She smiled and nodded but didn’t respond as she watched the guy now doing the robot. Not wanting to lose this opportunity alone with Kimmie, Dustin continued, “Now that you know I secretly love to dance, you’ll understand I’ve been thinking a lot about my senior prom. It’s still a few months away, but I was wondering if you’d think about going with me … as friends even, or whatever…” Honestly, he was smitten with Kimmie and he’d like nothing more than to start dating her seriously, but what he really wanted was for her to go to prom with him. If she agreed to go as friends now, that was fine by him. He’d spend the next few months getting closer to her with the plan that by prom she’d be in love with him, too.

She turned around to face him, her cheeks slightly flushed from dancing. “Dustin, I like you, really I do. But there’s something you need to know. I’m … I’m in love with someone else. And I swear I’d go to prom with you as a friend, and you’re so sweet to ask me, but I just can’t. I don’t think the guy I like would be into me going to prom with another guy, you know?”

Dustin was shocked by her honesty, which in a way only made him love her more despite what she was telling him. What else could he do but nod and try to play it cool? Despite being devastated, he managed to say, “Totally get it. All good, just thought, you know, I had to ask.” Thankfully they were moving again, and continued onward through the hip-hop-hooraying crowd, no longer holding hands.

By the time Kimmie made it to the bar she turned around to find Dustin no longer behind her. His absence made her sad for a moment, but she knew she’d done the right thing just telling him straight what was going on with her and Vronsky. Kimmie climbed up onto an open bar stool so she could survey the crowd, which was when she finally spotted Anna talking to Steven and Lolly on the far side of the club. From what she could tell Anna was dressed in a sexy short black number, which slayed so hard Kimmie wondered why she had ever thought Anna should wear lavender.

Kimmie flagged down a bartender because she now needed a Red Bull before she could deal with making her way across the dance floor again.

XXII