Ned Gets Stood Up

Chapter Six

SAM

Like a lost little puppy, Sam walked in after his sister at her heels, so close that when she stopped, he bumped his nose into her shoulder. Margaret was hanging off the arm of her best friends, Barbie who they picked on the way. They were both as tall as Sam in heels and smelled like different varieties of fruit at the supermarket. The school gymnasium was blasting with Christmas music, assaulting Sam's eyes with all the green, reds, and golds. It was a mix of ugly sweaters and nicely dressed teens with disgruntled teachers that definitely had better things to do somewhere else, but they were trapped her.

Last Christmas played as Sam stepped through the flecks of glitter littering the floor and he immediately regretted every decision he made today.

"Okay." Margaret clapped her hands together, twirling around to Sam. "What do you want to do first? Grab some food or drink or do you want me to introduce you to Thomas first?"

"I texted the guys," Barbie said, her nose pressed against her cellphone screen. She was a mystery to Sam with her strawberry blonde hair cut to shreds with kitchen scissors to make a homemade wolf-cut, but her dress was lacey and white, but she also wore converse, but she also had black nail polish and an actual tattoo her mother let her get this year. He could never pin her down. He wanted to study her like a new fish found at the bottom of the ocean.

"They're already here," Barbie explained. "Chad has a flask of vodka."

"Sam?" His sister asked again.

Glancing around, Sam pursed his lips. "Honestly, I'm trying to decide what would be the best thing to kill myself with. Maybe one of those ugly fake icicles or maybe the star on top of the tree—"

Barbie snorted, but Margaret put all her aggression of seventeen painful years with Sam to punch him in the arm hard enough that he thought it might explode off his tendons. "Ow!" Sam whined and nursed his pounding arm. He could feel the bloom of a bruise already and whirled a look of hurt at his sister. "Watch it! You're wearing rings."

"Can't you be normal!" Whenever Margaret yelled at Sam, he thought he was seeing his mother and she was just one yank of his ear away from sending him to bed with no dinner. "For once in your life!"

Sam's brilliant rebuttal was to pout and rub his arm some more. He whispered, "Sorry. Yes. I'll be good."

With a snicker, Barbie shook her head and said, "They're coming over."

She didn't even look up.

But Sam looked around and swallowed a groan when he spotted a few of Margaret's friends, waving them down. It was the usual suspects Chad, Toby, and Kevin with their girlfriends and their girlfriends' friends. Margaret always came with a small stampede.

"What's up? Maggie!" Chad greeted her with a side hug. He was hunk of a man, built like an ox with a shorn head and an actually well-fitted blue suit. When he smiled, it revealed his cute little tooth gap.

"And it's Hayes, what's up man?" Chad lifted his hand, faking Sam out like it was going to be a high five, but Chad yanked him into a quick bro hug that knocked the wind out of him. This was the side of the jock spectrum that referred to everyone by their last name if you were a dude.

"How's it going?" Sam asked, holding back his flinch.

"Aw, nothing much man. Hey," He said, reaching back for another guy, who was built the same way, tall, lean, and with a little muscle on him. Sam was instantly jealous that this stranger got to keep his glasses on tonight and was further fascinated by his black fade that was longer dreads on top that were bleached a honey color.