Page 16 of Beauty and the Nerd

“Wow…ah just…wow,” Ben said as Emma moved out of the room in the dress, her hair up in a braided up-do of some sort that showed off her back. He shook his head knowing it wasn’t possible for someone to look better than she did right now.

“Is that a good wow?” she teased him, and he nodded, moving towards her, stealing a soft kiss before stepping away not about to mess up her dress.

He was still wearing his regular clothes, but his slacks and jacket she’d picked out for him were hanging in his locker for after the game to change into.

He wasn’t about to miss this dance even if they weren’t going into it together and still weren’t out as dating.

The school now knew they were friends and that was as much as they needed to know until they revealed it themselves.

“Right this way Miss Homecoming Queen.” He offered her his arm, and she wrapped hers around it, walking with him until they got closer to the gym. She moved down the last set of stairs alone turning to shoot him a wink as the others spotted her.

Megan gasped, her jaw dropping as she got the others into their places. “Holy crap, girl.”

“I heard you were single again Emma, guess it’s my lucky night, isn’t it?” last year’s Court Warming King, Josh, said looking her up and down with a grin.

“Not a chance,” she said calmly seeing the tiny glares from the girls on the court.

She pasted a smile onto her face as they stepped through the door, and she spotted Ben watching from the upper part of the balcony area.

It wasn’t hard for her to find him in a crowd, and she knew precisely why—their hearts spoke to each other entirely.

“Filling in for last year’s Court Warming Queen is Wilmont High’s current Homecoming Queen, Emma Watkins, escorted by our reigning King, Josh Davis,” the announcer stated, and she took the shorter walk with him.

They presented all of the people on the court with little trinkets before heading over to sit with the court members instead of taking her spot on the sideline with the rest of the cheerleaders.

Her wrist was still bugging her, and she couldn’t participate in the stunting until the doctor cleared her, leaving her with very little desire to change into her uniform to simply change back into the dress again after the game.

There was only one game tonight, starting at six which their team won with ease, and she waited with the court to head into the dance that started at seven-thirty, about thirty minutes after it finished.

A lot of the students didn’t dress up for it nearly as much as the court did, but plenty of the girls loved wearing glittery dresses and the time between the end of the game and the start of the dance gave them time to change in one of the bathrooms or the girls’ locker room.

Emma hadn’t cared if Ben wore his normal clothes for it, but when he’d asked her if he should get a suit, she eagerly helped him pick out some slacks and a couple jackets he could wear with them, along with some other items that didn’t fall off his body that she liked.

A real smile graced her lips as she crowned Michelle as queen and took photos with the group after the requisite dances. Emma actually liked Michelle; she was pretty much the only nominee she could stand.

Once that was all finished, she slipped over to Megan, smiling at the dress she’d chosen. It was longer than the first one she’d shown her, and Emma knew Megan’s dad had told her ‘no way’ on it. Megan gave her a warning look, and she sighed hearing Josh’s voice behind them.

“What do you say to a night of entertainment Emma?” he questioned, and she turned around lifting her chin at him.

“Sorry, I’m really not interested,” she stated, searching for Ben. She spotted him along with Crystal who was making a beeline for him in the sluttiest dress she’d seen on anyone and looked back at Megan with a smile. “We’re still on for later, right?”

“All fully arranged, I’ll let you know when we’re leaving,” Megan said, lifting a brow at her and she nodded in reply to whether or not she was going to smack Crystal down finally.

“See you in a bit then,” Emma stated, slipping through the crowd to reach Ben.

She watched Crystal slide a hand onto his chest and moved a bit faster to keep her from getting into his personal space.

Emma slid her hand over his shoulder as she moved up behind Ben, a smile on her lips before turning into his body as Crystal glared at her.

“Stay away from him Crystal,” she warned lifting the girl’s hand from his chest.

“Excuse me?” Crystal said as the glare increased.

“I said, stay away from Ben. Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month,” she said with a lazy smile glancing up at Ben. “He doesn’t want you anywhere near him, do you Benny?”

“Nope,” Ben agreed smiling back down at her. “Only one I want this close to me is you Em.”

“What the hell is this?” Crystal questioned as his hand slid up to cup her hip. “You are not seriously going to make me think this is true. You’re just mad that I slept with Sam, aren’t you? It didn’t mean anything Ben, you know that.”

“I don’t care who you sleep with Crystal. I never have but I certainly don’t now,” Ben stated, as others turned to stare at his hold on Emma. “Why would I when I have Emma?”

“You’re lying,” Crystal said, and Emma turned her gaze back towards the girl.

“No, he’s not,” she said resting her hand on Ben’s chest as he brought her in a little closer to him. “So let me make it explicitly clear to you. Ben is mine, continue to throw yourself at him and I will make sure you have a very unpleasant final semester here, got it?”

“He’s not yours you stupid little…”

“Finish that statement or try to call her that again and I won’t care that you’re a girl,” Ben warned keeping his arm around Emma as a couple people moved through the crowd towards them.

“Come onto my boyfriend again and I guarantee you’ll regret it. Stop looking at him and offering to sleep with him again, he doesn’t want you,” Emma added making the girl’s cheeks turn red with the number of people staring at them. “Why would he want you when he has me?”

“Because I have a brain, what do you have other than a D-cup?” Crystal practically shouted, drawing more attention to them.

“D-cup? Wow, I know you’re practically non-existent in that area, but these are nowhere near D-cups,” Emma said contently from Ben’s hold.

“And as I’ve already told you a dozen times Crystal, stop talking about Emma as though she’s dumb.

The last thing on earth she is, is dumb.

After all, she got the spot you wanted at the summer program at NYU this past summer and her papers were just selected as the grand winner out of all of the participants selected to attend, even over mine.

” Ben pressed a kiss to her temple extremely proud of her for it.

“If you don’t believe me, why don’t you go check out the website?

The announcement’s up on the front page. ”

“What?” Megan said, and Ben showed her using the saved link from the email all of the participants received. “Oh my god Emma, this means…”

“She won a seventy-five-thousand-dollar a year scholarship, good to anywhere she wants to go, as the top prize,” Ben said as Crystal saw the list of winners and the school they went to and stormed past them.

“Hold up…you’re screwing nerd-alert here?” Josh asked, looking around the group before bursting out laughing as he spied Carter. “You got tossed over for a nerd? Dude that’s even lamer than me…”

“For getting Stephanie pregnant and dumping her?” Emma asked, making him pale slightly.

“Yeah, I know all about that one Josh. I ran into her over Christmas break, and she asked if you were coming to attend the festivities tonight. It seems like you’ve been dodging some process servers…

that never works out though,” she warned, and he looked around them before hightailing it out quickly.

“Josh is the baby daddy?” Megan asked, and Emma nodded leaning further into Ben’s hold.

“Oh, that’s rich…and you’re in so much trouble for not telling me about this,” she said pointing to the phone.

“So much more than not telling me about that until I walked in and saw you two making out,” she added motioning to them.

“Whoa, what?” Becky said, looking between the three of them. “When exactly did that happen?”

“Which time?” Megan said keeping the truth to herself for them. “I certainly understood seeing it though,” she added as Becky’s brow lifted higher. “Oh, come on, you saw them at the mall this weekend, what the heck do you think was really going on huh?”

“Wait, he’s the one you said you had your eye on going with?” Amber asked and she simply smiled snuggling into Ben’s hold further.

“Only person to ever get me to a school dance would be this girl,” Ben stated, making her laugh lightly as she pulled a jellybean out of his pocket tossing it up towards him.

“And what number are you up to now?” Megan asked as he caught it easily.

“Forty-three?” she said, testing him. He leaned down and stole a quick, soft kiss before giving her a smile as the others let out surprised gasps.

“Forty-five, Em,” he said looking to Megan adding, “with nine now stolen.”

“Huh?” Jessie said looking around them in confusion.

“It’s beyond you,” Megan said disregarding her as she looked back to Ben. “You better be good to her; you even think of treating her like some unmentionable jackass and I’ll be right behind her dad to take you down.”

“I’d never be anything but good to her,” Ben stated, and Emma smiled sliding her hand down his arm until she reached his hand.

“Then come dance with me,” Emma said pulling him away from the group with ease, turning into his hold once they reached the dance floor, enjoying the ability to be close to him in public.