The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 17 ✖

Monday morning came and everybody who was intending on going to the homecoming dance with someone seemed to already be paired up. The hallways were papered with posters with this year's theme. Fairy Tales. I'd personally found it a lazy choice, given the fact that we pretty much lived in the land of Disney Princesses, but whatever. The people had chosen, even if they were wrong.

I reached my locker with a relieved sigh and dumped the many plastic bags I'd been carrying on the floor. Since Toni, mama and I were going to the mall over the weekend to start buying essential baby things, I also volunteered to make a stop to buy supplies for the night of the dance. Now I looked at all of them and wondered if they'd even fit in my locker. I had my doubts.

As I contemplated how to make this tetris work, a red rose suddenly bumped into my nose. I yelped and launched myself backward, which meant I slammed into the rows of lockers. Courtney appeared in front of me, her eyes round and mouth shaped into an O, but then she started laughing. The rose was clutched in her hand and I told my heart to calm down, that it wasn't some secret admirer appearing out of the blue, wanting to invite me to the dance. Which was a good thing, anyway, since I'd have had to say no. I was busy with the dance committee, yearbook, the school newspaper and Sawyer Logan. And that was excluding our upcoming family member. I had absolutely no time for distractions of any sort, especially of the male variety.

Still, my jaws tightened as I contained my disappointment. This was stupid. I couldn't be upset if I didn't get something I wasn't actively working to find.

I took a deep breath and said, "Jesus, Courtney. You scared the living lights out of me."

"I just thought you should stop and smell the roses," she said, breaking into a fit of giggles. "Get it?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, I get it."

"What's all this, anyway?" She pointed at all the plastic bags at my feet. "Are you planning a secret party after Homecoming or what?"

"No, it's for the dance." Then as a second thought I added, "Actually, can you help me put like half of this in your locker?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

Fortunately hers was close by, and we stuffed our lockers with all the party junk. We were going to make some glittery crowns for everybody, so that all the boys could feel like princes and all the girls like princesses. Meanwhile everybody in the committee was going to carry fairy godmother wands so that we could find each other easily in the crowd. It was all going to be a lot of work, and it'd better be worth all the glitter I wouldn't be able to wash off my skin for weeks. It was already speckling my hands, just by handling the bags. I tried to dust them off.

"So, who are you going to the dance with?" she asked me out of the blue. The question was so silly it made me laugh.

Courtney was serious, though.

"Oh, um." I frowned. "Nobody."

She put the thorn free rose behind her ear and folded her arms. "It's our senior Homecoming Dance. What do you mean you don't have anybody to go with?"

I turned around, hoping that if she saw that we had to get going to class it'd mean she had to keep this conversation short.

"You just saw my date," I told her lightly, jerking my thumb at our lockers. "It's all encased in plastic and covered in cheap glitter."

"You're kidding." Her jaw dropped.

As we walked down the hallway, some guy was so engrossed in checking her out that not only we both noticed—and got visibly creeped out—but he bumped into another guy and knocked him off his feet. A brief commotion ensued, but we kept going and Courtney picked back up where we left off.