Prom night is finally here. Three girls will find that the biggest night of high school can also be the most surprising….

Haute Date by Dona Sarkar

Ashmita Montague has fallen for the perfect prom dress—but it’s way over her budget. How can she impress the school’s star athlete while wearing her mom’s hand-me-down Indian wedding dress? Then she gets creative and decides to revamp the dress with the help of her best friend Sebastian. A sudden unexpected chemistry takes Ash by surprise and makes her wonder if it’s time to make some major alterations to her love life, too….

Save the Last Dance by Caridad Ferrer

Peyton Chaffee’s wealthy parents won’t believe she’s serious about becoming a chef until she proves herself by working in the kitchen for a prestigious event…on prom night. They disapprove of her culinary ambitions and her boyfriend, Eddie. Is she ready to sacrifice one unforgettable night for a chance that could change her entire future?

Prom and Circumstance by Deidre Berry

Everyone knows that popular, pampered Aubrey Garrett is a shoo-in for prom queen. So, self-professed nerd Deanna Parker takes her own nomination as a joke. But with the entire school dividing into Team Aubrey or Team Deanna, competition is getting fierce fast, and there’s more at stake for each girl than just a glittering crown.

Prom

Ever After

Haute Date

Dona Sarkar

Save the

Last Dance

Caridad Ferrer

Prom and

Circumstance

Deidre Berry

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Haute Date

Save the Last Dance

Prom and Circumstance

Haute Date

Dona Sarkar

Dedication

To Bonnie Sarkar Grundtner: my baby sister and best friend,

for unconditionally and always being on my side. I can hardly believe the loyal,

beautiful woman you’ve become and I couldn’t be prouder of you.

Acknowledgments

There are so many people I need to thank and there is such precious little page space to do so! First and foremost, my amazing agent Elaine Spencer. You’ve been the one who’s always believed in me during this crazy publishing journey. Thank you for reading and re-reading every piece of every manuscript and contract like life depended on it. You’re an amazing woman. To Tara Gavin, Carly Silver and the Harlequin Kimani team…you guys are miracle workers. Thank you for believing in me!

To my incredible plotting (and gossiping!) group: Kelli, Carolynn and Lacey…you guys are the most talented and hilarious trio of women I’ve ever met. Thank you for nursing me back to writing!

To my wonderful around-the-world family for being there for me during the darkest and lightest days. I love you so much more than you’ll let me say. Thank you for embracing all the changes this year has brought! Thank you for letting me liberally borrow your personalities for my characters—you’ll find yourselves in this book more than ever!

To my team at work: Told you you’d end up in my novels! (Thank you for being the most wonderful group of people I could ever ask to work with—jackassery, karaoke and all!)

To my fabulous Seattle-crew: you guys are my “Lean-In” circle, you guys are my text-message-rant response team, you guys are what makes every single day beautiful. I never knew how loved I was. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

To Doug Watkins, I promise to make you fall in love with me every single day and yet still, I can never repay you for what you’ve given me.

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

One

“Nice scooter!”

Ash Montague ignored the male voice as she dismounted her Vespa and removed her helmet. She glanced up at the storefront located on the side of the historic Fairmont hotel that held the key to her happiness: a prom dress so stunning and so unique that it would hopefully knock Armstrong Jones out of his disinterested hipster mode...for good.

A wolf whistle followed.

Ash tended to draw a lot of attention around town when she went anywhere on her burgundy Vespa. People apparently weren’t used to seeing girls scooting around Seattle on little two-wheeled vehicles, especially while wearing dresses and ladybug-print helmets. “The expected was never memorable,” Ash’s glamorous globe-trotting grandmother, Glamma, had always said, and Ash stuck to that mantra as a tribute, even four years after her passing.

“Hey! I’m talking to you. Don’t be a bitch.” The voice was suddenly behind her.

Ash whirled around, startled. The voice had sounded like it was from across the street. She didn’t like that someone had sneaked up on her so quickly.

The guy had to be in his thirties. Gross. He was standing in front of her, way too close, trying to look casual, jeans ripped down both thighs, thumbs tucked into his back pockets. Behind him were a group of men and women, all in the same skinny jeans, all seeming to be waiting for a bus. All of them stopped typing on their phones and were now watching her to see what she would do next. None of them looked as though they were in any hurry to help.

Jerks.

“Oh!” Ash forced herself to smile. If he thought he was going to intimidate her, he was about to be surprised. “You want to show off for your friends! Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

The guy’s grin dropped for a millisecond, then the smirky expression returned. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone compliments you?”

Ash continued to smile sweetly as she reached into her purse and grabbed her cell phone. “I’m so sorry for my oversight. Let me give you my number.”

The guy looked pleased at this and turned around to make sure his audience was still rapt with attention.

They were.

“Smile!” Before he could react, Ash snapped a picture with her phone. “For my ‘pictures of pedophiles’ collection. You know, for that show with the undercover cops. There’s a bunch of them over there—” she head-gestured toward the Starbucks on the corner “—filming this right now. You’re about to be famous!”

The guy’s face changed in a second. Eyes widened, mouth dropped. In an instant, he was gone. She heard his footsteps as he skidded around the corner.

Ash blew out the breath she’d been holding—she hadn’t realized how scared she’d been till just then. She did a little curtsy for the audience at the bus stop. Most of them looked shocked; a few pantomimed applause.

That guy was not going to be messing with her—or any other girl—for a while. She hoped, anyway.

* * *

Ash’s apprehensive mood vanished as soon as she set foot inside Rebel Without a Dress. There was no longer a doubt in her mind that love at first sight was actually a thing. She reached out and paused, almost afraid to touch the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen. It was so perfect, it might simply disappear into thin air.

“Melanie, that is a customer who just came in. Don’t stand there like a mannequin. Greet her. Make yourself useful,” a sharp voice cut through the angels’ choir in Ash’s head.

Ash glanced over at the tall, basketball player–looking girl with a halo of frizz around her head who was the subject of the yelling. She looked familiar. Poor thing was now stumbling toward her after being dressed down by her boss, a pinched-nose, pale blonde woman who had a disgusted expression on her would-have-been-pretty face.

“Hi. Hi. Sorry I didn’t come over earlier. Can I help you?” the lanky girl asked breathlessly.

Ash smiled at her, feeling sorry for the girl for having such a nasty manager. She recognized Melanie as a sophomore who frequently loped through the hallways like an antelope, always with a surprised expression on her face. She was a cute girl and would be enviably graceful and willowy once she grew into her long limbs. Ash was always envious of tall people—the one thing she would never be able to accomplish.

Melanie grinned back as she watched Ash lift the hanger off the rack and hug it close. “Would you like to try it on?”

“I would like to marry it.” Ash twirled the orange silk dress around in the air. “God, it’s beautiful.”

“I’ll open you a dressing room. We only got that one in two sizes, the one you have there and...huge. I’ll make sure no one else gets to see it before you.”

Ash handed it over and made the rounds of the store, halfheartedly sorting through generic-looking dresses and accessories, occasionally stopping to make sure no one else was going into her dressing room. She was not letting the Dreamsicle, as she’d already deemed the dress, out of her sight.

“You’re going with Armstrong Jones, right?” Melanie was back at her side in an instant. “God, you’re so lucky. I love his blog. And his podcast. Is he really that funny?”

“Yes, he’s amazing.” Ash couldn’t help but feel smug. Yes, yes, yes, she was going with Armstrong Jones, their school’s star blogger and podcaster. His series on observations of society was so hilarious that local colleges had started asking him to blog for them, as well. Plus, he was incredibly hot in that skinny-on-purpose kind of way.

It had taken him four years to notice her. She was determined not to lose his interest on prom night, when his sensors would be in full gear looking for material for his blog. That gorgeous orange dress waiting for her in the dressing room would hopefully ensure that. She wanted the contents of his blog cynically recapping the prom to be vague because he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her the whole evening.

“Melanie! Why are you just standing there like a statue in the garden of good and evil? Bring her other options!” The painfully thin voice of Melanie’s boss barked more orders. “What is the matter with you? Move faster!”

Jeez, this manager was horrible. Plus, every time she screamed, Ash jumped as though she were committing a crime.

Before Melanie could start pushing things Ash didn’t want to see anyway, Ash charged straight toward the dressing room, pausing at the checkout counter where Melanie’s boss was poring over a catalog.

“I just wanted to say—” Ash gave the manager her sweetest smile “—I love that this store kind of just lets you shop. I hate when salespeople follow you around like you’re about to steal something. Or trying to make you buy tie-dyed Ugg boots or something to drive up commission. That’s so insulting.”

The blonde supervisor didn’t even look up from what she was reading.

“You should give Melanie a raise or something. She helped me find the best dress ever,” Ash prodded.

Still nothing.

Wow. Poor Melanie. This job must pay well, at least.

Ash shot a sympathetic glance at Melanie and she ducked into her dressing room. She was so excited to try on the dress that she started to shed her ’50s-style polka-dot dress into a ball even before fully closing the door behind her. She slipped the silky dreaminess of the Dreamsicle over her shoulders and watched it flutter to the ground.

It was lovely.

It made her look fun and regal at once—a difficult achievement when one was not quite five foot two inches, and in laceless Skechers at that. The color made her light olive skin glow. Her new Bettie Page bangs over her shoulder-length bob went elegantly with the dress’s strapless neckline.

The dress had a dropped-waist bodice and a hem that stopped at mid-thigh in the front. In the back was a long, drapey train that fluttered every time Ash moved. The Dreamsicle was a glorious tangerine peacock.

The pièce de résistance was a series of boomerang-shaped cutouts all up and down both sides that showed off Ash’s midsection, which she usually never thought much about. The ten years of tae kwon do her father had insisted on were finally paying off for something. Other than the defending of the small and nerdy, of course.

She couldn’t believe she actually felt...pretty. Not just “kind of cute.” But actually pretty. She almost squealed when she looked at her reflection again.

She quickly texted her neighbor and best friend, Sebastian, who’d accompanied Ash’s mom to the bookstore down the street. Mission accomplished. Come see. Bring Mom.

Ash did a spin to the latest beat pulsating through the dressing room and stared at herself some more. She wanted Armstrong Jones to look at her as though he was looking at a vintage record from 1970. Would this dress do the trick? She was sure she’d be the only girl at the prom in it.

For weeks, Ash had worried she wouldn’t find a dress that was cool, fun, unusual and most of all, unforgettable. All the things Armstrong was...and thought she was, too. She was not going to prove him wrong with some generic one-shoulder satin dress in an Easter-egg color.

Prom season was in full effect in Seattle, and every store in the city had its best selections out. Ash had purposely chosen Rebel Without a Dress, the most eclectic store in the downtown area, knowing most girls from her school didn’t even know the store existed, much less remembered it during prom season. It was hidden away behind Luly Yang, Seattle’s most famous couture dress boutique.

Armstrong hated mainstream things. And the Dreamsicle was the opposite of mainstream. She couldn’t believe she’d snagged the only one in her size.

Fate. Destiny. Perfection.

Ash whipped out a matte red lipstick and sharpened her Cupid’s bow.

Perfect. Her mother was going to be blown away.

Minutes later, Ash heard her mom’s telltale high-pitched English accent.

“Ash! Ash are you in here? Where are you, darling? I don’t see you!”

“Mom, in here!” Ash stuck her hand up in the air and waved, hoping Sebastian had come, too. This dress might need some convincing on the parental front due to the cutout situation. Sebastian was always good with her parents.

“Ashmitha!”

“Here!” She waved harder.

Ash heard peals of giggling from the dressing room next to her. Great. Witnesses. Embarrassment galore. At least the chances of their knowing her were slim.

“Mom! Seb! Seriously, you guys?” Ash stuck her head out from behind the door, wondering why this was so difficult. Her petite, dark-featured doppelgänger mother and tall, faux-hawked Sebastian stood right in front of the door, the complete odd couple. “Right here. I’m not deaf—you don’t need to yell.”

“Well, you don’t answer, love. And no one can hear anything over this atrocious music.”

Could she be any louder or more embarrassing? Ash hoped the girls who’d been giggling earlier couldn’t hear the conversation over the music.

Ash saw Sebastian stifling a laugh.

“Sebastian said you found a dress.”

“I did.”

“Will you do us the grand honor of showing it to us then? Or are we to figure out what it is by means of osmosis?”

“Mom! This. Is. Amazing. You’ll love it. Are you ready?”

Laila Montague did her own version of an eye roll. “Breathlessly.”

“Okay, be amazed.” Ash threw open the door with a hard bang.

Laila blinked as she looked over the dress top to bottom. Sebastian’s eyes widened.

“That’s...not good.” Her mother was not known for tact.

“What? The fact that it doesn’t already belong to me? You bet it’s not good.” Ash swirled the skirt around and around for effect, watching her reflection.

“No, the dress is horrid.”

Ash’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t be serious. The dress was amazing. She’d never seen anything like it before.

“Mom! You’re being mainstream again. Seb, tell her not to be judgmental.”

“Seb, tell Ash it’s not judgmental to speak the truth. It’s horrid. That color. Those...open parts.” She gestured vigorously at the cutouts. “Why is it so short in the front? Did they run out of material? We can buy them some more at Nancy’s Sewing Basket and fill in the rest.”

“Seb!” Ash implored. Her mother was on one of her rants and only Seb could make her see reason.

“Mrs. M, the dress is really...unusual. And it does make Ash look very...tall.”

“Sebastian, don’t fall prey to my daughter’s manipulation. You’re smarter than that.”

“Oh, Mrs. M. I’m staying neutral. Just showing a potential defense.”

Ash’s mother, a defense lawyer, raised an eyebrow at him.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Your dad. Smart man for staying home, that’s all I’ll say.”

Ash exhaled, her blunt-cut bangs blowing straight up in the air. This was not going well.

“No matter,” Laila continued. “I’m sure this shop is quite expensive. How much is this dress?” She attempted to reach for the price tag.

“Does perfection really have a price?” Ash twirled around again, trying to keep her voice low and herself out of her mother’s clutches. Everyone didn’t need to know they couldn’t afford anything. Plus, she hadn’t had a chance to check, she’d been so blown away at its beauty. “Just look at how amazing it is. How one of a kind. No one else will have this.”

“That’s for sure. You couldn’t pay me thirty-five dollars to wear that in public,” her mother said. “How much is it?”

Ash grabbed the price tag. “Perfection at the low price of...$799.”

Yikes. That was a lot more expensive than she’d thought it would be. This was about to get worse.

Her mother’s eyes widened. “For this dress? This unfinished, cutout spectacle?”

Even Sebastian looked surprised, but thankfully said nothing.

“I’ll help pay for it! I promise!” Though she had no idea how that was going to happen. The prom was less than a month away and she hadn’t had the forethought of having a paying job during the school year. She knew she should have charged for her tae-kwon-do instruction to the younger students!

“Ash, you’re not leaving this dressing room in this dress. It’s...vulgar.”

“Mumsie, please!” Ash tried the name she’d used to call her mother when she was younger. “I’ll pay you back every cent of the dress by the time the prom arrives. I’ll even put a down payment today!” She recalled having six dollars in her purse.

“Please change and let’s go straightaway. We won’t be able to afford anything in here. I’ve told you this before. Don’t look at me with that hurt-puppy expression, love!” And with that, Laila left the dressing room. Sebastian gave Ash a sorry look before trailing her mother out.

No. Ash stood hopelessly in the corridor. This was not happening.

“Harsh,” said a familiar voice. The dressing-room door next to Ash’s opened. Two girls from the soccer team came out, each with armloads of dresses.

There went the “no one knew about this store” theory.

“Wow.” Jessica Moriarty, the taller but less-pretty one pointed at the Dreamsicle. “I’d love to try that on if you’re not going to get it. That’s amazing.”

Ash’s cheeks burned. “I am going to get it.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jessica shrugged and giggled in her friend’s direction. “Maybe you can find something like it at a thrift shop or something. You know...vintage.”

Jessica didn’t mean it in a helpful way. The Montague family’s lifestyle had changed dramatically in the past year and, instead of shopping at Lululemon or Nordstrom like most of her friends, Ash had to resort to vintage scrounging at secondhand shops such as Crossroads Trading Co. and Red Light in Capitol Hill. She’d tried to do her best to make the full-skirted halter dresses, petticoats and sneakers look as deliberate as possible. At least they looked cute with her dad’s vintage scooter when she pulled into the school’s parking lot and always was able to park directly in front.

Though most people complimented her funky, offbeat style, Ash worried people were talking about her behind her back. Like Jessica, but actually discreetly.

Melanie appeared by Ash’s side as the two girls left, still giggling between them. “I’ll hide it for you. In the back. No one will know. Can you buy it by next weekend?” she whispered.

Ash shook her head and slammed the door before she started crying in front of Melanie. The Dreamsicle was the last one in her size... There was no way it would be there past the weekend, even if Melanie did her damn best to keep it safe for her.

Two

“Ash!”

Ash raised her head as she heard her mother’s voice from downstairs.

“Your ladyship, please come down here.”

She lay back down. She was never talking to Laila again. How could she have humiliated her in the store like that? In front of Jessica and that other girl. She was sure word of her mother yelling at her about being poor would get around school before lunchtime.

“Ashmitha, it’s a surprise. You will like it. It’s for your prom.”

Ash was out of her bed in three seconds. Her mother had gone back to Rebel and bought the dress. She knew it. She knew her mother couldn’t be so cruel as to deny her oldest daughter her only wish for her senior prom.

Ash flew down the stairs and came to a landing in the front hall, where her mother stood holding...not the Dreamsicle.

“What’s this? Where’s the dress?”

“This is.”

Ash looked over the boxy, beaded two-piece tunic and skirt. It was about the furthest thing from the dress possible. “What are you talking about?”

“I’d like you to wear this to your prom.”

Ash almost fell over. “What do you mean?”

“I told you you could go to the prom if you could keep within the hundred-dollar budget. Now you can. You will have extra money now for that nice dinner before.” Laila genuinely looked pleased with herself.

“Mom, that’s like some Indian costume. I can’t wear that out of the house, much less to the prom!”

Laila’s eyes narrowed. “This is not a costume. This is what I wore on the last day of my wedding. It was a gift from your Glamma.”

Ash’s heart hurt at the mention of her Glamma. She was the one who related to Ash the best and understood her desire for pretty, fun things. Ash still missed her every day.

“This lehenga is what you call a ‘vintage’ garment. It’s better than anything you’ll find at the store,” Laila added.

Oh, God, her mother was going to get all 1950s Indian on her. “Mom, I’m pretty sure even girls in India don’t wear these things to the prom.”

“There is no prom in India. Or in England where I was a girl.”

“No wonder you don’t understand. You really do want me to be a freak,” Ash muttered, hoping her mother wouldn’t hear, but also hoping she would.

“I’m telling you, at this rate and with your remarks, you are not going to your prom, either.” Her mother hung the dress on the coatrack in the front hallway and stalked past Ash. “I’m feeling quite regretful I’m even allowing you to spend money on a dress that you’ll wear exactly once!”

Ash knew she’d hurt her mother’s feelings, but she wasn’t going to be the laughingstock at school with some garish costume. It was bad enough that she wore someone’s old clothes every single day. Not for prom. She wouldn’t be a hand-me-down girl for the prom, too.

She heard the faint sounds of the television and a keyboard clicking.

“Dad!” Ash spun around into the living room.

“I heard nothing. I saw nothing.” Josh Montague was in his usual position, laptop on his lap, parked in front of the television, which played another rerun of Project Runway.

Her parents were polar opposites, and Ash thought it was a miracle that they’d even met, much less had been crazy-in-love married for twenty years. Ash loved telling her friends the story of charismatic Josh Montague, who had won a scholarship to study music abroad at the beautiful University of Granada in Spain. He had been in awe of his beautiful orientation leader on the first day: the no-nonsense Laila Ray.

Apparently, Laila had been a lifesaver for non-Spanish-speaking Josh, and he had promptly fallen in love with her and convinced her to take a train to Madrid with him for the weekend, and they had eloped before the semester was up. They’d spent a few years in London while Laila had gotten her law degree, and Josh had pursued computer science when he realized a music degree wasn’t going to take him too far in supporting his new bride.

Ash still couldn’t believe her practical lawyer of a mother had left England behind to follow Josh to Seattle so he could make his software dreams a reality. Till this day, he was the one who could charm her into anything.

“Dad, seriously. You need to talk to her. Where am I going to get a prom dress for a hundred dollars? And I’m not wearing that lehenga thingie.”

“I think it’s important for you to learn some negotiation strategies that don’t involve yelling,” a voice piped up knowingly from the corner of the room.

Ash shot a “get lost” look to Sonali, her little sister, who was in her usual position, hiding behind an easel that was bigger than her entire body. Ash caught a glimpse of Sonali’s face.

“What did you do to your hair?” she demanded. Her sister had some sort of tangled bird’s nest-looking hairdo on top of her head, very different from the satin sheet of black hair she’d left home with that morning.

Sona ducked back behind the easel out of Ash’s line of sight.

“You better tell me, Sona. Right now.”

Ash marched back to where Sona was hiding and grabbed her arm to make her stand. Gods. All of her hair was in a tangled, knotted mess. Ash couldn’t even get her fingers through a lock of it. It was like someone had superglued it into a knot.

“Ow, stop!”

“Who did this to you?”

“Let go!” Sona pulled away her arm and sat back down. “I did it myself.”

Ash glanced at her dad with an are-you-hearing-this look.

Josh shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me, either.”

“Tell me what happened.” Ash lowered her voice. “Did something happen at school?”

“I just wanted to do something different with my hair.” Sona was the worst liar in the world. “That’s not illegal.”

Bad enough that the eleven-year-old was some sort of artistic genius, but was also in the progress of becoming a bully’s target, apparently. The only person who was allowed to mess with her sister was her. Ash vowed to figure out who and why, and would resort to spying on her sister to do so.

“Let it go,” Josh murmured. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

Ash disagreed. Sona was like a timid baby deer outside the house... That was one of the main reasons their parents sent Sona to a very small private school for gifted artists.

“Why don’t you come to the mall with me? You’ll see what I’m talking about.” Ash turned her attention back to her father. “Please? Please, please, please? I’ll write the band’s next song.”

“Your mother’s the decision maker on this one, love. I’m sorry.”

“Next two songs.”

“No.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaad.”

“Some cheese with that whine?”

“Dad! Come on. Why don’t we have a gig and charge cover this weekend? We can play the new stuff. I swear I’ll learn it fast. We’ll earn enough for the dress in a night.”

The best thing about having Josh Montague home full-time was that there was more music in the house than ever before. He and Ash had started a band with a few other neighbors and were in the process of working on their first real set to play at the next neighborhood barbecue.

“I can pretty much assure you that giving people opportunities is more important than any dress. Ever.” Josh had that stern note in his voice, signifying that he was no longer playing.

Ash sighed. Of course that was true. She’d even come up with the idea to donate any gig money they made to the inner-city school Josh had grown up in.

Josh always said he owed his life to the music program at his high school. Many of his friends had ended up in juvie...or worse. Josh had spent his teenage years learning every instrument from piano to guitar to the French horn. He vowed to always give back whatever he could, whether it was a little or a lot.

It had been very little the past year due to the family’s financial situation. Josh had left his small tech company the previous year when it had started to go under. He’d been actively job hunting, but the opportunities were slim in an industry that was obsessed with kids out of college, not “people old enough to have kids in college.”

He’d spent the last year writing apps for phones to earn some income, while her mother’s law firm had been cutting out billable hours for the attorneys. Money had been tight on just her mother’s salary, especially considering Ash’s Seattle Academy tuition and Sonali’s specialized art school. The family’s lifestyle was far different from what Ash was used to...or from what all of her friends at school had.

Ash had heard her parents fighting—actually fighting—for the first time in her life over their financial worries. She understood their reasons for not wanting to spend a lot on the prom...but she knew she could find a way to pay her mother back for the dress if she only had a chance.

“Prom is a night when women are objectified. I think I’ll boycott mine,” the know-it-all piped up again, as if someone had asked for her opinion. “I’d rather give that money to an education program for young artists.”

“Quiet, or I’ll beat you, too,” Ash ordered.

“Don’t maul your sister. House rule number two,” Josh said automatically, without looking up from his laptop screen.

“You actually went to the prom, Dad.” Ash directed her tantrum at her father. “How much did your date’s dress cost? I bet it was over a hundred dollars even in the ’70s!”

“Hey, hey, hey. My prom was in the ’80s, thank you very much. And Jeannie made her dress with her older sister’s help. It was a big puffy yellow thing. Like one of those marshmallow-chicken things you get at Easter. Do you want me to call her and ask if you can borrow it?”

Ash shot eye daggers at her father.

“Just being helpful.” Her father shrugged. “You’ve got to get with the program before the program gets you.”

God, her parents were dorky.

“You people are seriously going to drive me crazy,” Ash muttered as she grabbed her coat. “I’m going to Sebastian’s!”

Three

Ash glared at Sebastian in the middle of their drafting class the next day. He was still completely unconcerned about the prom situation, as he’d been the previous evening.

“I should just tell Armstrong I can’t go with him. I mean, why drag it out? I should call it off now so he can find someone else. Someone with a dress instead of some belly dancer–looking costume.”

Sebastian was focusing a little too hard on their drafting project still. No answer.

She knew she was being kind of a brat, but couldn’t help herself.

“I should just call it off right now.”

Still no answer.

“Like today.”

She sighed loudly.

Sebastian finally glanced up from the giant sheet of paper he’d been leaning over.

“Oh, is it time for drama? Is it my turn? Noooo, Ash, you can’t. You and Armie-boy belong together. Like forevvvvver.”

Did no one have sympathy for her plight? Did no one understand that she was actually not going to be able to go to the prom this year—her senior year? She wouldn’t have prom pictures, she wouldn’t have the first dance, she wouldn’t have that magical night she’d be talking about for years to come with her own kids and grandkids. And most importantly, she wouldn’t have another chance with Armstrong.

“I don’t like you,” was all she could think of to say to Sebastian.

“You love me. Now, we need to do our assignment. What do you think? How many watchtowers, if any?”

“I don’t care.”

“Hey, you wanted the front of the school. You at least have to choose if you want a watchtower or not.”

“I want a moat.” Ash stuck out her lower lip. “And alligators. And that dress!”

Sebastian sighed. “Just have the tantrum and let me know when you’re done.”

Ash glared at him.

Sebastian ignored her and went back to sketching pointy roofs. He wrinkled his forehead and chomped down hard on the corner of his mouth as he worked expertly with the protractor. He looked cute today, in a dark blue University of Michigan T-shirt that clung well to his arms, a fact every girl, freshman through senior, had clearly noticed.

He was easily one of the cutest guys in the senior class. He knew it, but he also knew he was smart. He’d already gotten accepted into Michigan’s honors program and amazingly, was still invested in keeping his GPA a 4.0.

“You can fail and repeat senior year and have another shot at the prom.” Sebastian could tell she was not working without even looking up. “Get to work.”

The small, twelve-person drafting class had a joint assignment. Each team of two was to choose a section of Seattle Academy to redesign into whatever style they wanted. The second part of class would be to take the flat sketches, make them into 3-D models and actually build a miniature version of the school redesign. The redesign would be displayed in the front entryway of the school to show off their skills.

Other teams had predictably chosen the gym or the cafeteria, which would’ve been much easier. Ash had insisted on choosing the front of the school—saying it needed to look majestic and haunting all at once. Plus she wanted her work to be the thing people saw first when they looked at the miniature. So far, Sebastian had done all the actual drawing work, while Ash had tossed out opinions every once in a while when things looked off. She was the creative force. Every team needed one.

When Sebastian still didn’t respond to her threat of not going to the prom, Ash grabbed her pencil and within minutes had replicated the dress on the corner of their sheet of paper.

God, it was beautiful. She darkened the lines of the cutouts on the bodice. She didn’t care what her mother said, the bodice was beautiful and it had looked great on her.

“How goes it?” Mr. Watkins’s voice caused Ash to drop her pencil and let out a small scream. “Sorry, Ash, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Uh...” Ash tried to cover up her dress sketch with her arm. The drafting teacher was very young and pretty cute, and generally gave interesting assignments, but he was also very detention-happy. If anyone was caught texting, tweeting, on Facebook, taking selfies, thinking about taking selfies or generally doing anything else but the assignment, he immediately gave them weekend detention, which meant cleaning the garage for auto shop, which he also taught. She did not want detention.

“What’s this?” He turned the paper around to see what Ash had been working on.

“Oh. That.” Sebastian cut in before Ash could make up a lame excuse. “Ash and I were having a discussion. An argument, let’s say.”

Mr. Watkins’s eyebrows rose. “About some ugly dress?”

“It’s not ugly!” Ash’s mouth dropped open. “You guys are mean!”

Sebastian grinned. “I was attempting to prove to my lab partner here that there are so many similarities between classic drafting professions such as architecture and...fashion.”

“There are not.” Ash rolled her eyes, not playing along, as she assumed Seb would want her to.

“Actually...” Mr. Watkins tilted his head. “I’d like to hear what Sebastian has to say on this one.”

Ash looked to Sebastian. “Let’s hear the crazy.”

“Drawing flat sketches. Visualizing them in 3-D. Being able to put pieces together that fit and stay that way over a course of time. It’s architecture,” Seb insisted. “Look at the dress Ash is wearing for example.”

Both of them looked. Ash self-consciously smoothed down the puffy skirt of the navy cap-sleeve dress with tiny white bicycles printed all over it.

“The flat sketch of the sleeves—” Sebastian pulled the sleeve away from Ash’s arm “—would look something like this.” He quickly sketched a triangle. “But when it was modeled in 3-D, it would look more like this.” He made the triangle into a pyramid. “And the three pieces of fabric to make the sleeve would have to be sewed to make the pyramid. Fashion is an engineering problem.”

“Mr. Diaz, I’m impressed by your knowledge of both fashion and architecture.”

“Thank you.”

“Carry on, you two. But please save your debates for when you’re done with the assignment.” He walked away.

Ash breathed a sigh. No scrubbing oil off the floor of the garage this weekend!

“Thanks for the save. Though the excuse was such BS. I can’t believe he fell for that.” Ash picked up her pencil again and started to actually work on the watchtower of their castle entranceway.

“It wasn’t a save.” Seb was being serious. “Your dad has Project Runway on 24/7 in your house, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Ash gave him a so-what look. Her dad had become oddly obsessed with any show where people gave up everything to pursue their life’s dreams. She was pretty convinced he’d run off and audition for The Apprentice one of these days.

“I’ve been absorbing that show while I’m at your place. So much of it sounds like the stuff we learn in here.”

Sebastian had been building a website for his family’s church and had been working on it mostly out of Ash’s house so he could get Josh’s input on design. Apparently he’d been learning a thing or two, however wrong, about fashion, as well.

Ash leaned over and gave Sebastian a side-hug. “You’re cute when you’re wrong. But thanks anyway.”

“I’m not wrong!” Sebastian looked insulted.

“I love having a guy as a best friend, but seriously Seb. Fashion...definitely not the same as some boring old building!”

* * *

“Hey.” Ash tried to sound casual as she slipped into a seat behind Armstrong Jones in their Brit-lit class. Every time she got near him, she lost her nerve to say the fun, carefree line she’d come up with the night before. Every. Time.

“Cute dress. I like it with the Vans.”

She’d worried that checkered Vans with a printed dress was too much, but apparently not. Before Ash could thank him, he was off on a tirade. “Don’t you hate the reading list? God, it’s so mainstream. Do we really all need to read Emma or Wuthering Heights? Why can’t we find something a little more obscure... Something actually original? Like The Doctor’s Wife. Or East Lynne. Or at least some Kipling everyone hasn’t read a hundred times over. God.”

“I know!” Ash nodded along. She had no idea what he was talking about. She loved all the Jane Austen readings they’d done, but didn’t want to look overly mainstream.

Armstrong was unflappably awesome. She just loved the way he knew everything about literature. And even though she had no idea what he was talking about half the time, it had played to her advantage.

Ash had watched Armstrong from afar for years—commenting on the pieces he wrote for the school blog, sitting in the first row when he had the role of Jean Valjean in the previous year’s Les Misérables, admiring the fact that he made being a scholarship kid look cool. He relished being a thrift-store junkie and the fact that his parents were frequently unemployed.

Ash had found out Armstrong was taking Brit lit that semester and had immediately registered for the class. She had made sure to grab the seat behind him on the first day, knowing the teacher considered those seats permanent.

She had also gladly accepted Armstrong’s help when he’d offered to proofread her second paper on Jane Austen when the first one she’d written hadn’t gone over so well. Laila had had a fit when she’d seen Ash come home with a B. “An English paper? A ‘B’? You’re half British for heaven’s sake, you should be teaching the class!”

Ash had gotten an A on her second paper and despite this, had asked Armstrong to help proofread her third, as well. He didn’t have too many changes to suggest, but she’d effervescently attributed the A-plus, the highest grade in the class, to his help. He’d asked her to the prom shortly after.

“Want to go thrifting this weekend?” Armstrong asked without looking up from his phone, where his fingers worked furiously to live-tweet whatever was on his mind.

Ash burst into a smile. “Absolutely!” She cursed herself for sounding so pathetically pleased.

“I could use a suit for the prom. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Ash’s smile slowly faded. Here she was totally freaking out about what to wear and he hadn’t even thought about it?

“So...the prom after-party. What are you thinking?” Ash asked casually, hoping he would ask her what she wanted to do. The senior class was planning an all-night “lock-in” at the school with dance contests, food, music and movies. Her parents had already agreed to let her go given that it was chaperoned and didn’t cost anything extra. Ash was almost more excited about that than the prom.

“After-parties are so...I don’t know, cliché. Don’t you think? I mean the prom is such a cliché alone, right?” Armstrong turned back to face her. “I love that about you—you hate clichés.”

“Hate them,” Ash agreed, though she didn’t understand what was so cliché about the after-party. This was the first year the school was having it.

“I’m sure every other girl is probably fixating on her dress right now. Trying to find something ‘different’ while getting the exact same thing as her six best friends. I love that you’re not even stressed,” Armstrong continued.

Ash was relieved she hadn’t sent him the dress freak-out text she had almost hit Send on the night before.

“Why don’t we go to Belltown after the prom and get into an open mic? You got a fake?”

Ash blinked, not realizing what he meant for a second. A fake ID? No, she didn’t have one. Where was she going to get one?

Great, one more thing to worry about. She had no dress. She had no fake ID.

“Sure, I have one. I mean, who doesn’t, right?” Ash smiled weakly. She’d just only gotten her real ID a few months ago.

“You’d be surprised. I gotta finish this blog. Text me later?” With that, and without waiting for a response, Armstrong turned around.

I guess we’re done. She still hadn’t gotten to deliver her fun, carefree line of the day. She’d gotten so light-headed being around him, she’d forgotten it anyhow.

Four

“What’s that?”

Sebastian and Ash were spending the afternoon at Ash’s house, each in their usual position around the kitchen table. Today, they were doing the work they hadn’t finished in class. Both of them were rocking out to the music coming from the garage.

Josh Montague’s band was playing a new song Josh had written the night before, he on drums, his former coworker on lead guitar, vocals and bass by their next-door neighbor. The only thing missing was Ash’s role, keyboardist. She’d promised to join practice once she was done with her homework.

“What?” Ash looked up from the diagram of the moat she was surreptitiously adding to the front of the school. She knew as soon as Sebastian saw it, he wouldn’t let her have any more suggestions in the project. “Be influenced by medieval times—don’t be literal!” he’d already chided.

“That outfit.” Sebastian was looking at Laila’s lehenga, which was still hanging on the coatrack. “Is that yours?”

“Oh. That. You haven’t heard?” Ash filled him in on Laila’s master plan of Ash wearing the lehenga to the prom. Sebastian always knew the latest happenings in the Montague household through his mother, sometimes before Ash had a chance to tell him.

Laila and Sebastian’s mother, Constance, had been close friends since the Montagues had moved in across the street in the multicultural First Hill neighborhood. Constance had a babysitting business that she ran out of her home, and had watched both Ash and Sonali till they were old enough to stay home alone. Sebastian and Ash had grown up in each other’s homes. Seb had no siblings and loved the constant chaos in the Montague household.

Sebastian shrugged. “I think it’s nice of your mother to offer. You don’t have too many other options.”

“Can you not be my mom’s fanboy for five seconds, please?” Ash was getting annoyed with Sebastian’s taking Laila’s side. He was supposed to be her best friend and support her despite his obvious and loyal admiration for Laila.

“I’m just saying.”

“Just agree with me. That’s your job as a best friend. And besides...” Ash was distracted by what she was seeing out of the kitchen window.

Sonali was cutting through the neighbor’s yard, climbing over bushes and under hedges. Was she practicing to join the marines or something? Why wasn’t she walking from the bus stop to home via the normal route of the sidewalk like all the other kids?

Ash rose from the table and went over to the window to see if there was someone on the side of the house she was avoiding.

No one.

Ash would bet anything this had something to do with whatever had caused the bird’s nest in Sona’s hair.

“I just don’t think fighting with your mom over something as silly as a dress is worth it,” Sebastian was saying. “Especially not since you’re just trying to impress Armstrong. Do you really want to end up as the star of one of his podcasts that badly?”

Ash resented that remark.

“I’m not just trying to impress Armstrong.”

“Then why were you not obsessed with going until he asked you?” Sebastian didn’t look up from his sketch. “And you weren’t stalking some expensive dress, either.”

“Well, no one else asked me! He asked. I said ‘yes.’ What’s wrong with that?” Ash clearly remembered texting Sebastian when Armstrong had finally asked her. He hadn’t been as overjoyed as she’d expected.

“You never gave anyone the chance! It was always, ‘I hope Armstrong asks me to the prom... Why hasn’t he asked me yet... I hope he asks me out in his blog. Or like on Twitter. Twitter’s so cool.’” He mimicked a voice that sounded nothing like her and more like Cartman from South Park.

“First, I do not sound like that.”

Seb smirked.

“Second, it’s not like there was a line of guys waiting to ask me.”

“What if someone else had asked you? Someone nice. Would you have been this obsessed?”

“Like?” Ash raised an eyebrow. This was going to be good.

“Like...someone else. Say, Dave.”

“Who the hell’s Dave?”

“My friend Dave! The only Dave we know.”

Ash furrowed her brow. “That guy you play Monster Race Cars with or whatever? Dave was going to ask me?”

Sebastian did an eye-roll. “Portal is not Monster Race Cars. He’s one of my partners in app development—we don’t just sit around playing games all day.”

“Who’s doing app development? Hi, Seb.” Ash’s father came into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk during the band’s break. Sonali snuck in behind him and before Ash could say anything, sprinted up the stairs. That girl was acting weirder than usual, and her hair was still a mess. Ash made up her mind to figure out what was going on.

“Hey, Mr. M. I am. With two of my buddies for our AP Computer Science class. We already have BlueDog Studios interested in buying our first app!”

“Their IPO was amazing last year. That’s huge, Seb. What’s the concept?” Josh Montague sat down at the table and passed a glass of iced tea each to Ash and Sebastian.

“Thank you. Our app insta-catagorizes all the pictures you take with your cell phone. Like, Ash has taken 15,000 pictures of that dress.” Sebastian pointed at the sketch she’d drawn in class. “Our app tags them all something like ‘Orange_Dress’...”

“You mean ‘The Dreamsicle,’” Ash interrupted.

Sebastian gave her an eye roll. “...so that she can search for that tag and find all of them in her Camera Roll rather than having to scroll through the year’s worth of pictures she has on it.”

“Now I remember us talking about this.” Josh looked impressed. “Every company’s asking for great apps and app development experience. I just submitted a multilayered tic-tac-toe game to the Windows Phone store. Sonali did the graphics for me.”

“That’s what our teacher said, too—app development is the best moneymaking strategy these days. With what BlueDog is willing to pay for the app, we’ll be able to pay our first-year tuition at Michigan.”

“You’re a good kid, Seb.” Josh smiled at him as though he wished Seb were actually his son.

Sebastian blushed.

“We have a lot of work to do. Maybe I can borrow Sona for the graphics, because none of us are that good at it.”

Josh laughed. “She’d love that.”

Ash felt a flare of jealousy. Her sister got a little goofy around Sebastian. She didn’t like that one bit. Seb was her friend. Oddly, Sona hadn’t come in to say hello today. She never missed out on a chance to talk to Sebastian and give him a dosage of the random factoids she’d learned that day.

“You guys have a name for your app?”

Sebastian grinned. “Still fighting over it, but Dave wants to call it Han Solo and the Chewbaccas.”

“This is the guy you wanted me to go to the prom with?” Ash glanced at Sebastian. She was officially Seb’s only non-weird friend.

“I assume my spawn has shared her dress woes with you?” Ash’s dad slid his milk glass from one hand to the other.

“Oh, I was there to witness the showdown,” Seb said, “in the Rebel store.”

Ash’s dad shook his head. “Try living with it.”

“I’m not deaf you know, you guys.”

“Let’s ask your dad what he thinks about my dress drafting theory.” Seb stood up.

Ash sighed. Great, more people needed to hear that her best friend was certifiably crazy.

“Mr. M, you’re into fashion.”

Josh looked doubtful. “I like watching stuff get made on Runway. I’m not really into fashion.”

“Okay, but don’t you think fashion is like architecture? I mean, look at this.” Seb circled the lehenga and started plucking at the skirt. “We’re doing a project where we are redrafting the front of the high school to look kind of medieval with as few changes as possible. We can easily do the same to this lehenga. The beading on this thing is nice—the shape is what’s weird. If we redraw it as a flat sketch and change the outline of it, then figure out how it would look in 3-D, wouldn’t that be pretty much how architecture is done?”

Ash watched her father, waiting for him to burst into laughter. He was an engineer. He was apparently a Project Runway addict. He would totally agree building things and dresses were two totally different things.

“Hand me those.” Seb gestured toward a box of paper clips on the kitchen counter when no one answered.

Ash watched Seb tuck the hem of the lehenga up, flipping it out like a bell and securing it in place with a paper clip. “If we put some wire in here, we could make it stay like this.”

Ash had to admit that the skirt looked infinitely better with the modifications Sebastian had made.

“We could do the same for the other side. And the top, we could change it, you know, make it like a thin strap thing or something. Draw a new sketch to get the lines right. Make it shorter like this.” Sebastian clipped the pieces as he talked. “And suddenly...”

Suddenly, the lehenga was different.

“...and it’s a whole new thing. With just a few tweaks.”

Ash’s mind spun. Something was coming together.

“And it’s so unusual because of the original beadwork and construction, but now it’s really modern and kind of cool. I haven’t seen anything like it.”

Unusual. Not mainstream.

“I see what you’re saying,” Josh agreed. “But do you really think making folds with paper clips is like sewing?”

Ash stopped listening.

Ash squinted at the lehenga. The color wasn’t bad—the beautiful Tiffany blue looked good on her. The changes Sebastian had made were definitely an improvement to the boxy shape it had before. There was still a lot more that needed to be done. Could it be possible? Could she be looking at her prom dress?

“Seb. I think you might be a genius,” Ash said slowly.

Josh was smirking. He knew exactly what she was thinking.

Sebastian didn’t.

“Wait, why? I don’t like that look you’ve got going on.”

“Remember how much you love me?”

Josh rose from the table, half smile still on his face. “I’m leaving before I get roped into something that’s going to get me disowned by your mother.”

Five

“Hi.” Jessica Moriarty dropped into Armstrong’s seat in Brit lit.

Ash glanced up from her reading. “Yes?” She was hoping to have a chance to chat with Armstrong before class started—lately it felt like the only time they talked was online via Twitter or his blog comments. She certainly didn’t want drama-queen Jessica hanging around eavesdropping on their conversation.

“What are you doing?” Jessica wanted to know.

Ash tried not to roll her eyes. “Reading, Jess. For our assignment today. Have you finished it?”

“Nope.” Jessica continued to stare at her.

Ash tried to read another few lines of The Tempest and failed.

“Okay. What is it?” Ash closed her book. The staring was getting creepy.

“So...Sebastian Diaz.”

“Ah.” This was normal. A lot of girls liked Sebastian and most were afraid to talk to him. At least one or two girls asked Ash about him every week: whether he was single, liked them, et cetera. As if Ash were his keeper or something.

“Has he said anything about the prom?”

“Yep, he’s said a lot about it.” Ash was enjoying this now. Jess had never been particularly nice to her before. Ash was still annoyed at the “vintage” comment she’d made in the dressing room when Ash had been trying on the orange gown.

Jessica’s eyes widened. “OhMyGod, are you guys going together? Did you dump Armstrong?”

“No!” Ash looked around, hoping no one had heard. This was how rumors got started. “I’m going with Armstrong.”

“So...Sebastian doesn’t have a date yet?”

Ash sighed heavily, as if divulging a huge secret, and lowered her voice. “He’s still available.”

Jess smiled as though she’d just heard that her grandmother’s pecan pie was now available in the vending machines. She was from the South and was constantly lamenting the lack of good Southern food in Seattle.

“Do you think he’d go with me?”

“Um...” Ash pretended to think about it. Honestly, she had no idea if Sebastian even knew who Jessica was. That was probably for the best. Jessica wasn’t the sharpest stick in the forest, and Sebastian tended to only hang out with the AP crowd. He’d only had one girlfriend during high school, the one girl in Computer Club who’d moved away their junior year.

“You’ll have to ask him and see,” Ash finally said.

Jessica’s face fell. “Can you find out if he likes me?”

“I’ll let you know.” Ash picked up her book again when she saw Armstrong enter the room, exactly a second before the bell rang. “Go sit down before you get detention. Sebastian hates girls who get detention. His mother would disapprove.”

Jessica hurried to her seat and was replaced by Armstrong a few seconds later.

“So...your Facebook page hinted at something very interesting about your prom attire. Along the lines of something no one at this school had ever seen before? ‘Drafting class plus fashion unite’? Care to share a sound bite for my blog?”

Ash felt a rolling thrill down her back that Armstrong not only checked out her Facebook page, but also was curious about her cryptic status update from the previous night.

“You’ll see on prom night,” Ash said, she hoped, enigmatically.

“You tease.” Armstrong shrugged. “I like it. I don’t know what I’m wearing. It’ll be good, though.”

Lucky guy with that confidence. Despite her hopefulness about the idea she and Sebastian came up with last night, she didn’t actually have a plan for what would happen next.

Neither of them was exactly Van Gogh. Nor was either of them Coco Chanel. They needed to make a drawing, make it into 3-D, then get it into a real garment. Were the modifications even going to be possible? Who was going to do them?

* * *

Ash barged into Sonali’s room without knocking. Her sister barely glanced up from the huge book of oil paintings she was poring over.

“You’re supposed to be offended that I’m invading your privacy, kid.” Ash stood over her sister, who continued to sprawl across the carpet.

“Get out. You’re invading my privacy,” her sister said without looking up.

“Get ready. We need to go.”

“We have fifteen minutes,” Sonali mumbled. Ash and Sonali went to their weekly tae-kwon-do lesson on Wednesdays. Ash enthusiastically, since she loved punching and kicking out her aggressions for an hour. Sonali hated it, but Josh insisted both of his girls learn basic self-defense.

Ash reached over and tousled Sonali’s still-knotted hair.

“Want to tell me who did this?”

Silence.

“Okay. Want to do me a favor?”

“Nope.”

“Sure you do. Listen, so Sebastian and I came up with an idea to turn that lehenga of mom’s into an actual dress that I can wear to the prom.”

Sona said nothing.

“I need your awesome drawing skills to make a sketch for us that we can turn into 3-D.”

Sona raised an eyebrow. “You want me to do fashion design? You told me I dress like Dora the Explorer.”

“I don’t need you to come up with something from scratch, genius. Just make a sketch of the lehenga we started to modify downstairs.”

Sona shrugged. “I want a cut of the royalties if it becomes famous and Dolce & Gabbana wants to make it in bulk.”

Ash had to laugh. “Do you even know what royalties are? Do you even know who Dolce & Gabbana are?”

“Dad was watching Project Runway reruns all afternoon.”

Ash rolled her eyes. “Dad needs to get a job.”

“Royalties?”

“How about, five laps around the gym if you’re not ready in five minutes?”

“Let’s not go today.” Sona rolled over onto her back. “Let’s just stay here. Let’s make microwave s’mores instead.”

Ash sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you want to ever get your green belt?”

“I don’t want to break a board in half.”

“It’s not that hard.” Ash didn’t understand how Sonali could be satisfied with her white belt after two years of training. Ash had sailed through the belts and now taught the more junior students with her brown belt.

“Why does no one understand that I’m a pacifist?” With a huge sigh, Sonali rolled to her feet. She started grabbing her gloves, helmet and uniform out of the closet.

“It’s about to become ten laps. And why do you know that word?”

* * *

Ash was assigned to lead three junior students in their sparring in class that evening. As a brown belt, she was allowed to use body contact in her sparring, though the white belts never were. Her job was mainly to make sure they used full force to throw their kicks and jabs, but always stopped short of actually killing each other.

Ash circled around Sonali, a timid, moppy eight-year-old named Jacob and a fiery little twelve-year-old girl with hair as bright as carrots, who was eyeing Sonali in a way Ash didn’t like.

“Okay everyone, the next move all of you should do is the jumping front snap kick.”

All three of them stood there and stared at her.

“That move sucks,” complained the little red-haired one.

“Let’s keep our opinions to ourselves and do the move,” Ash suggested.

They still just stood there.

“I mean today. Now. Do it now.”

All three halfheartedly hopped in the air, then threw out their right feet in the air in front of them.

“At someone. You’re hardly ever going to have to fight thin air in the real world. Here, Jacob, you throw a kick at me. Sona, throw a kick at...” Ash gestured toward the red-haired girl.

“Angela, duh.”

Ash resisted an eye roll. “At Angela Duh.”

“It’s just regular Angela. Duh.”

“Sona, throw a kick at Regular Angela.”

“That’s not my name!”

Everyone got into their positions.

“Okay, let’s circle.”

The four of them circled one another in pairs, Jacob and Sona throwing out timid jabs toward their opponents. “Now, jump snap kick. Go!”

Jacob’s little foot brushed the air near Ash’s hip. “Good job, Jacob!”

Ash looked to see if Sona had done the move yet. She hadn’t. She was still circling Angela.

“Come on!” Angela whined. “You’re so lame!”

Sona tilted on her side and did a tentative kick.

“Wrong kick, Sona. Jump and kick. Come on, just one,” Ash called out. Where was her sister’s head today?

“God, you suck.” Angela folded her arms. “Everyone is going to get their green belt before you, loser.”

Jacob did another jumping front snap kick gleefully as if to prove Angela’s point.

“Sona, the eight-year-old is doing better than you. Let’s see a real kick,” Ash said sternly. She was not going to let that bratty Angela get away with insulting her sister.

Sonali hopped back and forth, hands in a defensive posture, but staring at her feet.

What was Sonali’s problem? Ash was going to make her do the kick before the night was over.

“God, why don’t you just give up? Why are you even in here?” Angela dropped her defensive stance and stood with her hands on her hips. Ash could tell she was going to be a real pain in a few years.

“Sona, for the love of—” Ash started toward her sister.

Bam! Suddenly Angela went flying backward.

Sona stood there looking shocked. Jumping front snap kick success.

Ash didn’t know whether to applaud or scold. Sona had never, ever initiated contact in class before. Now, Angela sat on her butt five feet away, her face crumbling.

“Uh, no contact, Sona,” was all Ash could think of to say.

The head tae-kwon-do instructor blew the whistle. “No contact! Now back to circling.”

Wow. Ash was stunned by her sister’s sudden aggression for the rest of the hour.

After class, the sisters headed back to the locker room to change and wait for Josh to come pick them up. He didn’t like them to walk home from the studio after dark, and he certainly didn’t like for Ash to take Sona as a passenger on the Vespa.

“Did someone do something to you? Is that why you won’t walk home the normal way?” Ash asked as she sat down on a bench and started running a comb through her hair.

“Are you spying on me?” Sona slammed her locker shut, piercing Ash with an accusatory stare.

“Clearly! Because I have nothing else to do,” Ash snapped back. “I saw you come through the backyard. It’s like you were dodging the other kids on your bus. Were you? Is that where all this aggression is coming from?”

Sona gave her a suspicious look and started shoveling her uniform into her gym bag. “No.”

“God, I hope I sound more convincing when I lie.”

“You don’t.”

“Who’s messing with you?”

“I’m handling it, okay? In my own way. You don’t need to interfere in my life.”

“I never interfere!”

Sonali snorted.

“Yeah right. Like you never interfered when you beat the shit out of that Billy kid who was messing with Sebastian.”

“Sona! Language!” Ash was hardly offended, but she knew if Sona used that kind of language around Laila, she would be in deep trouble and be blamed for being a bad influence.

“It’s true, though. Remember how he used to trip Seb in the shower in gym class and call him a dirty—”

“Sona!”

“I wasn’t going to say it.”

Ash doubted it. “Why do you know all this, by the way? You were seven.”

“Seb told me.” Sonali went back to packing away her helmet and gloves. “He told me that somehow you just knew. He never said a word to you about Billy, but you just knew what was going on.”

It had happened at the end of eighth grade. Sebastian had grown quieter and quieter the whole year, starting when Billy Walters had transferred to their school—and to Seb’s gym class. Sebastian had always been shy, but that year he’d started to avoid even his nerd friends and hang out in the computer lab during lunch instead of going to the cafeteria.

Worst of all, he wouldn’t tell Ash why and would snap at her when she pursued it too fervently. Ash started to think it was because they had started getting teased for being boyfriend-girlfriend because they were together so much of the time.

Hurt that he was so offended at being called her boyfriend, Ash had started to pull away from him and had hung out with some of the more popular kids...Billy Walters included.

She’d started to walk to Pacific Place mall after school with her new friends to people-watch and make comments at random strangers, rather than going home to watch TV and do homework, as she always did with Seb.

It had been awesome to finally feel like she belonged. A total thrill to have every day be a total unknown. She knew she was getting set up for a good place in the high-school food chain and it felt great.

On the last day of eighth grade, she was walking down the hall with some of her new friends when she overheard Billy Walters and his cronies start slamming closed all the open lockers while kids were still trying to empty them out. She’d never liked it when Billy harassed people who hadn’t done anything to him, but up until then she’d never cared enough to stop him.

She’d looked down the hall and had seen Sebastian spot Billy and his gang as they started toward his locker. Sebastian hurriedly started emptying everything into his backpack. Ash heard Billy call out to him, by a very derogatory name.

Sebastian turned as white as Ash had ever seen him.

She’d looked from her former best friend to the group of guys who were now backing Billy as they stalked toward Sebastian.

She saw something she’d never seen before in Sebastian’s eyes. Fear. In an instant, she realized what had been causing Sebastian’s weird behavior that year. And she knew that she needed to do something to make sure Seb never felt that fear again.

She’d gone after the guys and stepped between them and Sebastian. She’d stood in front of Billy, half his size, and smiled sweetly. She’d whispered some nonsense under her breath. When he’d leaned down to hear what she was saying, she struck. She kneed him under the chin, punched him in the solar plexus, then flipped his entire body over her shoulder.

Just as she’d done to pass her green belt test for tae kwon do the week before.

After Billy’s body hit the ground in front of his shocked friends, she’d planted her left foot, clad in her first pair of high heels, in his chest and said quietly, “Bully someone again and see what happens.”

Her father had been proud of and impressed by her.

Her mother had been convinced she’d go to jail.

Billy had never again looked her in the eye.

Her so-called new friends never spoke to her again.

Sebastian had grown six inches that summer and had never gotten picked on again...but had never stopped trying to make it up to Ash ever since.

Six

“I am your hero, go ahead and admit it.” Sebastian dropped a giant gizmo that looked like an old-school soda machine on the drafting table.

“I don’t want a soda. They’re bad for you, anyway. This is what you had to show me?”

When Ash had received a text from Sebastian asking her to skip lunch and meet in the drafting classroom, she’d been expecting... Well, she didn’t know. But it certainly wasn’t a soda machine.

“Do you even know what this is? Hint—not a soda machine.”

“Slushees?”

“No.”

“Frozen yogurt?”

“Stop thinking about food!”

“I’m supposed to be eating curly fries right now—just tell me.”

“It’s a 3-D printer!”

A 3-D printer. Ash’s curiosity was piqued. “There’s such a thing? What does it print?”

“Stuff in 3-D.”

“Thank you, Wikipedia Brown. Like what stuff?”

“Like...” Sebastian paused for effect. “This sketch for example!”

He slapped down a gorgeous sketch of the lehenga modified and shown in a 3-D perspective using their CAD software. He’d spent the past three evenings working on it at Ash’s place after school with Sonali.

It was even better than Ash had imagined it would be. And so much better than the schoolfront they were supposed to be working on. She’d taken over the school project so Sebastian could focus on the dress, and she had to admit she’d been having a lot of fun with designing a new entrance. Too much fun, probably, since none of the ideas she’d had were very practical.

Sebastian logged in to his PC and sent the sketch to the printer and pressed a series of buttons.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“The internet has all the answers,” Seb replied as he made sure the printer was turned on. “We’ll see if it knows the right answers anyway.”

Ash watched in amazement as drops of some weird liquid started dropping, then accumulating and sticking together at the base of the strange machine.

“That’s plastic and acrylic. It’s going to shape the dress.”

Ash continued to watch. She could see the hem of the dress taking its shape. “I see it!”

Even Sebastian looked surprised at his handiwork.

“Wow, I never thought this would work just like in the YouTube video.”

“Where did you get it?” She squeezed Seb’s arm. He flexed it tightly in response under her fingertips. She held on for an extra second, loving how he always wanted to protect her.

“The drafting department just got it from a donation. This local start-up sank and had to start giving up its stuff. I promised Mr. Watkins I’d clean the auto-shop garage if I could borrow it during lunch.”

“Seb. No.” There he went with the heroics again. She needed him to know she was willing to do her own bargaining punishments. “I’ll do it. You’ve done enough for me.”

“Too late. You’re not the kind of girl who is ever going to clean a garage floor. Not while I’m around anyway.”

Ash opened her mouth to protest.

“Anyway, he thinks we’re printing our school sketch, so we need to do that, too. Why don’t you work on making sure it looks kind of finished?”

For once, Ash didn’t complain and started up the CAD software on her PC. She couldn’t believe Seb was doing garage cleanup for her. He wasn’t even getting anything out of this—it wasn’t his dress, or his date’s dress. Knowing Jessica, she’d chicken out and not ask and he would remain dateless. She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t asked anyone yet. Any girl would say yes.

Sebastian, however, didn’t seem put out by it at all. Instead, he seemed really happy and sat with his hands folded under his chin, watching the dress get created, an intensely focused expression on this face.

Ash, in the meantime, deleted her more lame ideas, such as a moat and drawbridge, from the CAD drawing of the school and verified that all of Sebastian’s great ideas were still in place.

She straightened out the pillars and archway and saved her work. It wasn’t great, but at least they wouldn’t fail. It was a hundred times better than the boring, boxy, ’70s architecture the school was made with right then anyway. When she turned back to see how the 3-D dress printing was going, she gasped.

The lehenga bore no resemblance to what it had been. It was halter-style, came in at the waist, left a sliver of midsection visible, and then flowed into a mermaid-tail skirt that just erupted into a bouquet of sparkly ruffles at the bottom.

Somehow, it was better than even the orange dress she’d been lusting over.

“Oh, Seb,” Ash gasped again as the last few drops of liquid solidified the neckline of the dress.

“Hit print.” He gestured pointedly at her PC. “We need to get the schoolwork done so you’re not doing garage cleanup with me. I want you to have a good weekend.”

Ash did as he asked and then went over to admire the dress again. “Can I touch it?”

“Let me make sure it’s not hot.” Sebastian reached out and touched it first. “Yep, all yours.”

Ash picked up the dress with two tentative fingers. It was much sturdier than she thought—like a little plastic toy. She was amazed by the printer gizmo.

“This is gorgeous!” She immediately threw her arms around Sebastian. “Did I mention I love you the most? How can I thank you for this? Let me take over your garage cleanup at least?”

When she didn’t remove her arms from around his neck, he hesitantly put his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly in return.

“You can mention how awesome I am again.” He was smiling as he pulled away. “That’s all the thanks I need.”

* * *

Though it was only two in the afternoon on a weekday, the line at Molly Moon’s was around the corner, the for-sure sign that spring had arrived in Seattle. Ash insisted on buying cones for both of them, salted caramel and Earl Grey tea double scoops for her and balsamic strawberry for Sebastian. They had gotten the exact same order for so many years, Ash didn’t even need to ask Sebastian if he wanted a drizzle of homemade caramel on his cone.

They wrapped napkins around their cones and walked across the street to wait for a unique Capitol Hill tradition: bicycle polo. Groups of eight people rode around on bicycles and tried to score goals on each other with polo sticks. The game was due to start any minute.

“I can’t believe that 3-D printer thingie.” Ash reached her head over and took a lick of Sebastian’s cone without asking permission.

“It’s cool, huh? I love technology.” Sebastian held his cone out so Ash could have another bite without a struggle.

“I’m starting to love technology. I always thought it was just a bunch of nerdy guys making stuff no one understands...”

“But it’s actually cool stuff that makes everyone’s life easier.” Sebastian finished her thought.

They’d always been that way. Ash would sometimes think of something to ask Sebastian and he would bring up the topic before she could. Laila had a scientific explanation for it, something along the lines of them being in sync because they had grown up together surrounded by the same environmental influences.

“What do you want to do?” Sebastian asked vaguely.

Ash took a few licks of her cone. “Figure out how to get that dress sewn to look like the figurine.”

Sebastian smiled as Ash helped herself to more of his cone. She was liking going among the three flavor choices. “I mean more in the scope of life. What do you want to do?”

Ash considered this. “Be a lawyer like my mom?”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of research.”

“Oh.” Ash noticed a few polo-ists starting to arrive at the little basketball court they had the game in. At this point, even they had their lives figured out more than she did.

“So, you don’t know,” Seb said.

Ash shook her head. “I’ll figure it out at U-Dub.” She had gotten into the University of Washington along with half the senior class.

“I wish you were going to Michigan,” Sebastian said, not in a nonchalant, casual kind of way

Ash was silent for a second as she took a few more bites of her ice cream and pretended to be watching the polo warm-up. Where was this coming from?

“It’s going to be the first time in our lives we won’t just be able to see each other whenever we want,” Sebastian reminded her. “We won’t be skipping last period to have ice cream and watch this spectacle.” Sebastian gestured toward where an obviously beginner polo player rode his bike into the fence.

Ash swallowed. For some reason, she had not digested that information. Starting in about six months, she was going to be without Sebastian for the first time in her life.

“I promise to visit you,” she said at last, after noticing Sebastian was waiting for an answer. “A lot. I hear Ann Arbor is gorgeous.”

Sebastian shook his head sadly. “You’ll be busy with school. I think we’ll only see each other over vacations once or twice a year.”

Once or twice a year?

They saw each other once or twice an hour right now.

This was not something she wanted to ponder. Having a teary meltdown while the polo players watched was not going to be how she was going to end this wonderful day.

* * *

“Wow. What on earth is that?” Laila Montague pointed at the 3D dress creation that was sitting on the counter. She was home early that evening as Sebastian and Ash sat in their usual places in the kitchen.

Ash was on her Surface, trying to make their school sketch look more school-like. Mr. Watkins hadn’t been impressed by their work so far—he said it was too “literal” and needed to jibe with the rest of the students’ work for their final project. Ash had promised to take over the project. Sebastian had done enough. She welcomed the distraction after their serious talk at Molly Moon’s. She didn’t want to even think of a time when she wouldn’t see Sebastian every day.

Sebastian was searching sewing websites for ideas on how to make their dress sculpture a reality, with minimal sewing to the lehenga since neither of them knew how.

Sebastian glanced over at where Laila was pointing. “Oh, that’s for my doll collection.”

“Sebastian, really.” Even stoic Laila looked amused.

Seb was grinning. He was one of the few people who could make Laila loosen up after her long workdays. “Actually, Ash said she would love to wear your lehenga to the prom.”

Laila’s smile was contagious. Ash suddenly realized how beautiful her mother was when her whole face opened up and relaxed. Those were the moments when she hoped everyone was right when they said she was a copy of Laila when her mother was her age.

“Really? I knew she’d change her mind.”

“Again. People. I’m right here.” Ash looked up from her work. “Talk at me, please.”

“I knew you’d change your mind,” Laila said smugly.

Ash did an eye roll. “I didn’t. Seb came up with the idea of modifying the lehenga into something less...Mogul-esque, and that is what we, well he, came up with.”

Laila picked up the tiny dress sculpture. “It’s lovely.”

“I love it,” Ash said. “We just need to find instructions for how to modify the real one. It can’t be that hard.”

“What?” Laila almost dropped the sculpture. “You want to modify my dress? Into this?”

“Mom!” Ash could tell by the tone of her voice that she was about to quash their great idea. “Can you not be negative for once?”

“Ashmita Montague, do not ‘Mom’ me!”

“Seb, talk to her!”

“Here we go again...” Sebastian nearly flipped his chair over as he leaned back. He shook his head at the ceiling in despair. “The women in my life are going to drive me crazy.”

* * *

“What’s going on?” Josh Montague came in from the garage, where he’d just finished up with the band.

“Ash is eavesdropping,” Sonali said helpfully, looking up from her chalk sketch of a lifelike tiger.

“Shh!” Ash shushed her father, who was talking loudly by the loud refrigerator. She was standing at the edge of the kitchen, trying to listen in on the hushed conversation in the living room.

He poured himself an iced tea. “What are we eavesdropping on?”

“Shh!”

“It’s like I need a Twitter feed to keep up with what goes on in this house.”

“Dad. Please. Let’s play the quiet game.” Ash strained to hear what her mother and Seb were saying. Of course, her mother chose this moment to speak quietly.

“Wow. I just got treated like a six-year-old by my kid. They say it happens to everyone.”

“She told me the same thing,” Sonali reassured him.

“Shh!”

“Shh!” Josh mimicked Ash with an exaggerated finger to his lips.

Ash waited for a break in conversation.

“Seb’s talking to Mom,” she explained. “We want to make this—” she pointed at the tiny dress sculpture “—out of that.” She pointed at the real lehenga, which was still hanging in the kitchen.

“How’re you going to do that?”

“They don’t know,” Sonali filled in. “It’s a harebrained scheme with no execution plan.”

“Have you been reading your mother’s law journals again?” Josh laughed. “God, I love being at home with you guys.”

“Have some faith. We’ll figure it out.” Ash waved her hand. “But first, Seb has to convince Mom.”

“Is she really going to let a bunch of teenagers who know nothing about sewing hack apart one of her favorite dresses?”

“No,” Sonali said.

“Does no one have faith in the system?” Ash gave them both a look.

“What system?” Josh asked.

“My system!” Ash whispered back loudly. They’d started talking again in the other room.

“Then, no.”

Ash did an eye roll. “I know Mom doesn’t. That’s why Seb has to convince her.”

And he was doing a fine job.

“Mrs. M, remember when you were, say, apprehensive about letting me build that computer for Ash? You were convinced it would overheat and burn the house down.” Sebastian’s voice wafted in from the living room. “She sulked for weeks and finally you gave in? Think of this project as that computer but not as useful.”

Ash almost wanted to object, but knew better than to interrupt or let on that she was eavesdropping.

“And now look, that computer—” Ash could practically see him gesturing toward the den where the Franken-computer existed “—still stands. Safe and sound. Six years of abuse by that destructive daughter of yours and it hasn’t exploded. You, yourself, have admitted you have used it for research for your cases on weekends.”

Laila was quiet. The defense lawyer had no defense.

“...and I’m hardly an engineer, Mrs. M. But I was able to do the right research to build that computer. I would never let anything bad happen to something that belonged to you. Not your daughter. Not your dress.”

Ash started to feel her hope returning.

“He’s good,” Ash’s dad whispered. “He should be a lawyer. Taking down your mother is...”

“One condition, and I mean it, Sebastian.”

Ash’s fists squeezed together in excitement.

“Anything.”

Ash could practically see Sebastian opening his hands in that way he did that got anyone to completely trust him. He just had a way of doing that.

“You find a professional to do the work. For the set budget of one hundred dollars. You do not try any stunts of your own. And I want to speak to whoever you find on the phone first to understand their credentials. And you stay in the budget.”

“Mrs. M., I promise you that you will love the lehenga so much you’ll steal it right back from your daughter and wear it to every holiday party this year.”

“Sebastian?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Don’t sell past the close.”

“No, ma’am.”

Both Ash and Josh Montague expelled sighs of relief.

“The defense rests,” Josh murmured, hugging Ash close.

Sonali continued to not look convinced as she sketched in the tiger’s whiskers.

Seven

“Are you sure it’s around here?” Sebastian glanced at the GPS on his phone and the surrounding buildings. “I don’t see anything that looks big enough to be it.”

Ash ignored him as she surveyed the line of eccentric windowed storefronts dotting Pike Street off Broadway.

“There! I’ve passed by it a hundred times.” Ash gestured toward a familiar-looking window. “Park! Park!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sebastian expertly parallel parked his Mazda in front of the colorful doorway with a Some Like It Haute sign over it.

Ash had decided to act before her mother changed her mind. She remembered passing the cute little Capitol Hill storefront that boasted “Designer fabrics for those who can... Couture dressmaking for those who can’t!” on the front window many times on her little scooter. She was sure that with the promises of couture dressmaking the storefront made, a little alteration to the lehenga would be easy-breezy.

Gathering up Sebastian’s sketches, the tiny dress figurine and the garment bag containing the lehenga, Ash practically bounced out of the car, feeling very positive. Everything was going to work out fine. They’d come so far, it had to work out.

Ash giggled at the blush on Sebastian’s cheeks as he noticed what was right next to Some Like It Haute: Babeland, a bright pink-and-white storefront boasting “women-friendly pleasure goods!”

Cap Hill was the artsy, eclectic and fun neighbor to First Hill, Ash’s more subdued ’hood, and Some Like It Haute was no exception. It was practically bursting with bolts of beautiful embroidered fabric, ribbons, skeins of yarn and walls of sewing supplies, like a tiny, brightly colored dollhouse.

“Hello!” A familiar-looking girl about their age looked up as the entry bell dinged Ash and Sebastian’s arrival. “Oh, my God, I love that dress. What a cool print!”

Ash smiled her thanks. The pale yellow dress with the pink skulls-and-roses was her latest vintage store find and was totally unique. She had bought it for the Day of the Dead celebration Sebastian’s family had every year—where they honored those who had passed on.

“I want to steal this! God, look at this construction. Where was this made?” The girl leaned across the counter to get a closer look. “Not to be weird, but can I touch it?”

“Uh, sure.”

The girl wasted no time reaching behind Ash and grabbing the tag from the back of the dress. “It’s vintage! I knew it. No one makes good stuff anymore. We’re going to get along so well!”

“Uh, thanks.” Ash disentangled herself from the girl. Wow, she was enthusiastic. “I have a weird question,” she said as she dropped her pile of stuff on the counter.

The girl picked up the tiny dress figurine. “This is so cute. Did you make this? I’m Lyra Matthew, by the way. This is my shop. Well, it’s my mom’s shop, but I work here more, so I guess it’s more mine than hers.”

Lyra Matthew. The name was so familiar... Ash suddenly remembered where she knew Lyra from. “I know you! You were in Les Misérables last year. With Armstrong Jones?”

Lyra flashed a brilliant smile. She was very pretty. And wearing an amazing pale rose drop-waist dress with a feather fringe at the hem. Her eyes were done up all dark and smoky. She looked like a ’20s movie star. “Yup, I’d just moved up from L.A. and was really surprised the part of Eponine was still open. Armstrong’s cute, but kind of skinny, don’t you think?”

Ash remembered how beautifully Lyra sang. When she finished “A Little Fall of Rain” with a whisper as Eponine had “died” in the middle of the final act, thunderous applause had rung through the school auditorium.

“I’m Ash and this is Sebastian Diaz.” Ash gestured toward Seb, who looked uncomfortable.

Ash noticed Lyra flash her dazzling smile in his direction a second longer than normal, her giant dark eyes lighting up with recognition. Of course she knew Sebastian. Everyone did.

“We need some help.” Ash opened the garment bag and pulled out the lehenga. “This is my mother’s. We want to make modifications to this dress to make it look like this figurine.”

Lyra’s eyes widened. “That’s some beadwork. Where was it made?”

“India somewhere, I’m not sure. It’s my mom’s.”

“It’s gorgeous. Why do you want to change it?”

“Because it’s weird right now. Trust me.” Ash pushed the sketch and the figurine toward her, ignoring Lyra’s doubtful look. “I want to transform it and wear it to the prom.”

“Wow. That’s a great sketch!” A few moments of silence passed as the enthusiastic girl touched the fabric in various places, examining seams and sleeves and who knew what else. She glanced at the sketches and the figurine.

“This is complicated. Like, really complicated.” She tossed her waist-length curly black hair to one side and frowned. She turned the lehenga inside out and lay it flat. “Yes, this is very complex beadwork. See how each bead is hand-sewn to the fabric? If I cut into it, all the beads will scatter everywhere.”

Ash and Sebastian glanced at each other. This was not a good sign. Ash had been hoping she’d look at it once and say, “Oh, that’s straightforward. No problem. It’ll be done in an hour.”

“I think my mom and I can do it. She’s a costume designer for stage plays and things so she does beadwork a lot. I can do the bodice part. When do you need it by?”

“Two weeks.”

Lyra hesitated. Again, not a good sign.

“My mom’s really busy, but I can make her do it. It’s a good thing you came in today, though. We’re about to go into bridal season and there is no way we could have done it if you’d come in any later.”

Serendipity. It really was true.

Ash practically cried with relief. “Seriously, you have saved my life.” She turned back to grin at Sebastian, who didn’t look half as excited. She wondered why, but before she could ask, he stepped up to the counter.

“So...Lyra, how much is this going to cost? Because we do have a budget,” Sebastian spoke up.

Lyra searched his face, as if gauging how he was going to react.

“Usually we would charge around two hundred dollars for this kind of work—total transformation...”

That wasn’t bad! Ash thought. Surely she could talk Laila into two hundred dollars. That was just a little over the budget.

“...but because the beading is so complex and the fabric so complex, it’s going to be at least five hundred.” Lyra dished out the crushing blow.

Eight

I need to talk to you.

Ash hit Send on the text to Armstrong during English class. There was no point of dragging this on. He would be super-pissed at her if she canceled on him at the last second. Instead, she was going to tell him she got invited on a really great trip to Paris the weekend of the prom and just had to go. It was the only way to save face. There was no way she was going to show up to the prom with the coolest guy she’d ever known in some clearance-rack leftover.

What’s up? Armstrong texted back immediately. Rare for him.

It’s about the prom, Ash texted back after waiting a minute.

It’s going to be great. My buddy is DJing. Which means the music will NOT suck. He’s playing stuff no one’s ever heard of, but wish they had.

Ash practically burst into tears. She was never, ever going to forgive her mother for doing this to her. Laila had tried to console her the previous night by telling her they could go bargain-basement dress-hunting that weekend. Ash had asked to leave the dinner table and go to bed early. She was done fighting for something that was not going to happen.

Her phone buzzed again and she quickly covered it with her hand, glancing up to see if the teacher had noticed. They were supposed to be writing an essay. The teacher, however, was sending a text message of her own. The formerly sporty Ms. Winter had recently gotten one of those Nordstrom makeovers and was sporting cherry-red lipstick and platform heels every day and had been texting nonstop, even during class. Ash was pretty sure she was actively doing the online dating thing. She’d caught Ms. Winter browsing Chemistry.com when she had claimed she was grading mid-terms.

Ash glanced down to see what other fun things Armstrong was planning for the prom where she would not be his date. Instead, a new text had arrived from Sebastian.

Awesome news. You’re getting your dress. Meet me right after school at my car.

Ash almost dropped her phone. What was Sebastian talking about now? He never, ever gave up, but even he had to be aware that there was no way in hell they were going to come up with five hundred dollars overnight.

* * *

“Where are we going?” Ash was being dragged down the hall by Sebastian the second she exited her last class of the day.

“We’re about to make this happen.” Sebastian tucked her hand firmly under his arm while he searched for his car keys in his messenger bag.

“Seb, tell me.” Ash attempted to drag her feet so he would stop.

“Stop doing that or I’ll fireman-carry you to the car.”

Ash smiled. She had no doubt he would do exactly that. “Just tell me and I’ll cooperate.”

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

“I do, but...”

Seb stopped next to his car and opened the passenger-side door for her. “In.”

“I need to tell Armstrong I can’t go with him.”

“You’re going.”

“But we don’t have—” Ash reluctantly got in and pulled her feet to safety before Sebastian slammed the door shut on them “—five hundred dollars.”

“Please fasten your seat belt before you fly out of the car and no longer need a prom dress for anything.”

Sebastian was skidding out of the parking lot before Ash could say anything more. They took the familiar route to Capitol Hill again and parked right in front of Some Like It Haute.

“What are we doing? Negotiating isn’t going to work. Lyra already told us how complicated the whole thing is.”

“I got this.” Sebastian grabbed all the stuff they needed for the dress project and was in the shop before Ash could protest further.

“Hi! Hey, Lyra, us again,” Sebastian was saying by the time Ash made it in the door behind him. “I was thinking...”

“This is cute.” Lyra was watching Sebastian with amusement. He did look cute trying to juggle a miniature toy dress and the giant garment bag at the same time. Ash felt a twinge of annoyance anyway. It was becoming quite clear that Lyra liked Sebastian.

“I was noticing you guys didn’t have a website. I went to it last night to see if there were any other seamstress-type people who we could hire and you don’t have anything resembling an online presence!” Sebastian neatly laid out all the stuff in front of Lyra.

Ash wondered what he was doing. Pointing out the little shop’s shortcomings was not going to work, no matter how much the owner’s daughter liked Sebastian!

Lyra sighed. “We have one, but it’s not a very good site. My dad made it and well, he’s a doctor, not a computer person. We just don’t have the money to hire a professional web designer right now. It costs over...”

“A thousand dollars. Or more,” Sebastian finished. “I know.”

“That’s right.” Lyra started to look suspicious.

Ash was, too. What was Sebastian up to? What did this have to do with anything at all?

“What if,” Sebastian said, taking the lehenga out of the garment bag and laying it across the table again, “we cut a deal?”

“What kind of deal?” Lyra didn’t look any less suspicious.

“The kind where you do this lovely girl’s alterations and I build your website for you. For free. You save over five hundred dollars. At least.”

Was he serious? Ash’s eyes widened. Did he know how to build something as complex as a professional site for a store?

“You know how to build websites? Not just webpages, but with databases and things I don’t totally understand?” Lyra echoed Ash’s sentiments. “It has to be able to take customers’ orders and list all the stock we have and stuff automatically. I need to be able to load info myself. My parents are going to make me be the main website administrator since they can barely figure out email.”

Sebastian didn’t look concerned.

“My credentials are here.” Here Sebastian pulled up his phone and started showing her some pinned sites on his browser. “I made the school’s website. I’m making my parents’ church’s website. I made my uncle’s business’s website. All have a database back end. All have search functionality as well as upload and download functionality. And I’m on-call tech support for all of them.”

“Wow,” Lyra and Ash said at once.

Ash was shocked at how lovely the sites were as she peeked over his shoulder. She’d known Sebastian had made the school’s website, but she hadn’t understood how complicated it must have been.

“I can make one for your store as my AP Computer Science class project. I’m in that class right now so I can start immediately.”

Something was nagging at Ash’s brain. She felt as though he already had a plan for that class and it did not involve making a website for Some Like It Haute. She made a note to ask him about it later. Right now, Lyra was looking very interested in the idea.

“I’ll mock up a prototype and see if you like it. I kind of already started last night based on the personality of this store.” Sebastian gestured toward the back. “Lively and fun. Fashionable. Young.”

Lyra’s eyes lit up at “young.”

Ash glanced over at him again. Was he sure about this? This sounded like a lot of work. She knew he’d been working on the website for his parents’ church for over two months.

“If you like the prototype, we’re on our way and I’ll make the website for you, with free updates whenever you need. It’ll take about a month. In return, I’d love it if you would do the alterations for Ash’s dress in the next two weeks. So she can be the most beautiful and unforgettable girl Seattle Academy has ever seen.”

Lyra looked from Ash to Sebastian, Ash thought, a bit jealously. What girl wouldn’t?

Ash held her breath and watched the cat-shaped clock on the wall tick. Was this really going to work? She didn’t want to get her hopes up again. She’d had her heart broken too many times over this whole fiasco.

Lyra broke into a smile. “Okay, I need to talk to my mom, but I can convince her. You can pick up the dress in two weeks. My mom will want to see a mock-up of the site by tomorrow though, before we start working on the dress. Can you do that?”

“You’ll have it tonight. You have my word she’ll like it. Or I’ll change anything she wants. Or you want.”

Ash couldn’t believe it and discreetly snapped the hair tie she had around her wrist to make sure this was not a dream. The tiny pinch assured her it was not.

Sebastian turned to smile at her. “Told you.”

Ash threw her arms around Sebastian and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “God, I love you!”

She felt his cheek grow hot under her mouth and pulled away. She’d never seen him blush so hard! For a second, she had the insane thought that she should have taken this opportunity to kiss him on the mouth. She’d always wondered what it would be like to press her lips against his perfect Cupid’s bow. She easily could have blamed the moment.

Alas, she hadn’t acted quickly enough and the moment passed.

Lyra continued to smile wistfully. “You guys are sooo cute. I wish my boyfriend was so sweet. Hell, I wish I even had a boyfriend!”

This didn’t help Sebastian’s blushing.

“You—” Lyra turned to Ash “—are very lucky to have a date who cares so much about her dress. Most guys have no idea what their girlfriend’s wearing—and don’t care much, either!”

Ash opened her mouth to thank her, but Sebastian got to the false statement first.

“Oh! I’m not her girlfriend. I mean, she’s not mine. My girlfriend I mean. We’re just friends.”

Sebastian’s words stung. Suddenly, Ash felt as if they were in eighth grade again and everyone was teasing them about “going together” and Sebastian was very insistent that they were friends and nothing more. He always made being mistaken for her boyfriend sound like the most horrific and unbelievable thing in the world.

And specifically now in front of Lyra.

“She’s—going with someone else.” Sebastian was still uncharacteristically fumbling for words. “I’m not going.”

“You’re not?” Both Lyra and Ash asked together. She knew it. Jessica had chickened out.

He shrugged. “I didn’t have anyone special in mind to ask.”

Ash noticed Lyra’s eyes light up again as she said, “I’m not going to the prom, either. No one asked me. Plus, it’s really expensive.”

Sebastian nodded knowingly.

“Maybe you and I should hang out when everyone else is at the prom!” Lyra sounded like she was joking, but Ash suspected she was not. “Be losers together!”

On top of her hurt, Ash felt a sudden anger at Lyra for blatantly flirting with Sebastian right in front of her. Lyra had assumed he was taken thirteen seconds ago, for God’s sake!

And Sebastian was just standing there smiling like an idiot at the idea of him and Lyra hanging out.

Ash bit her tongue before she could utter the rude thought that was in her head. Both of them were doing a lot to get the dress done for her, and she was grudgingly grateful to both.

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