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Prom and Other Hazards

Copyright © 2016, 2020 by Jamie Sullivan

Cover art: Natasha Snow, natashasnow.com

Editor: Carole-ann Galloway
Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com

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ISBN: 978-1-62649-940-9

Second edition
December, 2020

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It might take the magic of prom to turn her best friend into her girlfriend.

Frankly, prom is a ridiculous concept. People at school treat it like it’s a test run for a wedding,
complete with “promposals.” That’s not even mentioning the dresses, which look like Disney
vomited tulle and sparkles onto the nearest mannequin. Sam wants nothing to do with any of it.

But there’s the tiny fact that her best friend, Tash, dreams of the perfect romantic prom. And
Sam’s been in love with Tash since they were ten years old. She’s given up hope of ever having
the courage to tell Tash how she feels, until she spots The Suit in a shop window. Sleek,
androgynous, and flat-out cool—it could finally give her the boost she needs. However, it’s also
way out of her price range.

Still, if she can earn the money for the suit, then maybe she can finally tell Tash she loves her,
and they can both enjoy the perfect prom.
 About Prom and Other Hazards
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Dear Reader
Also by Jamie Sullivan
About the Author
Sneak Peek: The Persephone Star
Sneak Peek: Heart of the Dragon
 Sam blinked, incredulous, at the banner dangling in front of her.
Will you GOAT to prom with me? it asked, the words scrawled in dripping paint, next to a
crudely rendered drawing of an animal that she assumed—from context clues—was meant to be
a goat. It looked more like a radioactive dog.
It was . . . “Unbelievably embarrassing,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“No!” Tash protested beside her. “It’s sweet!”
“Sweet?” Sam swung around to bestow the full force of her disbelief on her best friend. “It
looks like a six-year-old made it.”
“But look how happy Kayla is,” Tash argued.
Kayla Ross—petite, blonde, and popular—embraced her dumb boyfriend, Austin, in front of
the entire cafeteria, like the whole school hadn’t known they were going to prom together
already. Austin still had paint on his hoodie, so it wasn’t like he’d put that much preparation into
the thing, but Kayla was almost crying as she choked out the word yes.
“I literally can’t believe this is happening,” Sam said. “It’s like some kind of dystopian
nightmare. Why does Austin need a banner to ask out his own girlfriend?”
“They’re called promposals,” Tash said knowingly. “They’re a thing now. I saw it on
Buzzfeed.”
“Seriously? Promposal?” The disdain dripping from Sam’s words felt like it might be
visceral enough to pool at her feet and ruin her shoes. “Who made that up? It’s one school dance,
not a lifetime commitment!”
“I heard Henry Lee ordered a thousand balloons in Jackie’s favorite color. He’s going to get
the custodian to let him into the school at like five tomorrow morning, and put them in the hall
outside her locker.”
“A thousand balloons in a school hallway? He’ll get suspended,” Sam said flatly.
Tash shrugged. “Maybe he thinks it’s worth it.”
“More likely the pressure of the SATs has finally pushed him over the edge.” Sam gave a
sad shake of her head. Jackie had been in love with Henry since the eighth grade. There was no
way she’d say no, no matter what he did. So what was the point?
“Oh, don’t be so judgy. It’s romantic.”
“That,” Sam said, pointing to the banner, “is a bad pun and livestock. Since when are farm
animals romantic?”
“Horses are romantic,” Tash argued.
Sam raised her eyebrows.
“What? They are!”
Sam had seen some of the romance novels her friend kept around her room. Horses did seem
to feature an inordinate amount. “Ugh, come on. Let’s just get our lunches.”
Sam pushed past the crowd gathered around Kayla and Austin, some of them filming the
whole thing on their phones like it wasn’t a moment they’d all rather forget, and grabbed a
cafeteria tray. At least the promposal meant there wasn’t a line for Pizza Friday.
 She turned back to say as much to Tash, but her friend wasn’t behind her. She was lingering
near the crowd, her gaze soft and reflective as she watched Austin dip Kayla into a rom-com-
poster kiss. Her expression was almost . . . longing.
Sam bit her lip and turned back to the greasy pizza the lunch ladies were offering. Pizza was
simple. Pizza was all she could handle in that moment.
Pizza didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Tash deserved a big promposal if she
wanted one. Tash was smart and interesting and funny, and so beautiful that sometimes Sam felt
a little sick with it, like if she looked at Tash for too long, she’d explode or melt or just fizzle
away from wanting something so much and knowing she’d never have it.
Natasha had been her best friend since the fifth grade, when she’d been assigned as Sam’s
science partner and had told her she liked her shoes—the same scribbled-on Converse that Kayla
Ross had told Sam the week before made her look like a hobo. Sam was pretty sure she’d been in
love with Tash from that very moment. Possibly even before, when Tash had been introduced to
the class as the new kid from Minnesota, with her pink cheeks and bouncy blonde curls.
It had gotten worse as they got older. At first, all Sam had known was that she wanted to
spend every second of every day with her new friend. She wanted to sit with her at lunch, and
play with her after school. She wanted to have an endless series of sleepovers on the weekends,
uninterrupted by other friends.
It had only been as they approached high school and kids in their class started dating, the
girls gushing over cute boys and hoping they might take them out, that Sam had realized the way
she felt about Tash was a little different than friendship. She had no interest in cute boys, and
while her eyes sometimes lingered on the length of the cheerleaders’ skirts, or the way the
volleyball team looked in their uniforms, it was only Tash who made her feel the way dumb
teenage romances told her was love. Tash, whose soft blonde hair had given way to an electric
red with the help of Sam and a box of supermarket dye, who draped herself in oversized black
hoodies and wore lipstick as red as a poison apple. Tash, who didn’t care that she was too
beautiful to be anything but a cheerleader, or homecoming queen, or president of the student
council, and hung around with Sam instead.
Sam’s feelings hadn’t been a big deal. Sure, it was awkward being in love with your best
friend, but Sam would rather feel this way about Tash than about some random girl she never
even got to talk to. Sam was excellent at managing her expectations. She hadn’t rhapsodized
about how different senior year would be, how life changing, and she hadn’t even given a second
thought to Tash being a real possibility for her. They were friends, and that was enough.
Or it had been.
Everything had been perfectly fine until the summer before senior year, when Tash had gone
away with her family for two weeks in August like she always did, and had come back dying to
tell Sam all about how she’d kissed a girl.
A girl! Some cute girl in a form-fitting wetsuit who had spent two weeks trying to teach
Tash to surf—her hands on Tash’s waist, her body pressed up behind Tash as she showed her the
moves.
A girl who had walked with Tash down the boardwalk at night, sharing cheesy fries and
listening to the faint sounds of carnival music, and then had kissed her under the moonlight.
“I always meant to tell you,” Tash had said, biting her lip. “It just never seemed like a big
deal. I’ve always known I was bisexual.”
“Sure,” Sam had mumbled faintly. “Not a big deal.”
 And it wasn’t a big deal for Tash. She didn’t walk around feeling like she was being crushed
under the weight of a secret, something else that would mark her out as different from everyone
else in high school. She just liked girls as well as boys.
Sam knew it didn’t have to be a big deal for her either. Her parents would support her no
matter what, their town was liberal enough that no one would shout insults at her on the street,
and the kids at school would pretty much go on ignoring her like they always had. But still, the
words always stuck in her throat.
That conversation, tucked away from prying ears in Tash’s bedroom, would have been the
perfect time to tell her best friend that she was gay. But instead she’d told Tash she was happy
for her, and then had made up a dumb excuse to go home.
A normal person would have told Tash, but a normal person wouldn’t have been harboring a
crush on her friend for the last seven years.
Sam had never worried that Tash would judge her; Tash was the most supportive person in
the world. It didn’t matter what Sam did—Tash thought it was great. Hell, she had even put up
with an entire summer of sitting around the skate park, probably bored out of her mind, because
Sam had been certain that skateboarding would be the thing that would help her fit in. She hadn’t
laughed at the dumb cargo shorts Sam had insisted on wearing or at the number of times she’d
fallen. She hadn’t said one judgmental thing when Sam had failed to learn a single trick that
whole summer and had given up without a word. If a friend wouldn’t judge you for that, then
you were safe with anything.
No, the reason why Sam didn’t tell Tash that she was gay was because Tash would be so
supportive. She would want to talk about what kind of girls Sam liked, who she had a crush on,
and who she should ask out.
And now that Sam knew Tash was into girls as well? Those conversations would be all the
more unbearable. Because Natasha had never given a single indication that she was interested in
Sam that way.
So Sam kept her mouth shut.
Only now, Tash was standing there in the cafeteria and she was looking at that idiotic goat
poster like she wanted it.
Sam would do anything for Tash, even draw her farm animals and hang them in the
cafeteria, but she had no idea if Tash wanted that kind of thing from her. Sam genuinely had no
idea if surrounding Tash’s locker with purple balloons—her favorite color—would make her
squeal and cry like Kayla had, or ruin their perfect friendship.
Besides, Sam thought sullenly as she dropped her tray down on an empty table, if I go to
prom, I’ll have to wear a dress.
Not happening.
The promposal crowd finally dispersed, and after a few minutes Tash sat down beside Sam
with her own pizza.
“So,” Sam said, poking the congealed cheese with a plastic fork. “You think anyone’s
planning a promposal for you?”
Tash barked out a laugh. “Nah. Those are for, like, big established couples. I’ll probably just
end up with Mark Anderson sidling up to me three weeks beforehand going, ‘Uh, you wanna go
or what?’” She dropped her voice, mimicking Mark’s stoner drawl.
Sam frowned. Mark Anderson was almost as into Tash as Sam was. “And you’ll say no,
right?”
“God! Of course. Can you imagine?” Tash laughed. “No, I’ll be going solo, I’m sure.”
 Sam highly doubted the male population of their school would let this opportunity pass them
by. She saw the way guys looked at her friend, admiring the way Tash’s tank tops stretched
across boobs like the kind normally only seen in underwear catalogs. And, on top of her flawless
figure, Tash was actually a nice person. Plenty of people had wanted to date her throughout high
school, and she’d even gone out with some of them, although her last relationship had ended
with the eleventh grade.
No, someone was bound to ask Tash. Just not Sam.
 Sam lingered in front of the store window, eyeing it dubiously. A sign proclaimed that it
carried The Best Prom Fashions, but if this was what prom fashion had to offer, it could count
Sam out.
It wasn’t just that she hadn’t put on a dress since her cousin’s wedding in the ninth grade,
when she’d worn a dropped-waist floral number with as much disdain as possible. It was that the
dresses in front of her were more than overtly feminine, they were downright tarty, with
necklines that plunged so low girls would be expelled for them, and slits that ran up high enough
to let the whole school know your underwear preferences.
And the ones that didn’t look like something Beyoncé would wear on a red carpet looked
like Disney had thrown up on them, all sparking tulle and corset laces.
Sam would look ridiculous if she tried to put on any of those dresses. She had the figure of a
ten-year-old and hair hacked short in a sudden whim the previous summer. She was wearing a
snapback and overall shorts, for god’s sake. Femininity was not her strong suit.
She didn’t even know why she was considering dresses. Except . . . Tash didn’t seem to
share her disdain for prom. She had squealed with Jackie when Henry unleashed hell upon them
in the form of a thousand balloons, jumping up and down in the hallway like big romantic
gestures actually meant something to her.
And Sam always wanted to give Tash what she wanted.
Morosely, she drifted away from the display. She didn’t know who she was kidding. She
would never be brave enough to ‘promposal’ Tash, dress or no. Not when the risk was that Tash
would let her down gently, pity in her pretty blue eyes. Still, maybe it would be enough to be at
prom with her, even if she wasn’t with her. They always had fun together, no matter where they
went. They could listen to music, and dance if Sam felt brave enough, and be best friends like
always.
That would be enough, wouldn’t it?
Sam kicked at the ugly blue carpeting as she trudged through the mall, killing time until
Tash could meet her to go see a movie. No matter where she went, she couldn’t seem to escape
prom. Another large banner in a different store window caught her eye, this one far more
subdued than the last. Remember to order your tuxes in time, boys, it chided.
Sam paused, taking in the suits in the rental shop window. The display was dominated by
traditional black tuxes, shown with vests in a variety of rainbow hues designed to coordinate
with dates’ dresses. They were nearly as horrible as the prom dresses, and she could just picture
Austin proudly wearing one, preening at the way he matched Kayla like it had been his idea.
Her eyes slid over the mannequins and caught at the end of the line. There, on the last
mannequin in the window, was a very different kind of suit. Sam let her eyes skate over its sleek
lines, cut to fit close to the body. The trousers clung almost like skinny jeans, and the jacket hung
casually open on the mannequin to reveal suspenders and a narrow black tie. It looked . . . cool.
Like the person who would wear it was confident in themselves.
It looked like it might fit a girl just as well as a boy.
 The picture in her mind of prom, in which she tried to laugh off her nerves as she donned
some ridiculous dress, shifted to something different. Something better. Sam, standing next to a
radiant Tash, in this suit, sleek and cool and finally herself for the whole school to see. She
would look right standing next to Tash in something like that. She wouldn’t look like a little girl
playing dress up, while Tash looked elegantly beautiful. Instead, she would complement her
friend, the yin to Tash’s yang.
Before she was really sure what she was doing, her feet had carried her into the shop.
“Can I help you, darling?”
The man who spoke was impeccably dressed; he didn’t seem like he belonged in a tacky tux
rental shop, and Sam knew instantly that he was responsible for putting that one gorgeous suit in
the window. His own three-piece suit, in a soft charcoal gray, was immaculate, cut to emphasize
his narrow shoulders and waist. He wore a sky-blue bow tie.
“Um.” Sam froze.
The man raised an eyebrow over his thick-rimmed glasses.
“I was wondering,” she stammered, eyes on her shoes, “about the suit in the window?”
“It’s a nice one, isn’t it?” the man said, clearly pleased.
“Yeah.” She scuffed her toe into the carpeting, trying to force herself to sound more
confident than she felt. “Actually, I wanted to try it on?”
She looked up, meeting the man’s eyes hopefully.
“Oh, sweetie,” he said, and she blanched away from his sympathetic face. “I would love to
help, seriously. But we don’t have any in your size.”
“Oh.” Obviously they didn’t. She was a girl, and it was a men’s shop. It was ridiculous to
have come in in the first place. She took a step back, ready to retreat, her vision of herself at
prom crumbling before her eyes.
But the man slid out from around the till, a smile on his face. “If you were interested in
buying instead of renting, though, I’m sure our shop tailor could do something. You’re a tiny
thing, but he’s pretty amazing. He’d have to take in the shoulders, which would be the hardest
part, and the arms, of course. But I think he could do it. And I think that suit would look great on
you.”
“Oh,” Sam faltered, glancing back at it. “How much . . .?”
“Well, off the rack it’s three hundred, but tailoring that extensive would be more.”
“Oh,” she said again, crestfallen, thinking of her dismal savings. “Thanks, but I can’t really .
. .” She turned toward the door.
“Hey,” the man called her back. “Is this for prom?”
Sam nodded.
“You have a special lady in mind?”
“I— What? I don’t—” She shook her head.
“Hey.” he held up his hands, placating. “No judgment here. I would be the last to judge on
that front, trust me.”
“Right,” she said, flushing again. God. She just needed to get herself out of the shop before
she died of embarrassment. Coming in had been a mistake.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Sam,” she mumbled.
“Well, Sam, I’m Kieran.” He held out his hand, and Sam took it, not knowing what else to
do. “We get a lot of dumb kids in here around prom time,” he continued. “But you? I like your
style. So, you don’t have to tell me about this mystery girl of yours, but maybe I could still help
you out.”
“Why?” Sam asked, perplexed.
“Because I remember what it was like to really want to ask someone to prom and not quite
feel brave enough,” Kieran said with a shrug. “Now, have you ever thought about an after-school
job?”
“What?”
“We’re hiring,” Kieran said, pointing to a small sign in the window. “You could work off
the suit. It might take a while since you’ll only be doing afternoons, but it might be worth it?”
Sam looked over her shoulder at the suit. It really was . . . perfect. Working would take time
away from Tash, but maybe she’d be working toward something more. More courage, at least.
She turned back to Kieran, squaring her shoulders. “When could I start?”
He gave her a wide grin. “Tomorrow, three thirty?”
“I’ll be here.”

“You got a what?” Tash laughed.

“A job.” Sam threw a kernel of popcorn at Tash’s laughing face.
“What for?”
“Money? It’s what most people work for.” She slunk down in the movie theater’s plush seat.
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Professor Economy. I meant, why do you need money now?”
“The normal reason. To exchange for goods in an open marketplace.”
“Fine, fine.” Tash rolled her eyes. Sam knew Tash was aware that her family wasn’t as well
off as Tash’s, that often Sam couldn’t afford to do everything that Tash could. It was why they
ate at McDonald’s more often than The Cheesecake Factory, even though Tash loved their
quesadillas. She was a good friend. “So where are you working?”
“That suit rental place in the mall?”
“Really?” Tash laughed again. A few rows behind them, someone grumbled. “It’s just the
ads!” Tash shouted back at them, before turning to Sam again. “Won’t it be full of idiots trying
to dress themselves for prom?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sam said, hunching her shoulders slightly. It was uncomfortably close to
the truth.
“Well, that’ll be funny, at least!” Tash said brightly. “You’ll see all the boys from school in
their underwear!”
Sam blanched, making Tash bark out a loud laugh.
The grumbler’s protests rose in volume.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Tash said thoughtfully, in response to the disgust on Sam’s
face. “I bet they all wear nasty ratty boxers.”
“Ugh. Thanks for that mental image.”
The lights in the theater dimmed, and Sam slouched back in her seat, lowering her voice.
“It’s only for a little while, anyway.”
Just until the suit was hers.
 “Hello, Mitchell’s Suit and Tuxedo Rental, this is Sam speaking. How may I help you?”
“Do you do tux rentals?”
Sam’s gaze strayed to the company logo over the cash register. Hadn’t she just said that?
“Yes, we do.”
“Okay,” the boy on the line grunted. “I wasn’t sure, because you sound like a girl.”
“I . . . am a girl?” Sam hazarded.
“Oh. I kind of assumed dudes would work there,” the kid said thoughtfully. “Did they hire
you so you can tell us if we look hot in the tuxes or not?”
Sam’s eyes widened. So much for easing into her first day by handling the phones. “I don’t
think so.” Her gaze strayed to Kieran. He seemed like he’d be better suited to that particular task.
“Oh. Huh.”
“Were you . . . interested in renting a tuxedo?”
“Yeah, I guess. My girlfriend says I have to get a tux for prom. Do you think she’s right?”
Sam had spent the majority of high school avoiding talking to guys like this. This
conversation was confirming her previous life choices.
“Well,” she ventured, “most guys do wear tuxedos to prom.”
“My dad has a pretty sweet sports jacket I think I could borrow,” the guy said. “I don’t know
why I can’t just wear that.”
“I guess you’d have to ask your girlfriend.”
“Nah, she already said no. She thinks the color’s weird.”
Sam bit her lip, resisting the urge to ask. She did not need to know more about this kid’s life.
“So, can I do this over the phone, or do I have to come to the store?” he asked.
Sam frowned. “Well, you need to be fitted. And also, you’d have to come in to pick up the
actual tux.”
“So I have to come twice?” the kid whined.
Sam rolled her eyes. How was it that this guy had a girlfriend when she didn’t? The universe
was endlessly unfair.
“Yes. At least.”
“Ugh. Fine. I guess I can go to the skate shop while I’m there.”
“Sure. That sounds like good time management.”
“So, how much is this going to cost me?” he asked. “Like, twenty?”
“Twenty . . . dollars?” Sam asked. “For an entire tuxedo?”
“Well, I’m not buying it, I’m borrowing it.”
“Our standard prom rental is a hundred and forty.”
“Dollars?” the kid yelped.
“Yes. US dollars.” She tapped her pen on the counter. She had only been at work for an
hour, but was already wondering if it was really worth it.
“Jesus, that’s ridiculous. Salmon sports coat it is.”
The line clicked and Sam blinked, realizing he’d hung up.
 “Good first call?” Kieran asked with a smirk, sidling up to her.
Sam stared blankly down at the phone in her hand. “Are they all like that?”
“Nah. Most of them are worse. Prom season means idiot teens. But grooms are the real
nightmare.”
“And . . . when’s wedding season?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll have your suit and your girl long before that,” Kieran said
with a wink.
“I don’t—” But he had already walked off to help a customer.
Sam’s eyes strayed again to The Suit in the window. It looked even better than she
remembered: expensive and fashionable, two things that had never before described her style.
She was dying to put it on.
But she’d have to wait until she could put down a deposit to the tailor. She turned her back
to the handy guide to working the cash register that Kieran had given her. Eye on the prize, and
all that.

“So, how was the first day?” Tash asked.

They were strolling through the mall after Sam’s shift, people watching and drinking sodas
nearly as big as they were. Sam’s eyes followed the way Tash slurped her drink—the way her
red lips puckered around the straw—with interest.
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head, forcing her gaze back up to Tash’s eyes—as beautiful as
her lips, big and blue, with flecks of green like the summer sea. Sam gave her head another tiny
shake. Like the summer sea? She was losing it. She needed to do something about her crush
before it drove her to writing bad poetry in her diary late at night. It was only a matter of time.
“Really?” Tash pouted. “Nothing funny happened?”
“Well, there were a few guys who made me despair for the human race, but that was about
it. Apparently the real rush won’t start for a week or two.”
“Ah, leaving prom till the last second. A noble tradition.”
“Still no dress?”
Tash ducked her head a little. “Well . . .”
Sam knocked her shoulder into Tash’s. “Well?”
“I think I found one that looked good? Today, while I was waiting for you. I’ve got a few
others I like, but this is definitely my number one. And you’re my number one! And two and
three and four and five and forever, so can you please come look at it with me? I know you hate
shopping and you already spent a whole day in a clothing store, which probably gave you hives
or something, but I need to know if you like it!” The words poured out of Tash in a rush.
“Tash,” Sam scolded. “Of course. Don’t be dumb.”
“Don’t be dumb,” Tash mimicked. “From the girl who pretended to have the flu to get out of
going shopping with me last week.”
“To Sephora,” Sam protested. “That’s a completely different issue. It smells weird in there.”
“It smells like designer perfume!”
“And it’s always full of teenage girls.”
“You’re a teenage girl!”
Sam shot her a withering look. “Not by choice. And I have no desire to plump my lips with
snake venom, or whatever other nonsense they’re always selling.”
“That’s because you already have Angelina Jolie lips,” Tash said with a tut.
 “What? I don’t—” Sam raised a self-conscious hand to her mouth. She never really thought
about her mouth. What did it mean that Tash did? Did it mean she watched Sam’s lips the way
Sam’s eyes followed Tash’s, drinking in the full redness, wondering what they would feel like
beneath her fingertips, under her lips . . .?
“So, you’ll tell me what you think of this dress?” Tash asked, cutting off Sam’s wild train of
thought.
Sam flushed. “Yeah, no problem.”
They dumped their sodas before heading to the dress boutique. It wasn’t quite as garish as
the one Sam had been looking at the day before, thank god.
“Oh my god,” Tash laughed as they walked through the door. “They’re playing our song!”
Cheesy pop, years out of date, trickled from the store’s speakers. It was a song that hadn’t been
cool even when they were in middle school, but that didn’t stop them from blasting it whenever
Tash’s mom gave her the car, rolling the windows down and screaming out the ridiculous lyrics.
Sam grinned. “It must be a sign.”
She deposited herself in the designated dudes’ waiting chair while Tash spoke to the girl
behind the counter and then swept back into the fitting room.
Sam pulled out her phone, opening a game to pass the time while she listened to the clatter
of hangers and Tash’s muttered curses as she slipped on the dress.
“Okay!” Tash called through the curtain. “You ready?”
Sam obediently dropped her phone into her lap. “Ready!”
Tash’s hand reached out, black-tipped fingers slowly parting the curtain.
Sam wasn’t sure it had ever happened before, but her breath literally caught. As in, she
inhaled and then couldn’t do anything else but sit there wondering if a person could asphyxiate
from beauty.
Tash posed in the doorway of the fitting room, one hip cocked dramatically, but her eyes
still looked shy as she met Sam’s gaze.
“So? What do you think?”
The dress was a metallic gunmetal silver that set off Tash’s pale skin and dark-russet hair
perfectly. It dipped low in the front, a deep vee settled between Tash’s flawless full breasts.
Every inch of the dress hugged Tash’s curves, skimming over the narrow lines of her waist and
the roundness of her hips.
“Sam!” Tash protested.
“It’s. Wow,” Sam stuttered. “Just . . . wow, Tash.” She could barely form words. The dress
highlighted everything about Tash that was devastatingly sexy. She almost didn’t want Tash to
have it, because the mere mortals at their school didn’t deserve to see her like this.
A small smile formed on Tash’s lips. “Really?”
“Yes. Jesus. It’s perfect. You look like a movie star. Or a vampire queen, or something.”
Tash’s eyes lit up. “That’s exactly what I was going for!”
“You’ve got to get it,” Sam encouraged. In that dress, Tash would look perfect no matter
who she went with, but a small part of Sam couldn’t help but picture it beside The Suit, the clean
black lines of the blazer and slacks next to the sensuous metallic curves of this dress. They would
look pretty phenomenal together.
“Yeah? You think it’s the one?”
“Well, I’m not telling you to marry it, but I definitely think it should be your prom dress.”
Tash laughed. “Okay.” She gave a little clap. “I’ll get it! Once my mom says yes, anyway.”
Sam grinned. “You’re going to be the most gorgeous girl there, Tash.”
 “Nah,” Tash said with a smile. “You’ll be there too.” She swept back behind the curtain,
leaving Sam staring after her.
Tash did that, dropping compliments about the way Sam looked and then giggling at how
flustered she got. Was this how normal friends talked about each other’s appearance? Was Tash
just being nice, or did her stomach flutter the way Sam’s did whenever she looked at Tash?
 Natasha slumped against Sam’s locker with a sigh. “My mom said no.”
“To what?” Sam shoved the last of her books into her bag.
“The dress.”
“What? But it’s perfect!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tash huffed. “It’s not about the dress. Apparently I can’t go to prom at all
without a date.”
“What?” Sam squawked. “That’s ridiculous. This isn’t the nineteen fifties!”
“I know, right? But prom is ‘different’ and ‘special,’ and ‘everyone will have a date’ and
there’s no point having an expensive dress just to look good for myself, apparently.”
“Ugh.” Sam flopped back against the lockers with a clang.
“Ugh,” Tash agreed.
“So . . . what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to miss prom because my mother’s a lunatic, so I guess I
have to find a date.”
“Oh.”
“I know. It’s not like the choices are that inspiring, especially this late in the game. All the
guys I think are halfway decent have already managed to ask someone. At this rate, I’m going to
have to go with Mark Anderson.”
“Don’t do that!” Sam blurted out. “Go with me.”
Tash turned to her, brow furrowed. “What?”
Sam panicked, as heat spread blotchily over her face and down the back of her neck. That
wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. She was supposed to do something romantic, not blurt
out her feelings in front of Melissa Jenkins’s dented locker.
“I mean . . . um. We can be each other’s dates, right?”
Tash grinned. “Girls’ night out?”
No, Sam wanted to shout. A date, a real date. “Yeah,” she said through clenched teeth.
“That sounds way better than Mark Anderson, Sam. You sure you don’t mind going stag just
to hang out with me? I mean, someone might still ask you?”
Sam forced herself to push down her disappointment, crushing it into an ugly ball of feelings
deep in the pit of her stomach. “Tash, don’t be dumb.”
“You’re the one who’s dumb,” Tash shot back. “Plenty of people would want to go with
you.”
“Yeah, well, I want to go with you,” Sam mumbled.
“Okay.” Tash grinned. She looked truly happy at the prospect. “Let’s do it. The terrible
twosome, at prom.” She hooked her arm through Sam’s, pulling her close as they headed off
down the hall toward homeroom. They walked in step, from years of practice, and Sam could so
easily picture them entering prom like that, arms linked and finery on. Except Tash would think
they were there as friends, and Sam would still be longing for more. Just like the last seven
years.
 Her shoulders slumped.
But as Tash rattled on about what a great time they would have, Sam started to perk up.
Prom was supposed to be romantic, after all. What could be more romantic than waiting for the
perfect slow number and asking Tash to dance—for real, not clowning around as friends? She
could lead her friend out onto the dance floor, under the sparkling lights, and put her hands
around Tash’s narrow waist, pulling her close. Under the strains of the music, she could whisper
her feelings, all the love she had been harboring inside of her for years. Tash would smile, her
red lips curving up at the edges like they always did when she was particularly pleased. She
would lower her lashes, a bit shy, and then lean in to Sam . . .
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Hmm?” Sam jerked out of her fantasy, turning to meet Tash’s amused gaze. “No.”
“I asked if you wanted to rent a limo. I know they’re really expensive, but most people go in
with a bunch of other people, so I think it isn’t too bad.”
“Oh.” Sam frowned. It wasn’t the cost that gave her pause, although that was obviously a
problem since she intended to blow every last cent on The Suit. The idea of other people
intruding on what she had just decided would be the most romantic night of her life seemed less
than desirable.
“You know what?” Tash said quickly. “My mom will probably let me take the car. That’ll
be more fun anyway because then we can save all our money for the inevitable wave of horrible
summer blockbusters I’m going to make you see once school gets out.”
“You have terrible taste,” Sam said flatly.
“You love me anyway!”
Sam cut her gaze away so the truth of that statement wouldn’t be written so clearly on her
face. She was glad Tash had given up so quickly on the limo plan—not because she didn’t want
to do it, but because it had occurred to her that if she worked a bit longer at the shop, she could
afford a limo just for the two of them. It could be a surprise for Tash, something to make her
glow the way Kayla and Jackie had at their dumb promposals.
It would be the perfect night.

Sam talked to Kieran, and he agreed to up her hours. It meant a little less time in the
evenings to spend with Tash—or, you know, doing her homework—but his encouraging smile
when she explained the reason made her confident that it would all be worth it.
She made sure to budget in a little bit extra for a beautiful corsage for Tash, as well; the kind
of thing a “real” date would buy her, and a matching boutonnière for herself. It was silly, but she
knew that Tash would love it, would hold the flowers like they were something precious and
wonderful, because they were beautiful and because Sam bought them for her.
The shop was a lot closer to heaving now that prom was actually on the horizon. Boys
skulked in accompanied by their mothers, cringing, or tumbled in in oversized packs, egging
each other on to make fun of the whole idea of prom.
They were annoying but not particularly demanding, willing to be steered to whatever Sam
said would look good. She nobly tamped down on the desire to recommend the worst they had to
offer in ties and vests, just to see if the boys would go for it. She was a bigger person than that.
Probably.
Her shift was nearly over, and she was stuck behind the register again, filling out order
forms for the customers that Kieran had helped on the floor. She leaned on the counter, her gaze
straying, as always, to the front window, where The Suit still stood proudly on display.
 She glanced up as a boy approached the counter. His mother was across the shop, examining
the many colors of vest with a critical eye. He looked bored out of his mind, bored enough to
pick up the cheap cologne they had on display for the impulse shoppers, and give it a little spritz
into the air.
“Bless you,” Sam said mildly as he sneezed.
The boy looked up at her, surprised. “This stuff smells like a toilet.”
“Um . . .” Sam’s brow furrowed. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not. It wasn’t
her cologne, after all.
The kid laughed at her expression. “It’s not a bad thing, though,” he insisted, giving the air
another spritz. “It smells like a clean toilet.”
“. . . Great?”
Once his mother was ready to go, the kid ended up buying the cologne.
“You enjoy that, now,” Sam said with a snort. He probably had a girlfriend too.
Her phone rang as her shift was ending, Tash’s name flashing on her screen, and a quick nod
from Kieran had her ducking into the back room and answering the call. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Tash said, carefully.
Sam frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I bought the dress.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam rolled her eyes. “I walked you to the store before starting my shift,
remember?”
“Yeah. So.”
“What is it? Is there something wrong with it?”
“No, it’s perfect. Still.” Tash sighed.

“So?”
“I took it home, and my mom freaked.”
Sam leaned against a wall of stock, a dense row of jackets padding her back against the wall.
“She doesn’t like it?”
“It’s not that. I told her we were going to have a girls’ night. Apparently when she said I had
to have a date to prom, she meant a date with a boy. Or,” Tash continued quickly, “a romantic
date, at least. I didn’t ask her if I could go with a girlfriend. But she definitely said no to us going
together.”
A romantic date. The words hung in the air, stinging. Sam closed her eyes. If she could only
be brave enough, if she could tell Tash that she wanted this to be a real date, as romantic as she
was capable of making it . . .
All she had to do was force the words out of her mouth.
“And then Mark Anderson texted.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know. It totally blows. I almost can’t believe I said yes. But I was looking right at
the dress, and it’s just so beautiful . . . and you could find someone else to go with, right? I mean,
plenty of people would be thrilled to know you don’t have a date yet. And then we can still hang
out the whole night!”
“Right,” Sam said faintly, feeling sick to her stomach. “So, Mark, huh?”
Tash laughed. “I know, right? He acted like it was all part of some plan he’s been
concocting since the ninth grade to win me over. I think you’re going to have to stand guard, or
he’ll end up proposing to me before the night is over.”
 Sam let out a weak laugh. “Yeah. I’ll . . . watch out for that.”
Tash, in her beautiful, shimmering silver dress . . . next to Mark fucking Anderson. No one
as great as Tash should ever be going out with him.
Especially not when she was supposed to be going out with Sam.
“Oh, and Mark already agreed to go in on a limo with a bunch of other people,” Tash
continued. “They’re all Mark’s friends, so it’s going to be completely boring, but there’s
definitely room for you too, even if you have to sit on my lap!”
Normally that image would conjure up at least a couple of halfway decent fantasies, but Sam
couldn’t work up the enthusiasm. Tash was trying so hard to be nice and include her, and all it
did was remind her that she was on the outside, now. If she came along, it wouldn’t be because
she belonged there, at Tash’s side, but because Tash had done everything she could to make her
fit, like the proverbial square peg.
“No, that’s okay,” she mumbled. “I can make my own way. Look, I, uh, have to go help
Kieran close up.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry I can’t meet you after your shift—I’m already home.”
“No problem.” Sam squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry against a pile of
cheaply made men’s suits.
“See you tomorrow!” Tash said brightly, because her whole world hadn’t just come
crumbling down. All of Sam’s plans and fancies, the dreams that had been getting her through
the last few weeks of prom mania . . . gone.
She slid to the floor, her phone still clutched in her hand. “Shit,” she muttered, a tear
slipping out of her eye.
“Sam?” Kieran’s voice floated through the open door. “Can you give me a hand on the
floor?”
She sniffed, trying to get a hold of herself. They had only been fantasies, anyway. Everyone
knew those never came true. “Coming!”
She wiped angrily at her eyes and headed back into the shop to help Kieran serve the last-
minute shoppers and get them out the door.
“Hey.”
Sam turned, meeting the cocky gaze of a tall, tanned jock and the smirk of his blonde
girlfriend. “Yeah?”
“It’s pretty empty in here.” The guy leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice. “Does
anyone ever . . . you know, in the fitting room?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“You know?” she parroted back, at a loss.
The guy gave an exasperated sigh. “Can we do it in the fitting room?”
The girlfriend blushed but somehow didn’t spontaneous combust, so she obviously had
terrible judgment.
“You want to have sex in our dressing room?” Sam yelped. The guy’s cocky smile grew.
“No! Why would you even ask that?”
“We’ll clean up after ourselves,” the guy said defensively.
And this specimen of humanity had a date to prom.
“Oh my god!” Sam said, eyes wide. “Get out of our store!”
“What?” The girlfriend drew herself up indignantly, like she hadn’t asked if they could leave
permanent questionable stains in the store’s carpeting.
“I’m serious. I will call mall security if you don’t get out.”
 “Ugh, fine. We’ll go to a nicer store.” The girl pushed the tux her boyfriend had been
holding into Sam’s hands.
“Good luck finding a nicer store that will let you fuck in the dressing room. Jesus!”
The couple flounced out of the store, leaving Sam staring incredulously after them.
“Everything okay?” Kieran slipped up beside her, concern etched on his face. The last few
customers were milling around the cash register, waiting to be served.
“No. Everything is terrible.” Her gaze slipped over to The Suit in the window. The Suit that
would never be worn next to Tash’s dress. She took a deep breath. “I quit.”
“Whoa!” Kieran said, eyes widening, holding up his hands. “Hold that thought until at least
ten-oh-three.” He nodded his head at the clock on the wall and then hurried back to the register
to check out the final customers.
Sam wanted desperately to get out of the store and away from the prom madness, but her
shift wasn’t over yet. She halfheartedly directed a woman toward her son’s size on the rack, and
watched the seconds tick by.
Fifteen minutes later, Kieran had ushered everyone out of the store and pulled the metal bars
down across the shop windows. He turned to her with a flourish. “Now, you want to tell me
what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Sam said evasively.
“So, you announced you’re quitting because . . .?”
“This was all a mistake.”
“Working near teenage boys and their mothers, or the whole suit thing?” Kieran asked,
fixing her with a perceptive stare.
“Both.”
“Ah. Something happen with your lady friend?”
Sam dropped her gaze to her shoes. “She’s just a friend.”
“And that’s the problem?”
“I asked her to go to prom with me,” Sam admitted, the words spilling out of her mouth
before she could stop them. Kieran’s understanding face was a problem like that.
“And?”
“She thought I meant as friends.”
“Ah.” He pursed his lips.
“And then her mother said she needed a ‘real date,’” Sam etched the quotations marks into
the air, “and so she said yes to some idiot boy who’s in love with her.”
“Ohhh.”
“So, I’m quitting, because I don’t need the suit, because I’m not going to prom, because it
was a ridiculous idea to begin with. Because I’m me, and Tash is Tash, and it’s never going to
happen.”
“That doesn’t sound to me like an ‘it’s never going to happen’ situation,” Kieran said. “She
didn’t reject you or tell you she isn’t interested in you like that.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“But she’s going to prom with some guy.”
“Exactly.” Sam bit out the word.
“Shouldn’t that make you want to go all the more?”
“Without my dream date?”
“It wasn’t going to be your dream date anyway if you were going as ‘just friends.’”
Sam frowned.
 “Does your girl actually like this guy she’s going with?”
“Mark Anderson?” Sam snorted. “No. He was convenient.”
“Convenient,” Kieran repeated with a knowing look. “So her mother told her to get a date,
and instead of asking some guy she was into, or waiting around for the perfect boy to sweep her
off her feet, she said yes to someone who was convenient. Who maybe wouldn’t get in the way if
she wanted to spend the whole night with you?”
Sam froze. “That’s . . . plausible.” She knew for a fact that Tash would never go for Mark
Anderson as a boyfriend.
“So?”
“So that still doesn’t mean she wants to date me. It only means she doesn’t want to date
him.”
“Yeah,” Kieran agreed with a nod.
Sam bristled. “So, let me quit already.”
“Look, kid. You’re not going to be able to default your way into this one. You can’t ask her
as a friend and hope she reads between the lines. If you want her, you’re going to have to
actually make a move. Preferably a big one.”
“A romantic gesture?”
Kieran grinned. “That’s the ticket.”
“But she’s already got a date.”
“So. What.” He took hold of her shoulders, stooping slightly to peer into her eyes.
“Samantha Howard. You do not need a date to put on that suit, be fabulous, and attend prom.
You are a twenty-first-century woman, and no matter what your girl’s mother says, none of you
need dates to go out and have a good time. Beyond that, if your girl has a date of convenience,
absolutely no rules of etiquette say you can’t make a move on her. And frankly, prom seems like
a pretty ideal time for a grand romantic gesture.”
Sam hesitated.
“Kid. You’ve been staring at that suit for weeks. This isn’t just about the girl. It’s about
owning who you are. Don’t you want to know what you look like finally wearing it?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Kieran smiled, releasing her. “So you’ll be happy to know that you’ve paid off the
deposit and then some. Your first fitting is tomorrow at four.”
Sam’s stomach was still in knots, but she did desperately want to know how she looked in
the clean lines of The Suit, even if Tash was only ever going to be her friend.
And maybe, once she was wearing it, she’d have enough courage to actually change the
status quo.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “Okay. I’ll be here.”
Kieran chucked her under the chin. “Thattagirl!”
 Music filtered out of the hotel ballroom, a top-forty pop tune. Sam stood outside the double
doors. Her chest felt tight.
“You sure you can do it?” she asked.
“Sure I’m sure,” Henry Lee said with a shrug. “AV is not a problem.”
“Okay.” Sam nodded decisively.
“Are you okay?” Henry asked, peering at her more closely. “You look like you’re going to
puke. And who are those flowers for anyway?”
“Someone special,” Sam said, squaring her shoulders. She was definitely not going to puke.
Probably.
“All right.” He shrugged again. “Well, good luck with that.”
Sam turned to give him a weak smile. “Thanks.”
“Oh, and Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“You look really rad tonight.”
Henry trotted off down the corridor, leaving Sam grinning in his wake. She straightened up,
fixing the lines of her suit. The Suit. Kieran had made sure every seam was perfect, skimming
her slender figure in a way that he declared should be on the New York runways. She wasn’t
sure about that, but when she’d finally put it on, tailored to fit her petite frame, and turned to face
the mirror . . . Staring back at her had been the person she had always wanted to be. Stylish,
confident, and cool. She had always thought it was an impossible dream.
Kieran had made her get dressed at the shop, tweaking every tiny detail of The Suit, from its
narrow satin lapels, down to the exact socks she wore (black with a thin gray stripe). He’d
slicked her hair back, sleek along the sides and soft over her eyes. Then he’d stepped back and
gazed at her for a long moment.
“Kid. Sam. You’re a fucking knockout.”
A few weeks before, she would have sworn that those words could never apply to her, with
her scrawny frame and tomboy style, but as she’d gazed at her reflection, her legs long and lean
in the narrow cut of the black trousers, her shoulders defined by the cut of the blazer, she could
see it. A knockout.
“Okay,” she said to herself again outside the ballroom, squeezing her eyes shut tight. She
clutched the bouquet tighter in her hands, and listened to the faint strains of music through the
door.
After a minute, the track changed.
“Now or never,” she whispered, opening the door.
The ballroom was beautiful, dripping in tiny lights and silver foil balloons. It sparkled, like
the night was actually something special. Something different.
A few people around her made faces at the song choice—a top-forty hit from when they
were all in the sixth grade. It wasn’t a particularly good or memorable song, but Sam and Tash
had loved it back then, locking themselves away in Tash’s room every afternoon to dance wildly
to the music, choreographing routines and laughing themselves sick over it. Every time Sam
heard it, she thought of Tash, how the other girl had barreled into her life and never looked back,
making herself Sam’s most important person without even trying.
She stood at the edges of the dance floor, letting the music wash over her, bringing a smile
to her lips.
“Sam!” Tash’s voice rose above the clamor of the crowd. Sam peered between the heaving
bodies, and then Tash materialized like something out of a fairy tale, shimmering into focus in
her shining silver dress, her cheeks flushed pink with happiness.
She was more than beautiful. She was perfect.
Tash locked eyes with Sam and raced to her side. “Can you believe they’re playing our
song?” she gasped. In the low light, her pale skin glowed, gleaming under the thousand tiny
beams sprinkled down by the fairy lights around the room. Her lips, stained a deep wine, curled
up in delight.
She paused, taking in the full picture Sam made, from her slicked-back hair to the sharp
lines of her black suit, and her eyes widened.
“You look amazing.” Tash gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me you were picking out something
so cool?”
“I—” Sam began. Her grip on the bouquet was so tight she was worried about snapping the
stems of the flowers.
People were watching them now. Maybe because of what Sam was wearing, or because
Tash had run to her in such a conspicuous way. But maybe it was because they could read the
intent on Sam’s face, could feel that something important was in the air.
“Oh, hey!” Tash said, delighted, her gaze finally lighting on Sam’s feet. There, beneath the
narrow ankles of her impeccably tailored trousers, were a pair of brand-new white Converse
sneakers, decorated with Sam’s crabbed handwriting. Kieran had practically staged an
insurrection at the sight of them, but Sam knew what she wanted her grand gesture to be. “Cool
shoes, man! Those are just like the ones you used to wear back in middle school.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, pleased. “Like the day we met.”
“Sam,” Tash said with a grin, and then she paused, squinting in the low light to read what
the shoes said.
Will you go out with me? one toe queried. Like on a romantic date? the other toe added. For
good measure she’d drawn little hearts and question marks all over the remaining white space.
Tash’s eyes flew up to meet hers. Bracing herself, Sam thrust the bouquet out at her best
friend. They were daffodils—not the fanciest or most expensive flowers, but they were Tash’s
favorites. A sign of spring, a sign of good things to come, she’d always said, pointing out the tiny
blossoms as they pushed their way above March’s still-cold ground. They were lucky, Tash had
insisted.
Tash reached for them with shaking hands. On her wrist was a limp corsage, two red roses
surrounded by a spray of baby’s breath. It was fine. But not something Tash would have picked
for herself.
Mark Anderson didn’t know that, but Sam did.
“You got them to play this song,” Tash said with certainty, taking the bouquet and cradling
it against her beautiful dress.
Sam felt herself blushing. “Yeah.”
“For me.” It wasn’t a question.
Sam gave her a tentative grin. “Who else?”
 Tash held the flowers tighter, the blossoms crushed slightly against her. “No one else,” she
said, firmly. More people had gathered around them, but neither girl spared them a glance.
Tash’s voice lowered, infusing her words with significance. “It’s always been you and me.”
Sam’s heart leapt, hope bubbling up inside of her like a can of shaken Coke. Fit to burst.
“For you too?”
“Sam,” Tash huffed, her usual exasperated tone. “You have always been my number one.”
Sam repeated the familiar words, said thousands of times over seven years: “And your
number two and three and four and five and forever.”
“Yeah,” Tash agreed, suddenly shy. “I didn’t think— You never said you liked girls.”
“I like one girl.” Sam’s confidence was growing. “In particular.”
Tash shot her a knowing look, glancing up from under the sweep of her dark lashes.
“Anyone I know?”
“Yeah. She’s hard to miss. She’s the greatest girl I’ve ever met. Kind. Funny. Beautiful.”
“You think so?” Tash ran self-conscious hands over the sleek curves of her dress.
“Just kiss already!” Henry Lee’s voice cut in over the sound system. The song changed, as
Sam had requested. The soft intro of “Kiss Me” swept over the room.
“Well,” Tash laughed. “Who can say no to that?”
She stepped closer, the daffodils crushed between them, leaving faint traces of moisture in
their wake.
“Tash. Are you sure?”
“You nerd.” Tash laughed, her eyes twinkling. “You know me better than I know myself.
You should already know that I’ve never been more sure about anything.”
Tash grabbed her hand, ignoring Sam’s sweaty palms, and reeled her in. “Everyone’s
watching,” she whispered.
Suddenly, Sam knew what Kayla and Austin must have felt when they kissed in the
cafeteria. “Let them,” she laughed, leaning in.
Tash’s lips were slick with lipstick, but full and plush beneath her own. Tash swayed into
her as if caught in Sam’s gravity, fating their bodies to align. The slick material of Tash’s dress
whispered against the weight of Sam’s suit, a soft murmur to accompany the sound of their lips
meeting.
“About damn time!” someone called from the dance floor, and Sam couldn’t even be
bothered to pull away to see who it was. They weren’t wrong, after all.
She broke the kiss with a smile, her lips curling up under Tash’s involuntarily, happiness too
great to contain fizzing through her.
“What’re you smiling about?” Tash asked playfully, breathing the words into Sam’s mouth.
“Oh, you know. Just having my dream date with my dream girl.”
Tash pulled back minutely to grin at her. “Dream date, huh?” Then she winced, squeezing
her eyes shut.
“What?”
“Date,” she groaned, dropping her head forward so their foreheads pressed together.
Sam grimaced. “Oh yeah.”
Together, they turned toward the crowd, hands clasped, in sync even in this. Among the sea
of faces that watched them—some with their phones out, recording every second—was Mark
Anderson.
“Mark,” Tash began apologetically.
 He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Natasha. Seriously. The whole school’s been
wondering when you two were going to get your acts together since the ninth grade. I just
thought I’d try my luck since you hadn’t managed it yet.”
“That’s kinda sweet,” Tash said thoughtfully.
“Yeah, well. I’m a sweet guy. And super available,” he said, raising his voice to the crowd.
“With an extra seat in a limo and a hotel room booked for the after-party.”
“I think he’s going to be all right,” Sam said with a snort as Mark disappeared into the
crowd, leaving them to their moment.
“He’s a trooper.”
Sam looked down at their linked hands as the crowd around them started to disperse, sensing
the show was over. “I didn’t book a hotel room,” she said apologetically. “Or a limo.”
“Sam,” Tash laughed. “If I wanted to spend the night with you, I could just sleep over at
your house. Your mom isn’t exactly going to kick me out. Besides.” She gave Sam’s hand a
reassuring squeeze. “We don’t have to rush things. We’ve got forever, after all.”
Sam smiled at her, shyly. “Yeah?”
Tash rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Now, are you going to dance with me, or what?”
She tugged Sam after her, as she had at a dozen school dances before, but this time Sam
went willingly, allowing herself to be pulled to the center of the heaving dance floor. EDM
blasted out of the loudspeakers, and Sam tipped her head back and laughed in delight as she
allowed Tash to pull her close.
Next to them, Kayla and Austin were grinding against each other in a way that suggested
they might not make it to their hotel room after. Both looked over as Tash and Sam joined them.
“Looking good, Sam!” Kayla called over the music, clearly impressed. Over her back,
Austin shot them a thumbs-up.
Sam flushed at the praise, straightening up and squaring her shoulders.
“You’re like a preening peacock.” Tash laughed. Before Sam had a chance to get flustered,
she continued, “I like it.”
“Yeah, well, when a person looks this good . . .” Sam said, trying on confidence for size.
Tash pulled her in close, fitting their hips together and draping her arms around Sam’s neck.
“You certainly do,” she murmured. She leaned in, brushing her lips over Sam’s, moving their
hips together.
Heat flared from the tips of Sam’s ears down into the pit of her belly.
Daringly she licked out, a tentative flick of her tongue against Tash’s full red lips. They
parted, anticipating more. Sam pushed closer, closer than she had ever dared to imagine, licking
into Tash’s mouth and feeling the heat and wetness that met her.
Nearby someone let out a wolf whistle, and they broke apart, flushed and laughing.
“Tash?”
Tash blinked at her slowly, long dark lashes sweeping down to cast shadows over her pink
cheeks. She seemed dazed, from just one kiss, and pride swelled up in Sam’s chest. “Yeah?”
“I’m really happy right now.”
Tash grinned, tugging her closer, winding her into a hug more than a dance. Sam wrapped
her arms around Tash, her number-one person for so many years, and grinned, pressing her smile
into the smooth skin of Tash’s bare shoulder.
“Me too,” Tash said.
The music played on, and they danced.
Dear Reader,

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Heart of the Dragon
The Persephone Star
The Only Way
Imaginary
 Jamie Sullivan has been writing for what feels like her entire life—her parents’ attic is full
of notebooks brimming with early attempts at fiction. She’s found her stride, however, in
romance. She’s happy experimenting with genre, and has written supernatural, science fiction,
and realist stories.
Catch up with her at jamiesullivanbooks.wordpress.com or on Twitter @jsullivanwrites.
Postmistress Penelope Moser has recently settled with her father in the Wild West town of
Fortuna. Shocked by the violence around her and the depressing lives of the town’s women, she
throws herself into her job. She’s determined to make the best of it before she has to marry the
odious town sheriff.

But when the Persephone Star is spotted in the territory, danger literally hits close to home. Its
captain—the famed outlaw Mirage Currier—is fresh out of prison and gunning for revenge on
Penelope’s fiancé for locking her up and sentencing her sister to death. Penelope’s pleas to avoid
violence are ignored, and a bloody showdown seems inevitable. That is, until Penelope is
kidnapped and held hostage on the Star.

Shockingly, Penelope finds intrigue rather than danger in the air. Mirage’s reputation as a
hardened criminal doesn’t fit with the Star’s vibrant young captain whose only goal is to save her
sister from the gallows. With her sympathies shifting, Penelope must decide whether to remain
loyal to her father and the man she promised to marry, or face an uncertain future with an
enthralling outlaw.

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 The rumors had been flying for days. The ship had been spotted just over the town line, in
Copper Creek. It hung heavy in the sky, a blot against the sun, and messages had been streaming
into Fortuna’s Post Office, warnings and pleas alike.
Penelope took them down dutifully, listening to the clicks of the telegraph and writing the
messages in careful, clear letters. She sorted them methodically, pretending that she was merely
a conduit for the words that flew over the line, merely another cog in the machine, her pencil
connected to the wire that snaked its way through the sky, all part of the great Line.
As postmistress, she knew everyone’s business—often before they did. Every family
emergency, every business deal gone good or bad. Every love letter sent over the line arrived at
its destination in her neat, careful handwriting and every Dear John letter came the same way.
Penelope had to pretend not to see, because she had to look the townspeople in the eye, had
to smile at them in the general store, chat with them over coffee at church, dine with them at her
father’s house. She had to be a townsperson like everyone else, as if she wasn’t so full of secrets
she often felt liable to burst at the seams, nothing holding her together but the corset that bound
her rib cage tight.
So she wrote down the messages from Copper Creek and pretended not to see them,
pretended fear didn’t well up in her throat as she wrote the name Mirage Currier over and over
again, and put them in a neat little pile to be delivered to the sheriff.
Tobias Combes came in at midday, looking spooked. He was a frail man, tall but so lean he
looked like he’d fall over with a gentle breeze. He crossed his spindly arms on the high counter
and bent forward, eyes wide. “A rider just arrived from Copper Creek.” He pitched his voice
low, as if they weren’t the only two in the office.
“Oh?” Penelope said mildly. She knew what he wanted. People came by all the time, “just to
chat,” knowing Penelope knew more than she let on, hoping she’d let something slip.
She took pride in her job and so kept her lips sealed tight. No one was going to say a woman
couldn’t be trusted with the line while Penelope was in charge.
“A ship’s come into Copper Creek,” Tobias continued, his thin face more pinched than
usual. “An outlaw ship.”
If she weren’t so unnerved herself, Penelope would have laughed. Everything sounded
ridiculous coming from Tobias, a man who could be frightened by a black cat crossing his path.
“Is their sheriff doing anything about it?” Penelope asked. She’d been wondering all day.
Surely the problem was Copper Creek’s—not theirs.
“They’re not causing any trouble, so the sheriff can’t do nothing.”
“Outlaws who don’t cause trouble?” Penelope arched a brow, reaching for the mail sack for
something to do with her hands.
“Not in Copper Creek,” Tobias said darkly. He bent closer. “It’s the Persephone Star—
Mirage Currier’s ship.”
Penelope had only been in town for nine months, since her father came to Fortuna to open
the town’s first bank. But everyone in Fortuna knew the Persephone Star—it had become
legend, along with its captain, Mirage Currier. Penelope was sure that the legend had spread far
beyond their little town. She couldn’t believe they weren’t talking about it all the way back east.
A woman bandit, leading a crew of female outlaws.
“I thought Currier was in jail,” Penelope said, forcing blandness into her voice.
“Got out, got her crew together, and came right here.”
“To Copper Creek,” Penelope corrected.
“For now.” Tobias’s brows lowered, and Penelope was glad she didn’t have to upset him
more, to tell him what the messages that had been streaming in all day said: Currier was
gathering supplies, trading for guns and ammunition with the worst Copper Creek had to offer.
Gearing up to come to Fortuna.
“Don’t worry,” she said, trying to be kind. “The sheriff will handle it.”
“It’s him they’re coming for,” Tobias mumbled, and Penelope turned from the counter,
pretending not to hear.
“You mind letting Mrs. Cranshaw know she’s got a letter here, Tobias? I know she’s been
waiting.”
“Oh. Course, Miss Moser.” Tobias was too polite to stay when he’d been so clearly
dismissed. He shuffled out of the office, rolling his narrow shoulders to avoid cracking his head
on the doorframe.
Penelope picked up the stack of messages for the sheriff. Everyone knew why Currier was
back in town: it was Fortuna’s sheriff who had put her away. The Star had been terrorizing the
good God-fearing folks of the area for too long, and when Wiley got elected sheriff, he’d decided
to do something about it. Currier hadn’t ever hit Fortuna, but Wiley got together with some of
the other sheriffs in the territory and went after her—before she could come after Fortuna, he
said.
And now she was back for revenge.
Penelope tucked the sheriff’s messages into her knapsack and set about tidying the office for
the day. Mail and telegrams got sorted into neat slots under the desk, and the moneybox was kept
under lock and key in a safe to be extra secure. Penelope wasn’t a fool, and she knew that the
post office was the place most likely to be robbed if anyone looking for trouble came to Fortuna.
Once those chores were done, Penelope turned to her pride and joy: the library.
It was really just two shelves on the wall behind the counter, lined with volumes donated by
townspeople. But each one had a slip pasted into the front, with neat little boxes to write a due
date in.
Only, Penelope couldn’t get anyone to borrow them. She’d taken the position as
postmistress for something to do, some way to pass the time in the tiny town fate had brought her
to. The library was her pet project. She’d been to the public library in New York once, a massive
building with stacks and stacks of books for anyone to read. Wandering through, running her
childish fingers over the endless spines, Penelope had got it into her head that it was where she
belonged. She looked at the women behind the big desks, helping people to find books, and
decided then and there that that was what she was going to do when she grew up.
But her father kept them moving, farther and farther west, out of the country and into the
territories, and then beyond, into Indian country and the true Wild West. He founded banks in
town after town, none of them with libraries.
It was only here, in Fortuna, that Penelope decided to stop wishing and to make her dream
happen. If she couldn’t move to a town with a library, she could damn well found a library in her
town.
For now, there were a dozen books that no one but Penelope had ever bothered to read. She
adjusted them on the shelf, lining up the spines neatly and brushing off any dust that had settled
over the course of the day.
Turning the heavy key in the lock was her last task of the day, and Penelope smiled with
pride at the tidy office before she turned down the street toward her father’s house. The summer
sun still blazed high in the sky at this hour, making Penelope perspire under the layers of her
cotton dress and heavy undergarments.
She ran a self-conscious hand over her face, hoping sweat wasn’t beading on her forehead.
She offered a smile to the people she passed in the street, waving to the schoolteacher and
nodding politely at the reverend as he passed on his way home from church.
Penelope paused outside the house she occupied with her father and straightened her clothes
and hair, smoothing any unruly curls back into place in the knot at the back of her head. Taking a
deep breath, she squared her shoulders and pasted on a cheerful smile.
Voices rose from within as she stepped through the front door. The girl who did the cleaning
met her in the hall with her ever-present anxious smile.
“Anything I can get you, ma’am?”
“No, thank you, Sarah.”
Penelope didn’t like having servants, not even this teenager, but her father insisted since
Penelope wasn’t willing to “do her duty” by keeping house for him. Penelope knew she’d be
trapped in a man’s house soon enough; she didn’t want to start just yet.
“Your father and the sheriff are in the parlor,” Sarah said with a bobbing curtsy.
Penelope reinforced her smile, and walked down the hall. Her father lounged in his favorite
chair, a cigar in his mouth and a whiskey in his hand. Across from him sat Wiley Barnett, his hat
on the table in front of him and his sheriff’s badge gleaming proudly on his chest.
They both looked up as Penelope paused in the doorway, Wiley’s eyes sliding proprietarily
over her. Penelope flushed under his gaze, dropping her eyes to hunt through her satchel. Wiley
was a handsome man, with hair dark enough to belong to one of the surrounding tribes, and the
kind of cocky smile that won people over instantly. He wore the heavy moustache of a military
man.
“I brought your telegrams from the office,” she said, holding out the stack. Wiley’s fingers
brushed hers as he took the papers, a lingering stroke over the back of her hand. She fought the
urge to pull back, reminding herself that it was allowed. Expected even.
After all, he was her fiancé.
She perched on the sofa as Wiley sorted through the messages with a snort.
“Lot of telegrams,” Ashes observed. Her father had the bulk of a man of his station, the
buttons of his waistcoat straining over his thick waist. He raised his eyebrows expectantly,
waiting to be told all the secrets Wiley held in his hand.
Wiley raised his head, a hard, amused look in his light eyes. “All from Copper Creek.
Probably funded their post office for a year with these.” He tossed the stack down on the table in
front of him and picked up his drink in their stead.
There was never any glass of whiskey waiting for Penelope when she got home. Her lips
curved up unbidden as she imagined her father’s face, or Wiley’s, if she asked for one, and
ducked her head to hide the smile. God forbid a good little girl have a drink in the evenings. God
forbid she ever relax, even in her own home. Instead, she was expected to perch daintily on the
edge of the sofa, her hands folded neatly in her lap, listening expectantly to everything the men
said—but never contributing.
“What do they want?” Ashes asked. He maintained the air of a benevolent leader, presiding
over the small room, but Penelope knew he must have heard the rumors, same as anyone. The
bank was as much a center of gossip as the post office and the general store.
Wiley shifted, his glance raking over the small pieces of paper in front of him. Penelope
watched closely, wondering if his movement betrayed nerves she didn’t see on his face. But he
looked as relaxed as he ever did when she spied him through the window of the saloon, his boots
propped up on the bar.
“The Persephone Star has been seen in the area,” he said with relish, lingering on the name
that caused so many others to quake.
Her father’s thick gray eyebrows rose, not in surprise but in barely suppressed interest.
“With or without Mirage Currier at the helm?”
Wiley sneered. “Seems that trumped-up little jilt is out of prison. I testified that she should
be hanged, but the bottle-head of a federal marshal only managed to pin her sister for the murder.
And she still hasn’t swung yet.”
An involuntary gasp escaped Penelope. “They’re going to hang her sister?” It wasn’t
completely unheard of for a woman to hang, but it certainly wasn’t common either. Penelope
raised a hand to her throat, her fingers hovering uncertainly over the slender expanse of her neck.
“But she’s just a girl.”
A cruel smirk twisted Wiley’s lips. “‘Just a girl’?” he parroted with delight. “From our own
little postmistress?”
Penelope sank back against the cushions, away from the force of Wiley’s unkind
amusement. “I—” she began, but he held up a hand, hushing her.
“I told you,” Wiley said, turning to her father. “These women activists want to play at being
men when it suits them, but the second it doesn’t, they hide behind their petticoats.”
“I’m not an activist,” Penelope said quickly. She read the news, she knew about the women
fighting for suffrage. She read the accounts of the Seneca Falls Convention with bated breaths as
a young girl, the incendiary words lighting up something inside her. But those revolutionary
words hadn’t actually started a revolution. Women still didn’t have the vote. “I just like to feel
useful.”
“You’ll feel useful soon enough,” Wiley said, softening his tone. “When there are young
ones to take up all the time you waste on your job and your little library.”
Penelope dropped her eyes. “It’s not a waste,” she muttered, twining her fingers tightly in
her lap. “Reading is important.”
“Sure it is, peaches,” Ashes said benevolently. “And you’ll do plenty of reading to my
grandbabies.”
Penelope bit her lip. Babies and housekeeping were the only things Wiley or her father
seemed to talk to her about these days. She remembered when she was younger; her father had
talked to her about business. In each new town, he’d tell her the competition to his bank, the
people resisting, and ask her to figure out how he should go about taking over the finances of the
place. He’d smile proudly every time she got the answer right, telling her she was nearly as good
at business strategy as he was.
He didn’t talk to her about those things now. Not since she’d grown up, growing into a
woman’s body. He’d stopped including her then, stopped acting like it was the two of them
against the world. Instead he sent for tutors and governesses, trying to train Penelope into being a
“proper” woman.
Ashes had been thrilled when Wiley had come to him a few weeks before, sheriff’s hat in
hand, and asked for her hand in marriage. Now all he thought about was her ability to have
babies.
Penelope swallowed down her retort, the words burning at the back of her throat. The library
mattered to her, but it didn’t matter to her father or to the man she was going to marry.
“What I want to know is what’s taking them so long?” Ashes demanded. “That girl was
convicted a year ago! Back in my day, a bandit would have been in the noose before the ink was
dry on the execution order.”
Wiley’s lip curled up in a sneer. “They got them some sort of fancy New York lawyer. Been
bombardin’ the judge with bullshit appeals since the day they sentenced her. ‘She’s just a girl,’”
he parroted, slanting an unpleasant glance at Penelope, who shrank back. “‘She’s just a child.’
‘Not enough witnesses.’ Codswallop like that. They still have one in the works, far as I know.
Currier must know it’ll be rejected, or she wouldn’t be chasin’ after me.”
“And what are you going to do about her?” Ashes asked.
Wiley shrugged dismissively. “If Currier wants revenge, she knows where to find me.” He
took a slow, deliberate sip of his whiskey. “I ain’t scared of no girl.”
“Course not,” Ashes agreed. “Bunch of girls running around playing at bandits. Maybe this
time you’ll get to put them all away for good.”
“Get them all put in the ground, more like,” Wiley said with a deep chuckle. To Penelope’s
horror, Ashes laughed along with him.
Penelope jerked up from her seat. “I’ll just go check on Sarah and dinner,” she said.
Ashes smiled encouragingly at her. “That’s my good girl.”
Penelope hurried out of the room before she had to hear anything further. She never felt
more like an East Coast girl than when people talked about gunfights, bandits, and hangings. She
knew Wiley thought she was uptight, but sometimes the Wild West was too wild for her. She
didn’t believe in the death penalty, and she certainly didn’t believe that criminals should just be
gunned down in the streets. The law said that people like Currier couldn’t rob and steal, but it
also said that she was owed a fair trial with an impartial judge. And Wiley was no impartial
judge. If Currier came to Fortuna, there would be blood in the streets, and yet nobody seemed
willing to do anything to stop it.

Want to read more?

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The greatest thief captures an unexpected prize.

Madfall is the greatest thief in the kingdom, stealing crowns off the very heads of kings. His
hoard is legendary. Simply put, he’s a dragon through and through. So, when he steals a basket
of “gold” from the king’s castle but finds a baby inside, he’s at a loss. What’s a dragon to do?

Seventeen years later, inexperienced knight Richard of Benfro sets out to slay the dragon,
expecting death or glory. Not the most awkward meet-cute in history when he’s captured by the
dragon’s human—and handsome—son.

Oenyn has been content living with Madfall, enjoying the fierce and protective love of his
adopted father. But he’s always been curious about humanity. When Richard blunders into the
home he shares with Madfall, Oenyn grabs the chance to learn all he can about people, castle
life, sex . . . and maybe love. At least until Richard makes a startling discovery.

Caught between a potential future in the human world and his old life, Oenyn is faced with an
impossible choice. Luckily, being raised by a dragon has left him plenty stubborn. He won’t give
up his father, or his human family, without a fight.

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 Madfall crept low on his belly, pressing close to the ground to avoid being seen. He
narrowed his eyes. He had been watching the castle for days from his position outside the royal
treasury. A single chink in the wall, where a stone had been carefully pried out months before,
revealed the corridor outside the heavily guarded room. The sentinels moved in rotations; there
was never a moment when there wasn’t at least one armed guard outside the heavy, metal-laced
door.
But Madfall wasn’t the greatest thief in the land for nothing. Hadn’t he stolen the Eye of
Brahma right off the raj’s head? Hadn’t the central bank’s vault been plundered two times this
calendar year already?
Madfall wriggled closer. No, a few dozen guards weren’t enough to deter him.
A young woman with a sweet face and an ample bosom approached the door, a large bread
basket dangling from her round arm. If Madfall didn’t know better, he would have sworn she
was nothing more than an assistant baker, delivering bread throughout the castle. But Madfall
had been watching. Under her servant’s skirts were four glistening, dangerously sharp knives—
two strapped to her waist and one in each dainty boot she wore. A small axe, its blade curved and
gleaming, rested at the bottom of the basket. Her sweet smile hid the deadly precision with which
she could wield the weapons. The baker’s assistant wasn’t there for bread; she was there for
gold.
It had taken Madfall weeks to work out, but his careful surveillance of the castle had finally
paid off. Every Friday the girl lined her basket with gold, covered it with bread to muffle the
sound of the coins, and then strolled into the town center to deliver it to the king’s agent.
Merchants would line up at the office door in the afternoon to collect payments for that week’s
goods—the vast amount of flour, meat, cloth, and other items the castle used in a seven-day
period.
Over the years there had been ample speculation in the country’s underbelly about how the
money was delivered to the king’s agent. Highwaymen lined the roads into town, stopping every
coach and carriage that bore the royal crest—and most of those that didn’t. But the girl with the
bread didn’t ride in a cart or carriage. She rambled in the morning sun with a number of other
palace servants, none of them holding anything larger than a basket—and the highwaymen were
confident that a single woman would not be able to lift the amount of gold that was needed by
the king’s agent every week. The women were allowed to pass unharassed—save for some
unsavory comments that brought red to their cheeks.
None of the other thieves in the kingdom had figured out the secret of the bread basket—but
Madfall had. He watched through narrowed eyes as the girl entered the treasury with a flirty
smile at the guard. A few minutes later she strolled out again, her face never belying the added
weight that hung over her arm. She wiggled her fingers in the guard’s direction and turned down
the hall.
It was time. Madfall took one last look at the treasury door, the iron bolts in place again, and
slithered away from the lookout. The castle perched precariously on a bed of stone, the rough
crags overhanging the raging sea. Except for the long bridge that connected the spit of rock to the
mainland, the castle was impenetrable.
For a human, anyway.
Madfall’s claws dug easily into the dense rock. His long, sinuous body curled over the
promontory, his tail hanging down over the five-hundred-foot drop into the sea. He backed up,
lowering his body over the side of the cliff face until he was out of sight of the castle, and then
let himself drop. Sea air rushed up to meet him as he tumbled backward. He closed his eyes and
let his wings unfurl. They caught the air with a sharp snick, jerking him upward. He twisted
gracefully and wheeled round the sea cliffs that encircled the castle. It took the girl precisely
eleven minutes to reach the inner courtyard. There, she would wait by the castle door until the
rest of the young women walking into town had assembled. While still inside the castle walls, the
girls were off their guard.
Madfall chuckled as his wings beat the air, lifting him up to the level of the castle, and then
over the high castle wall. A man stationed on the battlement called out, “Dragon!” But the
warning was too late. Madfall spotted a dot of a figure in the courtyard, a large basket at its feet.
He swooped while the alarm was still being sounded and grabbed the basket in his hind claws.
The young woman screamed.
Madfall smirked as he sped upward at breakneck speed, bursting through the cloud cover
that hung low in the sky. The idiots on the wall hadn’t even had time to put an arrow to their
bows. He’d been in sight for less than thirty seconds.
Turning in the air, he winged his way home. Today he swept over the large, dark forest that
curved around the southern border of the capital city. He dipped low, until the tips of his
foreclaws almost brushed the topmost branches, leaves ruffling in the wake of his beating wings.
From the lookout towers of the castle, his black scales would be hard to make out against the
inky forest.
After a few miles, he dropped into the forest itself, the bulk of his long body winding
sinuously between the trees. He tucked his wings in and awkwardly moved the basket of gold to
a front foot. He crept along the land, moving to the east. When he was sure his trail from the sky
would be cold, Madfall took to the air again.
Every time he attacked a human settlement, Madfall made sure to approach his home from a
new angle. As far as he knew, the humans still had no idea where he kept his hoard—and he
planned to keep it that way. There were a thousand young men in the country who would gladly
take the chance to storm his lair, their heads turned by the promise of wealth and valor.
Knights had searched every crack and crevice of the country’s mountains and forests, but
they had yet to think of the caves that the tumultuous sea had carved out of the coastline. Eons of
beating water had opened the rock enough to make Madfall quite comfortable inside, and just
like the ancient kings who had built the castle, Madfall knew there was no better protection than
the raging sea to keep out unwanted visitors.
Madfall carefully flew above the cloud cover until he was sure of a clear descent, and then
he plummeted down to the sea. Ocean spray hit his snout as he drew up sharply just above the
water, letting his tail dip into the icy-cold waters. His smirk grew into a wide smile and he closed
his eyes, dipping lower until the sound of the waves rushed up to his ears and the salt coated his
scales.
Keeping close to the cliff walls, Madfall made his way home. The cave didn’t look like
much from the outside—and a good thing, too. He had to squeeze his impressive bulk between
the jagged rocks into nearly impenetrable darkness. Inside, the sea had smoothed the walls,
pushing the rock back to form a large, dry cavern. Madfall stretched his wings, shaking the sea
spray from the thin membrane. He turned to his treasure.
The basket was large and oblong, with a heavy blanket tucked over the treasure inside. He
took a deep breath to savor the moment, and then flicked the blanket aside with a sharp, curved
claw.
The baby inside took one look at him and started to wail.
Madfall leapt back with a curse, the shrill noise ringing in his ears.
“What in the ever living . . .” he gasped, creeping forward again.
Another peek into the basket presented the same picture as before: one human baby, fists
bunched and face red, screaming at the top of its tiny lungs. For such a small person, it could
make an awful lot of noise.
“Shhhh!” Madfall hissed, tiny wisps of smoke curling out of his nostrils as he hovered over
the basket.
The baby screamed louder.
“Okay, okay,” he said, desperately wriggling backward. “No shushing. Fine.”
His voice rumbled through the cave. The pitch of the baby’s wail reached the level of bats’
screams in the night.
“Right,” Madfall whispered in despair. “Quieter. I got it.”
He held his breath, crouched low to the floor, and waited.
The baby kept crying.
“Come on!” he huffed, craning forward to peer into the basket again. “I can’t even hear
myself think!”
The baby’s face was crumpled in on itself, nothing but a mouth stretched wide.
“Quiet!” Madfall raged, a burst of flame shooting out of his mouth. The baby’s eyes
widened, and the noise stopped.
“Guh?” the baby asked.
“Huh?” Madfall said.
He slithered closer. The baby’s eyes were darting around the room and his forehead was
starting to crease again.
“Oh!” Madfall gasped. “Right. Human eyes. Darkness. Ugh. You people are so useless.”
He turned and shot a column of flames at a nearby lantern, stolen for its intricate metalwork,
rather than its ability to provide light. Still, it blazed to life, casting an orange glow through the
cavern. The baby’s big blue eyes shone in the light, latching onto him once again.
In the moment’s peace, the circumstances of the last five minutes managed to penetrate
Madfall’s brain. He sat back on his haunches, truly astonished for what felt like the first time in a
century. The baby made an inquisitive noise, and Madfall’s eyes narrowed. He stalked forward,
peering angrily into the basket.
“Where’s my gold?” he demanded.
“Guh?” The baby’s head cocked, and one little hand reached up toward him.
“You are not treasure!” he said, making his voice stern.
The baby gurgled.
Madfall plopped back on his haunches and frowned. He had seen the girl take the basket
from the treasury . . . he had grabbed the basket in the courtyard. With a deepening frown, he
peered at the basket again. When he had seen it in the hands of the female guard, had it always
been so . . . oblong? And surely when he had watched the girl disguise the treasure, he had seen
some loaves of bread covering the gold beneath.
 “Are you kidding me?” Madfall thundered, making the whole cave system shake.
The baby started to whimper again.
“Oh! No, no, no, no, no,” he said urgently, leaning close. “Madfall was just being an idiot.
Don’t cry, little human.” He squeezed one eye shut, trying to think. “What made you stop
before? Fire?” He snorted a tiny stream of orange-and-blue flame out into the low light of the
cave.
The whimpering stopped.
Madfall did it again. And then the strangest sound reverberated off of the smooth stone
walls.
He leaned closer, peering into the baby’s basket. Its little eyes were scrunched up in mirth,
and another giggle escaped into the gloomy cave.
“Huh,” Madfall said. “Most humans are afraid of fire, you know.”
The baby just laughed again.
Madfall tipped his head back, staring up at the cave roof, the light of the lantern flickering
orange over the stone. He took a deep breath and then let it whistle out through his nose, sending
two tendrils of smoke curling toward the ceiling. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said to
the infant with steely calm.
Keeping his movements slow and measured, he made his way to the mouth of the cave,
wriggling out into the growing twilight. He took flight, banking along the cliffs until he reached
a dry spit of land covered with a small copse of trees.
He squeezed his eyes shut and burned it all. Trees, grass, shrubs, probably some woodland
animals: they all went up in a vicious blaze that poured so hot from his mouth the flames
flickered blue.
He grabbed a burning tree, wrenched it out of the ground, roots and all, and shredded it to
sawdust for good measure. Smoke rose in a thick, black column from the inferno and the smell
of ash filled the air.
Madfall landed heavily. He took a deep breath.
“Shit, shit, fucking shit,” he growled, digging his claws so far into the dirt beneath him that
he probably hit a mole or two.
“I saw the basket,” he muttered, flopping onto the ground like an oversized cat. “I took the
basket.” He rolled onto his back, staring up at the gray haze of smoke that hung heavily over the
fire. “Why isn’t the basket full of gold?” he moaned.
He wanted that gold. He needed that gold. He deserved that gold. He had planned the perfect
heist. He should be alone with his hoard, gloating.
Instead he was lying on his back in the middle of a forest fire, with no more gold now than
he had possessed the day before.
Everything was terrible.
And to top it all off, there was a baby in his house.
“Why me?” Madfall groaned pathetically.
The violent conflagration that surrounded him was at least soothing. The flames licked at his
thick scales, and the scent of burning and destruction wisped reassuringly into his nostrils. He
tried to think the situation through logically.
Obviously, he’d gotten the wrong basket.
It was a mistake anyone could make, he assured himself. And yes, it was frustrating, since
he had spent weeks surveilling the castle, weeks trying to figure out the secret of the money
drop, weeks planning, and waiting, and hoping . . .
 Madfall reached out blindly and grabbed another tree, the thick trunk shattering in the grip
of one claw. Tiny splinters rained down on top of him.
He huffed and flung the remnants away from him. The question now was what to do. What
he wanted to do was take the baby straight back to the castle. But that wasn’t a very dragonish
thing to do. The dumb humans might think he was being kind instead of simply trying to get the
crying thing as far away from him as possible. Knowing his luck, they’d decide he wasn’t such a
threat after all. They’d try to make friends.
Madfall’s lips curled back from his gleaming teeth in a sneer. No, that wouldn’t do. Dragons
were the terrifying scourge of humanity. That was the way it had always been. He had to do this
the right way.
Maybe he could hold the infant for ransom? In the blaze of the fire, Madfall’s eyes began to
gleam. Yes, that could work. He would exchange the infant for gold. No sane person would
prefer the crying thing to solid, reassuring, quiet gold, but humans were odd and sentimental. If
the servant mother couldn’t pay, the king would. He couldn’t let children be snatched from his
very castle, after all. The populace would riot.
It was perfect. Madfall would be rid of the child and have his gold. He believed that was
what they called a win-win situation.
Rolling over onto his belly, Madfall pushed to his feet and gave himself a shake, throwing
the burning embers and ash off his skin. He just had to make it through the night with the child,
and then he could take his demands to the castle in the morning.
Madfall spread his wings and took to the sky, feeling much better. In fact, he was in such
good spirits that he decided to treat himself. Swooping down low over a farmer’s field, he
snatched a cow up in his talons. The animal lowed anxiously in his grip, and he smirked as he
heard angry human voices calling out. Yes, he would glut himself tonight, and in the morning
everything would be fine. A quick flex of his claws ended the pitiful cries of the animal, and
Madfall happily turned his wings toward home.

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