“You guys would love Chicago. We should plan a day when the Cubs are in town and go to a game,” I told them.
“Where all did you go?” Jeff asked.
Gina threw her hands up in the air when she realized Jeff, Alan and I were playing our misdirection game. We always did this if we didn’t want to talk about something. Gina got out of her chair next to Mike and came and sat in my lap. I looked at her boyfriend and he just shrugged. She grabbed my face so I would look right in her eyes.
“You can tell us all about Chicago after I get a few facts,” she said. I just nodded.
“Who are you going to Prom with?”
“Sarah.”
She took a deep breath to keep from yelling at me. I made the mistake of smirking. She suddenly had my ears in her grip, which made me much more forthcoming.
“She goes to school at Wesleyan and stayed at Harper’s house over break. I met her last year when I went to Modeling Camp during the summer. She and I worked together last week. When Harper broke up with me, Sarah volunteered to be my date. We’re just friends.”
“What kind of friends?” Gina asked.
“None-of-your-business kind of friends,” I informed her.
“If we could arrange an alternative to Prom, would you be interested?”
“Are any of you going to Prom?” I asked.
“If we had something else to do, I wouldn’t mind skipping it. My brother and his friends are being dicks,” Cassidy told me.
It seemed everyone felt the same way.
“For grins, what all do we need to do to put our own dance on?” I asked.
Gina started ticking the list off on her fingers.
“Location, band, decorations, chaperones, tickets. I’m sure we’ll need other stuff like drinks and food.”
“I’ll call my dad and see if he can get me a deal on the Country Club. Who knows a band?” I asked.
“Cora’s roommate is dating a DJ. Maybe I could talk him into doing it,” Pam offered.
“I could make the tickets,” Alan offered.
“I could ask my dad to be a chaperone,” Mike suggested.
“Let’s make some calls and everyone meet me before baseball practice. Are you sure you guys want to do this?” I asked.
Everyone seemed to want to if we could.
I MADE GINA GO WITH me to an empty room and called my dad. He went and found the banquet manager. We told them what we wanted to do. The Prom Committee had put a deposit on the room, which would have gone towards the event at the Country Club. Since they canceled last minute, the Country Club planned to keep the deposit. The banquet manager was willing to apply the funds to our event. I guess they had pissed him off. Since my dad was an employee, they would give us his discount. Between the two, it would cover about half the cost for the room, setup, and teardown.
He gave us an idea of different services they offered, food- and beverage-wise, and ballpark costs for the different options. All we had to do was confirm no later than tomorrow morning and give them a firm count by Thursday evening.
I WAS SHOCKED WHEN about forty people showed up before baseball. I guess people disliked Brad and his buddies as much as I did. I was even more shocked when members of the Prom Committee showed up. I addressed them first.
“Dan, Alicia, I hope we’re not stepping on your toes,” I said.
“Not really. Tommy Cox and Brad Hope have taken over the planning for the event. We have some decorations, if you guys want them. We’d rather go to your party,” Dan said, which shocked me.
“Before we do this, we haven’t antagonized them lately. Do we want to risk them being jerks the rest of the school year?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t sell me a ticket to Prom because they said I didn’t fit in,” Yuri told us.
For the next five minutes, we heard similar stories. If I’d known they were bullying the kids, I would have confronted them. The more I heard, the more I wanted to pound one Tommy Cox. It seemed when they let him come back to school after Christmas break, he’d been busy behind the scenes.
I put Gina and Cassidy in charge, and they recruited Mike. He had no choice since he was Gina’s boyfriend. Dan and Alicia agreed to help, which made everything easier. They had already worked to plan Prom, so they knew what all needed to be done. Pam and Mona also volunteered. When Yuri saw who was on the committee—hot single girls—he joined also. I talked Alan and Lily into helping since they could get the word out either through our sports database or my Twitter account.
WHEN WE WERE DONE, Jeff and I went to my house to get Duke. Jeff went in the back door first and started laughing. I came in to find Duke and Precious in his crate. The cat must have come out of hiding sometime during the morning and Mom found her at lunchtime. Duke and Precious were both looking at us, wanting to get out. I wasn’t about to open that door without some sort of protection. I’d had Precious claw and bite me way too many times. Then I remembered I had Jeff with me.
“Grab an extra leash and put it on Brit’s cat. I’ll go make us sandwiches. Oh, and close the mudroom door in case the kitty gets out. Mom doesn’t want her running loose in the house.”
I just had gotten started making us sandwiches when all hell broke loose. I heard a loud yowl from Precious and a scream from Jeff. Duke added to the racket by barking. I heard a couple of thuds.
“Son of a! OH MY GOD! OH MY effing GOD! HELP!” Jeff screamed.
I felt bad, but I couldn’t help laughing. I pulled the door open an inch to see what was going on. Jeff was hunched over with Precious attached to the center of his back. It looked like both of his hands were bleeding. Duke was all the way in the back of his crate. Whatever vibe the cat was giving off seemed to have him scared.
I eased into the mudroom and picked up a leash. I snapped it into Precious’s collar and handed it to Jeff.
“There you go,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
“Screw you, Dawson! Get this cat off me!”
“Are you sure? It might hurt,” I said reasonably.
“As sure as I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t!”
Some people have no sense of humor. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a picture. Precious hissed at me; this made it a keeper. I about shit when she launched herself off Jeff’s back at me. I guess she recognized me as someone who antagonized her. I snatched her out of the air by the scruff of her neck. I made Duke get out of the crate and stuffed the cat from hell in. I was amused to see the hair on Duke’s back was up. He was wary of all the hissing going on.
I took Jeff into the kitchen and cleaned him up. I made him take his shirt off and made a face.
“How bad is it?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t think you need stitches,” I said.
“You do know I’m going to have my girlfriend kick your butt,” Jeff threatened.
“Hey, Buddy, no need for that.”
“I think I’ll have her do it right after practice, so everyone will see you cry like a little girl.”
“How about I just cry? There’s no need for Cassidy to get involved.”
“Nope, she hasn’t kicked anyone’s butt in a while. She’s been giving me funny looks. I think this’ll kill two birds with one stone. You get what’s coming to you, and she gets to vent her frustrations,” Jeff said.
“If you need some ideas to help Cassidy relieve some stress, I’m your guy,” I teased him.
“Shut the hell up. I’m trying to be mad at you,” he said as a little smile crept onto his face.
AFTER PRACTICE, EVERYONE seemed to be hanging around. I then saw a bunch of people following Jeff and Cassidy to the baseball field. The little shit had told on me. I looked for an escape route and found my teammates had blocked my exit. I gave them a look.
“Nice,” I hissed at them.
Cassidy stomped up and was pissed. This didn’t look good.
“I hear you made my boyfriend bleed. You do know I believe in an eye for an eye. I think you need to bleed,” Cassidy proclaimed.