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  The card was simple and white, but the message inside was anything but:

  I know you think that I’m a guy who always breaks a rule.

  But to deny you red roses on Valentine’s day, I’d have to be a fool.

  Please don’t expect a lot more verse from your nonpoet boyfriend,

  Just wanted to give you a romantic day from its beginning to its end.

  Can’t wait to see you tonight.

  —A

  For the first time in my life, I was almost glad that my family wasn’t around. If they’d seen me blush this hard over a love note from a boy, they never would have let me live it down.

  By the time I met up with Alex after school, I’d stopped blushing and was just really excited to hang out with him. It had been such a long, fun, busy week of friends and fix-ups and dance coordinating, but now I was ready to dedicate my entire night to my valentine.

  He’d left me a message to be dressed and ready to hit the town at seven o’clock, but at a quarter to seven, I was just getting around to wrapping the gift I’d rush-ordered online earlier this week. Five minutes later, I zipped up my brand-new soft pink flapper-style cocktail dress, and at six fifty-nine, I was smacking on my signature Chanel lip gloss. I had never been so punctual, but Alex always was, so I wasn’t surprised when the doorbell rang just as I was blotting my lips with a tissue.

  I dashed down the stairs and flung open the door. Alex had never looked better. He was wearing a dark gray Calvin Klein suit, a light pink button-down, and these really unique Euro-style black loafers.

  “Whoa,” we both said at the same time, taking in each other’s outfits.

  “I love your shoes,” I said.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, stepping inside and looking around. “Do you still have the house to yourself?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, wondering what he had in mind.

  “Good.” Alex turned around and picked up two hefty paper bags from Zabar’s. “Point me toward your kitchen. I’m making us a Valentine’s feast.”

  “Be gentle.” I laughed, thinking about all the take-out food our house had seen in the past few months. “This room doesn’t get a whole lot of use.”

  But as I led him back into our kitchen, I was secretly thrilled that he’d put more energy into planning our date than just making a reservation at some fancy restaurant. Things were already off to a really romantic start.

  As it turned out, Alex was a real pro in the kitchen, which I added to the list of things that made him incredibly attractive. While he unloaded the groceries, I got to work picking out the music. Luckily, I had Morgan’s latest mix on my computer, so I didn’t have to play my typical embarrassing lineup of American Idol tunes.

  “Do you like Al Green?” I called from the stereo in the living room.

  “Are you kidding? Al Green invented the love song. He is soul.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I laughed, pumping up the volume on the speakers. “Can I help you make dinner?” I asked, even though I hardly recognized most of the food Alex was unloading on my counter.

  “Definitely,” he said. “Do you know how to make aioli?”

  “A-what-i?”

  Alex kissed me and handed me a head of garlic and an apron. “Here,” he said, laying down a cutting board. “I’ll show you.”

  He wasn’t kidding. For the next forty-five minutes, Alex showed me how to turn olive oil, an egg, and some garlic into the most amazing dip I had ever tasted. While I sliced the City Bakery baguette and some farmers’ market veggies for the dip, Alex pan-fried an entire fish, filling the kitchen up with incredible smells of rosemary and sage.

  By eight-fifteen, we were sitting down to a huge spread of amazing-looking food. It was the most romantic and intimate meal of my life—everything was so perfect that it almost made me nervous.

  “Is something wrong?” Alex asked. “Did I overcook the fish?”

  “Not at all,” I said, taking a bite of trout as proof. “Everything is perfect.”

  “Just wait,” he said. “There’s more.”

  “You always say that.” I laughed.

  “And don’t I always come through?”

  By the time we finished eating, I was ready to give Alex my gift. But right when I stood up to excuse myself and run upstairs, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Alex said. Before I could protest, he was opening up the front door to let in a small man wearing black yoga pants and a black button-down shirt.

  “Flan,” Alex said, registering the very confused look on my face. “This is Paco. He’s the best salsa teacher at Broadway Dance.”

  “No way,” I gasped, guessing at what he was about to say.

  Alex nodded. “I know you’re always talking about how fun it’d be learn salsa, so I thought this might be a good time for a private lesson.”

  Paco stuck out his hand and looked at me seriously. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Flood. I hope you’re ready to sweat.”

  Paco wasn’t kidding. For the next hour and a half, he made us work up a pretty continual glow. Alex had some natural moves, but I was, embarrassingly, a little bit of a klutz. I kept tripping over my own feet and making Alex stumble with me. Alex thought it was pretty funny—Paco, not so much.

  “Eyes up,” he kept yelling at me. “What’s with the elephant feet! Are you even listening to the music?”

  Some girls might have gotten frustrated, but the tough love was good for me. By ten o’clock, I could make it through one whole dance routine without making either Alex or myself fall down.

  At the end of our lesson, Paco turned to Alex. “She worried me at first—but she really stuck with it. I like it.”

  Alex laughed. “Well, thank you. I like it too.”

  After we showed Paco to the door, I turned to Alex. “Thank you so much,” I said. “I knew I was going to have fun no matter what we did, but this, I’ll never forget.”

  “Hopefully we won’t forget the moves either. I was thinking, if we want to show off our skills at the dance tomorrow night, we might need to practice one more time. Are you free in the afternoon?”

  I reached for my planner on the mantel. I was learning—finally—to check my calendar before I made commitments. And it was a good thing that I did.

  “Oh, I can’t,” I told Alex. “I’m stuck doing setup for the dance. I missed the committee meeting the other day, so it’s Willa’s form of punishment,” I explained. “But it’s actually going to be fun, because all the girls are going to come and help out.”

  “Ah, girl time, I get it,” Alex said, looking disappointed. “They say you’re not supposed to get jealous of your girlfriend’s girlfriend time—”

  “You,” I said, putting my arms around him in the doorway, “have absolutely no reason to be jealous of my girlfriends. Practically all we do these days is gush about our boys. As soon as you show up at the dance,” I promised, “I’ll be all yours.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said. We kissed good night and I watched Alex walk down the steps.

  It was only after I had shut the door that I realized I’d completely forgotten to give Alex his Valentine’s Day present!

  Chapter 22

  DO A LITTLE DANCE, SHED A LITTLE TEAR, STORM OUT TONIGHT

  Luckily, I’d get the chance to give Alex his gift less than twenty-four hours later. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he opened it. By Friday afternoon, the little wrapped box was tucked in my oversize Chanel trunk—the only thing I owned big enough to cart around the five formal dresses I’d scored from Jade Moodswing.

  When I’d texted the girls last night to meet me at the Rainbow Room to set up two hours before the dance—and to agree to let me dress them—not one of them had put up a fight. I felt reassured by their complete fashion trust. Hopefully it meant that they were feeling equally as confident about the dates I’d found for them.

  To help us get in the setup mood, we’d blared cheesy romance songs—fighting over wh
ether to listen to another Jake Riverdale song (Camille) or to Donovan (Morgan)—and we ordered in sushi from Onigashima. Morgan and I hung all the black-and-white blown-up prints that our photography class had taken, while Amory and Harper blew up balloons. Everything looked so picture-perfect, I was almost glad Willa had threatened to smear my reputation if I didn’t show up to handle the grunt work. Popping the final spicy tuna roll in my mouth and surveying our finished product, I realized that the grunt work had actually been really fun.

  “Okay, Flan,” Camille said, straightening a matted print of the Hudson River Park that Morgan had taken. “That’s the last of the romantic photo decorations. Now can we please see our Jade Moodswing dresses?”

  “Please,” all the other girls echoed.

  They started oohing and ahhing before I’d even unlocked the trunk. And when I pulled out the first dress—a deep sapphire floor-length gown, all four of them started screaming.

  “I was thinking this one for Harper,” I said, holding up the dress against her skin. “To accentuate her dramatic clavicles.”

  “Perfect,” Morgan agreed. “She is so the muse of Trevor’s dreams.”

  For Morgan, I pulled out a puffy, tea-length gown in a pretty shade of rose quartz. “Jade called this one the New Love dress,” I said. I’d picked it for Morgan, my ex-bitter friend who’d spent all week forwarding me cute texts from Bennett. It was strange, because I’d never really seen that side of him, but I quickly shrugged that off, just happy that Morgan had found someone to get excited about.

  As for Camille, all day she’d been a little blasé about her date with Saxton, but once I pulled out the dramatically sleek, backless emerald silk dress, there was no denying the excitement on her face.

  “Okay, this just made everything worthwhile!” she said, hugging me, then rushing to slip into the dress.

  Finally, for Amory, I doled out an amber-colored gown with a keyhole neckline. “Sheesh,” she said, fanning herself when she saw it. “Is it hot in here, or is it my dress?”

  Good—that was the reaction I’d been going for. Of all my girls, Amory was the only one I was slightly worried about. She’d totally dismissed the idea of any of Feb’s Aussie model friends, claiming Phil to be her one and only valentine. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to confess everything to her, so my new plan was to quit stressing, keep my distance from Phil, and find Amory a dress that Phil wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off of. At least the dress part of the plan was taken care of. …

  “That’s it,” I said happily. “Is everyone satisfied with her couture?”

  “Absolument!” Camille said, crossing her legs à la Jade Moodswing. “But why are you holding out on us? We need to see your gown immédiatement.”

  When at last I slipped into the brilliant opal ball gown, all my friends stopped fastening their own dresses to applaud. I loved that it fit me so well that I didn’t even need a zipper.

  “It’s perfect,” Harper said. “Alex is totally going to flip.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said, glancing down at my watch. “Speaking of which—he should be here any minute. In fact, all of our dates should. I’m going to go downstairs and wait for mine.”

  I tucked Alex’s gift under my arm and took the looong elevator ride back down to earth. I couldn’t wait to see him.

  But apparently I was going to have to.

  Ten minutes passed and he still wasn’t there. Just before seven, several limos full of my formally clad classmates started showing up—including Sally, formerly known as Simone, formerly known as SBB. She was flying solo—I guess JR would have blown her cover—but she still arrived in the car with Willa and Kennedy.

  As I tried not to fume, we exchanged icy stares as she passed. The vibe between us was as frigid as the weather, and neither one of us wanted to make the first thaw-out gesture.

  Twenty minutes passed.

  Standing alone on the curb in the freezing wind, I greeted Trevor and Saxton and even said a quick downward-gazing hello to Phil, who seemed to be avoiding my eyes too.

  Still no Alex. Where was he? I’d left my phone in my bag, but it was all the way upstairs, and I didn’t want to cross paths with him in the elevator if he showed up in the meantime.

  I felt a familiar hand on my arm. Finally.

  “There you are,” I said, turning around.

  Whoops—it wasn’t Alex. It was Bennett.

  I couldn’t help it—my heart picked up. What was wrong with me?

  “I was wondering,” he said awkwardly. Uh-oh, was he going to ask me something about … us? Gulp.

  “Have you seen Morgan?” he finally stammered.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sure, she’s upstairs, I think—”

  “Great, I’ll go find her.”

  Just then a giant gust of wind knocked loose one of the primary bobby pins in my updo, and my formerly intricate braided bun came cascading down my shoulders. I was still holding Alex’s present and didn’t want to lose it in this wind, but I also didn’t want to lose that bobby pin!

  “Bennett,” I called to him. “Can you help me? Just grab that bobby pin before it blows away?”

  Bennett reached toward me as another gust of wind blew my hair all into my lip gloss. I hated that.

  “Oh no,” I said, trying to spit it out. “Help!”

  “I’m trying,” he said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. When he finally got it under control, I had spit all over him and he was holding my hair up in a mass above my head with both his hands. Our eyes met and we both started laughing.

  An angry throat-clearing noise from behind us broke our moment.

  Whoops. It was Morgan, and her face looked about as flushed as her gown.

  “So it’s true,” she said. “I just overheard Sally talking about how the two of you used to date! Now I come downstairs to this scene? Nice matchmaking, Flan.”

  “Morgan, wait—” Bennett called, running after her.

  It was then that I spotted Alex, who had picked the most inopportune instant of all instants to show up.

  “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I feel like such an idiot. Last night you were telling me how I shouldn’t be jealous of the time you spent with your girlfriends. You didn’t mention that I needed to watch out for your ex-boyfriends.” He turned back to his town car and opened the door.

  “Alex—it’s not what you think!” I called, but he was already inside the car.

  “I don’t really feel like dancing anymore,” he said, rolling up the window and driving away.

  I was devastated. I looked down at the present I’d been holding out to give him—the very box that had caused this whole mix-up with Bennett and this stupid windstorm in the first place.

  I couldn’t believe that in thirty seconds, so much had fallen apart. I could either chase Alex’s car down the street in my heels (not likely), or I could race upstairs to get my phone to call him—while simultaneously convincing Morgan that what she’d seen just now was so not what it had seemed.

  After what felt like a year, I finally made it to the top floor and stepped back into the Rainbow Room. I couldn’t even appreciate how elegant the place looked or how many of my fellow classmates were totally kicking it on the dance floor. I grabbed my bag from where I’d left it behind the bar and headed toward the ladies’ bathroom. If I knew Morgan, she’d be there.

  When I swung open the door, Morgan was there (like I expected) crying (also like I expected) but she was flanked (unexpectedly) by Amory and Harper, who looked really pissed off.

  Geez, the rumor mill must have been working faster than the elevator.

  “Morgan—you have to believe me, nothing is going on with me and Bennett. It’s so obvious that he’s crazy about you.”

  “And it’s so obvious that it drives you crazy. If you were over him, you would have told me that you guys had a history.”

  I looked to Amory for backup. She was always the voice of reason when my other friends got overdramatic. But she had daggers
in her eyes for me as well.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “You made such a big deal about picking the perfect dates for us all. If mine was so perfect, why did he ditch me for your friend Sally?”

  “What?” I asked, my head spinning with the latest development.

  “Trevor’s been all over Sally too,” Harper huffed. “It’s hard for us to see how you didn’t have a hand in all of this.”

  “You guys aren’t being fair,” I pleaded. “Where’s Camille?”

  “She bailed,” Harper said. “She thinks Saxton is totally boring and superficial. Is that the kind of guy you think is deserving of your friend?”

  Looking at the three of them splayed out on the bathroom floor, part of me wanted to grovel at their feet, make up for this whole mess, and get their advice on how to dig myself out of trouble with Alex. The other part of me was furious.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “I have spent every waking minute of the last two weeks trying to make you guys happy—so we could all have a fun time tonight. I went through multiple Rolodexes for you guys. I hauled a giant trunk of couture across town so you could look fabulous tonight. I’ve been wearing myself to the bone for you all and this is how you repay me?”

  The girls looked at one other and started to stand up and gather their things. “Don’t bother storming out on my account,” I said, ready to make an exit myself. “I’ll save you the trouble.”

  Chapter 23

  WHAT’S A PITY PARTY WITHOUT PIZZA?

  After a long, sleepless night, I lay in bed early Saturday morning, listening to the rain. I was feeling really low. I knew it couldn’t have all been a bad dream, because I’d been tossing and turning all night. And when the doorbell rang this time, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a flower delivery from Alex again.

  After a few more insistent rings of the bell, I grudgingly climbed out of bed and headed down the stairs.

  “Whoever this is had better have a really good excuse,” I muttered under my breath.