It was just a dance. Get it together.
I opened my door and headed carefully down the stairs, concentrating on not breaking my ankle in the shoes. For the first time in a long time, Adrian was smiling that slow, warm smile that always made me happy for a reason I couldn’t quite put into words. I reached him and he took my hand and slipped the corsage on—a grouping of perfectly white snowdrops. It was elegant and lovely and different.
A flash went off and I looked up to see Rachel holding a camera. Norah handed me Adrian’s boutonniere and I put every ounce of concentration into not poking him while I pinned it to his lapel. More flashes. I felt my cheeks burning—if we were at Adrian’s, no one would be taking pictures.
Finally, I had it pinned so that it at least wouldn’t fall off. Norah clapped sarcastically.
“Eleven p.m.,” Joe warned, looking very unhappy and scary as hell. “I’ll be waiting.”
Adrian didn’t say anything, just shook Joe’s hand like a man, nodded at Rachel, and then we were out the door.
“Sorry—” I began saying, and then stopped dead. For a second, I was terrified I was stuck in a nightmare and everything was about to go horribly wrong because what I was seeing shouldn’t be where it was.
Adrian took my arm and walked me to the passenger side of a silver Aston Martin.
“1961,” he explained. “Dominic restores classic cars, remember?”
Holding on to his arm, I folded down into the black leather interior and buckled myself in automatically.
“You own an Aston Martin?” I asked as soon as he got in the car. Car? Car didn’t even begin to adequately describe this thing—it was money personified.
“We own three,” he said, and started the engine. It purred as he pulled down the driveway. I sat in dumbfounded silence. They owned three Aston Martins. I didn’t own so much as a skateboard.
“Dominic tours them around at shows, picks up a few prizes, and then sells them off. Some of them stay in our private collection, or get shipped to others of our kind worldwide. He just finished this one, so I borrowed it for the night. Normally we don’t like to flaunt our wealth—it kind of sticks out.”
“No kidding.”
We hit the main road and Adrian switched gears manually, going forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, and then eighty miles an hour. My heart was freaking out—I knew Adrian had driven this road thousands of times, but I’d never seen him go above the speed limit and I didn’t really know what mood he was in.
I glanced over. He looked calm as he twisted through the mountains, around curves and down slopes, but I saw the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
It took eight minutes to reach town. Normally, it took twenty.
Abruptly, he slowed down, switching gears with lightning speed. Ten seconds later I saw a cop parked on the side of the road who stared at the car as we passed—more in awe than anything else.
“How’d you know he was there?”
Adrian just tapped his temple. Ah. Emotion radar. Sweet.
We pulled up to the school and parked. I could see the walkway to the gym lit up with strings of soft white lights. We headed inside, passing a few other couples on the way. The walls were drenched in shadows, making the cinder block all but invisible. In fact, the place was surprisingly well decorated with Chinese lanterns, soft lights, and tea candles. The floor was even covered in a giant gray tarp so you couldn’t see the basketball court lines. I spotted Trish sitting at one of the circular tables and we walked over. I unbuttoned my coat, suddenly nervous, and felt Adrian slip it off my shoulders. When I turned, his face was frozen in an expression of pure shock as he stared at my dress.
I’d decided to go with a deep, luxurious green velvet, to match my eyes. The bodice was fitted to the hips, then flared out softly, ending in a slight train in the back. I’d spent hours hand-sewing various shades of iridescent glass beads to the halter strap in an abstract flower formation.
As for the back, well—there was no back. Between the top of my neck and the base of my spine, there was simply no fabric. This lack of dress was what Adrian had initially been staring at. But now, he was unabashedly staring somewhere else.
“Is that…?” Adrian asked, nodding at my cleavage.
I nodded, blushing. Yes, it was the Green Thing, peeking out from underneath the dress. I’d designed the sweetheart neckline an inch lower than I normally would have so the beaded edge of the corset could show through.
Adrian blinked. And then blinked again. “I’m gonna go … get…” He trailed off, turned abruptly, and walked away.
That was not quite the reaction I’d been hoping for. Trish, however, whistled. “Mission accomplished,” she grinned. “That boy can’t even see straight right now.”
I sat down carefully. “I don’t know,” I muttered. “He didn’t exactly sweep me off my feet.”