First Dance by Bianca Giovanni

Chapter 1 - Lola

    The school gym has been transformed into an
autumn wonderland—well, as much as one can transform a gym on a
public school budget. There are cardboard maple trees, orange and
red streamers, Dollar Tree fall tablecloths on the scattering of
tables at the edge of the dance floor and even a disco ball.
There’s a DJ set up under one of the basketball hoops and loud Top
40 hits of the early 2000s are blaring over the speakers. The Fall
Formal is in full effect and I’m sharing my first high school slow
dance to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” with Marshall
Kittredge, a super cute boy whom I’ve had a crush on since sixth
grade, but who never paid any attention to me until I emerged from
middle school stacked with a pair of D cups.
    A lot of boys have started paying attention
to me lately, which doesn’t sit well with my best friend, James.
He’s three years older than me and we’ve been best buds since his
family moved into the house next door when I was in first grade.
James is popular, particularly with the ladies at school. He’s been
a huge flirt since he was about twelve and, by the time he turned
seventeen, he had bedded more girls than Colin Farrell. It’s no
surprise, he’s very good looking. He’s tall, standing well over six
feet, his body looks like it was chiseled by Michelangelo himself,
he’s got pouty lips, a square jaw, long, dark brown hair that he
usually wears pulled low in a messy bun, hazel-green eyes and a
smile that could bring a girl to her knees—literally. Everyone
makes over James. The girls practically swoon at their lockers when
he comes down the hallway and even the teachers are not immune to
his charm. He once got Mrs. Peterson to give him a passing grade in
Geography after a one-on-one “chat” with her in her office. Every
girl seems to have a lady boner for James, every girl but me, that
is. James and I have known each other too long and I feel like I’m
the only female in town who isn’t flinging her panties at him like
he’s a rock star.
    I catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of
my eye and he doesn’t look happy. Marshall’s hands have drifted
from the small of my back to the top of my behind and they’re
inching ever closer to flat-out palming me. James is standing with
Kelsey Vaughn, the blonde, rich, frizzy-haired cheerleader he’s
been banging for the past few weeks. She’s yammering on about
something, most likely which member of N’Sync was the cutest or
some other completely mundane subject, but he’s ignoring her and
staring right at me. He’s not amused by Marshall’s over-amorous
hands and I can tell he’s getting progressively more pissed off
with each lyric.
    James has always been so protective of me.
I’m petite and spent the majority of my childhood as a gawky nerd
who liked reading instead of spin the bottle, so kids tended to
pick on me. He was always like my bodyguard, telling off bullies
and occasionally beating up the kids who were mean to me. Once I
blossomed into a woman, as our health class politely terms puberty,
his protective nature kicked into high gear and he’d lecture me
about how I shouldn’t make out with this guy or how I shouldn’t let
that guy feel me up. It seems like I always have to hear some big
speech about not giving it up until I’m in love and not letting a
guy pressure me into doing more than I want to, but I usually just
roll my eyes and point out the hypocrisy of a guy who’s slept with
almost every girl in town telling me to stay chaste like I’m some
kind of Victorian lady.
    The slow song ends and the speakers boom with
Juvenile’s “Back That Thang Up”, which the school administrators
have reluctantly agreed to allow at the dance. Marshall grabs my
hips and grinds on me suggestively. I like the attention and I feel
pretty smug that a boy wants to get close to me like this, so I
grind right back on him. He turns me so my back is to him and he
gets up really close and