Jake threaded his fingers with mine as we headed inside. There was a star wall set up with the school name and in our colors along with a photographer to take our picture.
“We’re gonna take a little time here,” Archie informed the photographer. And we did—we got individual shots of me with each of them, then one of all of us together. The only couple shot we didn’t take was me and Ian.
Whatever Coop said to him seemed to have worked. Holding onto that, we were still laughing from the last picture when we headed inside.
“Woah,” Jake said as we made it into the lobby area. The music pulsed from beyond the doors, but someone had taken the time to create “sets” all over and there were a couple more photographers.
“Classic car pic!” Coop said, catching my hand and tugging me over to the replica of James Dean’s Porche 550 Spyder. They even had a fan to create wind.
I slid into the driver’s seat and Coop made a face before he hopped over into the passenger side.
Snap.
The King Kong set was next, and Jake and I played like we were hanging off the Empire State Building.
Like I said, ridiculous.
Snap.
Archie wanted the shot with the faux casino and James Bond. I hung off his arm like some Bond girl. But I was pretty sure the fact I couldn’t stop laughing as we cut up didn’t help.
Snap.
The last set we got to was a horror movie set up, right down to the “bloodied knives” and faux bodies. At my grimace, Ian said, “Hard pass.”
I almost said “sorry” because he hadn’t gotten to do the movie one, but I didn’t do horror movies, and thankfully, none of them questioned that.
We followed the hall toward the double doors.
“You ready?” Coop asked, the thrumming beat vibrated the air around us. It had to be loud in there, and I grinned. It was weird, how many dances had I gone to with all of them? Usually, they’d had dates of their own, but more than once, I’d been the defacto date, if for no other reason than one of the guys went stag.
Still, tonight, it was just us.
“You know what?” I said with a grin. “I really am.”
Jake and Ian grabbed the doors, and there was a wall of gold glitter streamers we had to pass through to get inside. The music rolled out on a wave. Inside, it was all glittering lights and moving strobes. A DJ occupied the corner and rocked out to the music filtering through the oversized speakers.
There were already people out dancing, tables were set up scattered around the dance floor, and there was a station to get drinks—water and soda. No punch bowls. It was kind of funny, you always saw punch bowls in the movies, but I’d never seen a single one at a dance in real life.
“You’re here!” came the squeal of a voice warning me of Cheryl’s approach before she launched at me. Coop steadied me with a hand on my back as I hugged her back.
Laughing, I pulled away to see Cheryl in all her finery. She’d pinned her hair up save for two tendrils falling on either side of her face. It made her look like a real doll.
“You look gorgeous,” Cheryl continued catching my hands. “Doesn’t she, Mitch?”
Mitch grunted a response, or maybe he said something else, but I barely got a glance at him before Cheryl did a twirl.
“What do you think?”
“I think you look perfect.” I had to pitch my voice higher to carry, and she grinned.
“Oh…” She thrust her phone at Mitch. “Take our picture.” Then she hooked arms with me as Coop and Jake dropped back a couple of steps, both guys were shaking their heads, and it gave me my first good look at Mitch. Despite the dressier clothes and neat hair, he wore a faintly sour expression. Kind of like he’d smelled a fart in church.
Then again, maybe Cheryl had just had him snapping a lot of pictures this evening. It was a Cheryl thing to do. Wrapping an arm around my waist, she tilted her head in, and I laughed as we leaned toward each other.
Two flashes from the camera on her phone and she let me go with an excited titter to grab the phone and look. “Oh we look awesome, see?” She showed me the picture and, you know, it wasn’t half bad.
“Hey,” Coop said as he caught my hand. “I’m stealing Frankie for a dance. We’ll see you later.”