My Prince Next Door & Seven Reasons Why Not - #OnceUponNow

Chapter 4 - For Emergencies Only

"You so owe me big time." Blair plops down onto my pink comforter and drowns herself in a pile of Hello Kitty dolls taking over my bed.

I cringe.

"Forget medical school, your brother should just be a math teacher. He's more hardcore than Mr. McKinney." Blair's head is gone from view except for half a torso and a pair of legs.

"He asked me out."

"What?" She shoots up to a seated position, her springy blond curls sticking out in all directions.

I press my lips together and try to contain my excitement. If I say anything else I'm sure I'll scream, so I nod.

"Details. Now. When?" She's on her feet, hovering over me.

"Tomorrow."

Blair throws open my closet door and leafs through my clothes. "You have to look cute. No. Hot. What time and where are you meeting?"

"Six. And where else would we meet, he lives next..." I gasp and slap my hand over my mouth.

In dramatic Blair-esque slow motion, my best friend steps away from my closet. "Please tell me you picked somewhere to meet that doesn't include his or your front door."

"I didn't. I mean, I would have. But the only word that came out of my mouth was 'okay.'" I plead with my eyes because if I say anything else I think I might cry. Fix this, fix this, fix this.

Blair paces my floor and only stops to snatch a handful of Skittles from a jar on my desk marked: For Emergencies Only. And this is definitely an emergency.

"Can you call him?" she asks through a mouthful of sugary rainbow goodness.

"I don't have his number."

"Go back over there."

"Do you plan on taking another tutoring session from Elijah?"

Blair holds her hand up.

"I didn't think so," I say.

"Fine. Then we wait for him to show up at his window and tell him to meet you somewhere in town."

"Okay. Fine."

And so we wait. We paint our nails, look at magazines, and bright blue skies trade the day for oranges and mauves. Mom brings up a box of pizza she managed to salvage from my brothers and a couple Cokes, but still no Parker. It's night and we're sprawled on my bedroom floor polishing off the last of the Skittles.

"What if, me showing him around town is just what it is?" I ask, staring at my ceiling fan.

"Which is?" Blair draws out the last word.

"He seriously doesn't know his way around."

"Gwen, he doesn't need you to show him anything. Besides, if that were true, he would've let you go on thinking Lindsey was his girlfriend."

Blair's probably right—I hate to admit it, but she's usually right about stuff like this. It still doesn't fix Parker showing up at my house and my brothers dangling him upside down over the toilet bowl. That actually happened to a boy who pushed me on the playground in third grade. Or even worse, me sneaking over to pick up Parker for our date and my brothers catching me—they don't have any limits when it comes to embarrassing their only sister.

I try not to think about it, but somewhere between imagining the worst case scenario and midnight I must've drifted off to sleep. Because car doors slam outside my bedroom window, and I bolt up, crawling over Blair's curled up body.

"Ow! Seriously, Gwen," she grumbles.

"Sorry, sorry." I stumble to the window and catch Parker getting into his parents' car before it disappears down the street. Now what? I collapse into my desk chair and groan. Why did I think I'd ever get away with this?

"It's summer vacation, Gwen-ie. Go back to bed." With her eyes still closed, Blair's hand grabs for my comforter and tugs it down until half of it covers her head and body.

"It's hopeless. I'll just wait until college to kiss someone. But I should warn them."

"Who?"

"My brothers." I lay my head on my desk. "This way I can make them promise to be nice to him."

"You'll do no such thing. This summer you'rekissing a boy." Blair tucks my comforter beneath her chin and grins. "I've gota plan."