Prom Ever After - Dona Sarkar Mills & Boon Kimani Tru

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up with the idea to donate any gig money they made to the inner-city school Josh had grown up in.

      Josh always said he owed his life to the music program at his high school. Many of his friends had ended up in juvie...or worse. Josh had spent his teenage years learning every instrument from piano to guitar to the French horn. He vowed to always give back whatever he could, whether it was a little or a lot.

      It had been very little the past year due to the family’s financial situation. Josh had left his small tech company the previous year when it had started to go under. He’d been actively job hunting, but the opportunities were slim in an industry that was obsessed with kids out of college, not “people old enough to have kids in college.”

      He’d spent the last year writing apps for phones to earn some income, while her mother’s law firm had been cutting out billable hours for the attorneys. Money had been tight on just her mother’s salary, especially considering Ash’s Seattle Academy tuition and Sonali’s specialized art school. The family’s lifestyle was far different from what Ash was used to...or from what all of her friends at school had.

      Ash had heard her parents fighting—actually fighting—for the first time in her life over their financial worries. She understood their reasons for not wanting to spend a lot on the prom...but she knew she could find a way to pay her mother back for the dress if she only had a chance.

      “Prom is a night when women are objectified. I think I’ll boycott mine,” the know-it-all piped up again, as if someone had asked for her opinion. “I’d rather give that money to an education program for young artists.”

      “Quiet, or I’ll beat you, too,” Ash ordered.

      “Don’t maul your sister. House rule number two,” Josh said automatically, without looking up from his laptop screen.

      “You actually went to the prom, Dad.” Ash directed her tantrum at her father. “How much did your date’s dress cost? I bet it was over a hundred dollars even in the ’70s!”

      “Hey, hey, hey. My prom was in the ’80s, thank you very much. And Jeannie made her dress with her older sister’s help. It was a big puffy yellow thing. Like one of those marshmallow-chicken things you get at Easter. Do you want me to call her and ask if you can borrow it?”

      Ash shot eye daggers at her father.

      “Just being helpful.” Her father shrugged. “You’ve got to get with the program before the program gets you.”

      God, her parents were dorky.

      “You people are seriously going to drive me crazy,” Ash muttered as she grabbed her coat. “I’m going to Sebastian’s!”

      Three

      Ash glared at Sebastian in the middle of their drafting class the next day. He was still completely unconcerned about the prom situation, as he’d been the previous evening.

      “I should just tell Armstrong I can’t go with him. I mean, why drag it out? I should call it off now so he can find someone else. Someone with a dress instead of some belly dancer–looking costume.”

      Sebastian was focusing a little too hard on their drafting project still. No answer.

      She knew she was being kind of a brat, but couldn’t help herself.

      “I should just call it off right now.”

      Still no answer.

      “Like today.”

      She sighed loudly.

      Sebastian finally glanced up from the giant sheet of paper he’d been leaning over.

      “Oh, is it time for drama? Is it my turn? Noooo, Ash, you can’t. You and Armie-boy belong together. Like forevvvvver.”

      Did no one have sympathy for her plight? Did no one understand that she was actually not going to be able to go to the prom this year—her senior year? She wouldn’t have prom pictures, she wouldn’t have the first dance, she wouldn’t have that magical night she’d be talking about for years to come with her own kids and grandkids. And most importantly, she wouldn’t have another chance with Armstrong.

      “I don’t like you,” was all she could think of to say to Sebastian.

      “You love me. Now, we need to do our assignment. What do you think? How many watchtowers, if any?”

      “I don’t care.”

      “Hey, you wanted the front of the school. You at least have to choose if you want a watchtower or not.”

      “I want a moat.” Ash stuck out her lower lip. “And alligators. And that dress!”

      Sebastian sighed. “Just have the tantrum and let me know when you’re done.”

      Ash glared at him.

      Sebastian ignored her and went back to sketching pointy roofs. He wrinkled his forehead and chomped down hard on the corner of his mouth as he worked expertly with the protractor. He looked cute today, in a dark blue University of Michigan T-shirt that clung well to his arms, a fact every girl, freshman through senior, had clearly noticed.

      He was easily one of the cutest guys in the senior class. He knew it, but he also knew he was smart. He’d already gotten accepted into Michigan’s honors program and amazingly, was still invested in keeping his GPA a 4.0.

      “You can fail and repeat senior year and have another shot at the prom.” Sebastian could tell she was not working without even looking up. “Get to work.”

      The small, twelve-person drafting class had a joint assignment. Each team of two was to choose a section of Seattle Academy to redesign into whatever style they wanted. The second part of class would be to take the flat sketches, make them into 3-D models and actually build a miniature version of the school redesign. The redesign would be displayed in the front entryway of the school to show off their skills.

      Other teams had predictably chosen the gym or the cafeteria, which would’ve been much easier. Ash had insisted on choosing the front of the school—saying it needed to look majestic and haunting all at once. Plus she wanted her work to be the thing people saw first when they looked at the miniature. So far, Sebastian had done all the actual drawing work, while Ash had tossed out opinions every once in a while when things looked off. She was the creative force. Every team needed one.

      When Sebastian still didn’t respond to her threat of not going to the prom, Ash grabbed her pencil and within minutes had replicated the dress on the corner of their sheet of paper.

      God, it was beautiful. She darkened the lines of the cutouts on the bodice. She didn’t care what her mother said, the bodice was beautiful and it had looked great on her.

      “How goes it?” Mr. Watkins’s voice caused Ash to drop her pencil and let out a small scream. “Sorry, Ash, didn’t mean to startle you.”

      “Uh...” Ash tried to cover up her dress sketch with her arm. The drafting teacher was very young and pretty cute, and generally gave interesting assignments, but he was also very detention-happy. If anyone was caught texting, tweeting, on Facebook, taking selfies, thinking about taking selfies or generally doing anything else but the assignment, he immediately gave them weekend detention, which meant cleaning the garage for auto shop, which he also taught. She did not want detention.

      “What’s this?” He turned the paper around to see what Ash had been working on.

      “Oh. That.” Sebastian cut in before Ash could make up a lame excuse. “Ash and I were having a discussion. An argument, let’s say.”

      Mr. Watkins’s eyebrows rose. “About some ugly dress?”

      “It’s not ugly!” Ash’s mouth dropped open. “You guys are mean!”

      Sebastian grinned. “I was attempting to prove to my lab partner here that there are so many similarities between classic drafting professions such

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