14 Chapter 5

The night of the homecoming dance, the autumn cold whistled loudly and battled hard outside the house. I shuddered and shivered inside the strapless lavender gown I'd gotten over the past days, arms hugging my shoulders the moment I stepped outside the house's front door.

"Can I meet him?" Mom demanded in a small voice. "Just for once."

The front door hung open and my mother stood there, draped around her body was dad's old ABU jacket that looked sincerely too oversized on her. We both stood beneath and within the reach of the glaring fluorescent light over the porch. Mom's hair hung in loose, sticky threads onto her forehead and temples and she had a withering smile on her pale, chapped lips. Two days ago, I was the sick one with the thumping headache, but now, she was so sick she couldn't even bare to go to work that day and for some really odd reasons, I saw that as a blessing in disguise. She had done my makeup and insisted on my wearing her amethyst earrings with long dangling gemstones to go along with my lavender gown.

I nodded to her request and walked off the front porch to walk across our yard and over to the driveway where Baylor was leaned against his bronze audi, smoking away in the dark, barely lit shadows. The thick smoke clouded up against his face, spiralling into the air and disappearing just as soon as they left his lips and nostrils. A judgemental emotion whirled up inside of me but I had to bite it back in, realizing the fact that I wasn't in the right place to scold him on his bad smoking habit.

"My mom wants to meet you," I announced as soon as I was few feet away from him, sternly. "I think you should get rid of the cigarette for a while."

Baylor leaned away from his car, a deep scowl of reluctancy marring his face. He looked over the car and in the direction of my front porch where my mother's figure stood and tried to watch us, craning her neck to get a look into the shadows of the drive way. He looked away and let his eyes hover upon my small figure to the extent I almost began to shrink in insecurities.

"Do you think that's a good idea? Mothers don't like me. Actually parents in general."

I rolled my eyes, and scoffed. "Shut up and follow my lead, as long as you get rid of that death stick, you're fine. My dad's the strict one and we're lucky he's not home. And besides, with that I fuck everything in skirt aura you always get around you. I doubt parents will appreciate you being around their daughters."

Baylor grinned boyishly and got rid of the cigarette by throwing it down and stomping on it. At least, I could say he looked a little bit presentable and much less baddie that evening. He was dressed in superbly tailored dark suit, his immaculate appearence in the stark contract to what he really was and how he always appeared. His charcoal-colored suit was tailored to highlight his broad shoulders and arms and yet it seemed to not contain his muscles. Underneath, his white t-shirt peeked out, unbuttoned at the top. No tie. Because I suspected he wanted to project a rakish, don't-give-a-shit attitude at the dance.

  As if to tell everyone without using words, he'd showed up at the dance by chance. 

His rich chocolate hair that always had tousled griminess which promised finesse were trimmed at the edges and cut short—the thick lustrous strands having a silky brown sheen that glistened under the streetlights offering little rays into the shadows of the driveway. There was no doubt about it. By any standard the boy that stood before me was stunningly, impossibly gorgeous. He oozed out charm and smouldering sexuality that could make any female knees weaken at fifty paces. I would never argue if I was told the old, rich women in the street were trying their hardest to catch his eyes and couldn't bare the thought that Baylor could have somehow enjoyed and benefitted of those old, rich married women hitting up on him.

Or maybe not.

I led the path back to the front porch and Baylor followed closely. My mother, still standing on the porch with her hands clutching unto dad's jacket, eyed us skeptically as we approached. I wondered if she was going to give my approval to going to the dance with Baylor, considering the fact that even though he was walking behind me, he still reeked of swisher sheets. My heels gave subtle clicks as I climbed up the porch to meet my mother and when I almost stumbled back off the stairs, Baylor caught my right arm in his and smiled sweetly down at me, even though my mother was there to witness, his hand held onto my arm until I was balanced on my feet and adapted to the awkwardness.

I leaped into a brief introduction eagerly. "Mom, meet Baylor. Baylor, my mother."

Mom sniffled and stepped forward to shake Baylor's hand stiffly. Guilt-filled, I was grateful for the fact that she had cold and her nose was blocked with it. My mother hated smoking teenagers and could easily tell whenever I or Dane dared a drag of it. She gave Baylor two motherly pat on his right shoulder and smiled sweetly.

"I shouldn't keep you two waiting," she said, "have fun and make she doesn't accept drinks from strangers."

I sighed in relief.

The hotel staffs at which the school dance was taking place outdid themselves, lavishly decorating their grand ball room, usually used for hosting sales conference banquet for realtors and lawn equipment retail executives. Flowers had been donated by the florist near the town's square and they had placed clusters of orchid and carnation dyed blue throughout the ballroom, filling the entire space with sweet smelling fragrance. A tacky disco ball dangled overhead, hung from a crystal chandelier, and streamers criss-crossed from one corner of the ceiling to the other. An enormous table had been set up for the DJ, with speakers tucked into all four corners of the room.

As I and Baylor walked side by side, my hand in his as we walked into toward the crowded ballroom. A tingling sensation was zapping through me. Not like that was the first time he was holding my hand but the moment of physical awareness was so intense that for a second I was tempted to snatch my hand away, wrenching it from his grasp as if my long fingers had been the exposed ends of an electric wire that were burning into my skin. I spotted Quinn and Shelly at the corner of the hallway with their dates where a photographer had decorated a corner leading to the ballroom with a gazebo and backdrops of clouds, and they posed for pictures individually with their dates as couples, choosing fun props from a box offering flower leis and grass skirts.

Classical music boomed with pleasurable rhythm loudly from the speakers and I could already make out some couples on the dance floor swaying slowly to the song, arms hanging around each other. Despite the loud music, we could still hear the autumn wind whistling and howling loud against the hotel windows, but no one was minding that.

"I'll be right back," Baylor excused himself curtly and took his hand off the small of my back when he noticed Shelly and Quinn had spotted me and were also excusing themselves from their dates and were approaching with curious gazes and brows arched over their eyes.

"You never said you were coming with Baylor," Shelly said, arms stretching out to receive me in a quick hug.

"I never planned to come with him," I said, truthfully. "I never planned to come at all."

Shelly continued looking over my shoulder at Baylor. She looked sedate and serene in a teal gown with spaghetti straps, her blonde hair curled like a movie star's around her shoulders and she smelled sweet of jasmine fragrance that wafted through the air. She was undoubtedly at the party with one of the seniors on the football team, considering the fact that she'd complained bitterly on the phone two nights passed about her college boyfriend turning down her offer to come down for the party, if it was even allowed. I couldn't tell if she'd cried due to that or not but she did look like it.

Quinn took my hand and twirled me around, smiling wildly. "You looking smokin' girl," she whooped, outroarciously. "Beating queen Melissa tonight."

I giggled along with her, and scanned  the room for the ice witch herself. Melissa, looking downright gorgeous, stood nervously in the wide doorway to the ballroom, lit from the bright hallway behind her. Her girl puppets and minions stood not too far way, looking just almost as gorgeous as she did with their dates. Zoey, the red head. Tiny Joy and talkative Tracy. My brother, Dane, hovered and towered over Melissa, hands shoved in his pocket, adoration and mischief glinting in his eyes at her and lips apart with wide smile as they conversed in inaudible voices.

My chest burned in jealousy at the attention he was paying to her, though she looked beautiful enough to deserve it, I still hated to admit the fact that they were dating.

Melissa's brown curls were loose and wavy, cascading down her golden bronze, small shoulders in her off-shoulder light blue mini dress that fit her perfectly and stopped mid-thigh, hugging her curves effortlessly. Despite the fact that Dane was there, acting so clingy around her, more than one guy still turned to check her out. Even though other girls were looking almost as hot, gorgeous and good looking as Melissa, I never saw myself competing with her in the aspect of good looks. When Melissa looked in our direction and our eyes connected, I shook my head sternly and pressed my lips together in reluctant anger before making the first move to look away after announcing without fear my hatred for her.

I and friends lingered close to the snack buffet offering popcorn balls dyed lavender with food coloring, and water chestnut wrapped in bacon, served on little toothpicks. Stuffing ourselves with it while awaiting Mae and Tamara to arrive the party with their dates. We complimented each other some more on our dresses and gossiped half-heartedly about the dresses worn by some of the more popular senior girls. Snarly comments were thrown about and made concerning Melissa who stylishly eyed Andrew Penna, with lashes blinking, when he sauntered into the ballroom looking as handsome as ever, and dateless.

Shelly prodded me in the waist subtly, more than once, to inform me that Andrew Penna had his eyes on our little girly circle, on my figure especially.

Eager to be torn away from my friends, and within the reach of my date, I glanced around the room for Baylor between the figures of handsome, good-looking boys in suits and hair sleek back and gleaming under the bright light. I looked everywhere but refused to meet Andrew Penna's eyes, feeling the burning intensity of his gaze on me.

The usual suspects were all in attendance at the dance. Our history teacher, Mr. Levine wore a brown suit with paisley tie and shylishly coward in the secluded corner next to his hot looking date, Miss Diana, the prettiest teacher the school had to offer. With her fiery head of red volcanic strands of hair tumbling and cascading down her slender shoulders, she looked like a run-away model. She looked small and compact in her hot pink strapless gown, and even though Mr. Levine tried to make it subtle when he stared at her amusingly, I was sure everyone noticed and I wasn't the only one wondering where his wife was at that moment he was at the school's dance with another woman. The school principal, Mr. Johan brought his young wife to the dance, and they walked together hands in hands to greet other school staffs at the party.

It took time for everyone to loosen up enough to venture onto the dance floor, but when they did, they were all ready to party hard. Shelly and Quinn wandered off and back to their dates, tired of standing with me and awaiting Mae and Tamara's arrival. I watched in jealous as they got twirled like disney princess by their dates, smiling bashfully and grinning. The DJ tuned into hip hop music and some boys on the football team were daring each other to dance-offs in the middle of the stage. People were laughing and girls were squealing and giggling in adoration, I wasn't in the mood to yield into it.

"You don't seem to be having fun, princess. Why is that?"

I was startled, beyond control when a deep voice with wet, moist lips spoke directly behind my left ear. I twirled around without caution and almost rammed into Baylor who was smiling mischievously down at me, eyes twinkling like titanite. He held in his hands two cups of drinks looking like punch, and he was slowly taking a sip out of the one in his left hand, studying me. My heart thumped in my chest just by having to look at him. He looked very fresh, alert, very vital and alive, with the glow of sometime spent in the crisp autumn air on his skin, his green eyes were clear and bright.

I flushed in embarrassment and stepped away, "Duh!" I quipped, and took the other cup from him. "My date wandered off and took forever to return. Where were you?"

I didn't exactly need a reply. The smell that stung my nostrils gave me the exact reply I needed and I didn't need anyone spelling out the fact that my date was a weed smoking baddie before I knew it.

"You know where I've been," Baylor grinned down at me. "Watched you from across the room for a while, and then excused myself for a quick drag. I had no idea how long you girls were gonna be gossiping."

My eyes widened. Of course he had to have known we were gossiping. I took a sip out of the drink in my hand and the cold, sweet liquid glided down my throat smoothly without delay, rejuvenating me. Around us, the loud song blasted on, and behind me, people danced like crazy to the loud, pounding rap song, whooping loudly due to momentary loss of sanity and urge to have fun. I had no idea what to do. What to say or how to react to the fact that Baylor was my date, and do things people on date did. My mind was programmed to the fact that we weren't exactly there for the dance but for the fact that we needed to talk about the happenings in town.

I gulped down a mouthful of the sweet punch and started to talk, deciding the need to tread my path carefully. "Baylor—"

"Come on. Let's talk outside."

Baylor nudged his head in the direction of the ballroom door where few people lingered and talked, and couples hung their arms around their dates neck, and began to lead the way, slowing his pace so I could walk closely behind him on my heels. He stopped to grab my empty cup from my hand when we passed by a waiter and dropped the two cups in the tray, and then he took my hand, clasping his moist one into mine. My heart fluttered in my chest and butterflies danced giddily at the pit of my gut. I should have been concerned about the cold I was going to encounter if we wandered too far outside the hotel alone, or the questioning look most girls in my class sent me, regarding I and Baylor's clasped hands, but I didn't seem to mind at that moment.

Infact, I realized, I was enjoying having to hang out with him.