Pure confidence exuded from him, and satisfaction spread across his face. He clearly thought he was a genius.

“Mullets?” I asked before I took a sip of my soda.

“Mullets. It’s an eighties-themed prom. Like McAllister said, the thing everyone remembers from the eighties is the mullets. It’s our senior prom. Our last school dance. Shouldn’t we go out with a bang? I say we do it. The powder-blue suits. The Ruffled shirts. And the mullets. We have plenty of time to grow it.”

“You’re telling me that you want me to grow a mullet? You’re crazy, dude.”

In all honesty, though, I was intrigued by the idea. But I knew how Sierra would feel about it. She wouldn’t be down for her date having a business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back hairstyle.

“Dude, it’s not like I’m asking you to shave your head or anything. What? Are you chicken? Don’t think you can pull the look off? That’s a shame, Banks. A damn shame.”

“I can pull it off just fine, Chris. I’m just worried you can’t,” I said defensively. What the hell was he talking about? I could make a mullet look good.

“Then what’s the problem?”

I hesitated, and that’s when he went in for the kill.

He leaned closer and locked his eyes on mine. “If you do it, I’ll do it. Come on, Banks. I. Dare. You.”

And that was it.

I had to do it.

I was growing a mullet for prom. I just had to tell Sierra and live long enough to make it happen.

Gotta love little sisters. Apparently, word had traveled around school of what Chris and I were planning, and Lexi informed her sister before I could. Then Lexi was kind enough to warn me of the way Sierra’s eyes had flashed wild and her cheeks had reddened—she had been close to foaming at the mouth. I figured Lexi was exaggerating on that last part, but this was Sierra. I had to be prepared for anything, even though I was pretty sure she’d find it funny. At least, that’s what I thought.

“Jeremy. Jordan. Banks!” Sierra’s shriek echoed through the gazebo.

We still met there every night to walk on the beach and talk about our days even though we spent most of them together. It was our special place, and with the both of us going off to college in a few months, we wouldn’t be back there often. So we spent as much time there as we could together. Tonight, however, clearly wasn’t going to be as peaceful as usual.

I rose from the step I’d been sitting on and turned to greet her, bracing myself for her reaction.

“You have got to be freaking kidding me! Are you out of your mind?”

That’s what she led with as soon as she saw me. I winced at her incredulous tone.

She was usually laid-back, so this amount of wrath had been unexpected. When I stepped closer to her, her hands were placed firmly on her hips. She was glaring at me. Shooting daggers, even. But, fortunately, she wasn’t foaming at the mouth.

“Nice to see you, too, babe,” I said, giving her the grin that usually calmed her down. This time, however, it didn’t.”

“A mullet, Jeremy? Really?”

“I mean…it was Chris’s idea.”

“Do you do everything Chris tells you to do?” She waved a hand. “Don’t answer that. I already know you do.”

“Hey, he dared me to kiss you, and look how perfectly that turned out.”

That was a huge mistake. I knew this, when, her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed wild.

“He what?!”

“Sierra, you know about that. The night of the beach party.”

Maybe Lexi had been right. Sierra’s eyes were flashing wild, and if I could have seen her face better, there might have been some foam at the corner of her mouth.

“So you’re telling me that the only reason you kissed me that night was because Chris dared you?!”

I sighed. There was no way I was getting out of this. “No, of course not. The reason we kissed was because of the stupid game. And then, after we left the closet, he whispered in my ear, daring me to kiss you.”

“So, once again, you only kissed me because he dared you to?”

Someone could’ve handed me a shovel then. I was apparently in the mood to dig my own grave.

“Are you bleeding?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I was usually really good in these types of situations. I was sort of a PMS-whisperer. I always knew what to do and say to make sure my head wasn’t ripped off by one of the three close girls in my life. And, typically, Sierra was the least hormonal.

Apparently, this was no longer the case.

“Did you seriously just ask me that?”

“Umm, no?” I replied innocently, hoping she’d think she’d heard me wrong.

She didn’t.

She crossed the distance between us and jabbed a finger into my chest. I wince at her hard poke.

“As a matter of fact, I am. What of it?!”

My hand rose and enclosed her little finger. I placed my other one on the small of her back and pulled her lower half into me. She stared up at me, and I hated when her eyes glistened with tears. So I leaned down and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“I’m sorry, Sierra. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She sniffled, and I took it as a sign to keep going.

“Baby, we’ve been together for nearly three years. Best friends for much longer than that. I think you know how I feel about you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. And, every single day, I fall more in love with you. Is it true that Chris dared me to kiss you? Yes. It is. But he did it because he knew I’d been in love with you longer than I could even admit to myself. He knew I was too chickenshit, too scared to do it on my own. So he gave me that little push, and I fucking took it. And I’ve never looked back. I never will.”

“Chris knew before you did?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“I think everyone knew before we did, don’t you think?”

“True.”

Relief flooded my veins. “So you see why I can’t not accept Chris’s dares? And plus, it’s kinda perfect. We’ll be an authentic eighties couple.”

Even though she tried to frown, a small smile played on her lips. Her finger dug harder into my chest. “I am not going to my senior prom with some Billy Ray wannabe.”

I frowned and took a step back, clutching my chest and feigning horror. “I am not, nor will I ever want to be, Billy Ray Cyrus.”

She placed her hands back on her hips and raised an eyebrow at me. I stepped closer to her, and she stepped back.

“You can call me MacGyver.”

“No,” she answered firmly as she set her chin in defiance.

I closed the distance between us and grasped her waist, bringing her in closer. Then I dipped my head and whispered a kiss on her lips before moving mine to hover over her ear. “How about John Stamos?”

She shuddered as my breath tickled her ear, and I knew I had her. When I pulled away, she was struggling not to smile. Her hands slid up my chest and wrapped around my neck. She used her fingers to toy with my hairline as if she were trying to imagine what I’d look like with a mullet.

“John Stamos,” I whispered again, grinning down at her.

“I guess I can work with that,” she finally relented.

Uncle Jesse for the win.

I’d been livid when I’d found out about Chris’s not-so-brilliant plan. And even more livid when Lexi had informed me that Jeremy had accepted the dare. In hindsight, I had been a little angrier than the situation had called for, and even though Jeremy had oh-so-astutely pointed it out, it was definitely the hormones.

He’d been growing out his hair for the past couple of months, but he refused to get it cut or styled until the day of prom. He wanted it to be a surprise, not only for me, but for everyone. I was both nervous and excited to see how it turned out. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what his hairstyle was like. All that mattered was that we were together, we had fun, and we spent the night making memories we’d fondly remember for the rest of our lives.