Crush

Fuss

Oliver

I ran one finger under the collar of my dress shirt, feeling hot, uncomfortable and overdressed.

"Everyone's going to be wearing something like this, Ollie," Dad said as he grinned at my reflection in the floor length mirror in his bedroom. He pushed his glasses up his nose as he smiled encouragingly at me.

I stretched my head to the side, feeling the cotton of the shirt scratch my neck, frowning, grumbling. "So everyone else's dad is going to make them get ready early so they can take a million photos of them?"

Dad rolled his eyes. "You only ever have one senior prom."

I shrugged my shoulders, watching in the mirror as the suit I was wearing shifted with the movement. "I swear you never made this much fuss at my junior prom."

Dad smoothed his hands over my shoulders as he continued to look at me in the mirror from over my shoulder. "This is quite possibly the last prom you will ever go to. Of course I'm going to make a fuss." He spun me around to face him and grinned. "And this time, you're going with someone you really like."

Asher.

He was talking about Asher.

I had been to other proms with Chloe.

It wasn't that I didn't like Chloe, it was just ... I did like her. Just not in that way.

I smiled at my dad.

It had been a couple of weeks since I'd gotten back in touch with Asher.

And they had been an amazing couple of weeks.

Talking to him every day on the phone ... hearing his deep voice ...

A shiver ran along my spine, my body reacting to just the thought of his voice.

His grandmother had bought him his own phone after his sister complained about the amount of time he was spending on her phone to me every day. We were ruining her life, apparently. Taking up too much of her time on the phone.

So his grandmother bought him his own.

I made sure I saved his new number to my phone. And that same number was tucked safely away in my memory.

"Blue's your colour," Dad muttered as he fixed the tie that was annoying my neck. "Asher's wearing the same colour, isn't he?"

I nodded, unable to keep the big grin off of my face.

Dark blue suit, white dress shirt, blue tie, black shoes. It was Asher's idea for me to wear a blue suit. He told me that he liked to see me in blue.

And considering I hadn't seen him in months, I was determined to look my best tonight when I eventually did. I'd wear blue if he wanted. Whether it was a blue suit or blue body paint. Either way, I'd wear it. Just for him.

And he was wearing a suit that matched mine tonight.

His mother didn't want him to come back to town just yet. With his father out on bail, and the lawyers wanting to start preparations for his trial, the press were practically camped outside the house his father still lived in. Photographers were snapping photos of anything and anyone who so much as looked at the house. They'd been around to other people's houses, shown up to Zain's office. Even Dad had been asked to give a statement.

Because of all the fuss, Asher's mom didn't want her kids to come back. She didn't want them to be hounded, ridiculed, bullied. She'd told Asher that she was doing it to protect them. She didn't want them near the circus that was their own family home.