food court in the mall, and he’d picked the restaurant. It was more expensive than our usual haunt; he was trying to soften me up and apologize for yesterday.
“It’s worth every dime,” I assured him, wiping some rogue mayo from the corner of my mouth. Lee asked me how the evening hanging out with Levi had been, faking horror that he might have been replaced as Brad’s new favorite person.
“I should’ve known Brad would like him,” Lee said. “Everyone seems to like the guy.”
“I heard he was nominated for prom king at his last school. I’m telling you, Lee. You keep bailing on me, you’ve got some serious competition.”
It was a joke, but he at least had the decency to look a little concerned.
We were both too stuffed from our meals to order dessert, so we spent some time wandering around the mall and window-shopping. Lee pointed to a couple of signs in windows declaringHELP WANTED—INQUIRE WITHINbut I told him it was useless. I’d already applied to every one he noticed. The few times I did get a reply, it was only to say that I “wasn’t the right fit” or that they were looking for someone with more experience.
It sucked, but I wasn’t especially surprised.
Once we’d walked off our lunch, Lee bought us both ice-cream cones from a stand in the food court.
“You know,” Lee said as we ate our ice creams, “we’ll probably have to come shopping again in a couple weeks for the Sadie Hawkins dance. I need a new suit jacket. My old one’s too small across the shoulders.”
“Oh yeah?”
He flexed his muscles. “You know, since I’m the next star of the football team now.”
“Yeah, yeah, you have guns, I get it. So, Sadie Hawkins—that’s not just a rumor, then?” I asked, but I was scrutinizing Lee. He’d been going to the gym with Dixon over the summer vacation and practicing more football with Noah. Hewasbulking up. He wasn’t as big as Noah, but he was getting there. His arms were larger—I hadn’t noticed until now, but the newly toned muscles in his arms were straining the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“Ethan Jenkins told me yesterday,” Lee answered, not seeing me staring at his shoulders and arms. Ethan was the new head of the school council, since Tyrone had left for college. We hadn’t had a meeting yet this year. Just as I thought it, Lee said, “And before I forget, there’s a meeting Wednesday at lunch. Ethan told me that, too.”
“Sure, whatever. Now, focus on the major new development here: Sadie Hawkins dance. Did Ethan mention a date? Theme? Do you haveanymore information for me? You know I’m a sucker for a school dance.”
“Oh, crap, now you’re freaking out. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m not freaking out!” I protested, maybe a little too vehemently. More calmly, I said, “I’m not freaking out.”
“I think it’s, like, the first weekend of November or something? I wasn’t really listening. But Idoremember he said it was only gonna be in the school gym. Nowhere fancy. He said they’ve cut the budget this year, like, a lot, so they’re doing Sadie Hawkins instead of the usual Winter Dance, and they’re gonna save most of the budget and the profits from fund-raisers for the Summer Dance.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
Lee started telling me about some new football play Coach Pearson was making them learn, but my eyes drifted, assessing dresses in store windows. My mind was half on the dance and half on the fact that, actually, I could really do with a job after school to help pay for a new dress.
“Shelly?”
“Huh?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure. One of the juniors fumbled the ball too many times and Coach had him run laps.”
“You were thinking about the dance, weren’t you?”
I hung my head slightly in confession. I didn’t want to bring up the job thing again right now; Lee knew I’d been trying to get something, but I didn’t think I could handle yet another pitying smile over it. “Maybe.”
“Thinking about who you’re gonna ask?” he guessed, and I could have sworn I felt all the blood drain from my face. I’d forgotten that about the Sadie Hawkins dance: the girls asked the boys.
Crap.
“Wanna go to the Sadie Hawkins together?”
