#ndtp

-

The next lab didn't come for a couple of weeks. Cole and Dion stay friendly. She keeps the jokes rolling about Stevens Point and the rustic lifestyle. Cole’s a good sport and dishes out a few comments himself, mostly about rats and city grime and pollution. Though she only sees him within the bounds of room 1101, Intro to Biology, Dion likes to think that they might be friends.

When the lab came, Cole was away. He’s missing from his seat, and Dion admits she was a little lonely. Their table was a little quiet that day. The professor emailed her later that night with Cole’s information as well as a paragraph reminding her that partnerships meant that both of them had to work on the lab. Dion responds and promises to divide the work equally. Apparently Cole got a similar email around the same time because he texted her first. 

hey new york, missed me today?

The text alone brings a smile to her face.

i’m sorry, who’s this?

couldn’t be that weird kid from stevens point?

very funny

did i miss anything important today

only a lab worth 20% of our grade 

are you free tonight? we could work on the writeup tonight

Her fingers are typing out the response before her mind could catch up. When she realizes exactly what she had done, Dion throws her phone across the room. Did she just ask him out? She began pacing the room. No way. No, no, she was getting ahead of herself. This was just two friends, no two classmates getting together to work on a group project. Nothing serious. Nothing out of hand. Thank goodness Gigi is out of the room. They’re just warming up to each other, and Dion would hate to have to explain why meeting up with a classmate has her so worked up. Just as Dion calms herself down, her phone buzzes with a response from Cole. She carefully tiptoes over to where she had thrown her phone, as if loud footsteps had any impact on whether or not he said yes or no.

yeah i’m free

let’s meet in the library in like 30 minutes

Dion feels like her heart might give out. Standing in her room in nothing but a bra and sleep shorts, she has the mild realization that she must get dressed, perhaps fix her hair. Dion tries to calm herself down and reminds herself that they’re just classmates. Just classmates. 

Meanwhile, Cole was sitting on a bus back to campus. Half of the team is either passed out from exhaustion or snapping girls terrible pick up lines. It felt good to get back on the ice, put his uniform on. He forgot about virtually everything until he got his phone back with an email about a lab he missed. Normally, he would ignore it. Schoolwork isn’t his thing. Hockey is. But this is a special case. The class he has with the girl from New York with her jokes and pretty smile. Cole will let her make all the jokes she wants about Stevens Point if it means she’ll talk to him. He texts her first. He can’t help himself really. Cole goes straight from the bus to the library. His teammates all head to the dorms, texting sorority girls about some party tonight. He answers with see ya later when they all call out, asking him where he’s headed. The nerves hit him while he’s walking alone, in the dark, to the library — a place he’s not too familiar with — for a girl he might have a crush on. 

He finds her sitting at a desk in a corner. Her hair pulled into a  puff on her head, curls framing her face. 

“I was just about to text you.” When she looks up at him, Cole feels his whole body get warm. 

“Well, I’m here.” He sits beside her.

“With no pencil. Or a bag. Where’s your bag?” Dion looks around him as if she’d find anything other than his body sitting beside her. “Why are you all dressed up?” She crinkles her nose a bit, and Cole bites the inside of his cheek.

“I had a hockey scrimmage today. Coach brought us all out to dinner afterwards.”

Dion nods her head. Just another thing about his life that she has no idea about. “Oh. Well, I brought my notes, but you can just take pictures of them, I guess. Oh, and about the lab…” She begins talking, and Cole completely loses all sorts of focus. As he’s said before, school is not really his thing. And he hardly pays attention in class. He scans a page of her notes and looks back at her to make it seem as if he’s listening. Really, he’s just watching her lips move. He is gone. 

“Do you get it?” She finally stops talking.

Cole blinks. He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, I-I mean,” As he’s stammering for answers, his phone rings in the back of his pocket. It’s his brother, and he thinks it’s gonna be something important. Cole is terribly wrong. When he picks up, Brock is at a party, and he knows Dion can hear the conversation between the two. 

“Brock?”

“Bro, where are you?”

“I’m at the li-”

“We’ve got bitches, booze, and that girl with the big tits is asking for you. Carly? Cathy? Katie?”

“Okayokayokay, I’ll be there.” Cole is embarrassed. When he turns to apologize, Dion is already packing her bags. 

“Wait-”

“Don’t worry about it, Cole. You seem a little busy. I got it. No worries. I’ve shared it with you on a google doc in case you have time on your hands.” She’s practically fleeing the scene. “I’ll see you around.” Dion is out the door before Cole could say anything in response. 

He feels like shit. When he looks down, he notices that she left her jacket behind. He texts Brock for his location and keeps Dion’s jacket with him. 

Dion is upset. She’s mostly mad at herself. Of course Cole has options. She imagines the girls at the party where he's headed. Tall, blonde girls with slim noses. Girls she’s nothing like. She’s mad at herself for hoping and thinking that their banter was anything but banter. When she gets back to her room, she kicks off her shoes, annoyed that she spent so much time freaking out. She exchanges minimal conversation with Gigi before climbing into bed. She ignores the lab for now. It only makes her think of Cole, and she’ll be damned if she loses any sleep over him.

Cole goes to the party. He finds his brother utterly wasted. His friends put a couple drinks in his hand, slap him on the back, and tell him to loosen up. Clara, the girl he thinks his brother was talking about, finds him moments after he walks in through the door. He smiles politely and tells her he’s not interested. She smiles back at him, and from the corner of his eyes, he can see her walk up to another one of his teammates. In all honesty, Cole doesn’t know what he’s doing here. He decides to go back to the dorm after forty minutes. When all his friends frown and chirp him, he pretends like he’s coming down with something. Back in the dorm, he’s pulling out his laptop and searching up how to write a good lab report into the google search engine. 

When Dion opens her laptop the next morning, the lab report has words on it. Words she did not write. Words that are good and make sense with the data they found. She nearly falls out of her chair. Instead she sits up straighter and sends a quick text to Cole. 

thanks stevens point

ur not so bad after all

is this a compliment?

miss new york has finally conceded 

stevens point > new york city

woah woah 

let’s not get too hasty

i was talking about our lab

and just so it’s clear 

nyc >>>>> stevens point

He smiles at his phone, and that is enough for Turcs to raise an eyebrow. “Texting someone special?” 

Cole loses the smile quickly. He doesn’t want to leave Alex with the satisfaction of having caught him so he quickly responds,“Yeah, your mom.”

But, it does get him thinking. He doesn’t even have her snap, or any of her socials. 

miss nyc what’s your last name?

Dion rolls her eyes at this comment. 

tryna get my snap? 

gonna have to work harder than that

I’m just trying to get to know a friend better

A friend. The comment humbles Dion quickly. She hops on instagram and looks up Cole. He pops up quickly, and she clicks the follow button. 

Cole gets the notification and immediately begins stalking. She’s even more beautiful than he thought possible. He slips up and likes a bikini pic from 14 weeks ago. 

stalking much, stevens point?

he doesn’t respond except for the thumbs down reaction. 

For their next class, he brings her a chocolate chip muffin from the cafe. He does it to see her smile. 

“Thank you. How much do I owe you?

He waves a hand. “Nothing. Um, I got it for free.” They both know he’s lying, but neither of them says anything about it.