Author's Note: Despite suspecting that the next prompt would be to conclude the cliffhanger, I had no idea how to end the story. So, I fudged it. It's kind of a lame ending (it was also a lame cliffhanger, so I guess it works), but here it is anyway. I'd love better ideas on how to make Randy squirm--suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Also, since I think the whole story is lame anyway, I'm not going to revise this half of it. There were some great comments given to me by the Inkwells group, but this is one of those stories that just leaves me with a feeling of "Meh."
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"Uh, hi, girls." Randy had finally found his voice. "I can explain?"
The brunette in front of him narrowed her eyes, then turned to Mel. "Leave." The tone of command in Jessica's voice came from nearly two years as team captain, dealing with the antics of the girls' varsity cross-country team, and Mel was powerless to disobey.
Like a deer just released from the spell of oncoming headlights, the school's tight end darted around Lynnette's side, and through the double-doors to the decorated gymnasium, without so much as a parting glance to his doomed teammate.
Lynnette followed Mel's retreat with a smirk in her green eyes, which disappeared the moment her attention was brought back to her boyfriend. She could not blame Jessica for accepting a date with Randy, since no one had known that he had been seeing Lynnette for the past three weeks.
She'd spoken to Jessica on the dance floor, when they both learned that they'd been asked to the dance by Randy, and found out that he had asked Jess to the prom just three days before. When Jess had recounted the exact words of Randy's invitation to be his date, she and Lynn had gone to find the boy, and had overheard the conversation in the bathroom.
Randy stood rooted to the spot, dreading the impending confrontation. He'd had it all planned out, how he'd sneak away from each girl to attend to the other over the course of the evening, and then take his girl Lynnette to the Marriott after driving Jessica home.
But he'd forgotten one very important detail: in order for his plan to work, neither girl could speak to the other. Keeping the girls away from each other, even on a normal day, would have been impossible, since they were not only best friends, but cousins as close as sisters. He had already been extremely lucky, he reflected in hindsight, that neither girl had mentioned him to the other in the weeks preceding the prom, or else he would have had no date at all.
This last thought in mind, Randy regained some of his color, and with it, a bit of his bravado. "All right," he wheedled, "I screwed up, okay, I get it. But tell me you weren't having fun tonight, ladies!" He spread his arms wide, a shit-eating grin on his dark face.
Both girls scoffed aloud. "Randy Velay, if you think you're gonna talk your way out of this, you've got another think coming." Lynnette rolled her eyes and fixed her chess strategy stare on her decidedly ex-boyfriend.
"Aw, c'mon, Lynn. Y'know you love me." Randy's eyes shifted back and forth, searching for an exit to this confrontation.
"Pfft," Jessica put in her two cents. "Please. She may be vice-president of the Chess Club, but there are most definitely other--and better--fish in the sea. She doesn't need the school quarterback to make her look good."
Lynnette was not the typical chess enthusiast. She could have been a cheerleader, but found the other girls on the squad too shallow for her taste. Instead, she had joined the Chess Club, where her mental talents were appreciated just as much as her physical attributes.
"Thanks, Jess."
"No problem, cuz."
The girls nodded to each other, and then faced Randy again.
"Here's how it's gonna be," Jessica proclaimed. "We're all going to go back to the gym, where you will get up on stage and borrow the DJ's mic. Then, you will announce to everyone present that you're swearing off dating for the duration of your upcoming freshman year in college, because you want more time to study and keep your grades up for that fancy football scholarship you got.
"After that, you will stay away from both of us for the rest of the night, and Lynn will ride home with me after the dance. For the rest of the school year, you will not say anything to either of us that is not related to school, and we will not talk to you unless we have to. Are we clear?"
"And if I don't?"
"Between the two of us," Lynnette answered, "we pretty much have the whole school covered with connections of one sort or another. Should you fail to follow the terms we have laid out, it would be extremely easy to spread a rumor that you're gay to the entire student body. You wouldn't want that, now would you?"
"N-no," Randy gulped. Either make a public and extremely personal, not to mention false, announcement that he was going to be celibate for his first year of college, or he'd be humiliated. Either way, his pride would take a blow, but he really didn't want to have to explain to every girl he met that he wasn't gay.
"No need for that," he said. "Let's just go back to the gym, huh? Looks like I've got an announcement to make."
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