Claire stood in front of the full-length mirror on her closet door and fastened her necklace, putting the final touch on her outfit for the evening. The modern, emerald green dress that she'd picked out was a sharp contrast to last year's more traditional-style ball gown. It had a sleeveless bodice, which hugged her right down to her hips, and a short, tiered skirt that was cut at a stylish angle. Her heeled sandals sparkled with hundreds of tiny crystals and complemented her pedicure. Her hair and her make up were perfect. She really looked like she deserved to win the title.

There was just one small problem.

She didn't want to go to the prom.

xxx

John was busy working at the bowling alley on Saturday night. He was trying to keep the image of Claire dancing with some other guy out of his mind by fixing the pin-resetting mechanism behind Lane 4, but it wasn't easy. He tightened one of the loose gears and then went out front to see if that stopped it from jamming. After wiping the grease off his hands, he banged on the wall above the pins. "Alright, turn it on!"

The pin-setter came to life, and John watched as ten pins were set down smoothly.

"How's that?" Tony, the other mechanic, shouted back from behind the wall.

"Looks good!"

John walked down the lane and headed toward the counter with the intention of informing his boss that he could start renting out Lane 4 again, but he was temporarily sidetracked from his mission when he noticed the over-dressed redhead standing near the bowling ball racks. A slow grin spread across his face when he realized who it was. He sauntered over to her.

"You lost, Princess?"

"Maybe." Claire gave him a coy smile. "How do I look?"

He gave her an appreciative once-over. "No complaints here."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a romantic."

"Yeah, I could write for Hallmark," he joked, then furrowed his brow. "Why are you here?"

"Because I didn't want to go to the prom without you."

"But you said that you didn't mind if—"

"I know. But then I realized that I would rather hang out with you pretty much anywhere than go to some meaningless dance just to get a crown."

John was impressed. "Claire Standish, have you finally figured out that there's more to life than getting dressed up and going to balls?"

"Going to balls, maybe." She grinned shyly. "But I still like getting dressed up."

"I like it better when you get undressed," he said in a low voice.

"Later," she flirted back.

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that a promise?"

"Do you still have the apartment to yourself?"

He nodded. "Pete won't be back until tomorrow night."

"Then it's a definite possibility." She gave him a quick peck on the lips. "What time does your shift end?"

"Nine-thirty."

"Good." She started to walk away.

"Hey, where're you going?"

She turned back to face him with her hands on her hips. "John Bender, you didn't think that I was just going to stand around and wait for you to get off work did you?"

John might not have thought that Claire would hang around in the bowling alley and watch him work all night, but he was completely unprepared for seeing her exchange her brand-new heels for a beat-up pair of bowling shoes. Chuck, John's boss, carefully handled the sparkly shoes as if they were made of glass. John didn't suppose the man had ever been traded designer footwear before.

Claire sat down in the chairs and happily laced up her red and blue striped rental shoes. The garish footwear clashed with her dress, but she didn't seem to care. John thought that it was a testament to how much Claire had changed in the year since they'd met. She was far less concerned those days with what people thought of her, which was a good thing, since it meant that she could actually enjoy herself more often.

"You've gotta hang on to a girl like that," Chuck said, as they watched her select a hot pink bowling ball from the racks.

"Yeah, I know," John acknowledged quietly.

As if on cue, Claire looked back and gave him a smile and a small wave before heading down to the lane that she had rented.

"How'd you convince her to go out with a gearhead like you, anyway?"

"I didn't," John answered truthfully. He had screwed up in more ways than one, and she had still picked him over all the jocks and rich dicks in their school.

"'Cuz I know what I pay you, and it's not enough to support that."

"Does that mean I can get a raise?"

Chuck laughed and thumped John on the back. "Nice try, kid. But no."

It was a slow night, so Chuck allowed him to stay out front, rather than send him back behind the lanes to help Tony. The upside of that was that he could watch Claire bowl as he worked. The downside was that it meant John had to do all the little tasks that had been put off because neither he nor Tony had wanted to do them.

First, he bolted down a loose seat in the sitting area, then he fixed a wobbly table leg by the bar, and then he started the agonizingly tedious process of scraping gum off the undersides of all the horizontal surfaces in the bowling alley. His mind wandered as he chipped away at a particularly stubborn piece of gum.

Chuck bringing up the subject of money had reminded him about his unfinished conversation with Claire the previous week. He hadn't meant to imply that she was an expensive date. He just wanted her to understand that he hadn't gotten her for free. He had fought to win her over, and it was a struggle most days for him to make their relationship work. He wasn't sure she always realized that.

It was easy for her—she still lived at home and had no responsibilities outside of serving on a few committees at school. He didn't know what was going to happen when she graduated in another month. She talked about moving in with him, and he wanted her to, but a large part of him wondered if she really understood the entirety of what that would entail. His apartment didn't come with a housekeeper, after all.

When the gum was finally liberated, he went over and sat down at the scoring desk in Claire's lane while she had her back to him. Her eyes lit up when she turned around. John lived for that moment. It made the struggle and all the other crap he put up with worth it.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He pointed his putty knife down toward the bucket of old gum at his feet. "What does it look like?"

Claire's nose wrinkled in disgust when she viewed the bucket's contents. "Well, do you have to do it here?"

"I already did the desks in the empty lanes and Chuck doesn't like it when we get in the customers' way."

"Oh, but he doesn't mind it if you get in my way?"

"I think he actually encouraged it."

She reached across the desk for the pencil and bent down to record her score on the card. "I find that hard to believe."

"Claire?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you lean over a little bit more?"

Claire's hands flew to her chest and she tugged her dress up before it could work its way down any further. "Pig."

"Killjoy."

Claire went back to her game, but John, who wasn't in any hurry to return to work, sat at the desk for a few more minutes. They were at the far end of the bowling alley, and the two lanes on the other side were open. That gave John an idea.

He exchanged his bucket for a dust mop and ignored the raised eyebrow he got when he told Chuck that he was going to clean the empty lanes. He worked his way down the lane next to Claire's as the first ball in her frame rolled past him. It knocked over five pins. John moved into position, and then, just as Claire let her second ball go, he casually crossed over into her lane and continued cleaning.

"Move, move!" Claire shouted, waving her arms and frantically directing him back toward the other lane.

He waited until the last possible moment, and then lifted the dust mop out of the way. The ball knocked down all of her remaining pins.

As she was lining up her next shot, he took a wide stance across the lane and challenged her to aim at the pins through his legs.

She did, and when he looked back, he saw that she'd gotten a 7-10 split.

"Not bad!" he yelled.

She responded with an obscene finger gesture.

He made it up to her a couple frames later. After knocking down nine pins, Claire watched anxiously as the tenth pin teetered back and forth. John gave the pin a hard shove and put it out of its misery. She cheered when she got the strike.

John eventually had to go back to doing actual work in order to avoid pissing off his boss, but when nine-thirty rolled around, he wasted no time in clocking out. He stopped into the back to say goodnight to Tony and then went to the locker room so that he could change out of his work clothes and try to make himself look halfway presentable. He felt underdressed when he was with Claire on a normal day, that evening he might as well have been naked. Still, he could at least run a hand through his hair and make sure that he wasn't covered in grease and dirt.

Claire had finished her last game and was clearing off the scoring desk by the time John joined her. She held up one of her score cards for him to see. "I bowled a 300."

"Congratulations!"

She looked down at the card. "It's funny…I could've sworn I only bowled a 115 for this game."

"Strange."

"And you'd think I would've noticed getting all these strikes."

He shrugged, pretending to be equally as baffled. "What can I say? You were probably too distracted by that handsome maintenance man to pay any attention to your game."

Claire laughed in disbelief as she picked up her purse off the chair. "If your head was any bigger, it wouldn't fit through the door."

"Which head?"

"So gross," she said under her breath.

He grinned knowingly, and slid his arm around her waist. "You're picturing it, aren't you?"

"Of course not."

He watched her tuck the card into her purse. "You're keeping that?" She had thrown the others away.

She looked embarrassed that he had caught her. "Well, yeah, I mean, I have to have proof of my perfect game. Otherwise no one will believe me."

With his handwriting all over the card, John didn't think anyone would believe her anyway. He kissed her cheek. "Let's go get your shoes, Cinderella."

He escorted Claire over to the counter and waited while she put her own shoes back on. She hadn't gone to her dance that night, and she hadn't won her crown, but John hoped that she had still had fun. Maybe then, when looking back on her decision in ten years, she wouldn't have any regrets.

"Have a good night!" Chuck called to them as they were leaving. "Use protection!"

"Oh my god," Claire uttered.

John turned back and gave Chuck a big grin and a thumb's up. Claire, on the other hand, kept her head down and face shielded with her purse until they were outside.

John looked around the parking lot for the Jag. "Where did you park?"

"I didn't. I took a taxi."

"You don't mind riding in the truck?" It was clean on the inside, but nowhere near as high-class as her car.

She shook her head. "Not unless it's going to break down on the side of the road again."

"Nah, I'm pretty sure I fixed that problem."

"Oh, that's reassuring."

"If you wanted dull and predictable, Sweets, you should've gone to the prom."

"I don't want 'dull and predictable'," she countered. "I want not to have to walk to Allison's in these heels."

"Speaking of which, do you think that we have time to grab a bite before we have to be at her house?"

"Not if we're on foot."

"Let's pretend for a second that you actually have some faith in my ability to repair a motor vehicle."

"Then probably, but are you that hungry that you can't wait to eat until we get there?" She sounded like an exasperated parent. "There's going to be a ton of food at her house. She was telling me all about it yesterday."

"Did she happen to mention what she would be serving?"

Claire paused for a moment to think. "No, she just said that she had fun getting everything ready and that she had made a total mess of the kitchen."

"Uh-huh, and have you seen some of the things that she eats?" Because he all too clearly remembered the Captain Crunch and Pixie Stix sandwiches, the pickles dipped in peanut butter, and that one time she had mixed ketchup into her applesauce.

"Yeah, but I'm sure she's going to have normal—"

"Fish sticks in ice cream."

Claire shuddered. "I still can't believe that I thought those chunks were crushed up macaroons."

As if anything Allison ate would make that much sense. "So…to the diner, then?"

"I guess," she agreed reluctantly, but then suddenly perked up. "I hope Betty's working. Then maybe I can get an honest opinion about my dress." She twirled around for show.

John felt his breath hitch in his throat. God, she was gorgeous.

"C'mere," he said, and stretched out his hand. He needed to feel her and make sure that she wasn't just a dream.

She took his hand and let him draw her in close. Her arms automatically wrapped around him and they swayed together under the glow of the parking lot lights as if it were their own private prom.

"Claire, you know that I…"

She lifted her head off his shoulder and looked at him with an expression that he didn't have a name for, and was too intense for him to hold. He ducked his head and waited for the ground to swallow him. But the next thing he felt was Claire gently tipping his chin back up.

"I know," she said softly. "I love you too."