Page 3 of Dire Straights

“Let’s just meet up and talk about it,” I suggested.

He smiled a really genuine smile that lit up his whole face, and I found myself averting my eyes to the wall next to us. Was I blushing? No fucking way in hell I was blushing. Our million-year-old professor must have had the air conditioning off or something.

“Okay!” He agreed, nodding so hard that strands of his long, messy bangs bounced up and down. “Where should we meet?”

“Uh…” For some reason, I was finding his reactions really distracting. “We could just meet up at the library or something.”

“Oh, okay!” He agreed instantly. Whether it was because he loved the library or he was just relieved he didn’t have to think of a meeting place, I wasn’t sure. “So, um, should we exchange numbers? I can remind you in case you, you know… Forget.” Again, the eager tone in his voice flickered out for a moment as he voiced that concern. Did he think I was going to stand him up or blow him off or something?

“I won’t forget,” I said, annoyance sparking up in me toward whoever had done that to him in the past to even make him worry about something so dumb.

“Well, okay,” he said, staring at me cautiously from across the table. “If you do forget, it’s fine. I’ll just-”

I heaved a deep sigh, rolling my eyes up to the ceiling. “Alright, give me your phone.”

He looked a bit startled at my request, but dug into his pocket to extract it before handing it over. His lock screen wasn’t password protected, so I only had to swipe to open it. When I did, I saw that his home screen was from some geeky ninja anime. What a dweeb. I glanced up at him with a wry expression, but he only stared back at me innocently, waiting for my next move.

I added my name and number to his contacts, then navigated to his texts and sent myself a message before handing it back to him. When he saw what I’d done, he gave me another big smile.

“Wow, thanks!”

When class was over and everyone was filing out, we stood up to leave, and I instantly realized I’d misjudged him as I’d watched him scamper over to me earlier from the front of the room. I’d been thinking of him as some half-pint shrimp but we were perfectly eye-to-eye, the exact same height. I was six feet, which meant he was six feet. His muscles weren’t as defined as mine but from what I could see of his arms, he was lean and toned.

“Something wrong?” He asked, tilting his head at me.

“No.” Definitely yes, something was wrong with me. “See you Wednesday.”

We parted ways, leaving me alone with my very odd and unfamiliar thoughts. I couldn’t decide whether I was dreading or looking forward to Wednesday afternoon.

REN

WATCHING MADDOX WALKaway, I could feel myself smiling. He was so cool, the kind of guy that made everything look effortless and easy, and he’d actually been nice to me. Really nice. So nice I couldn’t stop thinking about the stuff he’d said and replaying it in my head. Was that weird? Probably, but I’d always been weird. Or at least that’s what people were always telling me.

Adjusting the strap of my bag on my shoulder, I forced myself to turn and walk off in the other direction. Guys like that had never been nice to me in high school. College was already feeling so much better than the awkward, terrible four years before it.

I was close with my parents, so I’d been kind of worried about how I’d feel living away from them. But I was discovering that being by myself felt really free and liberating. Not that they’d ever stifled me or anything. They were always really encouraging, and always pushing me to take chances and try new things. Both sets of my grandparents, immigrants from Japan, were pretty conservative and strict, so I figured that was probably why. My parents had both rebelled against that in their youth, and it showed in their parenting style.

But even though being away at university was really cool, I was still glad my parents were only a few hours away. I didn’t want to miss going home for any holidays or anything.

I’d grown up in the suburbs, so the town of Byron Bay was really different for me. It was a coastal town, with beaches andfresh seafood stalls out on the docks where the big boats came in. The air smelled salty and bracing every day, which was neat.

Byron Bay University was just on the edge of a little downtown district, with cobblestone streets and little vintage shops. There was also a huge boardwalk, a couple miles long, out by the beach. It had rides and food and games like a year-round carnival and it was always packed with locals and tourists. I hadn’t had too much time to explore any of that yet, or even just the beach, but I had plenty of time.

When I found myself wondering whether or not Maddox had been on the boardwalk yet, and if he liked roller coasters, I decided I was fixating a little too much. Words spoken often by my ex-girlfriend, that I always tried too hard to be liked and ended up getting on everyone’s nerves, echoed in my head for a moment. Had I gotten on his nerves? Had I made him feel forced into giving me his phone number? I remembered how he’d rolled his eyes at my concerns, and my stomach pitched. No, I shouldn’t think about that right now.He’doffered to meetmeto work on the project, not the other way around.

My next class was calculus, which was sufficiently distracting enough that I didn’t think about it for a while, and then I was free to head back to my dorm. Each residence hall had its own name, something beach or ocean themed, and mine was Coral Reef Hall, which I liked. What’s cooler than something that takes root in the ground like a plant, but is actually a colony comprised of tiny animals?

When I stepped into my dorm room, my roommate was on his computer. He pulled his headphones off when he saw me, giving me a single head nod as a greeting.

“What’s up? You done with your classes today?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“You wanna duo queue?”

“Sure!” I opened my laptop, set up on the desk on the opposite side of the room from his, and loaded up one of the games that we liked to play together, Federation of Fables.

Aspen Davis had intimidated me a lot when I first met him, mostly because of the tattoos and piercings and eyeliner. You’d think a guy who’s probably like 5’4 couldn’t be intimidating, but his default facial expression was kind of gruesome. He later told me he suffers from a condition called Resting Bitch Face, and that he had to save all of his positive facial expressions for working at the popular little bakery café thing down the street from our campus. But he’d introduced me to other people and helped me make friends, so he definitely wasn’t as scary as he appeared.

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