A/N: This chapter's a bit longer than the others and we get the Barl date. To be honest, Carl is almost ridiculously adorable, but I'm a Boosha shipper through and through. Thanks to Isa for the idea for chapter 6 and heroiccanvastote on Tumblr for the idea for this one. And thanks to you all for reading! Enjoy!

Ballet class passed without much incident. Sasha and Boo performed their pas de deux flawlessly without saying a word to each other. Melanie glowered as Charlie watched Ginny from his now normal spot in the front of the room. Carl's energy was back with a vengeance and Madame Fanny had to tell him several times to tone it down before he broke something.

When they were dismissed, Carl intercepted Boo on her way to change.

"Hey, Boo." His grin lit up his entire face. "Is it okay if I pick you up here in fifteen minutes? I have to run home and get something."

"Sure, Carl." Boo returned his smile. "I can't wait to see what we're doing."

"It's going to be awesome." He winked and all but floated away.

Boo knew she should feel excited, and she did, kind of, but mostly she felt nervous. She'd never been on a date before. Would they hold hands? Would he want to kiss her goodnight? What if she couldn't think of anything to say? What if he started getting on her nerves?

She waved as Ginny and Mel drove off with Charlie, then sat down on a bench to wait anxiously for her date.

"Do you need a ride?"

Sasha's voice made her jump.

"Oh, are you done with the silent treatment?"

"Do you?" the brunette repeated, ignoring the intended jab.

"No. Carl's coming to pick me up. He's taking me on a date."

"Fine, I'll—damn!"

Boo turned around and saw that Sasha's nose had started bleeding. She felt a twinge of guilt knowing that it was probably a side-effect of the fight and that she probably could've stopped it. She didn't know why she hadn't said something when Jake started being a jerk about Mr. Torres. Besides the fact that it always set Sasha on a murderous rampage, Boo genuinely liked Ray and didn't like to hear anyone saying nasty things about him. Maybe it was that she hadn't known how Sasha would react. Her friend had been so bi-polar lately, being sweet to her one moment and biting her head off the next, that she was wary of making the situation even worse.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm peachy, freaking peachy, Boo, thanks for asking." Sasha used the sleeve of her light blue hoodie to dam the flow.

"You didn't come back after you got sent to the office. I thought it was serious."

"Michelle came and bailed me out. It'll stop bleeding in a minute."

"Oh." Boo felt an unexpected pang of jealousy knowing that Michelle had been there to help Sasha when she hadn't. "Are you going to have another sleepover with her again tonight?"

"I might. I don't have anything to do, she's perpetually bored, and I don't feel like listening to Mel complain about Charlie and Ginny til my ears bleed."

"I won't be out with Carl all night. You could come over after the date..."

"And what?" Anger flashed across Sasha's features like summer lightning. "Sit there with a smile plastered on my face while you drool over how wonderful he is? What makes you think I'd want to listen to anything you have to say after you were so damn quiet during English? Did you think I'd forget that someone I thought was my best friend wasn't there for me when I needed her most?"

Normally this sort of attack would make Boo shrink back and say whatever she could to fix it. Today, however, it just made her mad. She didn't deserve any of this.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that the great and powerful Sasha Torres needed the help of stupid little Boo. Excuse me for thinking you could handle it on your own just this once!" she snapped.

"You know I can't!" yelled Sasha, frustrated. "You of all people, Boo! You know that the 'great and powerful Sasha Torres' thing is complete bullshit. Other people know or at least suspect, but they don't do anything about it. You've always been the one to see through it and come to my rescue even when I'm being unbearable. So forgive me for being a little upset that you didn't say anything today, especially now that you know it's not just about my dad anymore!"

"Um, Boo? Ready to go?"

The girls, who had come toe-to-toe while yelling in each others' faces, whipped around to see Carl standing a few feet away holding a bouquet of flowers. Neither of them had heard him walk up.

"Coming," said Boo, shooting Sasha one last glare. She immediately regretted it when she saw the fury had been replaced with a wounded expression. She wasn't the great and powerful Sasha Bitchface Torres anymore; she was a skinny girl who was stopping a bloody nose with her sleeve and just had a huge blow-out with a friend.

"Have fun on your stupid date!" The brunette called after them as they headed to Carl's mom's minivan. Boo hoped she only imagined the vulnerability in her voice.

"What was that all about?"

"Nothing. Girl stuff. Don't worry about it."

"Okay." Carl presented the flowers to Boo with a flourish. "These are for you."

"They're beautiful," she said, burying her nose in them as he opened her door.

"So we're going back to my place to make dinner and watch a movie. Then I thought we could go for a walk on the beach. Does that sound okay?"

"It sounds perfect."

Boo smiled, but she still felt an unpleasant combination of nervousness and irritation. She was nervous because she was worried she might mess things up with Carl and irritated because starting a date after having a shouting match with a complicated friend wasn't ideal in any universe.

They chatted about this and that on the way back to the Cramer residence, where Boo met Carl's parents. Her initial panic at having an awkward lingering parent encounter on her first date was soothed when it was made clear that Mr. and Mrs. Cramer were going to be spending the evening in Oxnard.

"Don't burn down the house, dear." His mom blew a kiss.

"And behave yourself." Mr. Cramer winked suggestively.

"Leave already!" Carl rolled his eyes and led Boo to a cozy little kitchen. "I was thinking we could start with making a salad and breadsticks and then gnocchi because it's my second-best Italian dish after lasagna, which is off the menu."

"Are we going to make everything from scratch?"

"No, I made the bread dough last night. Gnocchi's really easy to whip up and so is the sauce."

"Let's do this."

He put Boo in charge of chopping vegetables for the salad and rolling out and baking the breadsticks. He eagerly got to work on the potato dumplings, peeling potatoes so vigorously that the skin got all over his cooking area. Boo put the breadsticks into the oven and they discussed school and movies and other topics of mutual interest.

"What made you want to do ballet?"

"I saw the Nutcracker when I was eight and I was hooked. It took a while to convince my dad to let me do that instead of basketball, though. I think what finally won him over was that Madame Fanny's good at helping her students get scholarships, especially the boys.

"No need to ask you how you got into it. I bet you've been dancing since you were born. I heard you tell Ginny that you've only ever wanted to be a bunhead, but that it was almost impossible because of girls like Sasha."

"Do you listen in on every conversation I have?" asked Boo without thinking.

"Not every conversation." He blushed and ducked his head. "I just pay attention, that's all. I've liked you for a really long time."

"Oh. Why?" She cringed at how stupid and insecure she sounded. "I mean...nevermind."

"It's a fair question. I like you because you're cute and a really good dancer and nice to everyone. And I really like your smile."

"Would you have ever talked to me If Madame Fanny had given Fred and Ginger to Sasha and Jordan again instead of me and you?"

"Eventually." Carl shrugged. "But we got it and I talked to you and now we're making dinner together. Lucky for us Sasha threw that tantrum, huh?"

"That's not fair. She's the better dancer, she was just having a bad day."

"You're really going to stand up for her even though she makes your life miserable?" The short dancer was incredulous. "She was yelling at you when I came to pick you up."

"You don't know her like I do. She's going through some really hard stuff."

"Yeah, a bad case of Bitch-itis."

"Can we not talk about Sasha?"

"I just don't get why you keep her around."

"If you must know, I 'keep her around' because no one else will. And even though she's sarcastic and rough, she's sweet to the few people she cares about, and everyone deserves to be loved!"

As an exclamation point at the end of her argument, the smoke detector began shrieking. Boo stood there for a second, facing Carl, trying to figure out if the ringing was in her head or if it was coming from an outside source.

"The breadsticks!" she cried as it dawned on her.

Carl pulled the baking sheet out of the oven to reveal that the long, skinny rolls had been blackened beyond recognition.

"I'm so, so sorry, Carl."

"It's okay. We'll just do without them."

Unfortunately, the burned breadsticks became a metaphor for the evening: good intentions spoiled by reality. The gnocchi turned out fantastically, but Carl spilled grape juice on Boo's shirt during dinner. The movie Carl picked out was Crazy, Stupid, Love, which the blonde was too polite to mention was her least favorite movie made in the last ten years. The parts with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were pretty good, but that was it. It also didn't help that she'd seen it with Ginny, Mel, and Sasha and could imagine their sarcastic comments ripping it to shreds.

As they strolled along the moonlit beach, Boo found herself getting excited that the date was almost over and immediately felt guilty. Carl had tried so hard to make everything perfect and there she was wishing it would go faster. He wouldn't think she was so nice if he could read her thoughts.

"I had a really great night, Boo," he said as he walked her to the door.

"Me too."

Carl leaned up and kissed her. It was a sweet thought and she kissed him back, but Boo couldn't help but compare it to Sasha's kiss. His technique involved too much tongue and not enough control. It was a little like kissing a dog, honestly. She started to wonder how Sasha had gotten so good. She hoped it was natural and not through experience. The idea of Sasha kissing anyone else made Boo inexplicably irritated.

"I've got to go to bed," she said, pulling away. "Thanks again for the great date."

"I'll see you around." Carl left with a huge grin.

Enough was enough. If Boo didn't get this Sasha thing sorted out soon she wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything ever again. How was she supposed to be happy with Carl if Sasha kept lurking in the back of her mind?

Boo: We need to talk.

Sasha: As I very bluntly told you before, I'm not interested in listening to Carl-o-rama.

Boo: About us.

Sasha: I'll be there in five.