Josh - 17 years old
. . .
I’m seventeen, months away from being eighteen, sweating through a rented tux that smells like the inside of a plastic bag, standing in Kait’s driveway while her dad sizes me up like I’m about to rob a bank.
The corsage in my hand is wilting faster than my confidence, but then the front door opens and Kait steps out in this midnight-blue dress that hugs every curve I’ve spent the last six months memorizing in stolen glances during calc.
The porch light catches on the tiny sequins, and for a second I forget how to breathe.
“Jesus, Jamison,” I manage, voice cracking like a middle-schooler. “You trying to kill me?”
She laughs—God, that laugh—and does a little spin, the skirt flaring just enough to make my palms sweat harder.
“You clean up okay yourself, Surfer boy.” She’s been calling me that since Freshmen year when I showed up to a pool party in board shorts, sunglasses, and flip-flops in forty-degree weather.
Tonight I’m in black, bow tie crooked, hair gelled into submission.
I feel like a fraud, but the way she’s looking at me—like I’m the only guy on the planet—makes me stand taller.
Her mom snaps approximately four hundred photos while her dad mutters something about curfew and “hands where I can see them.” Despite the fact that we’ve been dating since we were fifteen.
I nod like a bobblehead, slide the corsage onto Kait’s wrist, fumbling the elastic twice, and finally we’re free, tumbling into my beat-up Jeep Wrangler with the top off because I’m an idiot who thinks April in Vermont is convertible weather.
The drive to the high school gym is twenty minutes of pure teenage electricity.
Kait’s bare shoulder brushes mine every time I shift gears as she leans on the middle console between us; the radio’s blasting some overplayed Ed Sheeran song that I secretly love because she does.
She’s got one foot up on the dash, humming off-key, wind whipping her hair into my face.
I don’t even mind the strands in my mouth.
I’d eat her hair if it meant keeping this moment.
Inside the gym, the prom committee has gone full Titanic: paper lanterns, fake stars dangling from the rafters, a fog machine that smells like burnt plastic.
We pose for the obligatory photo—my arm around her waist, her hand on my chest—and the second the flash pops I lean in and whisper, “You owe me a real dance later. None of this side-to-side middle-school sway.”
She smirks. “Only if you promise not to step on my toes.”
The first slow song hits and I drag her to the floor before she can protest. My hands find her waist like they were custom-made for the spot; hers slide up to my shoulders.
We’re swaying, but it’s more like orbiting—close enough that I can feel her breath on my neck, the heat of her skin through the thin fabric.
The gym lights dim to purple, and suddenly it’s just us, the bass thumping in my ribs like a second heartbeat.
“You know,” I murmur into her hair, “I had this whole plan to spike the punch with the vodka I swiped from my dad’s cabinet.”
She pulls back just enough to arch a brow. “And?”
“And I chickened out when I saw Principal Manning doing the Macarena with Mrs. Jenkins. Figured I’d rather not get expelled two months before graduation.”
“Smartest thing you’ve done all year,” she teases, fingers playing with the hair at my nape. Goosebumps. Everywhere.
We dance through three more songs—fast, slow, doesn’t matter. Beth photobombs us with bunny ears; Jack tries to cut in and I hip-check him into Micah. Kait’s laughing so hard she snorts, which makes me laugh harder, and suddenly we’re those obnoxious couples everyone hates but secretly wants to be.
By eleven the gym’s a sweatbox and the chaperones are circling like sharks. I grab Kait’s hand. “Come on. Adventure awaits.”
She doesn’t ask where. Just kicks off her heels, scoops them up, and follows me out the side exit into the crisp night.
The parking lot’s mostly empty, our breath fogging in the air.
I boost her into the Jeep—dress and all—and we peel out, windows down, radio cranked to some old-school hip-hop station I found by accident.
Twenty minutes later we’re at the quarry, the one the seniors have been sneaking to since the ’90s. Moonlight’s bouncing off the water like diamonds, and the air smells like pine, bad decisions, and possibility. I kill the engine, hop out, and spread a blanket I keep in the backseat.
Kait eyes the dark water, then me. “We are not skinny-dipping, Josh. It’s fifty degrees.”
“Water’s warm,” I lie, already toeing off my dress shoes. “Geothermal springs or something. Science.”
She snorts. “You failed science.”
“Details.” I’m down to boxers before she can argue, cannonballing in with a whoop that echoes off the rocks. The water’s a literal ice bath—my balls retreat into my throat—but I surface grinning. “See? Balmy!”
Kait’s on the blanket, arms crossed, but she’s smiling. “You’re insane.”
“Insanely in love with you,” I call, because apparently freezing water makes me poetic. Or stupid. Same difference.
She bites her lip, then—miracle of miracles—unzip the dress and lets it pool at her feet. She’s in this strapless bra and matching panties that make my brain short-circuit. Then she’s running, leaping, splashing in beside me with a shriek that turns into laughter when the cold hits.
We’re treading water, teeth chattering, but I pull her close and suddenly the temperature doesn’t matter.
Her legs wrap around my waist, arms around my neck, and we’re kissing like the world’s ending at midnight.
Water laps at our shoulders; her skin’s goosebumped but warm where we touch.
My hands slide down her back, tracing the line of her spine, and she makes this little sound that short-circuits every rational thought.
“Josh,” she whispers against my mouth, “we’re gonna freeze.”
“Worth it,” I mumble, kissing her again, deeper. We’re seventeen and invincible, convinced this is forever in the way only teenagers can be.
Eventually hypothermia wins. We scramble out, dripping and giggling, collapsing onto the blanket in a tangle of limbs.
I wrap us both in the spare hoodie I keep in the Jeep—UCLA, because even then I was manifesting—and we lie there staring at the stars, her head on my chest, with the blanket around us for additional warmth.
“Promise me something,” she says, voice soft.
“Anything.”
“When we’re old and boring, we’ll still do stupid stuff like this. Break rules. Be reckless.”
I lace my fingers through hers. “Deal. But only if you promise to keep wearing dresses that make me forget my own name.”
She laughs, presses a kiss to my jaw. “Deal.”
We stay until the sky starts to lighten, stealing kisses and whispers about college and apartments and a future that feels infinite.
I drive her home with the heat blasting, her bare feet on the dash again, my hoodie swallowing her whole.
When I walk her to the door, her dad’s porch light flicks on like a warning shot.
“Text me when you get home,” she says, standing on tiptoes to kiss me one last time.
“Aways,” I grin. “Love you.”
She mouths she loves me back, then disappears inside, and I float back to the Jeep, high on prom and possibility and the way she says my name like it’s a promise as certain the stars are ours to keep.