Caridad Ferrer - Prom Ever After - Haute Date / Save the Last Dance / Prom and Circumstance

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“Where are we going?” Ash was being dragged down the hall by Sebastian the second she exited her last class of the day.

“We’re about to make this happen.” Sebastian tucked her hand firmly under his arm while he searched for his car keys in his messenger bag.

“Seb, tell me.” Ash attempted to drag her feet so he would stop.

“Stop doing that or I’ll fireman-carry you to the car.”

Ash smiled. She had no doubt he would do exactly that. “Just tell me and I’ll cooperate.”

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

“I do, but...”

Seb stopped next to his car and opened the passenger-side door for her. “In.”

“I need to tell Armstrong I can’t go with him.”

“You’re going.”

“But we don’t have—” Ash reluctantly got in and pulled her feet to safety before Sebastian slammed the door shut on them “—five hundred dollars.”

“Please fasten your seat belt before you fly out of the car and no longer need a prom dress for anything.”

Sebastian was skidding out of the parking lot before Ash could say anything more. They took the familiar route to Capitol Hill again and parked right in front of Some Like It Haute.

“What are we doing? Negotiating isn’t going to work. Lyra already told us how complicated the whole thing is.”

“I got this.” Sebastian grabbed all the stuff they needed for the dress project and was in the shop before Ash could protest further.

“Hi! Hey, Lyra, us again,” Sebastian was saying by the time Ash made it in the door behind him. “I was thinking...”

“This is cute.” Lyra was watching Sebastian with amusement. He did look cute trying to juggle a miniature toy dress and the giant garment bag at the same time. Ash felt a twinge of annoyance anyway. It was becoming quite clear that Lyra liked Sebastian.

“I was noticing you guys didn’t have a website. I went to it last night to see if there were any other seamstress-type people who we could hire and you don’t have anything resembling an online presence!” Sebastian neatly laid out all the stuff in front of Lyra.

Ash wondered what he was doing. Pointing out the little shop’s shortcomings was not going to work, no matter how much the owner’s daughter liked Sebastian!

Lyra sighed. “We have one, but it’s not a very good site. My dad made it and well, he’s a doctor, not a computer person. We just don’t have the money to hire a professional web designer right now. It costs over...”

“A thousand dollars. Or more,” Sebastian finished. “I know.”

“That’s right.” Lyra started to look suspicious.

Ash was, too. What was Sebastian up to? What did this have to do with anything at all?

“What if,” Sebastian said, taking the lehenga out of the garment bag and laying it across the table again, “we cut a deal?”

“What kind of deal?” Lyra didn’t look any less suspicious.

“The kind where you do this lovely girl’s alterations and I build your website for you. For free. You save over five hundred dollars. At least.”

Was he serious? Ash’s eyes widened. Did he know how to build something as complex as a professional site for a store?

“You know how to build websites? Not just webpages, but with databases and things I don’t totally understand?” Lyra echoed Ash’s sentiments. “It has to be able to take customers’ orders and list all the stock we have and stuff automatically. I need to be able to load info myself. My parents are going to make me be the main website administrator since they can barely figure out email.”

Sebastian didn’t look concerned.

“My credentials are here.” Here Sebastian pulled up his phone and started showing her some pinned sites on his browser. “I made the school’s website. I’m making my parents’ church’s website. I made my uncle’s business’s website. All have a database back end. All have search functionality as well as upload and download functionality. And I’m on-call tech support for all of them.”

“Wow,” Lyra and Ash said at once.

Ash was shocked at how lovely the sites were as she peeked over his shoulder. She’d known Sebastian had made the school’s website, but she hadn’t understood how complicated it must have been.

“I can make one for your store as my AP Computer Science class project. I’m in that class right now so I can start immediately.”

Something was nagging at Ash’s brain. She felt as though he already had a plan for that class and it did not involve making a website for Some Like It Haute. She made a note to ask him about it later. Right now, Lyra was looking very interested in the idea.

“I’ll mock up a prototype and see if you like it. I kind of already started last night based on the personality of this store.” Sebastian gestured toward the back. “Lively and fun. Fashionable. Young.”

Lyra’s eyes lit up at “young.”

Ash glanced over at him again. Was he sure about this? This sounded like a lot of work. She knew he’d been working on the website for his parents’ church for over two months.

“If you like the prototype, we’re on our way and I’ll make the website for you, with free updates whenever you need. It’ll take about a month. In return, I’d love it if you would do the alterations for Ash’s dress in the next two weeks. So she can be the most beautiful and unforgettable girl Seattle Academy has ever seen.”

Lyra looked from Ash to Sebastian, Ash thought, a bit jealously. What girl wouldn’t?

Ash held her breath and watched the cat-shaped clock on the wall tick. Was this really going to work? She didn’t want to get her hopes up again. She’d had her heart broken too many times over this whole fiasco.

Lyra broke into a smile. “Okay, I need to talk to my mom, but I can convince her. You can pick up the dress in two weeks. My mom will want to see a mock-up of the site by tomorrow though, before we start working on the dress. Can you do that?”

“You’ll have it tonight. You have my word she’ll like it. Or I’ll change anything she wants. Or you want.”

Ash couldn’t believe it and discreetly snapped the hair tie she had around her wrist to make sure this was not a dream. The tiny pinch assured her it was not.

Sebastian turned to smile at her. “Told you.”

Ash threw her arms around Sebastian and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “God, I love you!”

She felt his cheek grow hot under her mouth and pulled away. She’d never seen him blush so hard! For a second, she had the insane thought that she should have taken this opportunity to kiss him on the mouth. She’d always wondered what it would be like to press her lips against his perfect Cupid’s bow. She easily could have blamed the moment.

Alas, she hadn’t acted quickly enough and the moment passed.

Lyra continued to smile wistfully. “You guys are sooo cute. I wish my boyfriend was so sweet. Hell, I wish I even had a boyfriend!”

This didn’t help Sebastian’s blushing.

“You—” Lyra turned to Ash “—are very lucky to have a date who cares so much about her dress. Most guys have no idea what their girlfriend’s wearing—and don’t care much, either!”

Ash opened her mouth to thank her, but Sebastian got to the false statement first.

“Oh! I’m not her girlfriend. I mean, she’s not mine. My girlfriend I mean. We’re just friends.”

Sebastian’s words stung. Suddenly, Ash felt as if they were in eighth grade again and everyone was teasing them about “going together” and Sebastian was very insistent that they were friends and nothing more. He always made being mistaken for her boyfriend sound like the most horrific and unbelievable thing in the world.

And specifically now in front of Lyra.