“Maybe you were just the first person to ask her.”

Owen caught Libby’s eyes in the mirror. “Maybe I was. Maybe it’s a fluke—I don’t care! I don’t want to mess this up.”

Libby rolled onto her side and let her cheek rest on the comforter. Which smelled like Owen. Which was such a familiar smell, it practically didn’t smell like anything at all. “How could you, even?” she asked. “Mess it up.”

“Lots of ways,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll mess it up without realizing I’m doing it. Like I’ll break some rule I didn’t even know existed.”

“She writes poems that don’t rhyme,” Libby said.

“So?”

“In creative writing class.”

“So?” he repeated. “Poems don’t have to rhyme.”

“But it’s nice when they do,” Libby said.

“I guess.”

She twisted on the bed, so she could see him again in the mirror. “The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings.” It was Libby’s favorite poem. Lewis Carroll.

Owen ignored her. He pulled on one end of the bow tie, and it slid out from around his neck. “I’m just going to wear a regular necktie.”

“Everyone else will be wearing regular neckties.”

“Then I’ll fit right in.”

“You’re living the dream, aren’t you?”

“You don’t have to be mean, Libby.”

“I’m not.”

Libby sat up. She was sitting right next to him. He smelled like mistletoe. Apparently.

“I’m being your corner man,” she said. “Slap. Splash. You can do it.”

He closed his eyes.

“You can do it,” she said again. She’d keep saying it, if he wanted her to. “Whatever it is. Dancing, dinner . . . Camry.”

“Just say her name. You’re running out of reasonable facsimiles.”

Libby shrugged.

“We can watch the movie tomorrow, Libby.”

“I’m watching something else tomorrow.”

“It’s just one night,” he said.

“You better get to your dance,” she said, “or you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.”

“Maybe I like school dances . . .”

“How would you know,” she said quietly.

“Maybe I like Kamrin,” he said even more quietly.

“Great,” Libby whispered. “She said yes.”

“Libby . . .” Owen turned to her. He looked pained. He sounded pained. “I just want to go to the dance and tell stupid jokes and listen to pop songs and maybe at the end of the night kiss somebody who isn’t my grandmother—”

“Worthy goals.”

He pointed at her. “—and you don’t get to make me feel shitty about that.”

She shrugged again. “How could I?”

He pointed harder. “You don’t get to take that away.”

“Where would I put it?”

“You’re such a pain in the ass, Libby.”

“And yet you chose me!”

“I didn’t choose you!”