The Prom Queen's Date

Chapter Five

After breakfast, we spent the morning cleaning up the mess both inside the house and outside. With each red plastic cup that floated in the pool, or crushed on the ground, and with each bottle that clinked noisily together after being pushed down by the window, more and more memories resurfaced.

Was there any regret? Not really. It'd been fun in its own way, minus the embarrassment of having Sabrina forced to take care of me.

I joined Anna outside, lounging in the hammock near the fence that separated our properties. We swung idly back and forth under the cool morning breeze, bellies full of bacon and heads full of the aftermath of slurping down alcohol with no care the night before.

My throbbing head didn't seem so bad as we rocked back and forth, hoodies covering the mess of our tangled hair. The headache tablets Sabrina supplied when I woke up helped heaps. Anna tossed me a water bottle and urged me to drink up. Did I refuse to sit up and drink? Yes. Did the water slip down my chin and onto my t-shirt? Yes. Did I care? No.

"I don't think you know how strange it was to wake up in Sabrina's bed this morning," I pointed out to Anna, twisting the cap back onto the water bottle.

She nudged me with her foot. "Yeah . . . But you know her, Sam. Well, at least you used to."

"Hmm?"

"She wouldn't leave you all drunk and vulnerable. Even if she says to your face, she hates you with the reckoning of a thousand suns, she'd be the first to defend your honour. She's weird like that with the people she cares about. Did you know, when I wore dungarees that one time that people made fun of me? Well . . . she put a stop to it with the snap of her fingers. Well. She might've somehow dyed someone's hair purple. Still."

"That's a little drastic," I said. "And purple is cool."

"Maybe. But it worked. I would've gotten you out of the pool . . . "

"But you faceplanted into the plant right inside your front door, I heard."

Anna sat up, red blossoming on her cheeks. "Who told you that?"

"Sabrina."

"I was a little drunk. Maybe."

"I was the complete opposite," I claimed.

"Liar. You know, it's usually me having to deal with a drunk Sabrina. It's strange that she was the one taking care of us."

"What's a drunk Sabrina like?" I asked.

She tapped her chin. "Clingy. Maybe I should get her drunk around you sometime. You'll die."

"She's that bad, huh?"

"Worse," she confided. "But that can wait. Tomorrow, me and you, we're designing the prom. Coming up with a theme. Starting from scratch. I don't care what she says."

I released a long breath. "So, the mission was successful?"

Anna wrinkled her nose. "Erm. No. It was a complete failure. You laid all our cards out on the table. She knows now."

"I offered to set her up with Parker," I said.

"It's not Game of Thrones, Sam. People pick their own dates. There are no arranged courtships. You should have spoken to me about it first."

"Whatever."

I was shoved off the hammock and landed flat on the grass, wheezing while she rocked comfortably in the hammock. Instead of retaliating, I moved a piece of the fence to the side and clambered beneath, heading back inside my own house. She could toss the rubbish bags into the bins herself.