Page 76 of Canadian Boyfriend

“I thought they were in my bag, but I went to change into them, and I don’thavethem! I remember now I took them out to try them on with and without the tights, and Ileftthem in myroom! I tried to chase down Sophia’s mom when I realized, but she was already pulling away and didn’t see me.”

Her emphasis on so many words was amusing me, but I schooled my face. “At least your runners are a perfect match for your dress.”

“I can’t wearthese!”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve got a job here.”

“Can you call Rory and ask her to bring them?”

“No, but you can.” I handed her my phone.

Twenty minutes later, my phone dinged.

Aurora:I’m here with Olivia’s shoes. She said she’d meet me out front, but she wasn’t there, so I’ve parked and am making my way inside.

I eyed the lineup of kids at my station.

Mike:Sorry about that. I’m at the drinks table in the back right corner of the gym, and I can’t leave. You mind coming here and leaving them with me?

She appeared a few minutes later. “Wow, peak school dance.”

“You went to a lot of them?” That surprised me, given what she’d told me about her school years, but maybe being a dancer made school dances more fun?

“I went to none of them. But this looks exactly like my image of a school dance based on movies.” She pointed at the two-liter bottles of pop and jugs of juice on my table. “Except I think this is supposed to be a punch bowl.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, but I think I’m here for the same reasons the punch-bowl guard would’ve been in the movies.” The kids were serving themselves, but I’d been told to keep an eye out for flasks and had even confiscated one from a kid who looked like this was maybe not his first crack at grade eight. I surveyed the room. “This does sort of look like a school-dance set, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Did your school dances look like this?”

“I didn’t go to them, either. My middle school didn’t do dances that I can remember.”

“What about high school? Prom?”

“No prom for me. I was barely part of the high school I went to.”

“Still, I would have thought you’d’ve been a hot commodity for prom—the hotshot hockey player.” She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t know how to explain my aversion to socializing in high school. I didn’t have to, because she quickly added, “But I suppose that’s exactly why youdidn’tgo. You don’t like people seeing only the hockey player.”

“That’s…” So spot-on, it was disconcerting. “Why didn’t you go to your prom?” I asked, wanting to deflect attention from me and my hang-ups.

She looked at me for a long time, long enough that I had to break eye contact so as not to be neglecting my beverage-policing duties. She finally said, “I didn’t have a date.”

I’d been expecting a more involved, possibly more fraught, story, given how intently she’d been looking at me.

“I secretly wanted to go, though,” she said with a touch of wistfulness.

Aww shit. Every time I thought of Aurora alone, outcast, it made my stomach feel funny. I understood intellectually that kids were dumb and cruel, but at the same time, Ididn’tunderstand how anyone could hurt someone as… bright as Aurora.

“I know that’s stupid,” she added dismissively.

“It’s not stupid.” Wanting to lighten the mood, I grabbed two cups from the stack in front of us and filled them with room-temperature ginger ale. “Here’s to the prom losers.”

She took the cup I gave her and tapped it against mine. “To the prom losers.”

“Hi there.” Two women approached. One of them was holding a clipboard. “You’re Mike Martin, right?”

Crap. Here we went. “That’s me.” I could sense Aurora stiffen beside me.

The woman looked at her clipboard. “OK, great. I just went up to another guy and asked him if he was Mike Martin. I thought Leslie had you down for coat check.”

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