“What?” Dee’s mouth dropped open, and my brows flew up. “It’s senior prom.”
“I know, but with everything going on… I haven’t really thought about it.” And that had to be a lie, because the entire school was plastered with prom flyers.
Dee’s incredulous expression grew. “It’s senior prom.”
“But…” Tucking her hair back, she glanced me. “You haven’t even asked me to go.”
I smiled. “I didn’t think I needed to ask. I assumed we would go.”
Dee rocked back on the balls of her feet. “Well, you know what they say about people who assume.”
My grin faded, because Kat was staring at me like I grew a second, not nearly as attractive head. “What, Kitten?”
She blinked. “How can we go to prom with everything going on? We’re so close to having enough tolerance to go back to Mount Weather and—”
“And prom is on a Saturday,” I said, pulling her hand away from her hair. “So let’s say that in two weeks we’re ready to go, it will be Sunday.”
Dee hobbled around with excitement, and it was really weird to see. “And it’s only a few hours,” she insisted. “You guys can halt the self-mutilation for a few hours.”
I could see the indecision on her face, and I knew where it was coming from. It didn’t have anything to do with practicing with the onyx. I slipped my arm around her and leaned in, keeping my voice low as I spoke to her. “It’s not wrong, Kat. You deserve this.”
She closed her eyes. “Why should we get to celebrate when she can’t?”
Hell.
I rested my cheek against hers. “We’re still here, and we deserve to be normal and do normal things every once in a while. It’s not your fault.” I kissed her temple. “Will you go to prom with me, Kat?”
Dee shifted some more. “You should really say yes, so we can go dress shopping and so I don’t have to witness a really awkward moment of you turning my brother down. Even though he deserves to be knocked down a peg or two.”
Kat laughed as she glanced at Dee. My sister gave her a small smile, and I hoped that smile was a white flag. Five months of each of them circling each other was enough time.
“Okay.” Kat took a deep breath. “I’ll go to prom—only because I don’t want this conversation to get awkward.”
I tweaked her nose. “I’ll take what I can get for as long as I can get it.”
Kat was acting a little weird after school on Thursday. She was quiet and tense. I picked at her until she relaxed, and by the time we left the post office and made it to her house, she was smiling more than she was frowning, so I considered that a win for the day.
Once inside her house, she opened a window in the living room while I helped myself to a glass of milk. When she walked back into the kitchen, her appreciative gaze was hard to ignore as it roamed all over me.
My head immediately went to a happy and fun place, but I had a surprise planned for her today, and if I got too distracted—and that wasn’t hard around her—I would never get to show her what I wanted before we had to go down to the lake.
But we were alone, so…
Sitting the empty milk glass on the counter, I moved wicked fast. In front of Kat, I cupped her cheeks and tipped her head back, kissing her as I backed her toward the bottom of the stairs.
She pulled away, her eyes soft as she grinned a little. I kissed the tip of her nose and then lifted her. She wrapped her legs around my waist. I carried her upstairs and into her bedroom. Inside, it was no small feat when I lifted my mouth from hers. I grinned.
Lips swollen, her brows knit in confusion.
I looked at her desk pointedly and then put her down.
She followed my gaze, and her mouth dropped opened as she saw the MacBook Air in a cherry-red sleeve. “I…” She looked at me and then at the desk again. She took a step forward and stopped, facing me once more. “Is that for me?”
There was no keeping the smile off my face when I felt her heart rate kick up. “Well, it is on your desk, so…”
“But I don’t understand.”
“See, there’s this place called an Apple Store and I went there, picked one out. They didn’t have any stock.” I paused as she stared at me. “And I ordered one. Meanwhile, I ordered a sleeve. I did take some liberties since I prefer red.”
“But why?” Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them.
I laughed softly. “Man, I wish you could see your face.”
She clasped her hands over her cheeks. “Why?”
“You didn’t have one, and I know how much blogging and that stuff means to you. Using the school computer isn’t doing it for you.” I shrugged. “And we really didn’t do the Valentine’s thing. So…here we are.”
A moment passed. “When did you put it here?”
“This morning, after you left for school.”