On Tuesday morning, Artie met her in front of her first class, with AV Club President, Mohamed Omar, walking along beside him, holding a drink carrier with three cups of coffee.
"From Artie," Mohamed said, selecting the cup with Kitty's name on the outside and handing it to her. Some amusing barista had drawn a picture of a cat under her name.
"For... extra energy after last night," he added, with a sly grin as Mohamed handed Artie his latte.
Kitty giggled. "Too much fun for a Monday night, I know," she agreed, with a yawn as she hurried to take the first sip. Artie had memorized her usual order by now, and it was just right.
"It was the best eighteenth birthday I ever had," Artie proclaimed. "Oh, Kitty, meet Mohamed. I... told him if he helped me carry our coffee this morning, I'd introduce you."
"It's an honor," said the other boy, who pushed up his glasses. "You both are an inspiration to me. Kitty, do you have any single friends on the Cheerios?"
"Well..." Kitty looked from Artie to Mohamed, and pursed her lips. "Uh, none of them are currently on speaking terms with me, so that would be a no."
"No?" Mohamed looked slightly crestfallen. "Oh, well. Thanks anyway. Let me know if anything changes. Nice meeting you."
"You too..." Kitty turned to look at Artie, square on, putting her hands on her hips as the other guy left. She tried to look mad, but it wasn't working. The sight of his guilty face just made her want to laugh.
"Sorry," he said. "How else was I going to carry two cups of coffee? Well, three, I got him some for his trouble."
"I thought his reward was meeting me," was Kitty's quick retort.
"Sorry," he said, again, and swiftly changed the subject. "Uh, do you like my shirt today? It's similar to the red one you liked..."
He'd worn a blue polo today, but he hadn't been able to make himself leave the top button undone that day. He was wearing jeans again, after Kitty had complimented the ones he'd worn on the date. Apparently, Amy, with all her sisterly wisdom, had bought him several pairs.
Their date had started with a mystery road trip that kept Artie guessing, as to the exact destination, for the entire trip there. When she revealed that they would be going to Fort Wayne, Indiana, he tried unsuccessfully to figure out the precise location. One of the funnier guesses had been that they were going to go spy on Aural Intensity. She'd tried to make sure he didn't figure it out, by having him drive to the fast food joint that was nearest to their destination.
"Oh, wow!" he'd said, when they finally arrived at Fast Track, his face lighting up, which Kitty took to be a good sign.
"Go-karts," she'd confirmed. "Have you, um, done go-karts since..."
Marley's comment had made Kitty a little worried that she'd picked something that wouldn't actually work for him. Although she didn't know why he would have done bumper cars at the carnival, which had been entirely his idea, if go-karts weren't fine for him, too.
"Oh, yeah, yeah," Artie had said, quickly, smiling at her to reassure her. "Plenty of times. I just have to be the passenger, not the driver, but go-karts are awesome."
The indoor track had been completely empty on a Monday night, so they had the place to themselves the entire time. After several rides, followed by a few plays on the arcade games, they'd finally left when they remembered the hour's drive back on a school night that still lay ahead.
They hadn't gone straight home, though. Instead, she'd instructed him to drive them to a park on the way and to park in the darkest corner of the empty parking lot. He'd leaned the driver's seat back as she'd climbed over and strattled his hips. She'd then learned something new and surprising about Artie's remaining functionality. They'd stopped short of going all the way — the relationship was still pretty new, afterall, and besides, Kitty liked preserving a bit of mystery. At the last moment, she climbed off of him and back into the passenger seat, giggling and combing her hands through her messed-up braid. He'd had to take a few minutes to compose himself before he could drive her home.
And that was why Tuesday morning called for copious amounts of coffee. When Artie asked about the shirt, Kitty didn't answer. Instead, she leaned over to free his top button. Artie laughed and nodded, agreeing to leave it alone. She knew he'd probably be back in another shirt with another tight top button tomorrow, though. Old habits died hard.
"I said no caffeine before prom," Tina was saying, as she rounded the corner with Dottie Kazatori, the junior girl who idolized her. Dottie followed her closely, clipboard in hand, as she offered Tina her coffee. "I can't afford to look tired, like some sad, anemic dishrag."
Tina stopped, in her tracks, and at first, Kitty thought she was looking at them, but she was looking past them, over their heads. Both she and Artie turned and followed her eyes, landing on a poster-sized picture of themselves on the wall. A giant photo of them was blown up, with Kitty sitting in Artie's lap. It was the picture that Artie had recently started using as a profile pic on Facebook. Crowns had been photoshopped on their heads and, above, were the words: 'Overcoming Adversity.' Underneath that, it read: 'Artie and Kitty for King and Queen."
"This is unbelievable!" Tina exclaimed, marching towards them and crossing her arms in front of her body.
"Unbelievable," Dottie echoed, crossing her arms in imitation of Tina's stance.
"I should have known that when you said you weirdly said you'd support me, it was just some classic, backstabby, gaslighty, Kitty mind game." She then turned to Artie. "And since I'm sure Kitty doesn't know how to use photoshop, Artie, I know you helped create this. Thanks a lot."
"Hey, uh, what's with these posters?" Ryder asked, joining the group, with Unique, Jake, and Marley in tow. "I thought you were supporting Tina."
"We didn't do this!" Kitty insisted.
"She's right," Artie added. "She was with me all last night. There was no time for photoshop. We drove all the way to Fort Wayne and back for my birthday date, plus we had to stop off at the parking lot for approximately twelve minutes—"
"Don't worry, Tina," Blaine approached, followed by Sam. He put an arm around her protectively, as Sam followed them, glaring at Kitty and Artie over his shoulder. Dottie hurried to follow them, too, of course. One by one, Marley, Jake, Ryder, and Unique went with them, leaving Artie and Kitty alone in the hall.
"Why doesn't anyone believe me?" Kitty exclaimed, shaking her head as she looked at Artie, who heaved a sigh. "Oh, right. The habitual lying."
"I know you're working on it," Artie said, which was rich, coming from a guy who'd just let her make everybody think he was a year younger.
"Overcoming adversity," Kitty read, with a sneer. "Sounds like Bree Westbrook's work, for sure. Artie, we need to take these down, and you need to help me convince Tina that we did not do this."
Artie rolled up to the wall and compared his height to where the poster was hung, well out of his reach, making his point.
"I can find some guys to help us, though," he said. "There's not enough time right now, but we can skip lunch and go all over campus until we find them all and get rid of them."
"Or maybe we should just try to win," Kitty said, causing Artie to look up at her in alarm. "That way I can go onstage, pull a Cady Heron, and rip the plastic crown into little bits to throw into the crowd." She thought of something else. "Or I could just rip my Cheerios uniform to shreds."
Artie paused. "For clarification, though, would you be wearing it?" At that, Kitty swatted his arm.
After backing up and hitting the wall, he continued speaking when he was safety out of her reach again. "Wouldn't you effectively be quitting the Cheerios if you did something like that? I mean, if Principal Sylvester doesn't have you expelled."
Kitty sighed. "Stuff like this makes me want to quit the Cheerios," she said. Although, on the bright side, it would be nice to wear what I want to school again. I really don't get why we have to wear this everyday. I have to do a tiny load of laundry every single day."
"Don't you dare quit," Artie said. "And not just because I like dating a Cheerio. Kitty, you're the best dancer on that team. And that Bree? Her form is sloppy and her back tuck is weak. She barely gets off the ground."
"And you are an expert in cheerleading?" Kitty blurted out, before she really heard herself and what she was saying.
Artie straightened up, indignantly. "Well, yes," he said. "As a matter of fact, I am. My sister was a cheerleader all four years of high school. Actually, she cheered in middle school, too. I went to most of her competitions."
"You know, that sort of explains a lot," Kitty said, grinning. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you couldn't be an expert in cheerleading. Clearly, I'm mistaken."
"Clearly," said Artie, sipping his coffee smugly. "So, I'll meet you back here at lunch, okay? And hopefully with reinforcements, and we'll get these suckers off the walls."
Four classes later, Kitty returned to their meeting place to find Artie surrounded by most of the guys from jazz band, AV Club, and the academic bowl team. Maybe, Kitty thought, Artie wasn't wrong when he assumed he'd been nominated for real.
"Don't tear them up or anything," Artie was instructing his friends. "Just take them down nicely, please, so I can cut out the pictures later." He blushed, when he saw Kitty coming. "They're worth saving, don't you think?"
"Maybe two of them, not twenty," Kitty replied, shrinking slightly as she felt many, many pairs of eyes on her. She wondered if they were being paid with a Kitty meet-and-greet, too. She wondered if the payment might be even be one of these pictures.
Artie clapped his hands to get their attention. "Okay," he said, "Let's get started!"
Kitty hoped the others would work quickly, before any Cheerios had a chance to wander out of the cafeteria and find them taking the posters down. Artie told them to wait and get the ones in the cafeteria down after lunch ended. When everyone was out of the cafeteria, then they'd go in and collect any posters that were in there.
Sure enough, they managed to pull this off without getting caught. Kitty and Artie were going to have to deal with being tardy to their next class,though, in order to get to the lunchroom posters. No problem, Kitty had said, as she'd just tell her teacher she'd been 'riding the crimson wave and had to haul ass to the ladies' room.' After cringing at that awful use of a Clueless quote, Artie just said that his chair nearly always got him out of being tardy, so he wasn't even concerned.
"Dude, I hate being short!" Kitty complained, as she tried to jump to reach the last one, which was a few feet higher than she could reach.
"Uh, seriously?!" Artie exclaimed. With a laugh, he patted his armrests. "Here, climb up, think of it as a pyramid and I'm your base..."
"Don't let me fall on you," Kitty said, as Artie lined up in front of the poster and set his break. Grabbing his hands to steady herself, she climbed up until she was directly above him, standing on his armrests. "And no staring up my skirt."
"I'm not," Artie said, a bold-faced lie.
Kitty managed to get the poster off the wall, but not without crumpling the picture a bit. "Oh, well," she said. "There are plenty more where that came from."
"You know, under different circumstances, I wouldn't have minded both of us winning," Artie said, as he helped her get down. "But seeing as you're a sophomore and this is Tina's only chance, I really do want to see her have her moment to shine. And she'd enjoy dancing with Blaine. Maybe a little too much..."
"What really happened between you and Tina?" Kitty asked, as she stacked the posters neatly across Artie's lap. He planned to find a safe place for them in the choir room, on the way to his next class.
"It was so long ago that the details seem a bit fuzzy now," Artie explained, as he pushed his chair along, Kitty falling into place alongside him. Then, in a rare moment, he paused and said, "Hey, Kitty, do you think you could give me a push? No lie, my hands are currently killing me from gripping the go-kart last night while I was holding on for dear life."
"Why didn't you say so before?" Kitty exclaimed. They'd just skipped eating lunch to go all over campus. She immediately jumped behind to push. "Of course I will. And why didn't you tell me to slow down last night?"
Artie grinned at her over his shoulder. "Because you like to drive fast and I liked watching you have fun," he said, shyly. "But yeah, when you've got half a body's worth of sensation, you do feel a bit out of control."
"I didn't really think about that," Kitty confessed.
"And I like that you didn't," Artie assured her. "Really, I guess what I'm saying is... I don't mind feeling a little out of control. Not when I'm with you."