The Kiss List

Turn Me On, Wait, I Mean Take On Me

"Ouch, Jo!" I cried, slapping my best friend's hand, or more importantly the curling iron in it, away from my face. "Gracie!"

He eyed me with an irritated look hearing me call for his girlfriend, but eventually fell back a step and followed my gaze to his girlfriend as she stepped out of the bathroom.

I about fell into a fit of laughter seeing her. Her hair looked like my old Barbies after I'd decided to bathe them and leave their out to dry on its own. Stiff, frizzy, and in my friends case-soaked in so much hairspray I could smell it from where I sat in my computer chair across the room. Her dress was gorgeous, an off the shoulder blue knee length dress my mother had thrusted into her arms not even three hours ago with a promise she'd look stunning.

Mom wasn't wrong. The dress brought out the blues in my friend's eyes and with the overdone eye makeup, they stood out against her fair skin. She looked like a modern day Cinderella.

"You look beautiful, babe." Jonah complimented as she approached and snatched the curling iron from his hand.

"Of course, I do." she responded with a wink. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

He shifted on his feet and scratched at the back of his neck, looking as if he were well aware of the trap his girlfriend had just set for him to walk into. "I mean, I thought you were going to look like my Mom."

"Gee, thanks."

"You don't, though." Jonah leaned in and kissed her. "You're beautiful all the time, baby. But there's just something about this whole eighties retro look that's making me want to tear that dress of."

I started to wave my hands between the two of them. "Guys, I'm in the room, remember? In fact, y'all are in my room. Please refrain from making love on my sheets, thanks."

Both of them laughed, but Jonah responded with a shake of his head. "Did you just say making love?"

"Why was the theme so last minute, anyway?" Gracie changed the subject for a minute, shutting the iron off and unplugging it a few seconds after. "I remember it being some Hollywood thing or some weird theme like that a couple months ago."

"It was." I confirmed. "But we didn't like it and Principal Abrams said it wasn't in our budget, so we had to try and figure out another. Hence how Louie's idea of Dancing Through the 80s became canon."

She hmphed at the response, and satisfied with my hair and makeup, she grabbed the same red lipstick I'd worn the night of the kissing booth from my dresser and set it in my hand. "Hurry up. Rayna and Lindsey have been blowing up my phone. They're saying they need help since Louie's going to be late."

I waved her off dismissively, and with her went my best friend with a quick salute back at me. After ensuring my makeup was up to par with my gorgeous friends, I tucked the lipstick into my obnoxiously glittery clutch and backed away from the mirror, giving myself a quick once over.

My mom had sat me down a couple hours before Jo and Gracie got here and explained the sentimental value the dress she was loaning me had for her. It was her Senior Prom dress. The very dress she'd realized she still had feelings for my father in and shared their life-altering kiss in to the song Faithfully by Journey a little over twenty years ago. It was floor length-long enough to cover my comfortable slides, but not so long it was leaving a trail of burgundy behind me. It had a corset built in and after two hours of sitting in that chair, I felt as if all air had been suctioned from my lungs and one wrong move would not only send my boobs out from the top of the dress but bust the zipper and intricate design on the back.