“Real helpful,” I scolded him, but he just ignored me and ate his dessert.
Hannah got closer, leaning on the chair blocking us. “I thought this party was going to suck,” she confided in me. Almost a secret but not because she had to say it loudly since there was music playing.
“Hey, your brother became a man today,” I reminded her. Loyalty and whatever. Being a man was important! Unless you weren’t a man. That was okay too.
“He’s a nerd.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hey, some of us like that,” I responded. The girls all giggled again, like I was doing that thing, being funny and dumb again. Yeah. Couldn’t blame them that time.
Ryan didn’t even respond to my defense of nerds, seemingly absorbed in his own dessert. My family ate chocolate cake too. Oh god, don’t start that. They were Jewish, not aliens, of course we’d have stuff in common.
“Finish your dessert, then come dance,” Hannah tried again. Girls would come and go now, dancing for a moment with everyone else and then drifting back towards us.
“Not a very good dancer,” I tried.
“I’ll teach you,” offered the girl with shiny shoes while the others agreed. Thank god they put those chairs in front of us or they’d be pulling me with them. Yeah, they were little and stuff, but there was a lot of them.
“You guys can have more fun without me.” I smiled innocently and looked over at Ryan; he could help me out here. He took that as invitation to grab my plate and eat my dessert. I wanted that!
“I don’t want to leave Ryan all by himself,” I told the girls. “He’s shy.”
Or at least he could pass for it at the moment. I couldn’t look at Ryan’s reaction to being called shy for the first time ever because then I’d ruin it and start laughing.
“Stacey can dance with Ryan,” Hannah volunteered.
Stacey didn’t agree. “I wanna dance with Luke!” she objected instantly.
“I asked him first,” the first girl told her friend fiercely, then smiled winningly at me.
“Let him pick who he wants to dance with.” No one or Ryan, please and thank you.
Except no one stopped to get my input.
This mini war started between the two girls. I was surprised Ryan didn’t seem to enjoy it more: two tween girls fighting over his man. They kept going back and forth, insistence growing. The song ended, but they didn’t seem to notice as they hadn’t come to an agreement yet.
“I’m dancing with Luke, you’re dancing with Ryan, and that’s that!” Hannah declared, hands on her hips.
“No way, Luke’s cuter!” Stacey yelled back, hands clutched into tiny fists.
And then there was pandemonium.
Stacey realized what she said out loud and wrapped her arms around herself and wouldn’t look at me. Everyone else was busy making as much noise as possible. Frantic squeals, some giggling, some whispering, some people trying to shush the rest. Stacey turned really red and wouldn’t look at me.
Hannah looked almost as embarrassed as her friend, laughing nervously, like she felt bad but didn’t know how to fix it. She motioned to me helplessly, silently asking me to fix it, which I already wanted to do anyway. Stacey accidentally saying the thing she didn’t want to say and then being totally mortified and wanting to die? Yeah, couldn’t help but be reminded of someone.
“Hey, Stacey, right?” I spoke gently, keeping my voice light. She hesitantly turned to me. “I would really like to dance with you, but I’ve caused enough trouble tonight.” I gave her a kind smile. “I’m just gonna stay here with Ryan and wait for Rabbi Lieberman to talk to us.”
That made the girl turn even redder, but she met my eyes with determination and said, “Now you’re even cuter.” She turned and scurried away. Hannah laughed, shocked and impressed, and went after her and the two of them started dancing to whatever song was playing now.
I looked at Ryan. He still looked bored, not really paying attention, but nodded. “Yeah, she’s my sprit animal or I’m hers,” he agreed tiredly.
“You’re not having a good time?” I asked the obvious. Tell me how to fix it.
“Party jail is everything I dreamed it could be, complete with children to laugh at us.” His eyes widened comically, like he misspoke. “Did I say dreamed? I meant nightmared.”
“They’re laughing atme.” An important difference.
He nodded. “Oh, I get why I should be enjoying it.”
