“All I’m saying is that he’s cute,” Paige said with a sheepish shrug.

“And all I’m saying is that you should go for it,” Sophie told her, taking a piece of pizza from the box that was resting on my dresser. “Because he’s cute and he seems nice, I guess.”

“I’m with Sophie on this one,” I added. “Ethan is pretty cool. I’ve only met him a few times but he does seem pretty nice.”

“You’re outvoted,” Sophie informed Paige.

“I appreciate that, but my love life isn’t a democracy so just drop it,” She mumbled. “We still haven’t heard details on your date with Carter, so why don’t we talk about that now?”

We’d decided that since we didn’t have school or practice on Tuesday that we’d have a girls night on Monday night and invite all of the MVPs, keeping it small. This included me, Sophie, Paige, Aster, and Anna. Since I’ve gotten with Carter and Sophie was always with Andy, and now Paige had a crush on Ethan, Carter’s friend, we wanted to make sure that we weren’t getting too boy crazy. And since Aster was the other center with Sophie, they were good friends and decided to tag along as well. As for Anna, I saw her around the house a lot but we never really got the chance to talk or get to know each other all that much so I invited her too. We’d ordered pizza and made popcorn and ate ice cream and we’d watched a lot of movies and then we’d succumbed to talking about boys. Oh the joy.

“She’s right, we haven’t,” Aster agreed with Paige. “And I’m kinda dying to know what kind of date Carter pulled out of his ass.”

“I don’t think he really pulled it out of his ass, it seemed really thought out,” I said with a small shrug. “Anyway, we went to this corn field thing and we had dinner. It sounds really ridiculous but it was actually insanely romantic and it was awesome. The food was like, five star restaurant stuff and then after dinner, we kind of just danced around in the field and it was really nice.”

“So are you two really official?” Sophie wondered eagerly. “Like, boyfriend and girlfriend and all of that fun stuff?”

“No,” I sighed and all four of the girls sitting around me deflated just a bit. “But he’s taking me on a second date this weekend so there’s still hope yet. I want to take things slow and Carter’s okay with that.”

“Ugh. Slow is so boring,” Sophie whined and we all looked at her incredulously.

“You are aware that you and Andy started out slow and look at you now. It seemed to work out for you two,” Paige reminded her, saying what we were all thinking.

“I didn’t say that it was a bad idea, I’m just saying that it’s boring,” She said with a roll of her eyes.

“I think that slow is good,” Anna spoke up. “That way you know what you’re getting into before you jump right into something. That’s how it went with Tommy and me, we went pretty slowly at the beginning and I think that it was better in the long run.”

“See? Slow is fine,” I said to Sophie. “My past experience has made me incredibly hesitant when it comes to the male species so moving slow with things is really the only way that I’ll be able to do this.”

“Are you talking about Will?” Paige asked me curiously.

“No, before Will,” I shook my head. “My mom had a lot of creepy boyfriends.”

“How creepy?” Aster wondered. “Like, they just look at you weird or trying to peek at you in the shower type of creepy?”

“Well, I had to sleep with a baseball bat under my bed,” I supplied awkwardly, taking a handful of the bowl of popcorn sitting to my right. “That kind of creepy. I mean, I know that not all guys are like that and I know that Carter isn’t like that but I don’t know, I can’t help but be just a bit hesitant.”

“That’s understandable,” Anna agreed with me, nodding and I think that they could all sense that I didn’t really feel like elaborating anymore on the subject because they didn’t ask about it anymore.

“Totally,” Sophie agreed with a nod. “Now, we need to talk about something very serious that is coming up.”

“And what would that be?”

“Homecoming,” She announced. “It’s not very far away and we still have to go dress shopping. I mean, me and Maddie have our dates but Paige still has to ask Ethan and Aster… we just need to get Aster a date altogether. There is so much to do before the dance.”

“I was actually planning on skipping the homecoming thing,” I admitted hesitantly and the look that Sophie gave me after that made me regret my decision to speak up at all.

“Are you insane? You have to go! I’m going to be on the ballot for Homecoming Queen and not only that but it’s going to be so much fun. Come on, Maddie, have you ever been to a homecoming dance?” Sophie asked me with raised eyebrows.

“I went to my freshman winter formal,” I nodded and then internally winced at the awful memory. I’d went with a guy in my math class only because he asked me and I didn’t want to be rude and say no. But then, when we got to the dance, he’d abandoned me by the DJ to go make out with his ex-girlfriend in the broom closet. That level of humility is absolutely traumatizing and it put me off of school dances for about the rest of my life. “And it kind of ruined the whole ‘school dance’ thing for me.”

“Madison,” Sophie deadpanned. She meant business. “You can’t miss homecoming. Seriously.”

“You aren’t going to win this one,” Paige mumbled to me and Aster shook her head in agreement with Paige. Anna sent me a sympathetic look. Apparently when it came to homecoming, I was powerless to Sophie’s stubbornness.

“Fine,” I eventually relented when it became obvious how much this really meant to her. “I guess it could be fun.”

“Yes, it’ll be a blast,” She assured me, a grin widening on her dainty features. “I promise that you’ll just have the best time of your life. And you’ll look totally hot because we’ll just get the cutest dresses ever.”

“I have no money,” I reminded her. “I can’t afford to buy a homecoming dress.”

“Have you tried asking Tom for money?” Anna wondered. “Because I’m sure he wouldn’t mind paying for your dress.”

“No, I couldn’t ask him to do that,” I shook my head. I mean, this man had brought me in when even my own mother had abandoned me and he gave me an amazing room to stay in, he fed me amazing food. I couldn’t just ask him for money just to buy a stupid dress. “That’s just too much.”

“It is not. Do you know how rich that man is? There’s a reason that he’s a workaholic and it’s because he brings in so much money. Seriously, it doesn’t hurt to ask,” Anna shrugged. “No matter what dress you buy, it won’t even begin to put a dent into his bank account.”

“I’m sure I’ll find something in my closet,” I lied. I really didn’t have any homecoming-worthy dresses so maybe I could borrow one of Sophie’s or Paige’s old dresses or something. I had a feeling that I’d lose this argument too though, so I just dropped it for the time being. “Anyway, when exactly is homecoming?”

“Just in a few weeks,” Paige supplied. “It really will be fun.”

“It’ll be even more fun if you ask Ethan to go with you,” Sophie sang teasingly, poking Paige in the cheek as if that would add emphasis to her claim.

“I’m not going to ask Ethan.”

“What if Ethan asked you?” Aster wondered. “Would you say yes?”

“Yeah,” Paige nodded, not even having to think about her response which kind of made us all laugh but Paige just scowled at us. “But I’m not going to ask him. I’m too much of a chicken.”

“That’s understandable,” I confirmed before Sophie could push her into talking to Ethan about homecoming. “It can be scary. But don’t get psyched out just because you think that the guy has to ask the girl. If you really don’t want to ask him, that’s fine, but don’t let her gender be the reason why.”

“Wow. That’s actually really good advice, Maddie,” Anna said, seemingly surprised by what I just said.

I chuckle and then shrug. “It’s what I do.”

Everyone fell asleep at about the same time, around one in the morning, except for me. We were in the middle of watching some action movie so I finished watching that from where I was sitting on the edge of my bed. Paige and Sophie were sleeping next to me on the bed while Anna and Aster had made beds on the floor although I had reminded them that there were guest rooms and Anna could have snuck into Tommy’s bed just down the hall. This was a girls night though, they’d claimed, and we all had to sleep in the same room. I obviously knew nothing about the subject matter, so I didn’t argue with them.

However, even after the movie had ended, I wasn’t all that tired and I didn’t want to do anything in my room that could wake up any of the girls so I decided to get out of the room and maybe go find Carter or at least something to do until I felt tired enough to return to the room and go to sleep.

Walking down the hallway, I didn’t hear any noise coming from Carter’s room and there was no light from under the door so I assumed he was asleep and I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed about that.

However, when I turned and walked in the other direction down the hallway, I started hearing some loud noises coming from the hallway beside this one. Curious to see what the noise was coming from and followed it to a room with the door slightly ajar. I almost knocked but I heard Andy’s familiar bellowing laugh on the other side and then just nudged the door open a bit more.

In the room, I could see Andy, Carter, Will, Tommy, Ethan, and two guys that I didn’t recognize sitting around a large poker table, obviously playing poker, and they were talking very animatedly. I assumed that they were a little drunk considering the volume of their voices and the fact that they all had beers at the table. Except for Carter, I noticed, who was drinking water.

“Maddie!” Andy cheered when he noticed me standing in the doorway of the room. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you were having a girls’ night or whatever,” Will added but paying most of his attention to the poker game. I had no idea what was going on considering I had no idea how to play poker, but since they saw me there, my cover was blown so I just walked all the way into the room, instinctively going over to stand beside Carter’s chair.

“I did. Everyone fell asleep,” I told them. “Too exhausted from the naked pillow fights, I suppose.”

“Videotaped, I hope,” Andy grinned at me.

“I’m afraid not,” I told him, wondering if he could tell that I was just joking or not. I was too afraid to ask. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your guy time though, I’ll go back to the estrogen side of things.”

“I’ll go with you,” Carter offered. “We can go for a walk or something.”

“Dude, we’re in the middle of a game,” Ethan protested when Carter started to get out of his seat.

“Carter, you can stay. Really, it’s fine. We can talk in the morning,” I assured him, not wanting to be the reason that he’s leaving his friends.

“We’re not playing poker,” Carter told him. “None of us even know how to play poker. We’re literally just saying ‘fold’ and throwing chips into the center of the table.”

“That’s how you play poker,” Ethan said as one of the strangers that I didn’t recognize took an intimidatingly large swig of his beer and then threw some red chips into the center of the table which was already piled high with poker chips.

“I’ll be back soon,” Carter said instead of trying to argue with his intoxicated friend. He took me by the hand and then led me out of the poker room, not slowing down until we were in another secluded hallway.

“That seemed like fun,” I supplied with a small laugh.

He shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I was just the last one awake so I wanted to see what you were up to. Which is apparently pretending to play poker.”

“I’m not up to anything anymore,” He told me, kissing my cheek. “How was your night?”

“It was… interesting,” I suggested. “No naked pillow fights though.”

“That’s a major disappointment,” He joked. “Don’t tell Andy though, you really got his hopes up.”

“I think he’ll live,” I muttered softly.

“Did you talk about me?” He wondered with a playful smirk.

“We talked about a lot of things,” I shrugged, easily avoiding his question. “Why? Did you talk about me?”

He shrugged, mimicking me. “We also talked about a lot of things.”

“That’s not fair.”

“That’s completely fare,” He grinned.

“You can’t use my own answer against me,” I told him with a playful scowl.

“Of course I can,” Carter said. “It doesn’t say that I can’t in the rulebook.”

“What rulebook?” I leaned against the wall behind me, crossing my arms over my chest.

“The hypothetical relationship rulebook,” He explained, flashing me his knee-weakening grin once again.

“I wasn’t aware of the fact that we were in a relationship,” I told him, a blush creeping onto my cheeks. “I thought we were just going on a few dates.”

“Well, we aren’t yet,” He shrugged, stepping closer to me so that he was only about a foot away. I felt weak and pressed myself tighter against the wall so that I was sure that I wouldn’t pass out. “But once I sweep you off of your feet with our second date, you’ll be so hopelessly in love with me that you’ll have no choice but to agree to be my girlfriend.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumbled, still blushing. “About the hopelessly in love part.”

“Alright,” He conceded. “That’s fair. Maybe that’ll come after the third date. I’ll even wait until the fourth if I must. But the girlfriend part still stands true.”

I couldn’t hold back a laugh and I teasingly rolled my eyes at him. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Dude, Tommy just went all in. HE’S ALL IN,” Ethan shouted at Carter from the end of the hallway. “You have to see this.”

Carter glared at his friend for a moment until Ethan disappeared again, going back into the poker room, and then Carter turned and looked at me with indecision written on his face.

“Go ahead,” I encouraged him. “I’m feeling kind of tired now anyway so I’ll just head back to bed.”

“Wish I could come,” He teasingly grinned at me and my blush fired up again.

“Shut up.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Maddie.”

He ducked down and pressed his lips to mine for a quick kiss- I blinked and then it was over.  And then he was gone.