Meet Cute

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  I did know the rest, but . . .

  But this couldn’t be real.

  Quiet Hot Guy from school that you never spoke to didn’t turn out to be Funny Random Guy who refused to return dictionaries.

  Things like this only happened in Hallmark movies, the kind that made Libby cry like she was an angry, unfed baby. They didn’t happen in real life, but this was happening. I wasn’t dreaming. Tyler was really standing in front of me, and he had the dictionary.

  Letting out a little laugh, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’m just really caught off guard. I thought I was talking to . . .”

  “To who?” he asked, head tilting to the other side.

  “I don’t know, but not—not you,” I said, and then added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, but we’ve never talked at school and—” Then it struck me. “Did you know who I was?”

  “Not at first,” he admitted, a faint pink flush spreading along his cheeks. “You actually never said your name until—”

  “Until a month or so ago,” I said, remembering that call. I sat back in the seat, my hands falling to my lap.

  He nodded. “Before that you always introduced yourself as calling on behalf of the library.” His gaze flicked away. “Then you said your name and I figured it had to be you. I doubted there were many other people named Moss.”

  When I looked up, he was staring at the dictionary, his dark brows pinched together and that faint blush still staining his cheeks. It had been him this entire time. I could barely wrap my head around it.

  Libby was going to die.

  She was going to die and be reborn.

  Tyler’s gaze flickered to mine. “You never asked my name.”

  I opened my mouth to deny that, but he was right. I hadn’t. “I just assumed the name the card was under was who I was talking to.” His eyes held mine. “Are you disappointed?”

  My heart leapt into my throat and the same second my stomach tumbled over itself. I wanted to turn that question over and over in my head, analyze what it could mean. I wanted to dash into Mrs. Singer’s office and call Libby.

  Of course, I didn’t have time for any of that. A flutter grew in my chest. I drew in a shallow breath. “I’m not disappointed.”

  A slow curl of his lips spread into a smile. “Really?”

  I nodded, thinking, Who in the world would be disappointed? Part of me kept expecting someone to jump out from behind the stack of books with a camera. Wait. My stomach dropped. “Is this . . . is this a prank?”

  His brows flew up. “No. No way.”

  A kernel of suspicion formed. “Why now?”

  Tyler knocked his hair back from his forehead and the strands immediately fell back in place. “I wanted to say something earlier, but I . . .” The blush deepened, and he looked away again, coughing out a low laugh. “I just didn’t have the nerve. When I, uh, when I figured out it was you, the girl who sat in the back of history class, I wanted to say something then, but . . .” Another low laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t have the nerve.”

  Leaning forward, I placed my elbow on the desk and covered my mouth with my hand to hide the goofy grin I knew was forming. It took me a few seconds to say, “But you do now?”

  “Well, I kinda figured ‘zazzy’ might’ve given me away earlier.” His gaze slid back to mine and the intensity in those brown eyes snagged me.

  “You told me you said jazzy!” I said.

  “Yeah, I know. I kind of got nervous when you responded,” he said with a shy smile. “I just . . . Yeah, I was nervous.”

  I couldn’t look away. The flutter in my chest increased until it felt like a hummingbird was searching for a way out. Several moments passed, and something . . . something happened in those moments. I could feel the warmth in my face ratcheting up by several degrees.

  He rested both hands on the counter. “So, I think it’s past time for me to return this to the library.” He paused, eyes twinkling. “Especially since you have been so patient.”

  I laughed as I picked up the dictionary. “I think the word you’re looking for is impatient.”

  “Never that,” he teased. “Oh, one more thing.” Tyler bent down, and a second later he plopped down the only copy we had of the Encyclopedia of Animals. “I almost forgot.”

  A slow grin curled my lips.

  “And it might take a really, really long time for me to get through this.”

  “Yeah, it’s a really big book.”

  “So you’re probably going to have to call me to remind me to return it,” Tyler explained, his gaze locked on mine. “And I think it’s probably a good idea that I get on my own card for this one.”

  Pressing my lips together, I nodded. “I think that’s also a good idea.”

  “And you know what else I think is a good idea?” Dropping his elbows on the counter, he leaned in. “That I give you my cell so you don’t have to call the other number anymore. You know, when you’re working . . . or when you just want to talk.” He drew in a deep breath while my heart start jumping like a happy kangaroo. “Or if you’d like to grab something to eat.”

  There was no stopping the smile racing across my face, spreading even wider when the pink in his cheeks increased. “I will definitely use that number.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean, I figure I’m going to have to call you repeatedly to remind you to return the book, and I wouldn’t want the home phone scaring you again.”

  His lashes lowered. “You will most definitely have to remind me.” Drawing in a deep breath, I said, “And I’ll probably need it when . . . when we make plans to grab something to eat.”

  Grinning, he briefly looked to the side and then back to me. “Well, that would be just zazzy.”

  The Unlikely Likelihood Of Falling In Love

  — — — — — —

  JOCELYN DAVIES

  PART I: INTRODUCTION

  THERE ARE TWENTY-FOUR interconnected subway lines running underneath Manhattan. That’s over six thousand subway cars, with an average ridership of almost two billion people per year. If you stop to think about it, that makes the chances of seeing the same person more than once one in over thirty thousand—and that’s if you’re working with a closed system. If you’re working in an open system, the chances are even smaller. And the chances of falling in love at first sight with one of those people are even smaller than that.

  I know.

  I’ve done the math.

  That’s what makes this story so weird.

  — — — —

  The morning began like any other Monday morning in May, just a month before the end of my junior year of high school. It was one of those days when things just kind of clicked. I didn’t hit the snooze button on my alarm; my sister, Aviva, didn’t take forever in the bathroom (how much mascara does one really need to wear in seventh grade?); and my well-meaning parents (who are deluded enough to think they’re pretty cool for parents) didn’t attempt to engage me in time-consuming lines of questioning like, “Did you download the new Weekend Warrior album?” (no one downloads albums anymore, Dad) and “What did you do to your hair?” (I slept on it, okay??). The line at Brooklyn Bagels wasn’t too long. My bagel was crisp on the outside, doughy on the inside, the cream cheese was evenly and sparingly applied (no messy globs that get all over your face and hands), and my peach Snapple was cold and sweet. I glided down the stairs at the Newkirk Plaza subway station. No one was walking slowly in heels in front of me, or eking out some last texts before going underground, or trying to carry a stroller by themselves. My path was clear, my aim was true. The B train rolled into the station right as I swiped my MetroCard.

  As the train barreled over the Manhattan Bridge, I took a sip of Snapple and watched the sun come up over the Lower Manhattan skyline. I was going to be on time for school, and things were okay.

  And then, something happened that changed my life.

  Something that never would have happened if the constellation of minuscule even
ts in my life hadn’t aligned perfectly to deliver me to this exact moment.

  There I was, taking a perfect sip of iced tea as the perfect sun rose over my perfect city, a city I love, a city that, for once, had conspired to get me to school on time, and I was leaning against the door (I refuse to sit on the subway ever since the incident with the old man who wasn’t wearing any pants), looking out the window toward the Statue of Liberty, experiencing the first glimmer of that end-of-school-year feeling, that spring lightness in the air, like fresh laundry. I could feel the rumbling of the bridge rails under the train car, and then a train was passing across from us, going in the opposite direction toward Brooklyn.

  And I saw him.

  He was standing in the doorway, too, staring out the window in my direction, and when our trains passed, we locked eyes. He had warm, deep brown skin and a flop of curly brown hair, and was wearing a navy-blue zip-up hoodie with a travel-size instrument case—Violin? Flute? Piccolo?—strapped to his back.

  He stood up straighter when he saw me, and grinned. His whole face lit up. I didn’t have to look at my reflection in the metal-framed subway ads (pro city-girl life hack) to know mine had lit up as well.

  And there we were. A girl and a boy staring at each other through the windows of two train cars passing in the early morning light.

  The sun rose higher, a radiant ball of light, over the buildings, casting the world (and specifically his face) in a gold-hued glow.

  And here is the sad thing about the subway, the one true, sad thing: just as suddenly as someone comes into your life, they are gone. The same constellation of minuscule events that aligned to bring me here are shifting, unraveling, pulling farther and farther away into the cosmos.

  And I’ll probably never see him again.

  — — — —

  A month ago, if you’d asked me if I believe in love, specifically the kind that happens at first sight, I would have laughed. I would have told you I believe in facts and numbers. You can’t substantiate that love exists by plugging some variables into an equation and calling it a day. Therefore, why should I believe in it? It’s not like I could prove it had ever happened to me.

  And yet somehow, inexplicably, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it just had.

  I’m probably extra skeptical this year because I’m taking Mr. Graff’s AP Statistics class. That’s actually his name. In a class of fifteen, I’m the only girl. You’d think things would be different in 2017, but then again, I read online that the White House wants to offer girls incentives not to pursue careers in STEM, so you do the math (pun intended). The reason, I guess, is that girls can’t hack it, and will just drop out eventually to make babies and soufflés. I don’t even know what a soufflé is, and I have no desire to push a seven-pound human out of my lady parts until I have at least two degrees and am a pioneer in my field, thanks.

  On the morning in question—the perfect morning—Mr. Graff was standing up at the front of the room, telling us about the final project.

  “This is your opportunity to show the world what budding statisticians you all are!” he said. Graff is the only person I know who gets as excited as I do about statistics. “Okay.” He chuckled. “Maybe not the world. Let’s narrow that pool to just our class. As you’ll soon find out when you embark on your projects, statistics is all about narrowing the pool of data. You’ve been working hard all year, and this is your chance to show me what you’ve got.”

  “I’ll show you what I’ve got,” Alex Coffey said under his breath, and everyone laughed.

  “I don’t care what you’ve got, Mr. Coffey, if it’s not some excellent math skills.” Graff was passing around a stack of assignments. “I’ll need to see and approve your ideas by this Friday. You’ll turn in your simulated data by next Wednesday. Then you’ll have three weeks to gather research, hand in your real data, and write up your final projects. We’ll have presentations at the end of the month.”

  Matt Bloom, who sits on my left, glanced my way and shot his hand up. “Can we work in pairs?” he asked before Graff even called on him. The hand in the air was purely ornamental.

  “No pairs,” Graff said. “This is solo work.” He had finished handing out the assignments and was back at the front of the room. “Ideally there will be some real-life application to your study. And keep in mind that this is worth fifty percent of your grade, so there’s a lot on the line here. You’re my AP students, and I know you can do it.”

  A cheer went up from the boys around me. It felt like a scene in a football movie, and Graff had just given us his best coach pep talk.

  Clear eyes. Full hearts. Math game strong.

  “I want to see some elegant projects, people.”

  My heartbeat quickened.

  Because I knew exactly what my project would be.

  PART II: HYPOTHESIS

  As Mr. Graff says, statistics is all about narrowing the pool of data.

  If I was going to study the likelihood of seeing my mystery boy again, I had to narrow down the variables. For instance, here is what I knew about the morning when we first locked eyes:

  1. The place (the third subway car on the Manhattan-bound B train)

  2. The time (a weekday morning, 7:37 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)

  3. What I was doing (looking out the window on the south-facing side)

  Since the subway system is so huge, I had to look for patterns. For instance, when I take the train at random times, I never see the same people. When I take it during rush hour, at the same time every day, the chances of seeing the same people increases.

  Take my morning commute. If I’m on time, there’s this one couple I always see making out—I think they’re a year older than me and go to my school. But if I’m running late, I don’t see them.

  For my project, I had to assume Mystery Boy followed the same routine every day. If I re-created those perfect conditions, I would be more likely to see him. But throw in other variables, and I would be less likely.

  Hypothesis: Changing the variables of the morning when I first saw him will decrease my chances of seeing him again.

  Over the course of the week, I came up with simulated data to support this. On Friday, I handed the whole proposal in to Mr. Graff.

  PART III: RESEARCH

  Friday night, my family miraculously sat down for dinner together. It’s pretty rare that we all end up around the table at the same time. My sister is on the middle school field hockey team, so she always has practice after school. Sometimes I get together with some of the guys from AP Stats to do homework or work through extra-credit problems, or I go to my friend Camila’s house for dinner. My mom and dad are in creative fields and sometimes work weird hours. But that night, we were all home. Mom even made her famous pasta sauce (which was actually the Barefoot Contessa’s famous pasta sauce).

  “So,” Mom said, laying bowls and plates out on the round dinner table that used to be my grandma’s. My sister plopped into one of the wicker basketweave chairs. The chair scratched against the floor and groaned under Aviva’s weight. “Viv,” Mom said (pronouncing it “Veev,” like we all do), “these chairs were a rare find on eBay. If you break one, I am selling you on eBay and using the money to pay for a custom-made new one.”

  “Mom,” Viv said, “that is a really specific threat.”

  “Well,” Mom said, “these are really specific chairs. They’re vintage, Aviva.”

  Pretty much everything in our apartment is something Mom scored on eBay, or at Brooklyn Flea, or through some design nut she knows from work. She’s a prop stylist for a famous interior design blog and just styled their first coffee table book. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks. I don’t even think I could calculate the chances of that happening; you have to be really super talented and also all the stars have to align. My mom is a Boss.

  Mom adjusted a Shibori indigo placemat, and Viv very slowly and deliberately stood up and then sat down again in a way that was clearly for Mom’s b
enefit. Mom raised her eyebrows. Dad came shambling in in jeans and a flannel. He’s a sound engineer for rock bands.

  “What’s cooking?” he said, and Viv and I groaned. “What?”

  “You’re such a nerd, Dad,” Viv said.

  “We’re selling Viv on eBay,” Mom said.

  “Only if I break the chair!”

  “Sorry I asked.” Dad took a piece of bread and dipped it in olive oil.

  “I have a question,” I said, interrupting the flow of family dinnertime banter. “How do you know if you’re in love?”

  Dad dropped the bread in the olive oil.

  “Why do you ask, Sam?” No one in my family ever calls me Samara. It’s always Sam or Smee or Shmoo (don’t ask).

  “Don’t get weird, Dad,” I responded. “I’m sixteen.”

  “Are you in love?” Mom was making heart eyes at me.

  “It’s for research,” I said. “I’m working on my final statistics project.”

  “Math,” Mom, Dad, and Viv all said, making one collective face of disgust.

  “Thanks for the support, guys,” I said.

  “No, no, we care,” said Dad.

  “Speak for yourself,” Viv muttered.

  “Viv,” Mom said.

  “What’s the project?” Dad was serving himself a heaping bowl of penne, Mom fluffed the salad with tongs, and Viv was texting under the table. I could really feel the love.

  “I may or may not have fallen in love at first sight with a boy on the B train. I’m doing my final project on the likelihood of seeing him again.”

  That got their attention. Even Viv put down her phone.

  “A random boy?” Viv asked. “Or one you know?”

  “Random,” I said. Viv snorted her disdain.

  “What do you even know about this boy?” Dad said. “He could be a psychopath.”

  “Or a misogynist,” added Mom.

  “Or his name could be Demetrius von Snufflemuffin.”