Page 34 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

“I’m going to kill him.” I look around the smelly study room we’ve booked for six hours—it’s the one that’s closest to the restroom, and I swear you can smell the bleach each time someone exits.

Lucas looks up from his phone, where he’s presumably reading the same text messages. “You want Xinzhe or Dmitry as our third?”

“You could have just said we’re stuck with Brody.”

“We get to be stuck with Brody,” Lucas corrects. He’s silent for a moment before clearing his throat. “Also, I think Brody is trying to give me the chance to—that is, he knows I want to ask you⁠—”

“Don’t.” My voice is not only sharp, it comes out more loudly than I intended. I look around a bit nervously. It’s a closed room, but we’re still in the library.

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

I look over to Lucas, who is clearly struggling not to fidget without the paper origami he normally leans on. He’s tugging at the collar of his shirt before he catches my gaze and clasps his hands together on the table, like a little kid who’s been caught.

“You’re going to ask me out.”

Lucas opens and then closes his mouth. “And you think that’s a bad idea.”

“No, I think dereferencing a null pointer is a bad idea. Bogosort is a really bad idea. The two of us dating is a terrible idea.”

“Because we’re teammates?”

“Because we don’t have time, money, or a backup plan for if we date and blow up.”

I’m looking at the code on my screen as I say this, unwilling to make eye contact. Just because I don’t want to date him doesn’t mean I want to hurt the guy.

The silence stretches between us, and when I can’t stand it any longer, I look up, expecting to see a distraught or disappointed Lucas. I’m worried he’ll be angry or at least⁠—

“Why are you smiling?” In actuality, he’s not just smiling, he is (quite uncharacteristically) grinning. I’ve just turned him down, without even giving him the chance to ask, and he’s . . . what, delighted?

“You like me.” His voice is full of wonder.

I let out an incredulous breath. “Are we having the same conversation?”

“Presumably.” There’s that stupid crooked twist of his lips again. Not quite a grin. The suggestion of a smile. The hint of a smile to come.

I hate it.

And I particularly hate myself for not hating it.

“Then you heard me, just now, delineating the reasons why dating would not work.”

Lucas stares down at me, hazel eyes bright behind the too-thick frames. “You listed logistical concerns. If you weren’t interested, you would have said so in no uncertain terms. You pride yourself on being abrasively blunt, remember?”

Well . . . shit.

Lucas continues, seeming to draw confidence from my silence. “Stands to reason that once I address your individual concerns—that we don’t have time to date, that we’re . . . too broke to date, and that you’re worried about the team dynamics if we don’t work out—you’ll go out with me.”

I hear the way Lucas’s voice catches on the phrase too broke to date and mentally kick myself. There are so many other reasons I could have given, knowing how sensitive he is about the transfer thing, the lower socioeconomics label. “Even if we had money, I’m philosophically against either of us spending money on anything as frivolous as movies and twenty-dollar popcorn.”

“No movie theatres.” He shrugs. “Budget dates.”

I close my eyes and try again. “I have done the dating and sex thing before. It never felt worth the effort. And . . .” Usually, Lucas is the one who struggles with words, but this time, I’m the one who breaks eye contact. “There might be other girls who would be more fun.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean you know?”

“I don’t think of you as a fun girl.”