“Oh, um, yeah. Right. Perfect.” She noticed she was still holding his hand and dropped it like he’d burned her. He let out a soft laugh.
“It was nice to meet you, Harper.” He stared at her for another beat before moving down the hall, tossing the stone pieces into the trash as he went.
Harper watched him retreat, then flushed again when he glanced back over his shoulder and caught her staring. At his butt.
“I remember the first time I ever talked to a boy,” Thu said at Harper’s shoulder. Harper whipped her gaze to her.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I mean it’s cool that I got to see what was clearly your first interaction with a man. Ever. Very smooth, Harps. I had no idea you were such a James Bond junkie.” Thu didn’t even try to hide her smug smile as she walked past Harper and to the auditorium.
CHAPTER 2
HARPER
“Harper met a guy today,” Thu told their friends Lizzie and Indira during lunch. Per their usual routine, the four of them convened at Big Joe’s Coffee where Lizzie worked, the shop located directly between the dental school and Callowhill’s medical school, which Indira attended.
“What guy?” Lizzie and Indira said in unison.
“Thu, shut up,” Harper groaned. Thu hadn’t dropped the topic all morning.
“A gorgeous man literally fell into her lap,” Thu said, taking a big bite of the warm cranberry scone Lizzie plopped in front of her.
While technically a barista, Lizzie had a muffin-shaped heart that beat only for baked goods, and she spent more time preparing treats for the pastry case than actually helping customers. Much to the dismay of Big Joe.
“What guy?” Lizzie hissed, leaning so far over the coffee counter, she was close to rolling over it.
“You all would dismally fail the Bechdel test right now. How very unfeminist of you. I hope you’re ashamed,” Harper mumbled, digging into her own scone.
Thu rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, Harper, how dare I get excited at your first interaction with a hot guy in the four years I’ve known you. I should be very ashamed, indeed.”
“I interact with guys!”
“You haven’t been with a guy since, what, undergrad?” Indira asked, sipping her coffee. “Mercury went into retrograde yesterday, so I knew shit was about to get wild, but I definitely didn’t see something like this happening.”
“If someone doesn’t give me details about this guy in two seconds, I swear I’ll start screaming at the top of my lungs,” Lizzie said, a glutton for drama.
“Lizzie, you work here.”
“What’s your point?” Lizzie said, fixing her with a look of genuine confusion.
Harper buried her head in her hands as Thu relayed the embarrassing scene in such graphic detail that Harper wondered where she could get some bamboo shoots to shove up her fingernails instead of this torture.
“He’s definitely into her,” Thu concluded with a satisfied nod.
“Such a good call with the fall, Harps. Very rom-com meet-cute. Works every time,” Lizzie said.
Harper stared at her. “I didn’t throw myself down the stairs on purpose, you troll. I slipped on a puddle.”
Lizzie rolled her eyes and tossed her long, red hair over her shoulder. “All I’m saying is that if you did fall on purpose to catch his eye, I wouldn’t judge. Not like I haven’t done worse.”
“Like the time you joined that marathon training club because you saw that cute guy signing up?” Indira offered. “Or when you decorated that croissant to look like a vulva, hoping the hot customer would get the oh-so-subtle hint?”
“Or that time she completed the five-pound burger challenge at Puddy’s because she wanted the guy in the corner to be impressed? That one was amazing,” Thu added.
Lizzie nodded sagely. “You can’t say I’m not dedicated to my art.”
“But back to Harper’s new boyfriend. What’s he like?” Indira never let things go.
Harper groaned. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I broke his stone model, and I’m helping him make a new one. Purely academic. And I’m fine, by the way, if anyone was wondering. Only bashed my head on the floor. No big deal, try to rein in the worry.”
Her friends groaned in unison. “Oh, okay. She’s reverting to the academic excuse again. How original,” Indira said to Thu, ignoring Harper’s scowl.
“Saw this coming. ‘My future is too important. No distractions. Blah blah blah.’”