“Huh,” Libby said. “Yeah. That’s a compelling argument. Then, after the dance, maybe I should put my hand in the fireplace. Just so that I know how it feels. Just so I know I’m not missing out on something.”

  Owen fell back on the bed. “You’re infuriating.”

  “Again,” she said, turning to look down on him. “That’s all on you. You chose me. You saw me on the shelf and thought, That one—that one there. That’s my best friend.”

  “I didn’t choose you,” Owen muttered, rubbing his eyes. “I picked you up because you looked interesting, and didn’t realize I was still holding you until I’d already left the store.”

  “You’re like E. E. Cummings or something,” she said. “You should write these things down.”

  She fell back on the bed, too. Owen folded his arms. They were both staring at the ceiling now.

  “I know that Jeremy Wheeler asked you to the Snow Ball . . .” Owen said.

  “It’s not a secret,” she said.

  “Jeremy’s cute.”

  Jeremy was fine. “He looks like a guy in a Target ad.”

  “Everybody likes Jeremy Wheeler.”

  “Every time I see him,” Libby said, “I think, On sale this week at your neighborhood Target.”

  “You like Jeremy Wheeler,” Owen said.

  “So what?” She raised up her hands. “Everybody likes him.”

  “Yeah, but he likes you.”

  “I’m likable,” she said.

  “No,” Owen said, “you’re not.”

  “You like me . . .”

  “No.” Owen sounded tired. “I just don’t know what to do with you.”

  “You haven’t found a place to set me down yet . . .”

  “Exactly,” Owen said.

  Here will do, she thought.

  Owen sat up and started over with his tie. He was being very brisk. And dapper. And on his way to a dance.

  “You can do it,” Libby said to the ceiling.

  “Thanks.”

  “Whatever ‘it’ is.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is ‘it’ Carolyn?”

  “Kamrin.”

  “Whatever. Is she ‘it’?”

  Owen shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Libby repeated.

  “I just don’t want to mess this up,” he said. “I think she really likes me—that never happens.”

  “That happens.”

  “Shut up, Libby.”

  “People like you.” Libby lifted herself up on her elbows to look at him. “Who doesn’t like you?”

  “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

  “Who doesn’t like you? Seriously, who is this person who doesn’t like you? I want to dissect them and document it for science.”

  “Libby . . .”

  “Everyone likes you, Owen.”

  Everyone did like Owen—even more than they liked Jeremy Wheeler. Libby had thought she and Owen were meant to be best friends because they were both misfits. They were both weirdos. But then Owen went and showed everyone that you could be weird and popular. Libby had thought those things were mutually exclusive. She’d wanted them to be. She’d wanted to keep Owen for herself.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, like he couldn’t hear her internal monologue. He was staring at his neck in the mirror. “I mean girls. A girl like Kamrin has never liked me.”

  “What kind of girl is that?”

  “Pretty,” he said. “Decent. She’s really cool, you know? She could go to this dance with anybody, but she said yes to me.”

  “Maybe you were just the first person to ask her.”

  Owen caught Libby’s eyes in the mirror. “Maybe I was. Maybe it’s a fluke—I don’t care! I don’t want to mess this up.”

  Libby rolled onto her side and let her cheek rest on the comforter. Which smelled like Owen. Which was such a familiar smell, it practically didn’t smell like anything at all. “How could you, even?” she asked. “Mess it up.”

  “Lots of ways,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll mess it up without realizing I’m doing it. Like I’ll break some rule I didn’t even know existed.”

  “She writes poems that don’t rhyme,” Libby said.

  “So?”

  “In creative writing class.”

  “So?” he repeated. “Poems don’t have to rhyme.”

  “But it’s nice when they do,” Libby said.

  “I guess.”

  She twisted on the bed, so she could see him again in the mirror. “The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings.” It was Libby’s favorite poem. Lewis Carroll.

  Owen ignored her. He pulled on one end of the bow tie, and it slid out from around his neck. “I’m just going to wear a regular necktie.”

  “Everyone else will be wearing regular neckties.”

  “Then I’ll fit right in.”

  “You’re living the dream, aren’t you?”

  “You don’t have to be mean, Libby.”

  “I’m not.”

  Libby sat up. She was sitting right next to him. He smelled like mistletoe. Apparently.

  “I’m being your corner man,” she said. “Slap. Splash. You can do it.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “You can do it,” she said again. She’d keep saying it, if he wanted her to. “Whatever it is. Dancing, dinner . . . Camry.”

  “Just say her name. You’re running out of reasonable facsimiles.”

  Libby shrugged.

  “We can watch the movie tomorrow, Libby.”

  “I’m watching something else tomorrow.”

  “It’s just one night,” he said.

  “You better get to your dance,” she said, “or you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.”

  “Maybe I like school dances . . .”

  “How would you know,” she said quietly.

  “Maybe I like Kamrin,” he said even more quietly.

  “Great,” Libby whispered. “She said yes.”

  “Libby . . .” Owen turned to her. He looked pained. He sounded pained. “I just want to go to the dance and tell stupid jokes and listen to pop songs and maybe at the end of the night kiss somebody who isn’t my grandmother—”

  “Worthy goals.”

  He pointed at her. “—and you don’t get to make me feel shitty about that.”

  She shrugged again. “How could I?”

  He pointed harder. “You don’t get to take that away.”

  “Where would I put it?”

  “You’re such a pain in the ass, Libby.”

  “And yet you chose me!”

  “I didn’t choose you!”

  Libby was making an angry face. There were tears in her eyes. “Didn’t you?”

  “No.” He shook his head and let it fall into his hands. He sounded resigned. “You were just there when I got here. I thought you were built in.”

  Libby drew her knees up and pulled her sweater down over them.

  They both stared at Owen’s duvet cover. It was plaid.

  “I don’t have time to argue with you,” Owen said.

  “Do you want me to go home?”

  “If you want.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His head jerked up. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “What are you sorry for? You’re never sorry.”

  “I am so.”

  “Not with me,” he said.

  She clenched her jaw for a second. “Well, why should I be? Why would I want to hang out with someone who made me feel sorry all the time?”

  “Why are you sorry now?”

  She hugged her knees. “Because you told me to come over and help you get ready, and I don’t think that I have.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “Well. I’m sorry.”

  Owen licked his lips. “At some point . . .”

  She waited.

  “Libby, at some point, we won’t spend every Friday night together.”

  “We aren’t spending this Friday night together.”

  “Exactly!” he said. “At some point, this has to happen.”

  “At this point,” she said. “Apparently.”

  “It’s not fair!” Owen almost never lost his temper, but this was what it looked like when he did. “I asked you to the dance!”

  “No, Jeremy Wheeler asked me to the dance,” Libby said. “We were standing at the bus stop. He was all tall and nice and Forty percent off outerwear, this week at Target.”

  “No,” Owen said. “I asked you. Last year.”

  “You mean, to prom?”

  “Yes! And you said no!”

  “Because I didn’t want to go to prom,” Libby said. “I wanted to watch Star Trek.”

  “On your mom’s VHS tapes.”

  “Right.”

  “You could have watched that anytime.”

  “Right,” she agreed.

  “I asked you to prom, and you said no.”

  What was his angle? “I remember,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “So you have to give me tonight.”

  “I wanted to watch Star Trek last May, so I have to let you go to the Snow Ball tonight?”

  Owen nodded. “Yes.”

  “But you’re going to go whether I let you or not.”

  “I am,” he said. He licked his lips.

  “So I’m not letting you,” she said. “You’re just going.”

  “I want you to be happy for me.”

  “Why should I be happy for you? This dance sounds terrible.”

  “Not to me,” he said.

  “Because you’re an idiot sometimes.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I can’t be happy for you, Owen.”

  He clenched his fists between his knees. “I asked you to prom, Libby . . .”

  “I wanted to watch Star Trek.”

  “. . . and you said no.”

  “I asked you to watch Star Trek with me.”

  “Star Trek and prom aren’t the same,” Owen said.

  “Agreed,” Libby agreed. “One sucks.”

  “One means something!”

  “Agreed!”

  Owen licked his lips. He swallowed. He wound the tie around his fingers, licked his lips again, then let it unwind. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want . . .” Libby didn’t know either. She didn’t have a bow tie to fiddle with, so she rubbed her face in her knees. “I want you to be my best friend.”

  “I am your best friend.” He said it without even thinking about it.

  “I don’t want you to go to the dance, Owen.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I’m not trying to abandon you or leave you behind—just come to the dance.”

  “To the Snow Ball . . .” Libby said, considering it. (Well, considering considering it.)

  “Come,” he said. “Put on a dress. Or don’t. Go to one high school dance. Mark it off your list.”

  “I don’t have a list,” she said.

  “Well, I do.” He reached over and put his hand on her forearm. That was unprecedented. When you’ve been someone’s best friend for three years, almost nothing is unprecedented—but this was. “You have to let me have a list, Lib.”

  “I don’t let you do anything,” she whispered. “You do what you want.”

  “Ha.” He didn’t laugh. “I do what you want.”

  “But I thought doing what I wanted was what you wanted.” Libby didn’t understand why Owen was so upset. She was the one who should be upset! “You asked me if I wanted to go to prom,” she said.

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “And I didn’t want to.”

  “I understand, Libby.”

  “No, you don’t—I didn’t want to go to prom; that didn’t mean I was signing away all my mineral and property rights.”

  “Be less weird,” he begged her. “Just for a few minutes.”

  “I mean, I didn’t want to go to prom, Owen. I wanted to watch Star Trek.”

  “I remember.”

  “With you.”

  “I . . .” Owen stopped. He turned on the bed, so he was fully facing her. He still had her arm. “I actually don’t know what you’re talking about now, Libby.”

  “I didn’t know that was ‘it,’ ” she said.

  “What? That what was it?”

  She looked at her knees. “Never mind.”

  “No—not never mind. Libby.”

  “You should go,” she said. “A girl that you like finally said yes.”

  “I asked you first,” he said. “You said no.”

  “To the prom,” she said as quietly as she possibly could. “Not to you.”

  Owen started to say something. Then he licked his lips. He tilted his head. He didn’t look at her. Then he did. “Libby . . .”

  “You’re holding on to my arm,” she said.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  “If I’d asked you to this Christmas dance,” he said, “would you have said yes?”

  “No.”

  “If I’d asked you . . . God, Libby, what would I have to ask? What do you want?”

  She lifted up her head. She looked in his eyes. “I want you to stay home and watch Judy Garland with me.”

  “I got that part . . .”

  “I don’t want you to dance with pretty girls. Or worry about messing things up with them.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t want you to kiss anyone. Except your grandmother.”

  “You’re telling me what you don’t want, not what you want . . .”

  “Well, I’m better at that.”

  “I know.”

  His hand slipped down to hers. Completely unprecedented. And cold.

  “Tell me what you want from me,” he said.

  “Can’t we just be friends?” she asked.

  “We’re really good at it.” “We’re the best.” He squeezed her hand. “Do you want me to let go?”

  “No.”

  “What do I have to ask you,” he asked, “to get a yes?”

  “Would you rather take me to the Snow Ball than Kamrin?”

  “Yes,” Owen said.

  That was the best news Libby had heard all year. “I want to be on your list,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to keep making it without me.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “And I’ll go to prom with you.”

  “We already missed prom.”

  “There’s another one though, right? Eventually?”

  “You’ll go to prom with me five months from now?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you want to?”

  “No, but . . . I want you,” Libby said.

  Owen squeezed her hand. He shoved his face forward. His chin jabbed into hers. He kissed her.

  This was with. Out. Precedent.

  Owen’s lips were thin. The bottom one was just a smudge, and the top one was a line, an edge, an opening pressed against hers.

  The kiss was short.

  “Was that okay?” Owen whispered.

  “Yes.”

  He tried it again. He pushed a little too hard with his mouth. Libby’s hand came up to his chest.

  “Still okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Can we keep doing it for a minute?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  So they did.

  When Owen pulled back, he ran his hand along Libby’s hairline, untucking the curl from her ear and winding it around his finger. “I didn’t think you wanted this,” he said.

  “You never asked.”

  “So I wasn’t supposed to ask you to prom; I was supposed to ask if I could kiss you?”

  “It’s always better to be specific, Owen.”

  He huffed out a laugh. “I thought you said no to prom because you didn’t want to ruin everything.”

  “What’s everything?” She was still whispering.

  “You and me. Friendship.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “But I’d rather we ruin it together than you ruin it with somebody else.”

  “But you want this, Libby?”

  “I want you.”

  “I want you, too.”

  “That’s nice to hear, Owen.”

  Owen laughed and shook his head at her. “You’re really weird. And not in a normal way. You’re genuinely odd, you know that?”

  “I guess. Is that important?”

  “You’re weird. And you make everything difficult. And—could we have been kissing for the last year?”

  “Probably even before that.”

  “Jesus. You’re infuriating.”

  She pulled on his lapel. “But . . .”

  “But, yeah . . .” He kissed her again. “I’m going to get really good at this, I promise.”

  “I believe you. You can do it.”

  Owen kissed her. Every single kiss was softer and longer than the one before. Fibonacci sequence. They were never going to leave this room.

  “Okay, Libby,” he said the next time he pulled away. “Jesus. Okay.”

  “I’m glad we worked this out,” she said, taking a breath.

  He laughed. She smiled.

  Then he pulled away from her. “You know I’m still going to the dance, right?”

  Libby did not know that. “What? You can’t!”

  “I have to! Kamrin’s waiting for me.”

  “But, Owen, what was the point of all this if you’re still going to the Snow Ball?”

  “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that . . .”

  “Owen.”

  “I’m not a monster, Libby. She’s waiting for me.”

  “You’re going to go with her?”

  “I am.”

  “And you’re going to dance with her?”

  “I am. And I’ll probably have a really great time because I am in a fantastic mood.”

  “Owen!”

  “And then I’ll come back to your house, or here if you want, and I’ll watch Meet Me in St. Louis with you.”

  Owen stood up. He tied his bow tie. He watched Libby watching him in the mirror.

  She wanted to argue with him, but she also wanted to run her fingertips over her lips.

  When Owen turned back to face her, his tie was crooked. “Will you wait for me?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He unpinned the sprig of mistletoe from his jacket and attached it to Libby’s sweater.