Page 31 of Sam & Justin
“I’m okay, Soph,” I told her. Though my voice didn’t sound entirely convincing. I took another deep breath. “We have the 80s prom tonight, and I hate my outfit.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Sophia demanded. I could feel her glare from her house a few blocks over. “You almost gave me a panic attack because ofclothing?!”
When she put it like that, it did sound very ridiculous, but she didn’t have the full context. She didn’t know about Sam. She didn’t know about the way we’d reconnected or the night we’d spent together. I don’t think she’d even remember him from high school. She was a year behind us, and it wasn’t likeshe’d kept track of who I tutored any more than I kept track of who she worked with on school projects after class. We’d known one another’s friends, and we’d even shared a few, but acquaintances? That was asking a lot.
And in all honesty, that was all Sam had been when we’d been younger. It felt like we were something more than that now, or that we could be. If only he didn’t live hours away.
“I know, but it matters.”
“Why does it matter? Do you have a hot date?” I didn’t say anything. I let the silence last a breath too long, and suddenly, Sophia was squealing so loud that I had to pull my phone away from my ear. It didn’t help, but at least the high-pitched noise she was making wasn’t going to cause me any permanent injury. “You have a hot date! Tell me everything!” She was so loud that I could make out all the words, even at a distance. She might have sounded tinny, but it was also as clear as if she were sitting next to me.
“Can you maybe screech a little more quietly?” I asked her. I heard her laugh and chanced pulling the phone closer to my ear. It had always been like this with Sophia. The moment I mentioned her volume, she could usually get it in check. “Okay, so I will tell you everything, but only if you agree to come over and help me figure out how to make this sparkling green fever dream into something that doesn’t make me look like a walking, talking disco ball.”
“Disco balls aren’t green.”
I groaned. “Sophia! Please.”
“Fine, I’m on my way.” I was about to thank her when she cut me off. “And please, for the love of god, you better be wearing pants when I get there. If you answer the door in your underwear like the last time you needed fashion advice, I’m leaving you to your disco nightmare.” She hung up before I could reply.
It was, however, a good reminder. Because I wasn’t even in underwear. I still had a towel wrapped around my waist. I knew it would take Sophia five minutes to get here, so I quickly dried off and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. I tossed the towel toward my laundry basket and watched as it missed the target and fell between the hamper and the wall. (There were many reasons I’d not volunteered to play in the alumni basketball game, and the fact that I couldn’t even hit my laundry hamper at short range was in the top three.)
I left my suit lying on my unmade bed and went out into the living room to wait for my sister. She must have sped over, probably run some stop signs, because she appeared faster than she normally would. She entered my house like a hurricane, tossing her bag down on my couch and stepping out of her flip flops on the way to my room. They were left behind on the carpet, spaced with her strides, like she’d just disappeared into thin air.
I followed behind Hurricane Sophia to my bedroom. “Is that it?” she asked, indicating the open garment bag.
The green seemed even brighter than it had when I’d left the room. It stood out like a beacon against my dark gray bedspread.The sparkle didn’t help anything. I wasn’t sure what Sophia could do to make this any better. I might have to accept that fixing this outfit was a lost cause. I crossed the room and lifted the jacket from the garment bag. The jacket caught the overhead light of my bedroom and sparkled obnoxiously. “I may have made a mistake.”
Sophia pasted on a strained smile. “We can probably find a way to make it work.” She studied the suit jacket. “What about the pants? Are they also…” She pursed her lips, and I could see that she was trying so hard to find a polite way to describe my prom outfit.
“Garish?” I supplied.
“That works.”
I hated to disappoint her, but the pants? They matched the jacket in color, with a glittery green stripe down the leg. They had been funny when I’d bought them, but now that I had someone to impress? Well, let’s just say buyer’s remorse was a very strong emotion and I was drowning in it. I held up the pants. “He’s going to run the other direction, isn’t he?”
“No, because we’re going to…” She stopped, biting her bottom lip while she tried to come up with a plan. “I’d say fix it, but I don’t think those pants can be fixed. We’re going to find something that isn’t terrible to go with the jacket.”
“It has to be on theme,” I reminded her.
“I know.” Sophia started rustling through my closet. I knew that she’d be disappointed with what she found inside. It was mostly jeans and slacks for work. I wasn’t exactly rolling in tuxedo pants. “Tell me about your guy.”
“He’s not my guy.”
Sophia whipped around, her hand still lingering on a pair of khaki slacks. “You know what I mean. Don’t be difficult, or I’m going to leave you to your sartorial disaster.”
The only reason I didn’t flip her off was the fact that I knew she meant it. Sophia had never taken crap from anyone, especially not me. It was one of the reasons I’d always admired my little sister so much. “It’s a guy I used to tutor back in high school,” I started. She turned her attention back to my closet. “Sam Masters. Do you remember him?”
“I heard about him.” I wasn’t surprised to hear that his reputation had preceded him or that rumors of his antics had reached my sister’s grade. “Wasn’t he some kind of bad ass?”
I snorted. “He had a bad reputation, but that’s it. He was actually pretty cool.” Sophia turned just enough so I could see her raised eyebrow. “He was smarter than people gave him credit for. Most of the time, he messed up at school because he was rushing or wasn’t focused. When we were working together, I saw a different side of him. He focused. He understood what he was doing when he slowed down. He was actually really smart.”
He just hadn’t shown it.
“He also got into fights. I remember he got into this full-on brawl my freshman year with some guy in my grade. I heard it’s why he got held back.”
I remembered that rumor. Everyone had talked about it for two weeks, and then Sam had reappeared in the hallways. I didn’t know if that was the reason he’d been held back, but I assumed it was back then. With adult eyes, I realized it probably wasn’t. The only reason that would’ve happened was if he was expelled. The fight though? That part was probably true. I remembered he’d gotten into quite a few fights when we were younger.
“A lot of people got into fights. It didn’t make him a bad person.”