< Chapter 46

Chapter 47

The last of the guests had just arrived and Christina looked out the window with a smile on her face. There had been a last minute shoe emergency where Britney had been climbing into Kyle’s car only to have her heel break. It had been her favourite pair of heels and Christina had received a tearful phone call saying they would be late because she had to stop off at the mall to get another pair.

"Don’t cry," Christina worried. "You’re going to mess up your make up."

"But ...my shoes.." Britney wailed. "They were those black strappy ones."

Christina’s gasp garnered the attention of Justin and Nick who had been playing Play Station across the room. "What?" They said, pausing the game and looking over at her. Christina took her hand off of her chest and sighed.

"Britney broke her heel."

"And?" Justin asked, rolling his eyes. "Just put on another pair and get over here."

Christina, in turn, rolled her eyes at Justin and turned her back on them. "Those shoes are adorable. Oh baby, I’m sorry. But don’t cry, your make up will run and you know how horrible THAT will be."

Britney sniffled a few times before nodding. "I know. Okay, we’re going to go to the mall and then head right over. So we’ll be a bit late, okay?"

"We’ll wait."

That had been a half an hour earlier, and finally the remaining car had arrived. Christina went into the living room where the rest of the gang was hanging out all decked out in their fancy clothing. "They’re here, lets go."

"I’ll round up everyone," Nick smiled as he headed towards the back yard. He poked his head out to see everyone’s parents all sharing pitchers of sangria on the Aguilera’s spacious back deck. Britney’s parents had left their house at the same time as their daughter, informing her they’d meet her at the house when she was done. "They’re finally here," he said with a grin. "We’ll be on the front lawn."

"Ooooh," Christina cooed as she looked at Britney’s new shoes. "Those are adorable."

Britney nodded, no trace of her earlier anguish on her face. "Aren’t they?" She held her foot out for everyone to see. The guys all shrugged but Emily nodded, grinning.  Britney pointed to her and said, "Em found them."

"I saw them and they screamed Brit," Emily said proudly. "And they were on sale too."

"Well, don’t you all just look beautiful," Diane Bass said dreamily. "All so grown up."

"This is going to make such a wonderful picture," Denise McLean agreed. Since their sons had started dating and Lance had finally informed his mother about it, the two women had become quite close, forming an instant bond.

"We should get couple pictures, then group shots. Like, all the boys in one, then the girls in the other..." Jane Carter suggested. The husbands simply stood in the background, allowing their wives to orchestrate everything.

Once all of the pictures had been taken and the rolls of film had started to pile up, the teens were all hugged one last time by their respective parents. Last minute money checks were done, as were rules for the evening. Everyone’s curfew had been extended for the night, which had come as a surprise for all of them.

"So ..I don’t have to be home by eleven?" Justin asked one last time, to make sure. "I mean, this isn’t a trick is it?"

Lynn Timberlake laughed and she kissed her son’s cheek affectionately. "No, it’s not a trick. You’re allowed to stay out as late as everyone else. I expect you to be responsible, but know that there is no set time."

Justin understood the weight of what she was saying and nodded. How he was treated from then on would be determined by how he reacted to her relaxed rules. "Okay, thanks mom."

They all agreed to meet in the parking lot of the bowling alley as that was where everyone else would be meeting them. Upon Britney’s phone call, Christina had called everyone else to let them know they would be a little late, and thankfully was met with relief as everyone seemed to be running behind that night.

"We need someone to take all our pictures," Mandy said as she looked around. They were all standing in front of the bowling alley, clad in formal dresses and suits. They had been getting odd looks from people walking by, but it only added to the excitement of the night.

"Excuse me," Justin asked a man and woman who had been walking by.

"Yes son?" The man asked, smiling at the group.

"Could you please take our picture for us?"

The man nodded and immediately, ten cameras were held out. Both he and his wife each took a few, laughing at the enthusiasm of the kids. Once a picture had been taken with each camera, they thanked the couple and all headed inside, eager to start the night.

They had reserved five lanes, splitting everyone up into groups of four. It had been a wise idea to reserve the lanes, as the night was extremely busy. As everyone headed into the alley, they rented their shoes, picked out balls and when they reached their lanes, all burst into laughter at the banner that hung from their five lanes.

LINCOLN HIGH/ST. PETER’S ANTI PROM

Christina and Nick exchanged knowing grins as they listened to the group discuss what a great idea the bowling had been. "We rock," she said as she gave Nick a discreet high five.

"Totally rock."

Nick and Justin teamed up with Lance and AJ, while at the next lane over it was Britney and Billy with Christina and Josh. One over from them, Kyle and Emily were playing, rather rowdily with Mandy and the girls’ other friend Krystal. The lanes had been rented for four games, where they had planned on switching lanes between each so they could all get to play with one another.

It was halfway through the first game that Nick could see Justin staring off into space. "You okay?"

Justin snapped to attention, smiling at his best friend. Just as he was about to say something, a flash went off in front of them and Krystal was giggling. "That was too cute. I had to get a picture of it."

"Is everyone sharing pictures?" Justin was curious. Everyone was taking random pictures and it would be nice to get copies of everything. Lance cut in and nodded.

"Totally. I’m going to do it like I did it at New Year’s. Everyone’s going to either give me their film tonight, or whenever ...but I’m going to get them developed at the school. I’ve already talked to Mrs. Renado and she said I could use the school’s stuff to do it. I think she’s hoping I decide to take photography and this will give me incentive to learn."

"Awesome," Nick said. He pulled Lance and Justin in for a pose, waiting for Krystal to take another picture. When she took off giggling, they broke apart. "So, you okay?"

Justin nodded. He was fine. The Anti-Prom had been a great idea and he’d been more than happy to be a part of it, but at the same time his mind was on the real prom and the fact that Chris was there. With someone else. A girl someone else and although he trusted his boyfriend, he still wished that either he could be with Chris or Chris could be with him. The irony of Brian’s accusation that he was cheating on Chris when it was Chris on a date with someone else, wasn’t lost on him either. Justin could see the concern in Nick’s eyes so he set Nick’s mind at ease.

"I’m great."

"Then why do you look so sad," Nick prodded gently. He frowned slightly when AJ called his name.

"Nicky, you’re up."

"Hold that thought," Nick said. He stood up and found his ball in the holder. Christina was just about to go at the next lane, so he paused to watch her. The baby blue ball that she had picked barely made it down the alley, just barely knocking over three pins. She jumped up and down and he laughed at her excitement. With the ball lined up to the centre pin, Nick took a few steps before letting the ball go, knocking over all but two. When his ball came through again, he rolled it again, this time getting a gutter ball.

Justin’s turn was next and Nick watched as his best friend got two gutter balls in a row. They broke into laughter as Justin returned, rolling his eyes. "I totally suck at this game yo, who picked bowling. We should have gone golfing."

"Yeah right," Britney called from the next lane over. "And be bored out of my mind? I don't think so. And don’t even get me started about how dirty this dress would be out on that grass."

"Amen," Emily called from her lane.

Justin rolled his eyes, joined by AJ. "I would have been up for golfing."

"See, civilized people," Justin said loudly. He received two raspberries in response. He focused his attention back onto Nick and shrugged. "Just thinking about Chris and the prom."

Nick gave a sympathetic nod. He’d been thinking about Kevin and prom as well. "Are you having fun though?" His relief was evident at Justin’s enthusiastic nod.

"Totally having fun. This is awesome. Even though it is BOWLING."

"Oh boo hoo. Justin finds one thing he can’t master in two seconds and he doesn't want to do it," Lance teased. He sat down from celebrating from yet another spare. Justin stuck his tongue out at his friend and laughed as Nick snapped a picture of it.

"Does anyone else want to eat after the first game?" Josh suggested. He could smell the food from the makeshift cafeteria and found he was getting pretty hungry.

"Why wait?" Christina asked with a shrug. Just go over, order what you want and they’ll bring it here."

"Serious?" Josh asked, eyes wide. "Like, we can eat and play at the same time?"

Everyone exchanged comical looks while Kyle brought his finger to his temple, turning it around in a circle.

"Forgive my boyfriend," Christina announced to laughter. "He’s not a bowling aficionado. He doesn’t know the etiquette."

"We’ll let it slide this time," Kyle said as a basket of French fries and onion rings were placed next to two hot dogs and two hamburgers. Mandy, Krystal and Emily started to dig in almost immediately. "But yeah, we’ve already started in with the dinner."

Josh looked at his friend in disbelief. "Why did no one tell me about this?"

"We just did," Emily said as she took a sip of her coke. "We were gonna wait, but we’re hungry. So we’re eating."

Christina kissed her boyfriend’s jaw sweetly and patted his behind. "Did you want to order something?"

Billy nodded. "I know I do." They sat down, each of the four on their team writing down what they wanted on a napkin.

"Here, I'll go for my table," Nick offered "and I’ll go up with Chrissy. Lance can bowl for me."

"What about me?" Justin said, pretending to be offended. Everyone broke into laughter and Nick shook his head.

"I’m doing bad enough," he joked. "I don’t need your help with that."

Britney smiled and relaxed into Billy’s arm as he snuggled up with her. She inhaled the intoxicating scent of his cologne and enjoyed the butterflies that invaded her stomach. "I’m so glad you came with us," Britney admitted. She looked deep into his eyes and still couldn’t believe that they had been going out for six months. Even though at the beginning of the year, she had been convinced that Justin was her prince charming, she couldn’t help but be thankful that he hadn’t been interested and she had been able to find Billy.

Although she would never admit it to anyone, even Christina, Britney had been desperately heart broken when Justin repeatedly turned her down. Each time, she played it off as though it was nothing and there were plenty of other guys that she could date, but at the time, her self confidence and ego went down another notch. Not that he had been cruel about it, he hadn’t, but she couldn’t understand why this boy that she so desperately was in love with, wasn’t interested in her. When Christina and Josh had started going out, it put Britney into an even more depressed mood. Not only did her dream boy not want her, but her best friend had found her own dream boy, who did want her. But it was with Christina and Josh, that she met Billy and slowly began to realize that maybe Justin wasn’t her prince charming. Maybe he’d been the boy to show her, her first heartbreak only to have Billy be the boy to mend it for her.

Britney had followed her heart and hadn’t looked back since. There were still days where she was afraid she would wake up and find out the last year, the best year of her life so far, had all been a dream. As Billy placed a kiss to her forehead, she shivered.

"Thank you for inviting me," Billy replied. Although he had originally been cautious when hearing Britney and Justin were going to be each other’s dates for the Anti Prom, he knew that he had nothing to worry about. It was more the idea of her out with anyone other than him that brought his jealous side out. It had been a surprise when she had phoned him and asked if he wanted to be her date, since AJ was going with Lance and Josh was going with Christina. Billy had accepted without thinking twice. Any excuse to see her dressed up and looking absolutely beautiful, more beautiful than usual anyways.

He had been breathless when she had opened the door that afternoon. His stomach had flipped nervously and he hadn’t been able to form any coherent thoughts. She was standing in the doorway, wearing a spaghetti strapped pink dress that flared out princess style, pink gloves that went up to her elbows and a simple pearl necklace. Although he hadn’t seen her shoes until they’d broken, she assured him they were the cutest shoes ever and made her feet look tiny. He thought her whole body was tiny, but he hadn’t been able to say a word.

The white flower he had bought her was pinned gingerly to the material on her chest and he’d placed a kiss to her lips, careful he didn’t smudge her make up. Now, as they were curled up on their bench, he smiled to see that her lipstick was gone and she’d simply stopped reapplying it.

"I have something to tell you," he said softly. Her breathing paused for a moment and Billy was sure she had stiffened in his arms.

"You do?" Britney’s pulse was racing and she suddenly wasn’t hungry for the food she’d just asked Christina to buy for her. Looking around, everything was perfect. She had her best friends with her, they were all out, having a great time and enjoying the summer after their freshman year at high school. She was with her fabulous boyfriend and nothing should have been wrong. She should have been the happiest girl in the world without a care in the world. Instead, her pulse was racing and she was worrying what it was that Billy had to tell her. If he was going to break up with her, she was seriously going to freak out. Looking at him, she was comforted by the smile on his face, but that lead her to more thoughts. Thoughts that he was only smiling so that the sting of the break up would hurt less. Everything came out better with a smile. Right? Her world was in chaos.

"I do, but don’t look so worried sweetie."

He called her sweetie, so it couldn’t be that bad. And he told her not to be worried. She was a wreck inside and all she wanted was for him to tell her what it was he had to say. "I’m just ..."

"Shhh," Billy soothed his girlfriend. He kissed her passionately, allowing for his tongue to play with hers. When he felt her relax again, he pulled away. "You know how we were joking about maybe transferring to Lincoln," he said softly.

Britney’s eyebrows knitted together. Her mind was still whirling from Billy’s kiss. "What?"

"Kyle, Em and I were saying how cool it would be to go to Lincoln. Don’t you remember? It was the night you guys had come to our school dance and it was so crappy. We’d gone to Denny’s for something to eat..."

Britney thought back, remembering that night exactly. "Oh yeah, that was fun."

"Yeah, well ...I didn’t want to tell you until it was final. Just in case it didn’t go through or something happened, but I stopped by St. Pete’s today and then Lincoln ..."

Britney’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying, but the way he was nodding and grinning at her, it seemed as if that was exactly what he was saying. "Are you serious? You’re ..."

"Transferring to Lincoln High."

It was as if everything else in the room went silent and Britney was in shock. He’d been talking about switching schools for a while now, but Britney had figured it was just talk. Their going to different schools hadn’t been that big of a deal for them and as much as she missed seeing him every day, it made the days they did see each other more special. But now, the prospect of being able to walk the halls with him, eat her lunch and be able to see him whenever she wanted set her heart a flutter. "For me?"

Billy shrugged and nodded. "Kind of, but for me too. I don’t care where I go to school. And Lincoln’s pretty cool. My parents were a little surprised that I wanted to switch, but after talking to Em and..."

She hadn’t thought it was possible, but Britney’s eyes widened even more. "Are they...?"

Billy looked over his shoulder at where Kyle and Emily were laughing at something Justin had done. He knew they would want to tell everyone themselves, but Britney wasn’t just anyone and he knew she would keep it quiet until then. Don't tell anyone just yet, they want to break the news themselves, but yeah. All three of us are transferring."

"Wow," Britney said, overwhelmed. She had thought he was going to dump her, but in fact he’d made her life complete. "This is going to be so cool." In a passionate kiss, Britney covered Billy’s mouth with her own. She giggled as he nibbled playfully on her lower lip. "I’m so happy."

"Me too, and I’m so glad that you’re not upset."

Britney gave Billy a look that told him she thought he was crazy. "Are you serious? Me upset that I’ll get to see you every day?"

He could only shrug in embarrassment. "I don’t know, I was afraid you’d be upset and want your space."

"I’ll never want my space from you," she admitted shyly. "I thought you were going to break up with me. I was so scared."

Billy flashed her an apologetic smile and shook his head. "God no. You’re not getting rid of me that easily."

"I’m not getting rid of you ever." They shared another kiss until finally a waitress appeared with a tray full of food. Britney’s grilled cheese and French fries and his banquet burger with onion rings were placed on the table behind them.

"Just a sec," the waitress announced. "I’ve got more coming."

As Billy and Britney dug in, Christina and Josh’s meals arrived as well. They looked over at Nick’s table where they had received their food.

"We’re holding off on desert," Krystal announced with a grin. "There’s this one, it’s called the Decadent Desert, there are fifteen scoops of ice cream with fudge sauce, caramel, strawberries, bananas, brownies, nuts, whipped cream and sprinkles. We’re going to have that when everything’s settled.

Everyone’s mouths started to water just at Krystal’s description of the desert. "Before we eat it though," Lance announced. He held up his camera and shook it. "We so need a picture of it."

Between the second and the third frames everyone took a short break to walk around and let their food settle just a little. The girls headed to the bathroom to freshen up a little and check their make up and dresses, while the boys made their way to the mini arcade that had been set up and played video games. Fifteen minutes later, everyone reconvened at their assigned alleys.

"Okay, we’ve got a new rule," Christina announced with a wicked grin. She was interrupted by Kyle before she could explain the rule.

"Can ...can we say something first?"

Christina nodded and stepped away. He looked around, blushing at all of the attention that he was getting.

"I just wanted to thank you all for letting us come tonight. I know we don’t go to Lincoln, but Christina’s so sweetly included us in the festivities and even put St. Pete’s on the banner for the night."

A round of applause was given and Justin called for Christina and Nick to take a bow. "We should thank Chrissy and Nicky for organizing everything," he said. "They sent the invitations, they came up with the theme and they’re responsible for everything tonight. The anti-prom rocks because they rock."

Christina and Nick stood up and waved at everyone, basking in the appreciation that was showered over them. When it died down, Kyle continued.

"Well, we wanted to thank you not only for tonight, but for all year. You guys have taken us in as one of your own and really accepted us. Every time we’ve hung out at a Lincoln event, everyone’s been so nice. And, well we, along with Billy, have been talking about stuff for the past few months."

"We’ve been talking about it a lot," Emily stressed with a grin. They had endured many discussions, some turning into arguments, regarding Kyle’s announcement. It had to be a group decision or no decision, and finally they had talked over everything about a million times before finally coming up with their conclusion. Looking at the excited expression on Britney’s face, Emily was certain that Billy had already spilled the beans and she glared at him, shaking her head. He simply flashed her an innocent look causing her to laugh.

"And we’ve decided that in the fall, we’re going to go to Lincoln High. We’ve all transferred schools. As of today, when we stopped by Lincoln to do some last minute paperwork, we are officially Lincoln High students."

The crowd was silent, looks of shock displayed on everyone’s face. It was Nick that broke the silence by laughing out loud. "Are you serious?"

Kyle, Billy and Emily exchanged wary facial expressions. This was not the response they were expecting. It was too late to go back now, they were stuck with their decision.

"Uh, yeah."

They hadn’t anticipated Nick jumping up and hugging them. "That’s awesome! You’ve always joked about it, but I thought you were kidding."

All three of them breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"I’m sure Brit’s happy with that, eh B!" Nick winked as his friend blushed.

Josh stood up and approached his friends. "Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of transferring?"

Kyle laughed at Josh. "Uh, we did. All the time."

"I thought you were joking," Josh said in his defense. He received shrugs in response.

"We had been joking, until one night we were at Billy’s and really thought about it. Em had shrugged and said ‘why don’t we transfer? What’s stopping us?’ It was then that we actually realized that we could. And the more we hung out with you guys, the more time we spent at Lincoln, the more we realized that it would be cool to go to school with you. I mean, we’ve still got our St. Pete’s friends, but it’s different."

Billy nodded. "Plus we had to make it a unanimous decision. If one of us wasn’t sure, we weren’t going to do it."

"But we discussed it and realized that nothing was holding us back, so here we are. In September, we’re one of you guys."

They all took a moment to congratulate the three teens, and welcome them to Lincoln High. It was then that the night could continue.

"So, what’s this new rule?" AJ asked. He’d long since realized that he wasn’t a pro bowler, but he was having fun at it anyways, so he didn’t mind. "Eyes closed?"

Christina snorted and shook her head. "Nothing as dangerous as that," she answered, which caused everyone to laugh. "No, the new rule is this. You have to switch teams. You can’t be on your date’s team."

Justin and Nick high fived, they weren’t each other’s dates and thus could still be on the same team. Christina had been anticipating their logic though and grinned at them.

"And you can’t be partners with your original partner. And if you still don’t realize that I mean you Nick and J, you two are considered both as original partner’s and dates for the purpose of this rule."

Both teens pouted. Christina gave them both light taps on their cheeks.

"Don’t be such sucks," she snickered. "You’ll be okay without each other for another hour or so."

"Fine," Justin said. He turned to the rest of the group who was already pairing up with people. "Josh, you wanna be my partner?"

Josh smiled and nodded. "Sounds good."

Britney turned to Nick and gave him a playful shove. "You wanna be my partner?"

"What? And get girl cooties?" He teased. She stuck her tongue out at him, which he returned happily. "Any time," he smiled as he pulled her close. He found himself at a lane with Britney, Emily and Krystal, while Justin was at the next lane with Josh, Mandy, and Shawn, a friend of Nick and Justin’s from the freshman basketball team. Nick waited for AJ to throw his ball on the other side of him, respectful of his concentration and cheered as his friend managed to bowl a perfect shot. All of the pins fell down leaving AJ stunned.

"They all went down," AJ said in surprise. He had decided to try his own challenge and see how bad he could do it with his eyes closed. It appeared he did play better that way. With a giant smile and his own hip shimmy, AJ went to the bench to sit down beside Billy who offered him a high five. The night just kept getting better and better.

End Chapter 47


Chapter 48 >