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

Ash shot eye daggers at her father.

“Just being helpful.” Her father shrugged. “You’ve got to get with the program before the program gets you.”

God, her parents were dorky.

“You people are seriously going to drive me crazy,” Ash muttered as she grabbed her coat. “I’m going to Sebastian’s!”

Three

Ash glared at Sebastian in the middle of their drafting class the next day. He was still completely unconcerned about the prom situation, as he’d been the previous evening.

“I should just tell Armstrong I can’t go with him. I mean, why drag it out? I should call it off now so he can find someone else. Someone with a dress instead of some belly dancer–looking costume.”

Sebastian was focusing a little too hard on their drafting project still. No answer.

She knew she was being kind of a brat, but couldn’t help herself.

“I should just call it off right now.”

Still no answer.

“Like today.”

She sighed loudly.

Sebastian finally glanced up from the giant sheet of paper he’d been leaning over.

“Oh, is it time for drama? Is it my turn? Noooo, Ash, you can’t. You and Armie-boy belong together. Like forevvvvver.”

Did no one have sympathy for her plight? Did no one understand that she was actually not going to be able to go to the prom this year—her senior year? She wouldn’t have prom pictures, she wouldn’t have the first dance, she wouldn’t have that magical night she’d be talking about for years to come with her own kids and grandkids. And most importantly, she wouldn’t have another chance with Armstrong.

“I don’t like you,” was all she could think of to say to Sebastian.

“You love me. Now, we need to do our assignment. What do you think? How many watchtowers, if any?”

“I don’t care.”

“Hey, you wanted the front of the school. You at least have to choose if you want a watchtower or not.”

“I want a moat.” Ash stuck out her lower lip. “And alligators. And that dress!”

Sebastian sighed. “Just have the tantrum and let me know when you’re done.”

Ash glared at him.

Sebastian ignored her and went back to sketching pointy roofs. He wrinkled his forehead and chomped down hard on the corner of his mouth as he worked expertly with the protractor. He looked cute today, in a dark blue University of Michigan T-shirt that clung well to his arms, a fact every girl, freshman through senior, had clearly noticed.

He was easily one of the cutest guys in the senior class. He knew it, but he also knew he was smart. He’d already gotten accepted into Michigan’s honors program and amazingly, was still invested in keeping his GPA a 4.0.

“You can fail and repeat senior year and have another shot at the prom.” Sebastian could tell she was not working without even looking up. “Get to work.”

The small, twelve-person drafting class had a joint assignment. Each team of two was to choose a section of Seattle Academy to redesign into whatever style they wanted. The second part of class would be to take the flat sketches, make them into 3-D models and actually build a miniature version of the school redesign. The redesign would be displayed in the front entryway of the school to show off their skills.

Other teams had predictably chosen the gym or the cafeteria, which would’ve been much easier. Ash had insisted on choosing the front of the school—saying it needed to look majestic and haunting all at once. Plus she wanted her work to be the thing people saw first when they looked at the miniature. So far, Sebastian had done all the actual drawing work, while Ash had tossed out opinions every once in a while when things looked off. She was the creative force. Every team needed one.

When Sebastian still didn’t respond to her threat of not going to the prom, Ash grabbed her pencil and within minutes had replicated the dress on the corner of their sheet of paper.

God, it was beautiful. She darkened the lines of the cutouts on the bodice. She didn’t care what her mother said, the bodice was beautiful and it had looked great on her.

“How goes it?” Mr. Watkins’s voice caused Ash to drop her pencil and let out a small scream. “Sorry, Ash, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Uh...” Ash tried to cover up her dress sketch with her arm. The drafting teacher was very young and pretty cute, and generally gave interesting assignments, but he was also very detention-happy. If anyone was caught texting, tweeting, on Facebook, taking selfies, thinking about taking selfies or generally doing anything else but the assignment, he immediately gave them weekend detention, which meant cleaning the garage for auto shop, which he also taught. She did not want detention.

“What’s this?” He turned the paper around to see what Ash had been working on.

“Oh. That.” Sebastian cut in before Ash could make up a lame excuse. “Ash and I were having a discussion. An argument, let’s say.”

Mr. Watkins’s eyebrows rose. “About some ugly dress?”

“It’s not ugly!” Ash’s mouth dropped open. “You guys are mean!”

Sebastian grinned. “I was attempting to prove to my lab partner here that there are so many similarities between classic drafting professions such as architecture and...fashion.”

“There are not.” Ash rolled her eyes, not playing along, as she assumed Seb would want her to.

“Actually...” Mr. Watkins tilted his head. “I’d like to hear what Sebastian has to say on this one.”

Ash looked to Sebastian. “Let’s hear the crazy.”

“Drawing flat sketches. Visualizing them in 3-D. Being able to put pieces together that fit and stay that way over a course of time. It’s architecture,” Seb insisted. “Look at the dress Ash is wearing for example.”

Both of them looked. Ash self-consciously smoothed down the puffy skirt of the navy cap-sleeve dress with tiny white bicycles printed all over it.

“The flat sketch of the sleeves—” Sebastian pulled the sleeve away from Ash’s arm “—would look something like this.” He quickly sketched a triangle. “But when it was modeled in 3-D, it would look more like this.” He made the triangle into a pyramid. “And the three pieces of fabric to make the sleeve would have to be sewed to make the pyramid. Fashion is an engineering problem.”

“Mr. Diaz, I’m impressed by your knowledge of both fashion and architecture.”

“Thank you.”

“Carry on, you two. But please save your debates for when you’re done with the assignment.” He walked away.

Ash breathed a sigh. No scrubbing oil off the floor of the garage this weekend!

“Thanks for the save. Though the excuse was such BS. I can’t believe he fell for that.” Ash picked up her pencil again and started to actually work on the watchtower of their castle entranceway.

“It wasn’t a save.” Seb was being serious. “Your dad has Project Runway on 24/7 in your house, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Ash gave him a so-what look. Her dad had become oddly obsessed with any show where people gave up everything to pursue their life’s dreams. She was pretty convinced he’d run off and audition for The Apprentice one of these days.

“I’ve been absorbing that show while I’m at your place. So much of it sounds like the stuff we learn in here.”

Sebastian had been building a website for his family’s church and had been working on it mostly out of Ash’s house so he could get Josh’s input on design. Apparently he’d been learning a thing or two, however wrong, about fashion, as well.

Ash leaned over and gave Sebastian a side-hug. “You’re cute when you’re wrong. But thanks anyway.”

“I’m not wrong!” Sebastian looked insulted.

“I love having a guy as a best friend, but seriously Seb. Fashion...definitely not the same as some boring old building!”