“Lauren Maureen Spencer,” I said. He let go.
I had pictured him as smooth and confident, poised and charming, and he was those things to a certain degree. But as we talked, he seemed to be stumbling a bit, not sure of the right thing to say. This cute guy who had seemed so much surer of himself than I could ever be turned out to be . . . entirely human. He was just a person who was good-looking and probably funny and just comfortable enough with himself to seem as if he understood the world better than the rest of us. But he didn’t, really. He was just like me. And suddenly, that made me like him a whole lot more than I realized. And that made me nervous. My stomach started to flutter. My palms started to sweat.
“So, it’s OK, you can admit it,” I said, trying to be funny. “It’s you who have actually been stalking me.”
“I admit it,” he said, and then quickly reversed his story. “No! Of course not. But you have noticed it, right? It’s like suddenly you’re everywhere.”
“You’re everywhere,” I said, stepping up in line as it moved. “I’m just in my normal places.”
“You mean you’re in my normal places.”
“Maybe we’re just cosmically linked,” I joked. “Or we have similar schedules. The first time I saw you was on the quad, I think. And I’ve been killing time there between Intro to Psych and Statistics. So you must have picked up a class around that time on South Campus, right?”
“You’ve unintentionally revealed two things to me, Lauren,” Ryan said, smiling.
“I have?” I said.
“Yep.” He nodded. “Less important is that I now know you’re a psych major and two of the classes you take. If I was a stalker, that would be a gold mine.”
“OK.” I nodded. “Although if you were any decent stalker, you would have known that already.”
“Regardless, a stalker is a stalker.”
We were finally at the front of the line, but Ryan seemed more focused on me than on the fact that it was time to order. I looked away from him only long enough to order my dinner. “Can I get a grilled cheese, please?” I asked the cook.
“And you?” the cook asked Ryan.
“Patty melt, extra cheese,” Ryan said, leaning forward and accidentally grazing my forearm with his sleeve. I felt just the smallest jolt of electricity.
“And the second thing?” I said.
“Hm?” Ryan said, looking back at me, already losing his train of thought.
“You said I revealed two things.”
“Oh!” Ryan smiled and moved his tray closer to mine on the counter. “You said you noticed me in the quad.”
“Right.”
“But I didn’t see you then.”
“OK,” I said, not clear what he meant.
“So technically speaking, you noticed me first.”
I smiled at him. “Touché,” I said. The cook handed me my grilled cheese. He handed Ryan his patty melt. We took our trays and headed to the soda machine.
“So,” Ryan said, “since you’re the pursuer here, I guess I’ll just have to wait for you to ask me out.”
“What?” I asked, halfway between shocked and mortified.
“Look,” he said, “I can be very patient. I know you have to work up the courage, you have to find a way to talk to me, you have to make it seem casual.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I reached for a glass and thrust it under the ice machine. The ice machine roared and then produced three measly ice cubes. Ryan stood beside me and thwacked the side of it. An avalanche of ice fell into my glass. I thanked him.
“No problem. So how about this?” Ryan suggested. “How about I wait until tomorrow night, six P.M.? We’ll meet in the lobby of Hendrick Hall. I’ll take you out for a burger and maybe some ice cream. We’ll talk. And you can ask me out then.”
I smiled at him.
“It’s only fair,” he said. “You noticed me first.” He was very charming. And he knew it.