Page 59 of You Had Me at Hello World
It’s almost curfew and I’m still sticky from the river, so I excuse myself to shower.
As I lather shampoo into my hair, I can’t stop thinking about what Aisha said. It must’ve taken serious guts to do something about her crush. Major moves for a fourteen-year-old.
And I know what she was trying to tell me. Aisha is about as subtle as an elephant.
White foamy suds slide down my bare skin and slip into the drain at my feet.
WhyamI so sure that catching feelings for Khoi is going to screw up the hackathon? Not once did Drew ever mess with my GPA. But I basically did Chinook Shore classes on autopilot. Alpha Fellows hits different. This program demands all my brain cells and then some.
But the way Khoi got me to take breaks from the grind this week? Probably good for my neurons. It’s not like we could’ve leveled up our second checkpoint submission by throwing another hour at it. I mean, it’s a pretty fire proposal.AndI got to play capture the flag.
So who knows. Maybe I’m using this hackathon thing as an excuse to avoid my own emotions.
Saturday afternoon, we’re at a liquid nitrogen ice-cream social when HellomynameisBrenda announces that the second checkpoint results are posted. There are abandoned cardboard cups, pink pools of melted ice cream, and a stampede to Stata.
In the lobby, there’s a crowd again, but Khoi is taller, so he pops onto his tippy-toes and cranes his neck. Then he does a triumphant whoop. “Char! We’re ranked first!”
“No way??”
“Way!” He shoves me forward playfully. “Go see for yourself.”
I weave through the crush. Maybe it’s my imagination, but people seem more willing to step aside and let me pass. And there it is. Our names at the top of the sheet. Khoi Anh (Astor) and Charise (Char) Tang. The team of parenthetical names.
A squeak of delight escapes my lips.
“It isn’t fair,” someone mutters behind me. “Astor is a professional developer. Of course he knew how to sell it.”
“Wish I was a pretty girl,” someone else grumbles. “Then he’d want to work with me.”
“She’s not even pretty,” the first voice says. “In the Bay Area there’s a girl who looks like her working at every boba shop.” Which is such a specific insult, I have to respect the effort.
If they want to munch on sour grapes, they can have thewhole vineyard. We’re still first, which is going to definitely help propel us to the top during final judging, since results from all three checkpoints get combined.
I twirl to find Khoi. He’s standing in a pool of afternoon sunlight, which etches him beautiful and gold. My chest swells.
I dash over. When our eyes meet, he smiles and opens his arms. I run into the hug, and he lifts me off the ground and spins me around.
And then his face is right there, wide-open and wanting. So even though we’re in front of everyone, I kiss him.
His lips are shy at first, but then he reciprocates hungrily, like he’s been dreaming about this for a long while. Warmth floods my entire body, and I reach up to rake my fingers over the nape of his neck, through his hair.
Someone whistles. Suddenly embarrassed, I break away from the kiss and turn toward the source of the noise.
Our roommates are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Obi looks confused. Aisha is grinning from ear to ear. She’s probably the one who whistled.
“Shut up,” I tell her. My cheeks are hot.
She throws her palms up. “I didn’t say anything!”
“Yeah, but you were totally thinking it.”
Obi frowns. “Aisha, you cool with this?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she says quickly. “I, uh, dumped Khoi.”
Khoi tilts his head, like,Why am I the dumpee in this fake scenario?
“Wait, so Char, are you two girlfriend-boyfriend?” Obi asks. “Or is there some new Zoomer trend where we’re kissing our platonic friends?”
