This is a sticky situation, I'll try my best to explain it...

High school prom is in three weeks, and ever since the beginning of the year, there's this one girl I've been wanting to ask to prom. Back in October, the two of us (person I want to ask) were good friends, nothing to think too hard about. One of my close friends told me I should "focus on her," since we're both encouraging friends. And so things stared going smoothly for the first few months. But both her and I became busy with school, and as college applications + side projects subtly piled up, we gradually kinda stopped talking to each other. Not entirely, but we used to talk everyday not that long ago... I'll just say there is definitely some awkward wall between us, not sure how else to explain this

I know I've been irresponsible as a friend and all that stuff, so I've been trying my best to patch things up with her in February/March. My initial problem was that I wasn't sure if she would want to go with me, since things had gone kinda out of hand.

But the real problem happened this week on a hiking trip with friends. The same close friend casually asked me if I wanted to go to prom. Now, literally back in early February, the two of us were talking about potential prom dates at a birthday party. We had both told each other who we wanted to ask, and at the time they were obviously different people. Let's call my "date" person A and my close friend's date person B. 

During our hiking hangout(about two months after the birthday party), my close friend tells me person B has a boyfriend, and that he wanted to ask person A. I couldn't get myself to say anything to his face right then and there, but I have texted him over this. He gave a couple of inconsiderate excuses, and now, despite asking again to have a calm discussion over this, he's been ghosting me :/

Now a third friend told me that my close friend had told him that "oh, I think OP and person A havent talked in forever." This is true to some extent, and I feel godawful about it because it is lowkey true. although I can't do much over being busy and stressed over college.

My close friend has told me that he assumed I moved on from person A, which I just find really frustrating. I would have told him if "things weren't going well," since we were friends and all, but I guess not. I'm not really sure what to do, it seems like he is going to ask her without really confronting me about it first (kind of a scumbag move, but rn whats more important is the end result)

First of all, AITA?

Second, would it be reasonable to ask my close friend to all go together as a group of friends, but neither of ask person A? I don't really expect to end up asking person A anymore with this knowledge, which means I won't be asking anyone else...