Logan sat and stared at his phone, twitching slightly. He had waited for Frances to say something, anything that was remotely smart ass about the missent text message but Frances hadn’t breathed a word to him; this was good. Logan was glad because he had the distinct feeling that Alexa would be most unhappy with him if he’d broken Frances over his knee.
So now he was thinking about texting Alexa again but he was hesitant. He maybe thought it was a blessing in disguise that he’d sent that text to the wrong person. After giving it some thought, he thought that the best way was to ask Alexa in person. Not be a wimp and send her a text message but look at her and ask her to the Homecoming Dance. This would have the side benefit of him not obsessively checking his phone every five seconds for a reply from her. He didn’t need that stress and he didn’t want to have a heart attack at the tender age of 17.
OK. So let’s see. When could he ask her out. He shared classes with her but he didn’t want to ask her out in front of their fellow classmates and he definitely didn’t want to ask her out in front of Frances. God knows his grammar wouldn’t be correct or something and Frances would coolly correct his speech and then Logan would be back to the same predicament of Alexa screaming at him while he was snapping Frances in two. Yeah, he didn’t want to go there.
He jumped a little as his phone played a short tune. It was ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera and he had set it for Miriam’s alerts. He looked at it and smiled. ‘Hey, there...did you ask her out? Tell all!’ the message read. Logan snickered and then text back, ‘Not yet...but I have an idea. Give me a call. I have a request.’ He waited and when the phone played Miriam’s song again, he answered it eagerly. ‘Hey there. I got a question for you.’
*****
Alexa walked to her locker after school was over. She had a ton of homework and she had told her dad she could work a shift at the store that night. She was so screwed. She figured she’d start on the homework as soon as she got home at nine pm. She’d just look like Ricky Raccoon the next day with the rings under her eyes.
When she got to her locker, she saw there was a note taped to it. She knew that hadn’t been there the last time she’d come to her locker, so she figured it had to have happened after the last bell rang. She took it down, opened it up, and read it. ‘Meet me out front. I have something to ask you,’ it read. It was signed, ‘Logan.’ Alexa rolled her eyes. She decided she had to wean him off his suspense movies as he apparently was taking cues from them. She wondered if he’d be wearing a fedora and a tan trench coat and would call her ‘sweetheart.’
She pulled her books out of her locker with a sigh, made sure she had her calculator, and shut her locker, spinning the combination lock twice and tugging on the door to make sure her locker was locked. Satisfied, she headed out to the entrance of the school.
*****
Logan took a deep breath. Miriam told him she’d put the note up right after the last bell so that Alexa would see it right away and keep an eye on it from a hidden area so that nobody would take it off as a stupid joke. He glanced at the clock on his phone. She should have gotten the note by now. Was she walking towards him? Was she mad at him for being so vague? Maybe he needed to cut back on his suspense movies. He was copying certain maneuvers. He was just happy he didn’t wear his fedora; he figured that might have pushed it over into dork territory in a heartbeat.
Just as he was panicking and thinking that the note had been confiscated or had been torn off by some other person, he felt a hand on his arm. He looked up to see Alexa smiling at him.
‘What, no fedora?’ she teased, laughing as he blushed.
‘No...I wasn’t even thinking of that,’ he lied, shuffling his feet.
‘You asked me to meet you out front...something going on?’ she asked.
‘Uh...yeah...um....can we walk over there?’ asked Logan, pointing over to where there weren’t a group of kids clumped together.
‘Sure! Is everything OK at home? Your mom’s OK?’ asked Alexa.
‘No...I mean, yeah...I mean...everything’s OK. Mom’s doing fine. She’s working day shift again, so I actually get to see her at night.’ Logan smiled happily. His mom was a nurse at the hospital and since she worked in the ER, her shifts rotated every couple of weeks. She’d just finished up the night shift and was now working days again. Logan was happy about that.
‘OK...so that’s cool. So, what’s up?’ asked Alexa.
Logan took a moment to look at her. She had her hair swept up into a ponytail and was wearing a big sweatshirt with koala bears on the front. Her jeans were a dark blue and she had on black suede boots that had cuffs and a short stacked heel. She looked beautiful to Logan, with just a hint of lipstick on her mouth.
‘Homecoming is next weekend, and I wanted to know if you’d go to the dance with me,’ he said in a rush, his hands jammed into his front pockets of his jeans.
‘Oh...oh...’ Alexa smiled, and her eyes sparkled. ‘That would be really cool. Yeah...I’ll go with you,’ she told him.
Logan felt like leaping into the air and attempting one of those split jumps the cheerleaders did but restrained himself. ‘OK...I can pick you up and bring you home,’ he said.
‘That’s sweet. Sure, that’d be great,’ said Alexa.
‘All right, then...awesome. OK, gotta go pick up my little brothers from school but I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’ asked Logan.
Alexa smiled at him. ‘Sure. See you tomorrow.’
Logan waved at her, paused, and then hugged her. He released her quickly, mumbled a ‘good bye,’ and walked off quickly.
Alexa hugged herself. She barely felt the weight of the backpack on her back. She felt like she was floating. She thought Logan liked her but she didn’t want to make assumptions. It looked as though her thoughts had been right all along.
She couldn’t wait to tell Frances. She knew he’d be thrilled for her. And Miriam! Oh my gosh...as she walked to her car, she activated her Bluetooth earpiece and called Miriam. ‘Miriam! You won’t believe what just happened! Logan asked me out to the Homecoming Dance. How cool is that?’
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