Chapter 5
tino
“I hope you know I’m pissed at you,” I said to Mako.
He was leaning so far over the sink that his forehead was practically touching the mirror as he put gel in his dark hair and he didn’t even glance in my direction as he said, “Huh?”
“With Lilah,” I said. A laugh came from the nearest stall where Crossy was currently showering and I snapped “Shut up!” which only made him laugh harder.
“What about her?” Mako asked. His attention was clearly elsewhere as he frowned at one curl of his hair that kept falling onto his forehead no matter what he did.
“She was totally about to say yes to me when you interrupted at dinner!”
Another laugh came from the shower stall, this time so loud that it almost sounded like a howl.
I took the white towel that had been draped over my shoulder and chucked it in his direction, making the purple curtain tip to the side for a moment.
Water sprayed from the open gap, hitting Mako and he yelled as he jumped away, then glared at me.
I just smiled innocently back—it wasn’t what I’d been meaning to do but I guess it worked just as well.
“Now that I have your attention,” I said as if that had all been intentional, “why did you have to interrupt and invite her to a party?”
Mako scowled. “I wasn’t interrupting anything but you embarrassing yourself by asking her out for the millionth time.”
“I wasn’t embarrassing myself.”
“She says no to you on a daily basis.”
“One of these days—”
“She’s going to say yes,” Mako said, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before. What difference does it make? Just ask her out at the party instead.”
“You don’t understand—every hour that I wait makes it that much more likely she’ll say no.”
Mako stared at me for a long few seconds. “Not following.”
The shower curtain behind him was shoved aside and Crossy stepped out with a towel around his waist. He sauntered up to us, coming to a stop at Mako’s sink.
“What he means, dear Mako,” Crossy said, throwing an arm around Mako’s shoulders, which Mako unsuccessfully tried to shrug off, “is that he and Lilah connected in the store today. And now, he thinks this is his chance.”
“I don’t appreciate the way you said ‘connected’ there,” I told him, turning back to the mirror. “And there was something, okay? There was a moment—plus she made me wear a couple’s costume with her! Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Mako snorted. “Yeah, that you’re such a chump you let her convince you to dress up as a Disney character.”
“Now, now, there’s no reason to insult Disney,” Crossy said. Then he looked at me. “But he’s not wrong.”
I glared at them. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”
“You’re right,” Mako admitted. “But what I do know is that she practically shoved Poppy in the cafeteria so she could get you off her. Doesn’t really seem like a match made in heaven, does it?”
“I just surprised her,” I mumbled. Because yeah, he wasn’t exactly wrong about that. But still, I was sure that if I’d gotten the chance to ask Lilah again, the answer might have been different. There had been a moment in the store when I grabbed the costumes for her. I was sure of it.
As if she knew that I was thinking about her, my phone lit up with a text from Lilah right then.
I went to grab it so quickly that I missed and hit the edge of the phone instead, sending it clattering to the ground.
I could feel the others staring at me as I picked it up, but I didn’t care because Lilah was texting me and that was all that mattered.
As I stood back up, I shoved the screen toward Mako so he could see it.
“See?” I said. “She loves me.”
Mako squinted at the screen. “What’s with her contact name?”
“It’s a joke,” I said, pulling the phone back quickly.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d changed her name in my phone to be “Lilah (My Future Girlfriend).” Once she found out about that, she stole my phone and added “(In My Dreams).” That wouldn’t help me convince Mako right now, though, so it was probably better I didn’t let him look at it for too long.
Lilah (My Future Girlfriend) (In My Dreams)
Poppy says bear said it was a costume party. true?
I wasn’t sure why she was texting me instead of Mako but I wasn’t going to complain about getting an extra chance to talk to her. I glared at Mako. “Is it a costume party? You never mentioned that.”
Mako whistled innocently and avoided my eyes. “Maybe.”
“What was your plan?” Crossy asked, amusement lacing his voice. “Force us to show up without costumes and be the only ones not dressed up?”
“No,” Mako said. Then he mumbled, “I was just going to tell you right before we left so you didn’t have time to argue.” Crossy and I both scoffed. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter because you found out now anyway.”
“Only because of Lilah,” I said as I texted back a confirmation.
“You know what?” Crossy said. He looked at me thoughtfully while tapping his finger against his lips, which immediately put me on edge. Whatever he was about to suggest was going to be a terrible idea, I already knew it. “We have almost no time to come up with a costume, right?”
He stared at me until I said, “Yeah.” Then his eyes lit up and he held his finger up as if he was just coming up with the idea right then.
“Why don’t you wear the costume you got today?” he suggested. He looked at Mako, an evil smile slowly spreading across his face. “What do you think, Mako? Wouldn’t Tino look just darling in that Flynn Rider costume?”
“No,” I said flatly but they both ignored me.
“Why, I think he would,” Mako agreed. “And I’m sure Bear would say the same.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” I said, “because I’m not wearing it.”
“You’re not seeing the bigger picture,” Crossy said.
“That’s because there isn’t one.”
“We can’t all show up without costumes,” Mako said.
“If we did, it would be your fault for not telling us,” I interjected, but I was once again ignored.
“It would be a waste to never use the costume again,” Crossy added.
“And maybe most importantly,” Mako said in a deep and faux-serious voice, “Lilah would love it.”
I wore the stupid costume.
I felt like an idiot for the whole walk, but it was too late to chicken out now—not only could I never convince my friends to turn around so I could change, but they would make fun of me for the rest of time because of it.
If I acted like I wasn’t embarrassed and wore it with pride…
well, they still might make fun of me a bit, but they wouldn’t have nearly as much ammunition.
It was no fun to make fun of someone who refused to act embarrassed by it.
“How much farther is it?” Bear asked gruffly.
He wasn’t looking too happy right now, since we’d practically shoved him into some bear ears Crossy had found in the back of his closet (I was choosing not to ask about that), a brown sweater, and a little bit of black marker on his nose.
Apparently, him telling Poppy about it being a costume party had been because he wouldn’t be dressing up.
The rest of us weren’t having that, though.
“It’s up here,” Mako said. “The house with a skeleton on the lawn.”
It was already mid-November so most people had taken down their Halloween decorations, and in some cases, put up their Christmas ones, but the house on the corner was still fully decked out for October 31st—I could only assume whoever was throwing this party was a massive fan of Halloween and decided to continue the festivities with both the decorations and the costumes.
Not only was there a ten-foot skeleton on the lawn, but huge fake spiders all over the front wall, jack-o-lanterns lining the pathway to the house, glow-in-the-dark spider webs across the trees and half the lawn, and a fake witch that cackled as someone walked up to the door ahead of us.
Crossy shivered. “Anyone else a little creeped out?”
I grinned at him. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of Halloween.”
He scowled. “The holiday itself? No. That robotic witch pulling my head off as I walk past it? Maybe a little.”
The music thumped louder as we reached the house, lights already glowing through the windows and people spilled out onto the porch, cups in hand, laughter echoing into the night.
I followed the guys inside, looking around with some interest. We had plenty of parties at school, hidden away in the basements of dorm rooms and out in the woods where teachers never spotted us, but this was the first one I’d come to off-campus.
I didn’t realize that I was expecting something completely insane and different to the ones we had until I looked around and realized it was exactly what I expected.
The house was huge and had an open-floor concept, which meant there were people everywhere I looked.
From the outside, the house looked lit up but now that I was in here, I realized it wasn’t overhead lighting but rather a mix of multicolored disco balls and some string lights slung haphazardly around.
As we stumbled inside, I passed a group of footballers chugging drinks as onlookers cheered, followed by a group of boys struggling through a song on Guitar Hero.
They were playing terribly, but all of them looked like they were really into it as they head banged and had girls screaming lyrics into a fake microphone next to them.
One of the girls by the microphone made eye contact with me and gave me a flirtatious wave. I smiled back at her but before I could even consider walking in her direction, Mako grabbed my head and physically turned it toward another corner of the room.
“What are you—oh.”
Her back was to me but there was no mistaking that it was Lilah standing by the patio doors, laughing along to something Poppy was saying. My feet were carrying me over to her before I realized what I was even doing and more importantly, what she was wearing.
The purple dress she’d picked out this afternoon. Rapunzel. The matching costume to mine.
This has to be a sign.