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Ezra Posner really didn’t want to be at this party. Actually, if he’d realized that his roommate, Miles Jefferson, would force him to leave the comfort of their dorm room and trek halfway across campus and then halfway up a hill, he would have pretended to be asleep until Miles left without him. He didn’t like parties. And he certainly didn’t like New Year’s Eve parties in the woods with the kids who’d decided — or had no other choice but — to stay on campus over winter break. They’d hiked into the hills surrounding their semi-rural campus to have their own New Year’s Eve celebration; all crushed together around a bonfire and listening to someone’s cheap boombox on low so they could keep an ear out for campus police.
The smell of smoke and cheap vodka made Ezra’s stomach turn. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to spend his New Year’s Eve and he was growing more annoyed that he’d let Miles drag him up here by the minute. He turned to his best friend and found him sloshing cheap swill into a red plastic cup and frowned. When Miles saw Ezra looking at him, he chuckled while pouring nearly half a bottle of orange juice into the cup – “for taste,” or more accurately to hide the burn of bottom barrel liquor – and held the cup out to Ezra. He raised his own cup for a toast.
“Cheers,” Miles said, smiling at Ezra with raised eyebrows. He’d given him that same smile when they’d met at summer orientation before immediately suggesting they become roommates. Ezra raised his eyebrows at his friend, took the smallest sip he could manage and cringed. But Miles didn’t notice. He was too distracted by Mei Barnes, the actual reason they’d come out tonight. She’d been the singular object of his attention all fall semester. Every week — sometimes every day — Miles had subjected Ezra to very detailed lectures about how Mei was literally the best, most perfect, beautiful girl on campus; maybe even in the world. Miles was the king of hyperbole.
Ezra watched as Miles clutched his cup tight with nerves and started inching through the crowd toward his crush and once again marveled at seeing his normally confident and sociable friend turn into a ball of nerves, even though it was obvious to everyone who knew them that Mei was as obsessed with him. Ezra shook his head stepped back into the shadows trying to avoid the smoky heat of the bonfire. He hoped — for Miles’s sake and the sake of his productivity — that those two would finally get together so he could get some peace.
But just because he was rooting for their relationship, didn’t mean Ezra wanted to sacrifice his liver in celebration. He dumped his drink into a nearby bush, tossed his cup into the trash bag by the “bar” and went in search of a place to sit, hide, and wait for this all to end.
He settled onto a cold flat-topped rock and wished he’d worn a thicker sweater. He pressed the button on his digital watch to check the time. Eleven o’clock on the dot. He sighed. He didn’t think he could last another hour out here, but he didn’t want to leave Miles, especially not with how fast he and Mei were guzzling their drinks, smiling nervously at one another as if this was the first time they’d ever met. He wished again that he’d pretended to be asleep when Miles had burst into their dorm room, a towel around his waist, shower cap on his head and shower caddy in one hand yelling excitedly at him to “get ready nerd, we’re going to a party.” Ezra also wished he hadn’t paid such close attention to the refrigerator magnet they all received at orientation about drinking responsibly and looking out for your friends, so he could have slipped down the hill without feeling guilty.
Either way, he wished he was back in his dorm room working, because these were peak productive hours, and work was the entire reason he’d come back to campus immediately after Hanukkah. If he was going to submit the 3D scale model of his efficient train engine on time and have even half a chance of winning the Gilder prize, he needed to be giving it his full attention during every free moment of every day. He couldn’t afford to waste these few precious weeks before spring semester started, watching someone else’s teenage romance and edgy underage drinking in the woods. He checked his watch again. One minute after eleven.
“Anybody sitting here?”
Ezra jumped at the voice. He looked up and couldn’t quite see who was standing in front of him with the bonfire behind them casting shadows over his vision, but he didn’t need light to recognize her. He would have known that voice and silhouette anywhere.
Candace Garret was tall, almost as tall as him, with big curly hair that framed her head and gave her a few inches more height, wide hips and the brightest smile he’d ever seen. She was also way out of his league. He knew that. She knew that. Everyone knew that. Because Candace Garret was way out of everyone’s league.
“Hello,” she said again, leaning close and waving a hand in front of his face.
His vision adjusted as her lips spread into a small smile. Ezra was mesmerized by the flash of her bright white teeth and her even, flawless, deep dark brown skin that seemed to drink in every bit of light around them.
“Anybody in there?” she laughed.
He jumped from the rock and their heads collided.
“Ow,” she whined.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Ezra said, panicked, his own head beginning to throb. “Shit.”
His face heated and his eyes widened. What if he’d given Candace Garret a concussion? He’d have to transfer schools, he couldn’t live with that embarrassment. She was rubbing small circles on her forehead but still smiling at him, which only made him feel worse. But ringed around that shame was the same awe he always felt in her presence.
“Calm down, Ezra. I won’t press charges. This time.” Her voice was calm but playful.
“I— You know my name?”
She laughed and shook her head.
Ezra loved Candace’s laugh. So much so that he’d catalogued and ranked his favorite moments of becoming absolutely mesmerized by it. In descending order, Ezra’s top five Candace Garret laughs were:
5. Once in the middle of their Chem II lab. He’d become distracted and accidentally ruined three days of an experiment.
4. Once in the dining hall during the lunch rush. He’d heard her above the din and mistakenly dumped an entire ladle of ranch dressing on his grilled cheese sandwich rather than the salad he’d forgotten to make because he’d been too busy trying to get a glimpse of her across the room.
3. He’d been rushing from English to the engineering lab when he’d heard her distinctive twinkle wafting along the late fall breeze. His head whipped around as he searched for her on the Oval. When he’d found her, Candace was surrounded by half the basketball team and they were fighting each other for her attention. She was ignoring them and reading a comic book, laughing as she turned the pages.
2. That one time Miles had begged him to tag along to Mei and Candace’s dorm room. Ezra had spent the entire hour leaning awkwardly against her desk — too terrified to take her up on the offer to sit on her bed — while Miles had entertained them with jokes Ezra never heard because Candace’s laughter took over all his senses.
1. Well actually, he’d forgotten his number one favorite laugh because it was immediately replaced by this one. Every other time he’d heard that throaty melody, he’d been a bystander; accidentally infringing on someone else’s moment with her or her own moment with herself. But when she finally laughed with him — at him — it felt so much better, even if it shouldn’t have. It sounded so much sweeter.
“Of course I know your name,” she said, pulling him out of stasis. “My roommate and your roommate have been playing cat and mouse with each other since orientation.” She laughed as she turned and pointed at the party.
Ezra assumed she was gesturing at Miles and Mei. The two had basically imprinted on each other from the moment they’d met, and he and Candace had been unwitting spectators to the inevitable. But he didn’t look their way, so he couldn’t be sure, because for the first time all semester Candace Garret was looking at him. Talking to him. Laughing at him. And it was heaven.
When she turned back, her smile slipped slightly but only for a second. “Why are you over here all by yourself, Ezra?”
Her voice was different than he’d ever heard it. Deeper, maybe? Intimate, he hoped for a fleeting second.
“I don’t like parties,” he admitted quietly.
Her smile narrowed to a grin and it made him feel like they shared a secret. “Yeah, neither do I,” she said. “Especially not outdoor parties with cheap liquor and a severely high chance of starting a forest fire.”
He smiled, or at least he thought he did. “This is really irresponsible.”
“Totally. But we’re supposed to be the brightest of the bright. The best of the best,” she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes. He always liked that about her; that she could seem older and wiser and smarter than everyone else around them with a simple inflection of her voice, a wry smile and a graceful tip of her head.
“I-if you don’t like parties, why are you here?”
She moved to the rock he’d jumped from and lowered herself onto it gracefully. She did everything with grace. Candace was the exact opposite of his awkward, gangly mess of an existence. She looked up at him and waited until he sat back down. Next to her. His hands started to sweat as he lowered to the rock, perching on the edge so he could leave room between them because he knew she hadn’t meant for him to touch her; not even accidentally. She couldn’t have meant that; life couldn’t be so perfect as to give him his most cherished — albeit secret — fantasy.
“I’m here for the same reason you’re here probably,” she finally said. “To watch out for my roommate.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Ezra said. This time he did look at the party and his eyes zeroed in on their roommates. They were standing in the middle of the clearing making out, swaying slowly together even though the loud rap music blaring from the stereo was up tempo. Ezra might have thought their first kiss after months of pining would be gentle and slow like their swaying. It was not. They were attacking one another’s mouths. Aggressively. And they didn’t seem to care who saw them.
“So gross,” Candace muttered under her breath.
“Exactly how much have they had to drink?” He could feel Candace shift on the rock, closing the distance between them. Clearly accidentally.
“Too much. Not enough. Who knows? I think tonight was just a reason to make it official. That gross kiss is what young love looks like, my friend,” she snorted.
He turned to her and gulped before speaking, he was so nervous. She’d called him ‘friend.’ “What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”
She really seemed to think about her answer before she made eye contact with him and shrugged, “Don’t know, actually. Maybe reading or washing clothes since the laundry rooms are empty for once. Something boring for sure.”
He frowned slightly. “That’s not what I would have imagined,” he breathed.
She slid across the rock; her left thigh pressed against his right. Ezra swallowed a gasp. “I’m not nearly as deep and interesting as everyone thinks,” she said, almost shyly. And then she straightened, her elbow grazing his ribs. “What about you? What would you be doing?”
He had to force himself to breathe normally before he could answer. And even when he was able to speak, his voice sounded strained, tense. “Easy,” he croaked. “I’d be working on my submission to the Gilder engineering competition,” he said. He could still feel the sharp, sweet pain of her accidental touch.
“And what’s that?”
“Engineering innovations prize. The winner gets half a million-dollar investment to build a real model of their submission and career mentoring.”
“That’s amazing. When is it due?”
“Senior year.”
She blinked rapidly. “What?” She turned fully toward him, her left leg bent, and the dull point of her knee dug into his thigh. “It’s not due for three more years and you’re already working on it?”
He gulped. So much of her body was touching his. He tried to regulate his breathing and slow his heartbeat by sheer force of will. “It’s a huge deal,” he said. “They only give one prize every four years. There are people who’ve been working on their submissions since high school. And alums always coming back to enter. Technically, I’m behind. I really should be in my room working on my project.” He said the last sentence — the same thing he’d been thinking for the past hour — but for the first time he didn’t mean it. For this beautiful, unexpected moment, Candace’s leg touching his was so much more important than the prize that had been his singular obsession since high school.
And then what would surely be the best night of his life got even better. He tried not to tense when her hands landed on his shoulders, but he did. Because Candace Garret was touching him on purpose. She turned his torso toward her.
She was beautiful. Her lips were parted in shock. Her eyes were wide. And then her mouth shifted from that wry grin to a full-on, prize-worthy, brighter than the sun smile that took his actual breath away. “You’re an interesting guy, Ezra Posner,” she whispered. “Real interesting.”
And then she kissed him.