Wrong Quarterback | ✓

34 | winter wonderland

            "Duck. Duck," Luke pauses with his palm atop Avery's head. "Traitor."

"Watch her hair!" Lea scolds, shoving him lightly in the side as he sets the boxes of pizza in his other hand down on the table before them. Callie, too, shoots him a glare.

"Do you even know how long it took me to curl all of that?" She asks, sinking into a seat on a nearby stool. She tucks a napkin into the neckline of her cream colored dress as not to spill all over it, pizza slice in hand.

Avery's lips twitch with an upward tilt as she notices Luke refraining from rolling his eyes, lifting her hand to trace her fingers over the bobby pins holding her do together to make sure they're still in place.

"Oh thank you God – good," Brianna Coleman – co-president of the Acebridge Winter Formal's planning committee – sounds from behind them, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor of the ballroom as she abandons the paper cut-out of a snowflake and beelines for the table.

"No. Thank you me," Callie – the other half of the presidency – corrects. "For being brilliant enough to realize we'd need to recharge before everyone gets here."

"Well," Brianna feigns pleasantry, carefully picking a slice up with the help of a napkin as not to get grease all over herself. "Thank you Calliope."

"You're welcome Bree-anna."

Avery holds a hand out to stop Callie from getting up – grateful she's finally sitting down, noticing how the girl's gaze flickers to the paper cut-out of the snowflake Brianna let fall to the floor in her haste to get to the pizza. She mouths a 'let me,' before stepping over Nic's legs where they're stretched out before him on the floor, leaving the pizza and her friends behind to go fix it.

          Kicking her heels off, she picks it up by the strings fastened to the glittery paper and climbs onto a stool to hang it up along the rest. Her lips slip into a satisfied smile as she reaches up on her toes, running her hand along the string to make sure it looks pretty rather than the school project of a six year-old. They've done good. In a town nurtured by blind loyalty first, tradition of rivalry second – tonight is an exception and the ballroom of the quaint seaside hotel on the edge of town is the place to be. And it looks it too.

"Have you always been this tall?"

Avery's smile widens as she whirls around to find Ethan peering up at her. 

Letting her palms fall to his shoulders, his dark brown gaze having everything and everyone else in the room fade away. "Hi you. What do you think of our Winter Wonderland?"

Not taking his eyes off her for even a beat of a second, his lips tug up. "It's cool."

"You didn't even look."

The fingers of her right hand travel to the collar of his white button-down, straightening it out. Letting her fingers rest there, she bites down at her lip as she lets her gaze flicker up and down him and her cheeks warm as they tighten with her smile – taking in the sight of him in his suit. She wonders how it'd be to run her fingers along the buttons of his shirt, unbuttoning them one by one. Snap out of it, Avery. Focus.

"What are you blushing about?"

Noticing the faint twitch of amusement to Ethan's lips, she lets her eyes find his again as a short laugh escapes her. Shaking her head slowly, she lets her palms fall into his – their fingers intertwining as she jumps off the stool, soon finding herself gazing up at him instead. She really does need to come up with occasions requiring him to be in a suit more often.