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He finally looks at me, and our eyes lock. “No,” he says, hesitant and curious at the same time. Closing his book and setting it on the small desk in front of him, his eyes captivate mine as he returns my question. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No. Do you want to go out sometime?” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“Yes,” he says, giving me a slight smile, with a hint of dimples. Pulling out a pad of sticky notes, he pushes them toward me. As he takes the cap off the pen and hands it to me, my stomach flips. I’ve never had butterflies like this before. That must be what this is? I feel like I’m going to throw up. His hand grazes mine as I take the pen from him, and I’m not sure if it was static, but I swear some sort of electrical current speeds through my finger and explodes into my entire body.
I scribble my full name–not sure why I felt it was necessary–and number across the bright blue sticky. Hopefully he can’t tell my writing came from shaking hands.
“Dean.” He introduces himself as he reaches for the notepad and pulls it closer to him, an unreadable expression on his face, but questions in his eyes.
“Okay, bye,” I mumble as I take off like a 3rd grade girl on the playground after someone jokes about her having a crush on a kid in class. This feeling makes me uneasy. I’m not usually like this. Despite my parents and Avery swearing by it, I’ve never been convinced love–or “this will be love”–at first sight exists. It makes no sense to me. I’ve never felt that magnetic pull to someone like it’s claimed in the movies, but whatever that was a second ago…I don’t know how else to describe it besides chemistry. It had to be.
Avery, who is waiting for me with our friends on the other side of the parking lot, looks at me with wide eyes as I approach. “Ummm, hi, who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?!” she shrieks.
“What just happened?! I think I blacked out!” My voice is far too loud for how close I’m standing to her. My entire body is shaking and my heart is racing.
“He was cute!” Kylie exclaims. “What was that all about?!”
I can tell my face is red by the way my skin burns, and if I hadn’t asked a boy out for the first time in my life, I would have thought it was from our hour of hot tubbing outside in the middle of winter. I tell them, hardly believing the story myself, even though it just happened.
“Do you think he’s going to text you?!” Kylie chimes in again.
I shrug my shoulders because I’ve reached the point of being so cold it’s hard to talk. I’m soaking wet, and my lips are practically numb. We are already about half way home and thank goodness it isn't much further. I hope he texts me.
At that moment, a small buzz comes from the pocket of my jacket.
Dean:Hey, Maci Jackson.
That was fast.
As much as I hoped for it, I didn’t expect him to text me. He probably lied about not having a girlfriend. It was dark. Did he even get a good enough look at me to see if I was worth a date? We are in college, he probably only wants sex. I can’t remember the last time I had sex. It’s my senior year of college, and all I know is the last time was senior year of high school. I feel hands on my shoulders and snap back to reality as Avery shakes me, laughing.
“Hellooooooooo. Earth to Maci, are you going to answer him?”
I feel like such a loser. Maybe I’m in my head because I’m drunk, but I also know I have a lot less experience with guys than my friends. I mean, my only serious boyfriend was Grayson in high school, and that doesn’t count as an adult relationship.
“Hey,” I reply back, adding a heart eye emoji at the end, but replacing it with a smile instead before I hit send.
Dean:I’m going to see my friend’s band play tomorrow night, we could get dinner first?
I must be reading this wrong. It’s not that I don’t think I’m pretty. I’m fairly confident about myself physically, and I’ve never been self deprecating about my looks. Avery gets hit on whenever we go out, so it boosts my confidence when we get mistaken for sisters. We both have an athletic build, even though we don’t workout consistently anymore. All four years of high school, I was on the swim team and Avery played volleyball, and we always went for runs together on the weekend. We also have nearly the same color hair, but overall all my features are much softer than hers, and I’d have to spend way more time outside to get my skin as golden. She’s much more outgoing though, and before Miller, more willing to put herself out there. I always wondered if that was the main difference between us when it came to dating, and this seems like my answer.
I’m still holding out my phone, to get confirmation that I have a real date proposal in front of me, when Avery rips the device from my hand, replying for me.
Maci:Sounds great!
I’m definitely still drunk, and I feel like I might pass out. I’m not quite sure if it’s because of the wine or the high I seem to be on right now.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in my pajamas, sitting cross legged on my living room floor eating cake with my friends. When I blew out my giant 2 and 1 numbered candles, I wished for the perfect date tomorrow. I try to be a little vague with my wishes because being open leaves the possibility for something even greater to happen than I could imagine. I know I’m potentially getting my hopes up a little too high, but you never know.
It’s after midnight by the time I’m crawling under my fluffy purple comforter. As I plug my phone in, it dings with a “see you tomorrow” response from Dean. I set my phone on the nightstand without replying. I roll over to try and sleep, but between all the panicking and daydreaming, I don’t drift off until after 3 a.m.
CHAPTER TEN
“ReadyorNot,”byBritt Nicole, blares through my eardrums creating an instant headache as I reach for my phone. 7:30 shines dimly on the screen over a picture of my friends and me on Halloween. I hit the snooze button before I close my eyes again. Avery must have changed my alarm tone to her favorite hype song before we went to bed last night. She’s convinced that’s the secret to a successful day.
I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and stumble into the shower, mentally searching through my closet to choose an outfit for tonight. I think I’ve decided, but I’m glad the girls volunteered to come over again after class to help me get ready. I feel like I’m in high school or something, but after whatever happened with Troy, I don’t want to mess anything else up, especially with Dean.
What am I even thinking? I know nothing about this dude. I saw him for maybe two minutes, in the dark, while I was drunk. I could be imagining how cute he is. But could I be imagining the electricity? I can still recall how the tingling felt as it traveled up my fingers and through my arm. I shiver at the thought despite the shower being hot enough to nearly burn my skin.
