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“Are you staying in on New Year’s Eve?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Starlight answered Ace, because that was what Super Teen Pony Magazine would recommend. Be mysterious and he won’t be able to stop thinking about you.
Her actual plan was pretty boring: work until close, then go home and start the year well-rested. Her family tended to go crazy on Christmas, and her friends usually celebrated the new year, so a more laid-back holiday would be nice for once.
The reality was that she’d spend New Year’s Eve wherever Ace asked her to. Ace had to know it, too, the way he grinned. “The Dillons have the house to themselves. Anybody who’s somebody will be there.”
Starlight shrugged. She was somewhat acquainted with the Dillons (anyone with a passing interest in Clydesdale High sports knew at least one of them), but she hadn’t received an invite. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”
Ace tilted his head back. “Oh please, like you have anything better to do than go with me.”
“With you?” Starlight echoed.
“Yeah, we need someone responsible there! Otherwise the guys’ll break their necks doing flips into the pool from the balcony. I know how you are at water rescues.”
Ace wanted her to ring in the new year with him! It was all she could do not to skip for joy. “I-I’d love to, Ace. Just- let me check my schedule and I’ll be in touch,” she added, trying for coolness, even though she was pretty sure he saw right through it.
Ace chuckled. “Yeah yeah, just let me know if you can fit me in your busy schedule, ‘kay?”
(After school, she dialed his number on the work phone before the front door even shut behind her.)
◉◉◉◉◉◉◉
Thus is the story of how, for a few short days, she had an occasion to map her fantasies onto. At nine o’clock on December 31st, she’d meet him at the Dillons’ place off Majesty Lane. He’d alternate between dazzling the entire world and dazzling her in that “we’re the only ponies on Earth” kind of way he could make her feel. Maybe he’d join the procession of ponies diving into the pool, or maybe he’d just breakdance.
Really, the night could go any number of ways… the most important part was how they’d welcome 1998.
Ten seconds to the New Year, the ponies at the party would start the countdown.
Eight seconds to the New Year, she’d look over at Ace. She’d have to blink a few times to convince herself that it wasn’t a dream.
Six seconds to the New Year, he’d notice her staring and make some clever remark. She wouldn't hear it because of the crowd, but she’d giggle anyway.
Four seconds to the New Year, she’d move to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, only to feel his hoof rest over hers and beat her to the punch. Her jaw would drop at the gesture. He would answer with a meaningful smile.
Two seconds to the New Year, they’d inch closer.
One second to the New Year, he’d come in close… and at the stroke of the midnight, she would hardly be able to tell the fireworks in her heart from the fireworks all around them.
Like most of Starlight’s fantasies, it would burn out with a vengeance.
On the morning of December 31st, her dad took one look at her and dismissed her from working the counter for the day. Can’t do food service with a fever.
It was a wake-up call to the fact that, as much as Ace felt like oxygen, he was no substitute for oxygen. Waking up aching and shivering and oxygen-deprived with no way of breathing through her nose was a problem. (Starlight counted her blessings all the time, but she never felt grateful enough when her sinuses were actually clear. Add that to the list of resolutions.)
Her fragile mouth-breathing and the exposed rafters were her only company in her tiny bedroom. It felt like a premonition. She’d be cursed to be alone forever, she knew it.
She felt awful, and not just physically.
Running a mild-grade fever and drifting in and out of consciousness was never pleasant, but in her fever dreams, all she could think of was how annoyed Ace would be at her for canceling. In her waking moments, the ponderous weight of having to cancel on Ace rested heavy in her gut. She knew she had to call him and let him know; she couldn’t stand him up. It’d ruin all the progress they’d made in their friendship if she just pulled a no-show.
At about three o’clock, she was awake enough to decide enough was enough and dialed his house. “Yo,” Ace greeted after a few rings.
For a second, Starlight was just surprised anyone answered. “Hi Ace…” Starlight coughed weakly into the receiver.
“‘Sup?”
“Um… I’m feeling pretty crappy right now, to be honest…”
“Are you serious?”
Starlight bit her lip. She spent so long preparing for this call because she didn’t know what to expect… She’d assumed that Ace not caring that she couldn’t make it would be the worst case-scenario; at least if he was annoyed, at least he’d be thinking of her and not himself or Melody or whatever other girl. Now, she wondered if hearing the disappointment in his voice was even worse. It made her restless and frantic in that way only he could. “I-I’ll pop some DayQuil and come anyway, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“I’m always telling you ya gotta play hookie more, Star. If you’re actually trying to bail on me, I know it’s really bad.”
“I’m sorry, Ace,” Starlight muttered. She was loath to disappoint him on a good day. But now? Just as they were getting closer?! Ace could share his first kiss of the new year with anyone at the party if he wanted to, and she wouldn’t even know who!
“It’s cool, Star, don’t worry about it. Do ya want me to drop anything at your place for you to eat?” Ace asked, his tone becoming more gentle.
“That’d be amazing,” Starlight murmured.
“Cool, I’ll swing by in a bit.”
Her heart fluttered. “Thanks... I’m really sorry again, Ace. I was really looking forward to, um, hanging out with you at the party…”
“No sweat, Star! When you feel better, we’ll do the countdown again. My new year doesn’t start until I’ve had my kiss from you, got it?”
“W-what?!“
The line went dead before she could clarify what he meant.
(Starlight wouldn’t be fully conscious when he visited, but soon he’d drop by with a jar of soup. She would have a disjointed dream about getting kissed on the forehead.)
“D’ya have any New Year’s resolutions?” Bon Bon asked.
Her hoof was in a bag of grapes in her house's kitchen. She was supposed to stay in tonight (little ponies get into too much trouble on New Year’s, it won’t be safe, her mom said, obviously). Eating twelve grapes at the strike of midnight was good luck, so eating the other hundred or so in a package before midnight had to be even better, right?
Bon Bon’s boyfriend (one whole boyfriend to call her own… she was STILL giddy!) was there to help with that. Spinner hummed, a dark chocolate-colored hoof packing a hoof-full of grapes into his mouth and then swallowing. “I think resolutions are a silly gimmick to sell more gym memberships.”
“Oh...” Well now she felt foolish about it! She could feel the beginnings of a ruined mood coming on, but she was charitable and nice enough to offer him a chance to at least make her feel better before spiraling. “I-I was thinking I might go on a diet. Hopefully I lose some weight and get into modeling or something, I dunno…”
“I think you should get fatter.”
Bon Bon nearly fell on the living room floor. His perfectly neutral expression made her feel even more flustered. “What the heck, Spinner?!”
“Um, did you hit your head?” He asked, with that usual pinched, kind-of impatient tone of voice.
She got up without any help and leaned against the counter, crossing her forelegs in front of her. “Y-you don’t think I could be a fashion model?” Her voice cracked, much to her embarrassment Then again, her modeling dreams were always a sore spot for her. Everyone was supportive in elementary school, but it felt like a childish, indulgent dream now that she was sixteen.
“If you put on more weight, that means you’ll eat a lot of delicious food this year, and you might share some with me. You’ll also be really happy. You’re always prettier when you smile, which will make you an even better model,” he reasoned. “Right?”
She choked, dumbfounded. “You’re joking.”
“You’re choking,” he answered, tersely. “You’re beautiful, Bon Bon… What's so funny about that?”
The fluttery feeling in her chest, mostly. The fact that she was lucky enough to pull someone who thought she was worth such a nice compliment.
Bon Bon giggled, resting her hoof on his. “Oh, nothing,” she answered. Her blue eyes met his for a second before they both looked away, bashful.
She mentally added “perfect some new recipes and find them both a favorite dessert” to her list of resolutions.
“The one the jocks are throwing?” Bright Eyes shook her head. She heard there was going to be drinking. If she hoped to go to a prestigious university, it would behoove her to keep her distance from that manner of comportment. “No can do. I have an enormous queue of books I need to return right after winter break.”
Lancer breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I was starting to think I was the only one who didn’t want to go. It just… doesn’t seem like my scene.”
“You should really know better than to worry about what the others are doing. After all, being yourself is important. What you do is usually quite fine in my books.”
Someone else would probably find the impromptu lecture annoying, but Lancer recognized it for what it was. She had a soft smile on her face. She loved to lecture ponies and share everything she learned. Bright Eyes loved having someone on her wavelength enough to tease like that without seeming patronizing. Having that kind of bond with a classmate almost made up for the hundreds of nights Lancer spent tossing and turning at the mansion, always hanging on the periphery of things and wondering when he’d fall off and be forgotten altogether.
Also, she said she liked what he usually did, too! He wouldn’t forget about that for a month. She really was the cutest, huh?
“Say,” Lancer added, more bashfully, “would you like to come over? We have a dozen guest bedrooms, and I know how you like the house library…”
“If I go to your library, I’ll keep adding books to my pile. Then I’ll never finish the ones I have,” Bright Eyes answered, laughing.
“Oh- fair enough, haha. Uh, I hope it’s not weird to ask or anything…”
“I didn’t say no,” Bright Eyes interjected, her eyes aglow. “Although my father wouldn’t be happy with it-“
Lancer laughed nervously. “Offending your dad is the last thing I want to do, believe me!”
“-I suppose I can see if I can pretend to stay at someone else’s house, if you really want me there with you,” Bright Eyes finished. “It sure would beat being all alone.”
“Sure, sounds great!” Lancer swung his face away from her to hide how smiley she made him.
“You,” Melody echoed with a laugh, “Chase McNamara, think you can outsing me?”
He made a production of thinking about it. “I think I could, Melody Riff,” he answered simply, calmly.
He looked so much like the frontpony for the Cleveland Bays when he did that, it drove Melody crazy! Chase’s fur was the gray of a well-loved guitar strap instead of bronze, but his eyes and his hair (that is, his gorgeous mane of navy-blue locks) were a dead ringer, especially in the low light (it was a few hours past dusk, in the Dillons’ now-noisy backyard no less). …Usually she wouldn’t spare him a glance because he was not a rockstar (except on the field)… but her heart sure did like to make an exception for this heartthrob, had since she was nine and he was the handsome, slightly older boy who could tear it UP in rollerskates. He may not be a rocker, but he sure was cool and handsome like one!
“You know mumble-rapping to Vanilla Ice doesn’t count as singing, right?”
“I have the voice of an angel, you know.”
She stuck her tongue out. “I do tend to doubt… You jocks barely have hobbies.”
He chuckled. “I just save my pipes for what's poppin' and pertinent. Pep talks in the locker room, requesting extra credit… it always does the trick.”
“If you think you’re so great, why don’t you sign up for karaoke and prove it?” She batted her lashes at him.
It was all a ploy. The last time she heard a male jock claim he had pipes, she got Ace to sing Ice Ice Baby for the entire ice cream shop. His voice was pretty good, for a jock, for a boy, but she’d never seen him get so humble so quickly. It went a long way to show Starlight that the guy didn’t walk on water, too. Definitely a top-five incident.
She’d totally show him up, and if Chase saw for himself what a good singer she was, maybe they’d get closer and, you know… they did only have a few hours until the countdown, so who’s to say they wouldn’t…
Chase grinned carelessly over his shoulder as he trotted out to the karaoke signups table. She laughed. “This is gonna be good.”
◉◉◉◉◉◉◉
When it was Chase’s turn to sing, he grabbed Melody’s forearm. “C’mon, Riffster.”
“What?!” she called over the music.
He led her towards the impromptu stage, a trampoline in the middle of the yard. CRT TVs were extension-corded from the house so they (and the gathered crowd) could all read the lyrics.
It was kind of unsteady under her hooves, but a stage was a stage…
Chase tossed Melody a mic, which he had to know would bother her, because he then leaned in and got right in her personal space as he climbed up, too. She shoved him away from her (but not too hard; the trampoline was really only designed for one, she didn’t want him to hit his head). “Don’t throw the music equipment! Stuff’s expensive.”
“Have a gentle touch, do you, sugarcube?”
“A-as if!” She huffed, suddenly thankful her fur was hot pink, just in case. “What song are we singing, anyway?”
It took her a moment to recognize Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing as it faded in on the sound system.
Oh my GOD, Melody thought, caught perfectly between wanting to kiss the smug son-of-a-gun and wanting to throw him off the trampoline. Usually, she’d hit a guy no question for forcing a romantic duet like that, but if there was any exception to that…
Besides, it HAD to be a ploy to throw her off guard so she sang worse and he would seem better in comparison. That was the only explanation.
The worst part was that, as he began to sing, his voice was good. For a guy, for a jock, he was great, though his voice was more tenor than the Cleveland Bays (whose songs played to a higher register overall).
When the lyrics started lighting up in pink instead of blue, Melody cleared her throat and put herself into the groove. Singing was like breathing for her. She did her best dance-moves that she could while mostly pressed up against him (was there really so little space that pressing together was the best they could do?!).
She handed the mic back to Chase with flourish, as if to say “beat that.”
When the song concluded amid applause, their backs were pressed together (the trampoline was that small). Melody curtseyed to the audience, “Thank you, thank you! Yeah, we’re pretty great, what can I say?”
Chase grabbed her by the foreleg and her heart leapt for an instant before he led them into a joint bow.
Her head swam with something thrilling and discombobulating all at once. She didn’t know if “high” was the right word, but she knew she didn’t want to stop.
As they clambered off the trampoline, Chase grinned. “Not bad, right?”
“For an amateur,” she answered, but her voice gave away her exhilaration. “I’m impressed, though! Where’d you learn to sing like that?”
“My mom used to bring me to the memory care ward to perform for my grandma. I was… maybe six? At first, I felt silly about it, but it was one of the only things that could make her seem lucid again. When she passed away, I kept doing it for a while because some of the other patients liked it, too. My mom signed me up for lessons and everything.”
The voice of an angel. Melody’s heart soared. “Why didn’t I ever see ya at the hospital?”
“That was before I moved to Ponyland. It was kinda fun, though, I dunno.”
“You’re like an honorary rockstar in my books,” Melody said, partly for him, but mostly because, in that moment, she decided something.
“You’re a real rockstar under pressure.” he continued. “A lot of ponies would run away having something like that sprung on them… but you have pipes, and grit, not to mention moves. Maybe we could sing for the old ponies at the hospital sometime.”
She could’ve squealed. Instead, she winked. “It’s a date.”
Buddy knew his way around the popular kids’ houses, and the Dillons had easily his favorite party setup. The interior had plenty of rooms (ones big enough for twelve ponies to socialize and play in and closets and bedrooms), and the backyard was vast, with oodles of good memories to be made between a pool, a firepit, and a trampoline (sorry, karaoke stage). It was freaking terrific.
The firepit was easily the best. It was made of metal and had a detachable pizza-cooker to put on too. It allowed twelve inches of fire access for ‘mallow-roasting and scary story-telling, BUT if they wanted to they could put ingredients up top and have a pizza in twenty minutes.
Today, it was being used for a different purpose.
(Hey, isn’t everyone here single? Patch had asked with a glint in her eye that made Buddy’s heart leap. She’d barely finished saying it before Buddy chugged his drink and slammed his bottle on its side on the flat top of the fire-pit cover.)
Thus was the story of how they got into Spin the Bottle. The latest spin pointed to a black pony with silver hair: Lukas Walkuski. He played Lumière in the Beauty and the Beast winter play, and he had the funkiest watches of any boy in school. The fancy red sweater he wore tonight matched Logan Berrytown’s face. “Ohhh, I get a taste of Berrytown? This is the game that keeps on giving.”
“I-I don’t know about that…!”
“Come on, Loges! You gotta kiss someone other than your mom eventually,” Patch teased.
Logan hid his face behind his hooves. Buddy whooped, clapping Logan’s shoulder. “Punch it in, little guy! Gonna rock his world tonight!”
He moved across the circle and took Lukas’ head between his hooves like he was trying to crush it. The younger boy hesitated. “You don’t have to if you don’t think you can handle it,” Lukas teased.
Logan kissed him chastely, like ripping a bandage off: Lukas blinked, like he’d expected a longer effort, then laughed to save face. “Not bad, skater boy…”
Logan squeaked a thank you before stumbling out of the circle to cool off. Buddy cheered again as he left. “Wooo! Loge’s the man!”
When Lukas spun, the noise he made could only be described as a squeal as the bottle brought him to Buddy. Buddy caught Lukas like a football and kissed Lukas like he did anything: enthusiastically, a force of partaciousness moreso than a real guy. Lukas hummed into his mouth; Buddy took the opportunity to satisfy a curiosity about if the sweater was as soft as it looked (it was, though he thought Lukas should probably eat more… his body felt like a toothpick).
As they parted, Lukas’ head jerked towards his ear, a little enthusiastically for an allegedly straight guy. “Call me, big fella,” Lukas rasped, and Buddy butted their noses together in jest. Lukas pushed him away with a laugh.
Buddy’s turn.
The bottle spun and spun and spun, until it slowed to a crawl, pointing to…
Patch cackled, then grinned like a devil. “Ooooh. This’ll be good.”
Buddy froze.
She was probably right.
Patch seemed to be a pro at this game, after all. It was probably because it was an easy way to get a rise out of ponies, but her rounds were just memorable, far more memorable than the parade of mostly-girls, occasional-boys Buddy had gotten.
Patch still had a line of smeared lipgloss from the exciting fifteen seconds she’d spent being smothered by a cheerleader, Venus Sterling. Holland Dillon, one of the hosts of the party and the captain of the girl’s basketball team, still had a more uptight-than-usual attitude when Patch called her on being literally speechless.
(They were all super fun except when it was Champ’s turn to kiss her. He flipped the script and turned her speechless for a single, telling second, before she caught herself and laughed and told the perpetually-moody Champ to lighten up; it’s a party game, not a funeral. When that jerk made direct eye contact with Buddy and smirked at him as he returned to his spot, he was struck with the uncharacteristic urge to beat him into the pavement.)
And now it was Buddy’s turn to kiss Patch, the only pony in the circle he actually wanted to kiss.
“Awww, is someone embawassed?” Patch mimed crying. “You are not about to chicken out on me, Bud.”
He gave his head a shake to get it back in the game. “Ha, yeah! Let me just…”
He trotted over, time seeming to slow to a crawl. How was he going to do this? He initially pulled her a bit closer by her shoulder, then decided to rest a hoof on her cheek. He hovered for a bit, mind blanking on what to do next. Usually he had no problem with kissing ponies for a game; it wasn’t like he had to marry them… but Patch was different. She was the coolest girl he knew and one of his best friends. It’d never been like that between them…
Not that he’d mind if it was! She was just too cool for him.
Patch laughed when the pause continued, seeming a touch nervous. “Is the thought of kissing me really that bad?” Patch murmured, looking straight at his lips.
He decided then to go for it, like he did anything… with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. Way too much of everything but tact.
If it was up to Buddy, he would take the crown for the longest kiss yet in this game, just to have longer to memorize it. Patch pushed against him in seconds, coughing and gasping for air. “Agh-! The kennel club called, they want their labrador retriever back! …Are you actually drinking mango-flavored soda? Holy shit, you’re so gay, dude!”
It got a laugh from most of the circle (except the usually stony-faced Champ; even Holland cracked a smile). “Woof!” Buddy answered, then zipped back to his spot before he could really see her reaction.
“Uhhh… welp, guess it’s my turn!”
Buddy forced himself to smile again, but he couldn’t even bear to look at her as she spun the bottle again. If she had to kiss another guy right after he struck out, the year would be off to a pretty sorry start… especially when he’d been hoping to potentially get his chance with her.
Patch’s bottle pointed to the empty spot in the circle that Logan had vacated. Holland sniffed, “That’s an illegal move. Spin again.”
“Not so fast, Holes. When it does that, it’s dealer’s choice.”
Holland opened her mouth, then closed it, as it dawned on her that arguing would incentivize Patch to pick on her.
Patch scanned the circle, putting on airs as she considered who to go for. Then she jumped Buddy, showering his face and neck with little pecks. It tickled, so he laughed, wrapping his arms around her like she belonged there. The most amazing girl he knew felt amazing in his arms.
“See, that’s how you do it, big guy! You don’t try to eat a girl’s face when you kiss her.”
He couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, I’m sorry-!”
“You should be! You’re gonna have to get used to it eventually,” Patch teased.
“I-I am?!”
He sounded altogether too hopeful; Patch shoved him away with a laugh. “In your dreams, dude! To kiss like you know what you’re doing! Being a fluffy-haired football hunk works to get girls, but to keep ‘em? You have to look like you know what you’re doing.”
“I so know what I’m doing! With like, contact sports,” he countered, gravitating towards her again. This girl felt like the thing everything revolved around, he swore.
“You’re such a loser,” she laughed, pushing him again. Was it too much to hope that it’d work to get Patch one day?
Holland cleared her throat. “This is a singles only game, you know…”
Patch hopped off of Buddy’s lap like she forgot she was sitting on it and looked at Holland levelly as she trotted back to her spot, “And you’re the single biggest pain in the neck I know, so. It’s also the dealer's choice on who goes next. Holes, you’re it.”
“That isn’t how it works-”
“It totally is! If you have a problem with it, meet me in the parking lot. Or in the girls’ locker room after practice, if that floats your boat,” she added with a mischievous glint in her eye.
That shut her up again; talking to Patch was a practice in choosing your battles. Buddy caught Patch’s eye from across the circle. Her grin grew, then she looked away, almost bashful.
It was a shame she was out of his league and would never think of him that way, right?
If anyone asked, the popular kids throwing the party of the year begged for Teddy to grace them with his presence, but his shy, hot girlfriend twisted his arm into skipping it because she was afraid of fireworks and wanted a big, tough guy around to protect her in case they were actually gunshots. He didn't care what anyone said; it made perfect sense. It made him sound whipped, because everybody who WAS somebody was at the party, but as long as nobody actually saw how he looked at Sweetheart, he was home clear. If anyone gave him shit for it, though, he would claim he and Sweetheart were hoping to ring in the new year with something a lot more exciting than a kiss.
This wasn't a lie if you happened to be Lancer or Spinner levels of lame.
The little turtle squirmed in Teddy’s hooves (he held it like a sandwich; he knew any other way would hurt him). The little guy snapped at him with a fierce expression on its scaly little face, but Teddy showed it who’s boss by lowering it gently into a bucket with some bedding at the bottom. "Pipe down, little guy! I thought you turtles were a patient bunch."
(Sweetheart giggled, and he felt a thrill, and in that moment he knew he had no room to talk, he was so lame. He and Sweetheart could watch paint together, and it'd excite him more than a huge party without her. He should've minded more.)
“I really truly appreciate you helping me with my animals, Teddy…” She stood on a stepstool beside the 100-gallon terrarium, removing sullied bedding by the gloveful. It went into a sanitized cat-litter bucket for use in her garden.
“I don’t think this little guy appreciates me helping you.” Teddy laughed to himself as Mr Sheldon bumped into the edge of the bucket, still glaring up at him.
“He does! If you were a little turtle, you’d want to start the year with a fresh habitat, too.”
“I think even if I was a turtle I’d want to go to the party of the year.”
“If you really wanted to go, you should’ve just said so,” Sweetheart said casually. “I wouldn’t have minded…”
She wouldn’t have gone, though, and wouldn’t have had fun. Privately, Teddy thought no party would be the party of the year unless Sweetheart was with him anyway. She had to know that, based on her smitten little grin. “Huh! The Dillons’ stupid thing? I bet that party’s lame.” He hopped back up onto his own stepstool to grab some dishes to rinse.
“I just worry that the little animals’ll feel left out if I don’t wish them all a happy new year right away,” Sweetheart mused.
“Makes sense to me!”
Teddy hopped up onto his own stepstool to grab some bowls to wash and got greeted by peck on the cheek. He smiled and kissed her forehead, just high enough for his nose to be tickled by some of her hair, which smelled like sugary peaches.
“You’re so sweet for indulging me like this. Did you know that I love you so very much?”
“Too much to make me kiss Mr Sheldon?”
Sweetheart giggled. “If I made you do that, both of us would get salmonella later.”
Teddy caught her drift and grinned like mad. Getting to kiss Sweetheart for the new year, with nobody around to catch how sappy she made her, was its own reward.
The grip on Clover’s arm grew tighter. “C’mon, babe! It’s a party! You gotta let loose!”
“U-um… I can’t hear you!”
She grinned nervously up at her boyfriend, a quarterback pony the color of rust with shimmering green hair, as his grip on her foreleg got tighter. She wore a polka-dot ribbon in her hair (it’s lucky!) in the hopes that 1998 would be different… leave it to her luck to run dry when she needed it!
Tonsil hockey in the swimming pool with a boy whose breath reeked of something skunky didn’t sound very appealing! She couldn’t even bring herself to count how many ponies would see. Anybody who was anybody was at the party! And if they saw her making out with her new boyfriend in the pool, being thought of as “Retardolark” or “the klutz” would be the least of her worries, because she would be Hoe-ver until the end of time.
And she couldn’t be sure he wanted it either because alcohol or that skunky substance made his movements all imprecise, so… there!
Rooster’s grin gave way to a scowl. “You’re killing me, you know that? I could get any girl here on my arm, you should be grateful I’m being seen with you.”
When he yanked her forward with that strength she usually gravitated towards in a man, she stumbled a few steps closer to the pool. She tried to dig her hooves into the concrete as he dragged her forward.
She wanted to believe, in her heart, that it was the drinks talking. Rooster was a braggart, and overly competitive, and never wanted to listen to her pity parties, but she couldn’t believe he was a monster. Sometimes he would even compliment her bad landscape paintings (and offer to give her a real subject to paint). Right now, though, he even looked like a different pony, the way his usually-shiny green hair cast a dark shadow over his face.
“Clover,” he prompted.
“Y-you should find someone else to do that with, then! I can’t-!”
He tugged her forward again, except this time, her quaking knees gave out, as she stumbled jawbone-first into the white pavement of the pool deck. Her head rang with the impact.
Before she knew it, she heard a deafening crack, and then a huge splash. The turquoise water of the pool rippled around a now sopping-wet Rooster.
First she saw her hero’s shadow, followed by his quaking knees, and then by the details of his physique, how he was a little chubby but visibly strong beneath his blue coat. Finally, she recognized her old friend’s face. Usually, Dandy had such a gentle way about him, whether he was rescuing a cat from a tree or trying to puzzle through a difficult math problem. Today, he looked intense.
“What was that for, man?!” Rooster shouted.
“You can go swimming alone,” he snapped, his voice quivering.
Dandy crouched down to Clover’s level and offered her his arm, his blue eyes wide and earnest. “A-are you okay, Clover?”
Clover shrank away, partially because of a misplaced fear that he might get her next. The Dandy she knew for a month six years ago was the gentlest of giants, but ponies could change a lot in six years, and she was the worst ever judge of character (clearly; just look at her dating history).
“Mhm,” Clover answered, even though she wasn’t sure she was.
“You don’t have to be. That looked like a big spill,” he answered, voice only audible over the music because his face was a breath away from hers. When Clover finally accepted his arm, he lifted her to her hooves, though he nearly tripped over her in the process. “Do you want me to, um, check for a concussion?”
“W-what concussion?” Clover muttered.
“I… think I better check.”
◉◉◉◉◉◉◉
Dandy coaxed Clover into one of the Dillons’ many guest bedrooms, one that didn’t look like it’d borne witness to any shenanigans. There, she could still hear the thump of the bass, but it wasn’t a throb that shook her entire being and made it impossible to hear. Instead, it settled into the background, much like her nerves.
Dandy had asked her to name as many dance moves as she could on the way. When she named ten, her head lulled against his shoulder, and he sighed in relief. “I don’t think you have a concussion, which is just dandy.”
She probably shouldn’t be so comfortable alone with a near-stranger, but then again…
“You’re just Dandy, not me.”
He chortled uncontrollably, and the last of the tension in Clover’s shoulders melted away.
…Knowing Dandy had always felt more like knowing herself than anything. He was a version of her with so many of the same traits (the clumsiness, the misfortune, the love of frogs), but somehow so much more lovable. She couldn’t get enough of him, even on days that she couldn’t stand herself.
She just wished his dad wasn’t in the military, because relocating took Dandy away from her before she could ever really call him her own.
“You should probably take it easy just in case. They say concussions are a big deal in fire academy.”
“Mmm, uh huh.”
The Roller Dance contest was the only time she put her faith in a boy and didn’t have her heart shattered. It got bumped around a bit because they had eight left hooves, and then bruised when he left, but never thrown away like with the last few guys she’d gone out with.
“At least you’re single now, so you can find someone who deserves you more than him. Um… you are single now, right?”
Clover blinked at Dandy with great feeling.
“I wouldn’t like to be,” she murmured.
“But you won’t go out with him again, will you?! I’m sorry, it just… grinds my gears when ponies act foul like that!”
Nobody talked like Dandy. He was such a strange fella. Clover laughed, heart aflutter as she lifted her head just enough to rub it into the submental place where his jaw and neck converged. “You’re the only boy who’s ever made me feel like this,” Clover admitted.
“L-like…?”
The music got turned down; she could hear her classmates counting down. “S-safe. In capable hooves.”
As the countdown ended, they looked into each other’s eyes, and leaned in, and everything else seemed very still, and and and…
His snout collided with hers hard enough to make an audible crack.
“Owwww!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Dandy exclaimed. “I-I didn’t mean-!”
“No, it’s my fault, it’s always my fault,” Clover rambled, face aglow at what she’d just tried to do. Already, her poor hero had a bump on his nose where she’d misaimed. “Sorry for hurting you. ...D-do you, um, want me to kiss it better?”
"Kiss what better?"
"The bruise. Or anywhere else you think needs it I guess," she added in a rush.
“Pretty please,” he murmured.