Page 20 of Attractive Forces

“Anyway, we need to talk about the senior ball,” Ellie says. I seize up, sliding a glance at Chloe.

“What about it?” Chloe asks.

“Well, if we’re going as a group, then we should look at dressing as a group. You know, come up with costumes that work together.”

“It’s the ball, not Halloween.”

“Yeah, but we can still do some kind of group costume,” Ellie argues, pushing her glasses back.

“What’s the theme?” Mason asks, his gaze darting between Ellie and Chloe.

“A night among the stars,” Ellie says.

“It’s such a lame theme,” Chloe moans.

“We could dress up as black holes,” I suggest. “Everyone completely in black.”

“The theme means the celebrity type of stars, not astronomy, moron,” Chloe says. There’s affection in her voice as she nudges me. Relief courses through me.

“What about dressing up as characters from a cool movie? LikeThe AvengersorTop Gunor something like that.”

“If we’re going to do movies, we have to doStar Wars,” Mason says.

“For the millionth time, Mason, none of us are ever dressing up in Princess Lea’s gold bikini,” Chloe says.

A flush spreads up Mason’s cheeks.

“I might consider it if the price is right,” Benji argues, and everyone laughs.

Eventually, no one can agree on what movie we want to mimic, so we circle back around to my idea about going in black. It’s easy to execute, at least.

Personally, I quite like the fact we’re doing our own nerdish interpretation of the theme. It feels subversive somehow. Going against our society’s ridiculous obsession with celebrity culture.

There’s a chance I’m thinking too in-depth about this. Deep thinking appears to be a trend this week.

* * *

On Friday night,Logan picks me up to take me to a party at the lake.

“Hey, man,” he greets me as I climb into his car.

“This is an idiotic idea,” I say. This has been the theme of our conversations since Logan invited me the other day. Because objectively, a party at the lake at this time of year is stupid. It’s going to be so cold. I still agreed to come though. Kind of proving Chloe’s point that I go wherever Logan does.

“Hey, we can’t all have your level of smartness,” Logan replies.

“There are smartness levels, and then there’s playing into the survival of the fittest theory,” I say.

Logan laughs, and a warm feeling fills me.

“How’s Aaron doing?” he asks as we turn the corner at the end of my street. After that day when we picked Aaron up from his softball game, Logan always makes a point to ask after him. I was right about what I said to Chloe the other day—Logan’s a good guy.

“He’s grounded again,” I answer. “Mum got a call from his teacher, and apparently, he’s not limiting his dickheadedness to just at home. He’s sharing it generously at school too.”

“That’s tough on your mum,” Logan says.

“Yeah.” I straighten up in my seat. I don’t want to talk about Aaron right now. That’s one of the things I like about hanging out with Logan. He tends to blot out all the other crap in my life.

Logan seems to pick up on my mood because he switches to talking about his next rugby game. I’ve never been that interested in rugby, but I could listen to Logan talking about it for ages. His face lights up and he’s so animated and focused as he describes the breakdown of their division and their potential rivals for the championship title.