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Chapter 20

Everything starts up again.

Oh no, Olivia's milkshake.

"So. Cold." She screeched, jumping out of her seat. "I. Need. Napkins. Now."

Jake nodded, "On it."

He returned with a flurry of napkins trailing behind him. His hands shook as he tossed the napkins at her, struggling between wanting to help her and the notion he'd probably mess up if he attempted. Tossing them at her was a little much, but he knew he'd mess up if he tried to hand them to her.

She carefully wiped herself off. Her shirt had taken most of the damage, but she noticed some on her pants. She could feel the milkshake oozing down her neck and the stickiness knotting up her already messy hair.

"Gross," She moaned, rubbing the paper napkin against her hair in a futile attempt at getting some of it out. She gave up eventually, excusing herself in order to go to the bathroom to finish cleaning herself up. "I'll be back in a bit."

Jake remained, his face falling into his hands. So much for a fantastic date, seeing her stomp away, he knew his chances of wooing her were all but crushed. If it had gone well, Jake had planned to jokingly call it a date and hope that she agreed. He had wanted nothing more for it to go well, a casual "date" that would end with him asking to take her on a real one.

Then again, she was coming with him and Hannah to Prom. Laura and Tomas would probably pair up, and Jake could certainly swing the whole, 'I don't want to walk in with my cousin' and the 'Let's just go as friends.'

That might just work he mused to himself as Olivia walked over, looking much cleaner and much less frustrated than before.

"Well you look a hell of a lot better." He said, looking at her from head to toe. She had managed to clean almost all of the milkshake off of her.

"Thanks. I can't believe that asshole just bumped into me and spilled my milkshake and couldn't even be bothered to apologize." She looked over Jake's shoulder and her eyes grew cold, "That's her, the girl that blew Sam. Laura's ex-boyfriend."

Jake craned his neck around to look at the girl Olivia was talking about, "I know her, she and Tomas used to be friends I think. They went to summer camp together, but they drifted apart before high school. She isn't the kind of person who would do that."

"Are you calling Laura a liar?" There was an edge to Olivia's words and Jake silently reminded himself not to get on her bad side.

"No, of course not. Sorry," The conversation was quickly spiralling out of control," Also sorry about that guy with the milkshake, I would have socked him if I hadn't known you'd value cleaning the milkshake off over seeing him with a broken nose." Jake tried to casually work Prom into the conversation. "You know what I was thinking while you were in the bathroom?"

"What?"

"Are you going to Prom with anyone?"

"No..." Olivia trailed off, silently pleading he wouldn't ask her to be his date.

She didn't want to hurt him, to be honest, she liked him a lot. Who wouldn't like him? Jake was nice and smart, certainly the epitome of the football player with a heart of gold. He had been nothing but nice to her, after the apology, and she saw the way he was around Hannah. The relationship between the two was amazing.

"Since you're coming with us, and you don't have a date either, want to walk in with me?"

"Um..." This sounded a lot like the setup for him asking her to be his date.

"To be quite honest, I don't want to be the guy who brings his cousin to Prom. I love Hannah, don't get me wrong. I just don't want to show my kids the photos twenty years from now and have to say I brought my cousin to Prom. I feel like it makes it seem like I couldn't get anyone else, not that I wasn't interested in any one. Cheryl and I would have gone together if she didn't already have a date."