"Girls tend to dislike it when you misplace them," Myer says, and spots Maryann halfway across the gym, and from the way she smiles at Dan Kirsch, he's just asked her to dance. He doesn't blame her for accepting; Adam's sulking and talking with him.
"Coach is busy ogling Marie Bellon's--" Myer pauses, and takes the high road, "--charms, which are so generously on display. Of course, so is everyone else." Bellon's melons is a phrase that's been around since she was a sophomore. Not to his taste; it's just too much of a good thing, and just too much to have them constantly shoved in your face, metaphorically or not.
The cheerleaders wander by, laughing and chattering, as bright as a cloud of butterflies. He offers them a polite smile, and it's only after they pass that he sees Adam's expression.
Curious. Interesting. Because Adam is the same age as he is, the same sex, he's spent a fair amount of time with him, and because he's handsome, he's watched his face. That's an expression that makes Myer wonder. He likes puzzles, likes figuring things out, and he's not often concerned whether those things are his business or not.
Myer flips things over in his mind, looks at them, rearranges them. In spite of their friendship, they don't discuss certain topics; Myer assumes that more personal things belong to Tion, who is Adam's best friend amongst them. He's watching the handful of girls navigate through the crowd, accepting congratulations as their due. Whatever is bothering Adam has something to do with them; Adam had been subdued before, but with their appearance, his expression has become distinctly unhappy.
Girls, girls--girl. They tend to run in a pack, and one of their packmates is missing. Delilah Westbrook, the object of Adam's affection. Well. Lust, at least. She and Josh were to debut tonight as a new couple; he's heard that from Jessica. That they're not here, resplendent in their new dating status, is odd. The mind runs to what might appear the obvious, but Myer doesn't think so. Delilah would have wished to be here, to be seen.
He glances at his watch. The dance has been going on long enough that it's beyond even a fashionably-late entrance. From the look on Adam's face, he's not expecting it to be car trouble, but something involving far fewer clothes. As in, none. He debates on whether he should say anything, but he's never been known for much tact, so.
He's saved from saying something that might be irreparably damaging by Jessica's appearance. She's beautiful, of course, and she knows how to dress to accentuate her best features. In bare feet they're the same height; in heels, she's inches taller. It doesn't bother him for women to be taller and in fact, he likes it.
Jessica would probably hate it if he kissed her perfectly-painted red mouth, and a perverse imp goads him to do it anyway. But he has plans for them tomorrow--not tonight, as there's an afterparty--and he's never been a fan of PDAs or clinginess. So instead he smiles at her and takes her hand in both of his, rubbing a thumb across her delicate knuckles.
"You look incredible," he says, and that's an easy enough truth. "I am very, very lucky to have you."
"You say the sweetest things," Jessica said. "Occasionally. It's a shame you don't do it on a regular basis."
Jessica knows him very well and has seldom been intimated by him. "A baseline of cranky hatefulness makes the compliment all the sweeter when you do get one."
"Come dance with me, please," she says. "There's a slow song coming up."
"If I must," he says, with faux weariness.
"You must," she replies. She turns her attention to Adam. "Hi, Adam. You came with Maryann, didn't you?"