H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

When Greg showed up, Hawk left, and I realized I might have misjudged the whole situation. Maybe he wasn’t flirting with me. Maybe I was just seeing and hearing what I wanted to be true. If he really liked me, he would have asked me to Homecoming when he’d brought it up. I knew he didn’t have a date yet. His ex-girlfriend Amanda was very clear on the subject. She was angling to get asked herself. Apparently, she had done everything she could to drop the hint short of asking him herself.

Now, I was watching him jog away, heading back toward his coach. Greg put his arm around my shoulders, and I didn’t resist as he pulled me toward the exit. The moment had passed.

“I thought you were doing homework,” he said, a tad bit of suspicion in his voice.

“I did.” Again, not a lie. I had done a multiple-choice take-home quiz.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, it works out, I guess. I didn’t want to do this while we were in school and make a big spectacle out of it.”

“Didn’t want to do what?” I asked.

“Well, you know,” he said. “We’ve been on a few dates and all. I just kind of assumed you’d want to go to Homecoming with me.”

I blinked and waited for more words to come out of his mouth. When they didn’t, I searched for ones to put in my own.

“Did you just ask me to Homecoming, or…?”

“What, it’s not like you have a date already,” he said. “Right?”

It was an offensive way of going about all this, but honestly, that was just how Greg did everything. All thoughts in his head seemed to start with “Well, I…” and continued on from there. Of course, he thought I was just going to fall all over myself and basically ask myself to Homecoming with him. Greg

“I don’t,” I said. “Yet.”

Unfortunately, he had me cornered under the bleachers, away from the rest of the school. I kind of got the feeling he was just enough of a coward to have done that just in case I said no.

He sighed dramatically and then tried a grin. It didn’t have hardly any of the smoldering sexual charisma that Hawk’s grin had, but at least it was an attempt. for effort, I supposed.

“Dee, will you go to Homecoming with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Since you asked.”

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” he joked.

“Why do you have to be so evasive?” I shot back. “Why did you bring me down here? Afraid I would say no in front of your friends?”

“Hey, leave them out of it,” he said. “I’m bringing you to Homecoming in front of all of them, okay?”

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” I said. “I’ll be sure to write you a thank-you note.”

“Hey,” he said to my back as I turned and headed toward the school again.

“Don’t worry, I’m still going with you,” I said, still trying to figure out who the hell I had turned into in the last five minutes. It was as if Hawk showing me attention made me drunk with confidence.

“Oh,” he said from somewhere behind me. “Good.”

I sighed and kept moving. He wasn’t going to come catch up with me and try to apologize or right the wrong of how he structured his dumb sentences. That was fine. He wasn’t a long-term prospect. He was a cute guy who was going to at least do all the traditional things and bring me to Homecoming in a limousine and buy me a corsage and try to make out with me on the dance floor and grab my ass. For those things, he was functional.

I just would have rather it been Hawk.

Homecoming day was nearly a disaster. My sister, Malia, was having another one of her many, many fights with our mother, and neither of them was talking to the other. That was problematic since I needed someone to help me get ready. Wendy was at her place getting ready and was coming over just before the boys were supposed to pick us up, but I needed to be ready by then.

With only sporadic help, I was getting frantic as the time ticked away. When Wendy arrived, I still hadn’t gotten into my dress, and she ended up breaking a nail helping me get it on. By the time the boys showed up, Wendy and I were alternating blotting each other’s tears and trying to pose in the mirror to make sure we hadn’t completely destroyed our look.

Greg and Naveen were perfect gentlemen. Naveen was very sweet on Wendy, but Wendy wasn’t particularly interested in him. She only said yes because she wanted to go to the dance, and he was a nice guy. They took us to dinner, and there was the awkward, forced conversation of four people, two of whom didn’t really fit with the other two or each other.