Lucas reappeared then, the warning glare in Charlotte’s shimmer-shadowed eyes intensifying on me before shifting to him. “Is that cider?”

“Y-yes?” he said.

Snagging the drink, Charlotte then took a sip. “As you were,” she said. Then she stalked off, taking the cider with her.

“God.” Lucas ran a hand through his hair again.

“She . . . um. Just that she likes my jacket.”

“Listen,” he said. “I have to go after this song. They’re going to start semifinal rounds. But before anyone else can interrupt, I wanted to ask you if . . . next weekend. I mean, I know you’re really busy, but . . . well, I was wondering if we could, er—we as in you and me. Like . . . just you and me. If we could—”

“Yes,” I said.

“Uh. Wh—I haven’t even—”

“The answer’s yes,” I repeated. “Whatever it is. I . . . I’d love to.”

A smile, huge, broke onto Lucas’s face. “Wow. Really?”

“Yeah,” I said, his smile spawning one of my own. How could it not when, thanks to Charlotte, I now knew exactly where I stood with him? In a place that, despite Charlotte’s pending approval, just so happened to be right where I wanted.

“That’s . . .” He laughed. “That’s great.”

Taking my hand, he drew me into him again, as close as before, his warmth—in every sense of the word—enveloping me.

A modicum of peace settling over me for the first time in days, I again laid my cheek against his chest, within which his heart beat with a more frantic rhythm. I grinned once more. Had he been that nervous? Or was he just that glad? Maybe he was both.

Lucas turned us with the music, and as he did, I spotted Charlotte, stationed once again at her post near the snack table.

Our eyes met and she lifted her cider to me in a “that’s more like it” gesture before draining the drink . . . and marching away.

THAT NIGHT WHEN I got home, I of course had to give Dad the rundown.

Yes, I had fun. Yes, there were a lot of people there. Yes, Lucas and I danced. Yes, I would be seeing him again—on Friday, if that was okay—and yes, actually, it would be a date.

After making a show of deliberating, Dad—who seemed secretly glad about the whole thing—gave his blessing. More questions had predictably followed after that, though. Like where we would be going, if Lucas would be picking me up, if I’d made Lucas aware of my midnight curfew. Oh, and if Lucas had tried to kiss me yet.

“No offense,” I told him, helping to gather some of the day’s debris into a trash bin, “but that’s kind of none of your business.”

“Yeah,” echoed Charlie from behind her tablet. “That’s kind of none of your business.”

“Skywalker better watch himself,” Dad said.

“In case you forgot, you like Lucas,” I reminded him.