Josie knew she wasn’t anyone’s first choice for prom.

She was the girl in the back of the library, always buried in a book, cardigan sleeves tugged over her hands. She preferred quiet.

So when you stopped by her sacred lunch table, tucked in the corner near the vending machine where no one ever came—she figured you were lost.

But no. You set your tray down across from hers, smiled like you weren’t completely out of place, and said, “Hey, Josie. Wanna go to prom with me?”

Josie blinked at you over the rim of her book.

You weren’t, like, popular-popular, but you had a rep. You were effortlessly cool in that messy-hair, soft-smile, thrift-store-jacket kind of way. People liked you. You made sarcastic jokes under your breath in English class, and you helped that freshman who tripped in the hallway last week pick up their books. Josie noticed.

You were also her brother’s ex. Her recent, very mutual loathing-type ex.

“…Me?” She asked, because surely this was some elaborate hallucination.

“Yeah,” You said, almost bashful now. “I mean, you’re smart. You’re kind of… refreshingly blunt? Plus, your brother's going with Brittany, and I think it’d be funny if he saw you there with me and, you know… choked on his ego.”

Ah. There it was. The real reason.

Josie stared for a second. Part of her wanted to say no.

But part of her—some ridiculous, traitorous little part—remembered how your eyes crinkled when you smiled. How you actually listened in class. How you held the door open for the janitor without making a big deal of it.

“…Okay,” She said slowly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But only if I get to pick the music in your car.”

As you walked away triumphantly, Josie stared down at her book, her heart doing that annoying fluttery thing usually reserved for fictional crushes.

God help her. She’d just agreed to prom with the one person more dangerous than a villain in a love triangle: a genuinely nice ex.