Page 44 of You Had Me at Hello World
I let him in. His eyes are round and frantic. It makes me want to smother him in a fluffy blanket and reassure him everything will be okay.
“Aisha told me the entire story,” I say. “I know you two were fake dating.”
“Oh.” He slides into a relieved grin. “Great!”
Ugh. He thinks that because I now know the tea, we can be all hashtag relationship goals. But it’s not that simple. I have literally no idea what I want. But I have this sinking sense that it isn’t smart to get more entangled with Khoi.
Sometimes boys are adorable and sweet and kissable. That doesn’t mean I should catch feelings.
I go, “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“But—”
“It’s almost curfew anyway.” It’s five minutes to eleven.
“Promise we’ll talk tomorrow, though?”
“Dude, you’re my hackathon teammate. Of course we’re going to talk.”
“No, but about non-hackathon stuff,” he says. “I don’t want to act like we’re coworkers and, like, only talk about sharing public SSH keys.”
This guy. He’s lucky he’s cute. “Yes, Khoi, we’ll talk about other stuff too. Nowgood night.”
He finally leaves.
Chapter Twenty
I don’t want to think about Khoi, so Aisha suggests we get wasted, and that sounds like a great idea.
She has a bottle of soju and a flask of bourbon that she smuggled in. We’re supposed to have our lights out, so we drink in the dark, sitting cross-legged on our beds facing each other.
She shows me TikToks from her girlfriend, Trinity, the girl with the pastel-pink hair I saw earlier. They met at a workshop last summer. “I was trying everything to get closer! Asking her to show me a new move, and she’d be all,I’m not that good, you should ask someone else.I thought she was rejecting me. But no. She was also down bad. We were just being useless lesbians together.”
Aisha guffaws when I tell her that I guessed Trinity was Khoi’s ex. “Have youseenthat boy? No rizz whatsoever. I don’t think he’s ever had a girlfriend.” So I guess he was acting so weird at Harvard Square because he didn’t want me to learn Aisha’s secrets before she was ready to share them.
When she asks if there was anybody back home in Oregon, I shake my head instead of bringing up Drew. I’m still embarrassed that I let the Mulan thing go on for so long. Alpha Fellows is my chance to delete all that. Hit refresh on my entire life.
“Who needs boys back home? Khoilikesyou.” She starts singing. “Char and Khoi, sitting in a red-black tree, K-I-S-S—”
I whip a pillow at her. “Red-black tree? Youarea nerd, even if you won’t admit to it.”
“No! Iwillbeat the nerd allegations. I’m cool and fun! I dance! I have sex! I’ve kissed more girls than eighty percent of the guys here at this dumb nerd camp!”
“That’s statistically likely,” I allow.
“Sooo…” She scoots closer to the edge of her bed. “Are you gonna date Khoi now?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t come here for a boyfriend. I came here to win.” The words feel strange in my mouth.I came here to win. I’d usually be mortified to admit something like that, to admit I even think I can win.
But maybe Icanwin. Maybe that’s just the bourbon talking, but I did decent on the first checkpoint. I have a cracked teammate. Crazier things have happened.
“Why are we doing this?” Aisha asks suddenly.
“Doing what?”
“This.” She points at the bottle she’s clutching.
“What do you mean? This is roomie bonding time.Yousuggested this.”
