This should be the last of Promwrecker.

Jade's POV

For almost twenty minutes now Beck and I had been having a nonverbal argument. I'd been trying to get him to kick our friends out as soon as possible while he insisted it was too soon, and that they'd think we were being rude. None of this was said, of course, we were speaking only with our eyes and stifled gestures.

As we 'discussed' the situation, Cat was finishing the last of the pasta Beck had made us, Andre was beating Robbie at speed (using a deck of cards I didn't know were in the house), and Trina was violating my father's privacy by rifling through the bookshelf while Tori tried and failed to stop her. Beck was giving me his best sympathetic shrug so I decided it was time to up the anti.

I gave him a shrug with the same apathy, looking away for a moment to get my game face on. The second I looked back at him he knew the rules had changed. I'd only actually raised my eyebrows suggestively but I was doing my absolute hardest to make my eyes as 'come hither' as possible. He'd caught my drift and was now making a face to ask if I was serious. One deep sigh and a slight pout of my lower lip was all it took to convince him.

"Hey, guys," Beck's voice was clear and without quiver as he stood up straight and clapped his hands together once. "As much fun as we're having…Jade and I kind of had plans for tonight."

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry," Vega's face formed a surprised expression I didn't quite believe. "We were interrupting?"

"No, of course not," I responded, monotonously from my seat. "Why ever would you think that?"

"Hey Cat, did you see the fish?" Robbie beckoned Cat to the large tank against a wall as if the conversation wasn't happening.

"Pretty!" She was immediately drawn to the brightly colored, overpriced fish that my stepmother had hand selected to match the interior design. "You know…if I was a fish, I'd be a catfish. Get it?"

"Got it," I answered, ignoring her as she tapped the glass of the tank and waved to the fish.

"C'mon man," Andre stepped in with a calm demeanor. "We came to hang! To chill. To let loose. To—,"

"We get it," Beck stopped him as if he could sense my annoyance. "And it's not that we're not happy to see you guys, but we were umm trying to be alone."

"You're not doing a very good job," Trina interrupted rudely.

"Right, well…," Beck was still being polite as he crossed the room to me and gently dislodged the butter knife from my iron grip. I hadn't even realized I'd picked it up. "It's our anniversary and we—,"

"Omg!" Vega abbreviated. "We had no idea! Trina call dad and tell him to come back for us."

"Ugh, fiiiine!" Her reply made my knuckles clench again while she held her Pearphone up towards the ceiling like an idiot. "I'm not getting any service in here."

"Must be the storm," Andre said, peering off towards the clear screen doors to the balcony. Even though it was dark, I could see the sky was covered in dark gray clouds; my favorite. As if on cue, the lights around us flickered on and off before going out completely.

"You jinxed it!" Robbie's voice sounded panicked. It was dark so I couldn't see, but it was obvious he was blaming Andre.

"Ouch, Robbie you're breaking my fingers," Cat's voice said from my right.

"Does anyone have the flashlight app?" Tori asked and immediately the gang's faces were illuminated by the screens of their Pearphones as they searched. Instead of going to find his phone, Beck slid his hand into mine, interlocking our fingers like he'd lose me in the dark.

"There," Trina flashed he phone's bright light in our eyes.

"Mine's not downloading," Tori informed everyone who didn't ask.

"Is there a backup generator somewhere?" Robbie asked, with his own light shining on he and Cat.

"What is this, a hospital? Of course not," I shook my head. "Besides…I like the dark."

"Figures," Andre mumbled.

"Should I try to find the utility box?" Beck asked the crowd.

"What for?" I challenged, pulling our entwined hands closer to my side. "It's just a blackout, the power will probably come back on in a few hours."

"So what do we do until then?"

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Beck's POV

"Would you go already?" I urged Jade to take her turn for the third time in the last ten minutes.

"Don't rush me," She snapped at me, her eyes focused on the Scrabble board in front of her. We were mid game, and she was losing, despite her objections that I was somehow cheating. I sighed and decided not to prod her for another few minutes; maybe we should've played Monopoly with the rest of the group. Who was I kidding? Jade didn't have half the patience that game required. Besides, it was probably too late to join.

After the power had gone out, Jade and I found a gold mine of scented candles in her stepmom's bathroom. The living room was now dimly lit and smelled like some kind of flower Jade claimed to hate. The gang had opted for Monopoly, but Cat and Robbie had already lost somehow. Now they were playing 52 pickup, which seemed unfair to Robbie since he was doing the picking up, but I figured he was doing it for the childlike giggle Cat let out when she got to drop the whole deck of cards on the floor.

"There," Jade brought me back to our game. "Now quit your whining."

"'Qi'?" I read her 'word' while she started tallying her score. "That's not a word."

"Is too."

"What does is mean?"

"I don't have to answer that."

"Because it's not a word."

"I am not gonna dignify that with a response," She shook her head at me like I was the one making up words.

"Fine, I challenge."

"You are such a prude," She rolled her eyes and scoffed at me as I stood up to get a dictionary. "You just can't stand it when I beat you."

"Yeah yeah yeah," I waved her off. "We'll talk when I prove you wrong." I returned to the coffee table and flipped to the Q's in the thick dictionary I'd found on the shelf. "Aha!" I declared, holding my finger down on a page. "Told ya, 'qi' isn't a word."

"Huh?" Jade looked up from her nails like she had no idea what I was talking about. "Oh, right. Whatever," She shrugged.

"Sorry, babe," I knew she was just being a sore loser. As soon as I shut the dictionary, I figured out why she'd suddenly stopped caring about winning. "Jade!"

"What?" She looked up from under her thick eyelashes like an innocent deer drawn by Disney. I gestured wildly to the now wrecked and unfixable board with askew tiles. "It was an accident."

"Right," I rolled my eyes and sat back on the couch with a huff. "Well I guess that's the end of that."

"Call it a tie?" She smirked at me before plopping down next to me. She pulled my arm up to fall around her shoulders, knowing I could care less about the game. Like her body pressed against mine wasn't distraction enough, a moment later she kissed me slow, letting me inhale her scent to block out the candles.

"Hey, are you guys done with Scrabble?" Robbie interrupted the only anniversary-like moment we'd had all night.

"No, I don't wanna play that, it's boring," Cat complained.

"So is this," Trina chimed in, tossing her play money down on the board.

"Trina!" Tori squealed when her sister knocked over a few of her properties.

"Let's play something fun," Trina said to no one in particular.

"Maybe there's more games in the closet," Robbie suggested. He and Cat returned to the place we'd gotten our games and started removing random items I didn't know were there. It was mostly boxes, things from Jade's old house her father hadn't felt the need to unpack. Sadly, one was labeled photo albums. I glanced down at Jade to see if she was affected, but she kept her cool, only seeming interested in playing with my fingers in her hands.

"Camping gear?" Andre asked out loud, pulling a folded up tent out of the closet. "Who uses this?"

"I don't know," Jade shrugged. "My father and his new wife I guess. She's all about fitness or something."

"Or something?" Andre repeated.

"Yeah," Jade spoke sharply, not wanting to further the discussion.

"Remember when we went camping," I nudged her elbow, changing the subject a bit.

"Yeah, I do," She shook her head, but smiled.

"Jade camping?" Tori said aloud in disbelief. "I can't imagine."

"It was only once with my parents and I when we were younger," I clarified.

"But I was really good at it," Jade exaggerated.

"Well…,"

"Well what?" She challenged me.

"Well…don't you remember how that trip ended?"

"How did it end?" Tori asked before Jade could answer.

"Jade pulled my parents' tent into a lake while they were sleeping," I said, trying to hide the hint of pride in my tone.

"Oh my god!" Tori gasped.

"What?" Jade shrugged like that had been normal behavior. "I'd just seen it in the Parent Trap."

"Except that in the Parent Trap, the lake didn't lead to a waterfall," I told the next chapter of that day.

"What happened?" Tori was enthralled.

"Long story short," Jade summed up. "They were fine. They found their way back to our campsite just fine."

"And soaking wet," I added.

"But fine," Jade smirked at me.

"Hey, look, Twister!" Cat called out from deep inside the closet, causing uproar from the gang. Apparently, we had a winner.

Jade's POV

"Left foot blue," I announced for Andre, who was too tangled in the Twister floor mat to spin the arrow himself.

"Having fun?" Beck leaned down from my side to whisper in my ear. He'd been the first to lose the game when he'd made the mistake of landing on right arm green. That position put him squarely on top of Vega's contortioned body, something my dirty look to him conveyed. In a matter of seconds, he'd 'fallen' and lost.

"Tons," I half rolled my eyes at him. He wasn't mad. After all, a few turns after he'd lost, he'd given me the stink eye when Andre's move put his face dangerously close to my chest. A quick silent conversation later and I was out of the game too. The gang didn't seem to notice our intentions, though, but how could they? Robbie was halfway between Trina and Andre while Tori's legs were stuck between Cat's left arm and Robbie's right leg. It was much funnier to watch and take embarrassing photos than be touched by people I didn't like.

"Okay, my turn, my turn!" Cat called, urging Beck to spin for her.

"Left leg red," He told her. All it took was one wrong move, and bam they all came crumbling down. It was hilarious to watch as the tangled pretzel hit the ground almost simultaneously, leaving Cat the only one left somewhat standing.

"Does this mean I win?" She asked innocently, ignoring the destruction she'd caused.

"Yes, Cat, you win," Tori grumbled from the ground; her hair disheveled and her legs trapped under Trina's big butt.

"Hey, did you see that?" Beck pointed towards the sliding doors.

"No, what was it? "I followed his gaze to the sky."

"There," He said just as a flash of lightning went off.

"Lightning!" Cat shouted towards the balcony as she headed for it, the rest of the group trailing behind her. I was about to do the same when I felt the familiar feeling of Beck's hand in mine tugging me in the other direction. Before I knew it, he'd pulled me halfway down the hallway.

"What are we doing?" I asked him curiously as he hauled me into the bathroom, lighting a candle to illuminate the darkness.

"We…," He told me as he pulled out his Pearphone and earphones from his pocket. "Are celebrating."

"Celebrating," I repeated. I'd almost forgotten it was our anniversary.

"Yep," He said, determined. His final piece of the puzzle was to open the small bathroom window, letting in a cool breeze and the sound of the rain, which he knew I loved. "Here," I put in the single ear bud he handed me and smiled at the song he'd chosen. Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars.

"It's our song," I smiled at him as he pulled me towards him to dance as much as the room would allow.

"Well…," He looked away deviously. We always disagreed here.

"It's our song," I spoke more assuredly now.

"It can't be our song," He told me. "It came out two years ago, and we've been together longer than that. You know what our song is."

"Ugh, don't even," I scoffed. He always insisted it was something by Usher that I refused to let be ours. The slow tempo we were listening to now was perfect for us.

"Alright, alright," He nodded, conceding, and returning to our dance. "You win. For now."

"I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will"

"You know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me," Beck whispered. His voice, our song playing, and the sound of the rain falling so close was my definition of perfect.

"I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Happy anniversary."

"Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

I always will

I always will"