Nerdy by New Year

by Jessica Bucher

  “How cute that you two got seated next to each other,” she said with a heavy eye roll.

  I smiled, sacchrin sweet. “You want to trade me spots? I’m not attached to 6A if you really want to sit by Simon.” It was mean, I know, but I enjoyed watching her cheeks flame as she mumbled a denial. I’d had about enough of Hailey Yi. As far as I was concerned I’d done everything required to go on this trip. If she had a problem with my being there, it was personal and she would just have to get over it.

  “Now boarding for flight 2765,” called the gate attendant.

  The Carmicheal twins jumped in line, their faces lit with gigantic smiles. Neither had left Minnesota before, which cracked me up. Who in their right mind had never left Minnesota?

  “I feel like we are taking our kids on a family vacation,” remarked Simon, tilting his head toward the twins.

  I laughed. “Our kids would never be that well behaved. Addy and Gray’s spawn would have contaminated them long before they got to family trip age.”

  Simon smirked but didn’t dispute my claim as we filed toward the back of the plane. All of Key Club was seated in the same section. Hailey and Daniel sat in front of us while the Carmicheal twins were directly to the side. The urge to kick Hailey’s seat was ever so strong, but I focused my energy elsewhere. Elsewhere as in, trying not to hyperventilate when Simon pulled the armrest up so that we could sit closer together. His hand lay open and waiting on his thigh. All I had to do was take it, but I was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t wrap his fingers in mine. Two and a half hours was a long time to sit next to someone after that kind of rejection.

  Once in the sky, the pressure to make conversation began to get to me. Not talking to Simon whilst not holding his hand felt like the wrong signal to be giving. The signal I wanted to be giving was kiss me, kiss me a lot. But ever since it became clear that I liked him, I found it a lot harder to act normal.

  “Do you have Wi-Fi?” I asked, glancing at his laptop, then realizing the question was exceptionally dumb the second it popped out of my mouth. Of course he didn’t have Wi-Fi. No one had Wi-Fi, the flight attendant was very particular about putting our phones in airplane mode. And no one wanted to make enemies with our school chaperone—AKA Daniel’s mother, least of all Simon, who was supposed to be our leader.

  “I do not,” said Simon, looking at me funny. “Actually, I was reading over my RA essay. I finished it last night. But, it wouldn’t hurt to fine tune it a bit before I actually submit. If I actually submit.”

  “If?” I questioned. “What if? Being an RA would mean not having to pay for room and board.”

  “It would also mean no partying and I would have to keep my hall-mates at arms distance.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.

  “What’s so funny about that?” asked Simon.

  I shook my head, “No partying? Really, that is what you’re worried about? When was the last time you did anything even close to controversial?”

  Simon blushed, “Hey, you don’t know everything.”

  “Enlighten me.” I said, highly skeptical of his alleged debauchery.

  “Last year at Comic-Con…”

  “You don’t even need to finish that sentence,” I cried, hooting with laughter.

  In front of us Hailey whipped her head around. “I’m trying to read.”

  “Sorry,” we apologized in unison, before cracking up again.

  “But in all seriousness,” said Simon, once we had calmed back down. “There’s lots of things RA’s can’t do that are part of the normal experience.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “What could be worth missing out on a free room? I’ve seen the rates at MSU. That’s like, a whole lot of money to leave on the table.”

  Simon looked down at his hands, “I don’t know, things like, having girls sleepover in your dorm room.”

  I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him because I was pretty sure if I did he would see that my breath was coming a little faster, the blood was rushing to my ears, and my head was full of images of the two of us wrapped up in his comforter.

  Maybe he was thinking the same thing because even though neither of us spoke the rest of the flight, I could feel him pressing closer to me.

  Simon

  I decided days before this trip that by New Year’s Eve, I would have a plan: to kiss her or not. It meant I would put out small pieces of bait to watch her reaction, tidbits of flirtation, if you will. If I was going to do this, I was going to be smart about it. I wasn’t going to let my emotions get carried away. I wanted to know for sure if the feelings were reciprocated before I acted on them.

  It wasn’t a cowardly thing to do. It was the smart thing to do. Especially after being hurt before, and ever since I wrote that essay, I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to shy away from the things I wanted.

  And I wanted Lucy.

  I just had to be smart about it.

  My first step was to get our seats next to each other on the plane which wasn’t hard as president of the club.

  Next, I made sure that my hand stayed open and available throughout the majority of the flight. In the car, she seemed pretty willing to take it, but just in case anything changed since then, I left the first move up to her.

  Last, I dropped the line about girls in my dorm room. I watched her face as her eyes widened every so slightly and her cheeks turned pink. No smile or one of those lethal winks. And I still wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it left me feeling like maybe I went a little too far.

  After we landed, the next few hours were a whirlwind. We had to catch a shuttle to the hotel, right in the middle of rush hour traffic. Everyone ended up hungry and tired, and if Hailey hadn’t stopped complaining and trying to hijack the trip, I think we would have thrown her from the bus without question.

  Lucy kept her head on my shoulder and her complaints to herself. For some reason, I felt terrible, like our trip was somehow going south fast, which was not part of the plan. I wanted her to be happy, comfortable, fed, and rested. It was suddenly my responsibility to ensure absolutely everything for her so when Hailey tried to harp at us for not packing our own food, I snapped at her to sit down and keep her opinions to herself.

  I was almost embarrassed by it—until I felt Lucy’s arm thread through mine and her hand found its place against my palm.

  There must have been divine intervention at work because our hotel was situated right in between a McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. We dropped our backpacks off at the front desk and let Mrs. Stratnik check-in while the rest of us beelined for some food. Lucy and I watched the rest of the kids head for Mickey D’s, so we made the easy choice to go in the opposite direction.

  “This is the most delicious pizza I’ve ever eaten,” Lucy mumbled with a string of cheese still hanging from her chin.

  I let out a laugh and grabbed another piece. I don’t know if you could get drunk on pizza, but with as hungry as we were, it was possible.

  “I wonder who I’m rooming with,” she said, looking up as she wiped her face with her napkin.

  “Hailey already requested you,” I lied, watching her reaction. Her napkin came flying at my face.

  “Don’t joke like that.”

  “I’m kidding. I’m sure one of the other girls will room with you. Hailey probably wants to room with Marissa, anyway.”

  “No, I’m sure she wants to room with you,” Lucy said with a little shoulder shimmy.

  I shook my head in return. Then, I tested my fate again, watching Lucy’s lazy smile as I threw in, “If girls and boys could room together, I wouldn’t room with her.”

  Her eyes found mine for a moment, but she didn’t freeze up or turn red like before. Instead she just kind of laughed at me like I was being stupid, and maybe I was. Maybe we would flirt with each other forever and never do anything about it.

  Once our lunch was done, we met back in the hotel lobby. Like I suspected, Hailey paired up with Marissa, and I grab
bed a key for me and Daniel. He asked me over break to be his roommate so he didn’t end up having to bunk with his mom. How could I say no to that?

  Lucy ended up with a junior named Tabitha, which I was pleased with. Tabitha was laid-back and not a stickler for rules like some of the other members. I tried to sneak a peek at her room number as they passed out the keys, like I couldn’t wait until we got upstairs to find out how close our rooms were. Like it mattered.

  As we got on the lift in shifts to meet up on the twelfth floor, Lucy went ahead, and I waited at the bottom with Daniel. Lucy kept her eyes on me as the doors closed between us.

  Daniel stepped up next to me. “When did you two start dating?”

  I flushed. “Oh, we’re not. We’re just friends.”

  He let out a quick exhale. “Sure.”

  “I’m serious,” I answered, looking at him incredulously. Daniel and I hadn’t exactly spoken about girls before—or anything personal for that matter, so it was a little strange.

  “I believe you. But I think you might want to tell her that.”

  The elevator door pinged as the doors opened, letting us shuffle in. Did everyone think we were dating? And was it really so obvious that Lucy liked me to everyone else but me? I felt my confidence draining as we climbed the floors.

  When they opened, I was met with the sight of Lucy and Tabitha, opening their door across from the elevator. After I peered down at my key, I quickly looked up to find our room.

  And I didn’t have to look far. It was right next door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lucy

  I tossed and turned all night. It was impossible to get comfortable knowing Simon was in the room next door, and next year he would be living next door to girls. Girls he was willing to give up free room and board for. Everyone tells you the time goes fast. That high school is a relatively short period of time in the grand scheme of things, but that had never felt more real than right now. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready to cuddle up with some guy I just met at freshman orientation. And I didn’t want to think about Simon being that guy for someone else. I had to tell him. Before this trip was over, I had to tell him how I felt.

  By the time my alarm went off at 7:00 a.m., I was grateful. Anymore thinking and my head was going to explode. Tabitha, on the other hand, was less excited about leaving the hotel.

  “We have to ride the subway. You know...like underground.”

  “Yeah? What’s so bad about that?” I asked. I didn’t quite understand why she had reservations. Underground seemed a lot safer than D.C. traffic, not to mention faster. I was still traumatized from our shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel.

  “I don’t trust it,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t like not being able to see where we are going.”

  I didn’t know Tabitha very well. She had said next to nothing the entire time I’d been in Key Club, but I was starting to get the impression she hadn’t fully thought through what this trip would entail. She sat nervously biting her nails the entire ride from Union Station to the Capitol Visitor Center.

  I guess I hadn’t really thought much about the trip either. At first I just wanted Simon’s forgiveness, and the more time I could spend with him the better. But now, I wanted a lot more than his forgiveness. The trip felt like our shot. We were away from school, away from the past versions of ourselves.The D.C. version of Lucy and Simon could be different.

  Across the subway car Simon sat with his nose buried in the day’s itinerary. Most of our group wore jeans and hoodies. Daniel wore his Delinki High letterman’s jacket, his only letter, an embroidered treble clef for band, made me laugh every time I saw it. Nora had one too, but she kept it tucked into the mirror in her bedroom. It was one thing to argue with Max about band being important, but it was another thing to wear a band letter. Come to think of it, if I had really wanted a nerdy makeover I didn’t have to change my makeup and wardrobe. I could have just stolen her letter. Bam, instanerd. I would have been golden. Simon, however, was neither nerd nor teen this morning. In his black slacks, tie and crisp white dress shirt you could have mistaken him for an actual member of congress. It was a challenge, not pulling my phone out and snapping a picture of him. Polished looked good on him, right even. It was easy to picture him in the future, riding the metro to work each morning, somewhere important. Somewhere he would change the world.

  His eyes flicked up to mine, and he smiled.

  The car lurched to a stop, and Mrs. Stratnik led us off the platform and up the stairwell to a busy street directly across from capitol square. I could feel the excitement pulsing through Simon from four steps behind him. Seeing where government happened up close and personal was for Simon what seeing Taylor Swift in person would be for me. His nerdy roots were showing big time, but I kinda loved it.

  The visitors center was enormous with wall-to-wall marble statues that made me feel the size of an ant and people, so many more people than Delinki, Minnesota. I slipped my hand into Simon’s as our tour guide explained the video we were about to see. He didn’t flinch. Usually when I put my hand in his, I could feel him tense. Even if it was just for a second. It was like he never saw it coming, never expected me to want to be near him. Despite how hard I tried to show him that that was exactly what I wanted. But this time, he leaned into it, his thumb running a course across my palm like we’d held hands a thousand times, or never.

  It was just the courage I needed. When the lights went out and the narrator began to boom through the small theatre room where our tour group stood, I leaned closer to Simon. Kissably close. I knew he wasn’t going to turn to me right there in the dark and kiss me to the soundtrack of Congress’s long and ardent history, (though I didn’t doubt that would be a turn on for him) but I wanted him to start thinking about it. Start wondering what it would be like.

  I could feel his pulse quickening where our hands met. A fairly good sign that he understood what I was getting at. When the lights came back on, I couldn’t help but notice that Simon had to loosen his tie.

  Simon

  I was supposed to be listening to a documentary on the founding fathers, a topic I would have once found compelling, but not one word made it into my brain. Instead, I could only focus on the feel of her hand in mine and the delicate aroma of whatever lavender-scented soap she used.

  She approached me without any flirtation on my part. No bait. No tests. She walked up and made the contact herself. She even leaned in so close I could feel her breath on my neck while the movie played. It didn’t get any clearer than that. She was sending me all the signs I needed. So, now what? What was I supposed to do now?

  Any sensible guy would answer that question without hesitation. Kiss her, you idiot!

  After the short video, the tour guide walked us through the rest of the capitol building with headphones and an iPod thing that showed pics.

  When I glanced around the group, they all seemed pretty entertained, so I could breathe a sigh of relief. This trip took months to plan, and I probably wouldn’t sleep a wink the entire weekend worrying about it. Well, that and Lucy.

  Today was jam-packed with tours. Tomorrow would be a little calmer, with a river cruise on the Potomac and a rooftop party at our hotel to see the New Years Eve fireworks over the capitol.

  Everything was planned perfectly, down to a T.

  But for some reason, every moment of our day felt like I was flying blind. After the capitol, we went out for a quick lunch downtown, followed by a bus tour around the city. Any opportunity to be alone with Lucy was near impossible. There was a little more hand holding and a charged moment when our eyes met in the White House, but it felt as if whatever this was between us was at a standstill.

  When I went to bed that night, I was exhausted, but something still felt so unfinished. I didn’t want to say goodbye to her as we parted at the elevator. I wanted the doors to close on us so we could finally do something about all of this tension between us. If I didn’t chicken out again, of course
.

  I managed to get two hours of sleep before I was wide awake, wired in the middle of the night, tossing and turning and thinking about the first day Lucy walked into that meeting and how much of my life had changed since.

  Around 2:30, I heard a door close in the hallway. These old hotels had super thin walls. It was a risky move, but I slipped on my sneakers and tip-toed out of the room to the dimly lit landing on the 12th floor. On the opposite side of the elevator was a seating area with stiff chairs, a loveseat, and a breathtaking view of the city skyline.

  I walked slowly around the hallway and stopped when I saw a familiar silhouette staring out of the window. She had a thick sweater wrapped around her small frame and her long hair cascading over her shoulders. It almost felt like a violation to disturb her.

  “Can’t sleep either?” I whispered as I stepped forward.

  She jolted and turned toward me, and I watched as her expression changed when she realized it was me, and we were alone.

  “Not a wink.”

  “Me neither,” I smiled as I stepped up next to her. The view was really spectacular. The first snow of the season had only dusted the city below, and even at this time of night, it still seemed so full of life. The lights from the cars raced through the streets, and it almost made me sleepy, watching them move in a slow, distant pattern.

  “Are you having fun?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the view.

  “I’m having a great time. Thank you.” She turned toward me with a small smile.

  “Why are you thanking me? You’re the one who worked to get here. Heck, you worked to get me here. I should be thanking you.”