CHAPTER 36

“It is never too late to live happily ever after.”

—Unknown

It had been the craziest night. Rehearsal had been so long and chaotic, which was saying a lot since everyone knew that Miss Kimber had been abducted the night before. Everything that had gone wrong had, and one of the girls in her main ballet had come down with strep throat and had to quit, which had meant that they’d had to rechoreograph the whole thing.

By the time they’d finished the run-through, Bethany had grabbed her dress and followed Gwen into a private bathroom in the back of the building. Gwen had let Bethany store her things there. She’d even offered to take Bethany’s dance things back to the dance studio at the end of the night so she could head right over to the dance.

She’d been so ready to get out of there and go to the dance, Bethany had hardly cared if Miss Shannon was going to be mad at her or not.

When she’d finally walked into the gym, she’d thought Jeremy was going to be at the door. When she didn’t see him at first, she’d really thought Jeremy had decided to skip the dance. Or worse—that he’d take some other girl and was going to ignore her the whole time.

Of course, that had been stupid. He was there, he’d just been waiting at the other side.

And now, here she was, with her hands linked around his neck, his hands loosely holding her waist, and they were swaying to Bruno Mars. It was awesome.

Even better than all of that, he hadn’t looked away from her once, like he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world than with her. And that was perfect, but she didn’t want to be anywhere else either.

“Hey, are you okay?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Very sure.” She smiled up at him. “I’m really glad you still wanted to go to the dance with me even though I had to come so late.”

He looked away, like he was trying to come up with the right words but he couldn’t think of what they were. “I wasn’t sure what to do about twenty minutes ago, if you want to know the truth. A couple of hours ago, sitting at home, I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have made Gunnar buy me clothes for it and everything.”

“You look really nice.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t know if you were going to show up. I thought maybe you would ditch me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“I was being an idiot.”

“I’ll tell you about rehearsal later, but for now, I’ll just share that it was terrible. I’m glad we’re dancing now.”

“Yeah. Me too.” He pulled her a little bit closer. And his hand kind of felt heavier on her back, like he suddenly didn’t want to let her go. Looking troubled, he said, “I kind of lied about worrying about my clothes. The fact is, Gunnar said that there was no way I couldn’t not come.” He lowered his voice. “He told me that I needed to see this through.”

“This?”

“You and me.”

She liked the sound of that. She liked that they were a “you and me.” It sounded permanent. Good.

As more couples joined them, the space got even more confined and he pulled her closer so the couple to her right didn’t knock her over. Now her chest was practically touching his and her lips were almost against his neck. She could feel the heat from his body and smell the soap on his skin. It felt good to be right next to him. Good and a little intense. She wondered if everyone around them was watching.

“Sorry,” Jeremy said when he stepped back. “I thought he was going to step on your foot.”

“I didn’t mind.” When he smiled at her, she gathered her courage. “Hey, uh, Jeremy?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you worry so much?”

“I guess I got scared. I let all the crap that I was worried about in my head get the best of me. I started thinking that maybe you’d get smart and would want someone better.”

Now he was starting to confuse her. “What do you mean by better?”

“You know. A guy who isn’t a foster kid with no parents and not a lot of money.”

“Stop. You’re not that.”

“That sums me up, Bethany.”

“You’re more than that. And you can’t help either of those things.”

“Maybe not.”

“I know you can’t.” Before she could stop herself, she added, “And one more thing. I don’t care that you’re ‘just a foster kid.’ You think about things more than most other boys. You are more mature. You don’t do stupid stuff either. I like how you are, Jeremy. I don’t want you to change.”

“I’m going to get adopted soon.”

“When you do, I’m going to go to the ceremony with you. It’s going to be great.”

He chuckled then smiled at her. “If we weren’t dancing in the middle of the whole school, I’d kiss you for saying that.”

“Maybe you should kiss me anyway.”

“You won’t get mad?”

“Why don’t you kiss me and find out?”

And so he did. Right there during the last dance of the night.