“Calling you what?”
“Nathaniel Keaton.”
“Isn’t that your name?” she quipped.
Nate’s deadpan expression was answer enough.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that, if high-school Maddy could see me right now, in a guy’s room and a jock’s room at that? She would be fist-bumping me. While freaking out a bit. But in a good way.”
“How is a jock’s room different?” Nate asked, still looking genuinely confused.
“That’s the point, Nate. I wouldn’t know. Plus, you know, it’s you. You must know how popular you are in school. I was just a tiny bit curious. And besides,” she continued, feeling her filter slowly disintegrating by the minute, “I’ve read a lot of books with the jock/nerd trope. It is a very popular one in romance books. This is basically a nerd’s dream come true.”
She was not joking. Her little nerdy heart was ready to take flight.
Nate’s face did a weird twitching motion before his lips started tilting on one side in what could only be described as a, quite frankly, sexy smirk.
Maddy was not equipped to deal with something like that. A grumpy Nate was fun to mess with. With an indifferent Nate, she could manage. But a sexy smirk? No.
“And what exactly happens in this jock/nerd trope, Madison?” he asked, his smirk only intensifying.
“U-um, well... you see… that’s uh,” Maddy started eloquently. “Nothing really important,” she concluded anticlimactically.
“Mhm,” Nate nodded, his amusement still clear as day. “Are you sure? Because you look a bit flustered.”
“Well, you need to get your eyes checked because I am no such thing,” Maddy said very convincingly, looking everywhere but straight at him.
“If you say so. If you do remember anything of importance though, be sure to keep me posted.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. Maddy’s face was probably scorching hot as she all but choked out, “Sure thing, big guy.”
The heating must have been on full blast in the house, which would definitely explain why her neck was also starting to get hot. Maybe it was because she hadn’t even taken her jacket off.
Yes, that was probably it.
A small detail suddenly tickled her brain.
“By the way, how doyoueven know my name? We’re in different grades. I thought you’d probably never even heard of me or seen me before.” Maddy met Nate’s eyes, curious about his answer. Except, from their limited interactions, Maddy was starting to realize that Nate’s face never seemed to give anything away unless he actually wanted to.
“I’d seen you,” he simply said, his tone unreadable.
She waited to see if he was going to add anything more to that but he didn’t seem inclined to do so.
“Okay then.” Maddy looked around for a place to drop her school bag that was as heavy as a bag of rocks, and decided to leave it against one side of Nate’s desk.
Nate watched her movements and threw a puzzled look her way.
“Care to explain this?” he asked, nodding towards the bag.
Maddy exhaled loudly. “Well, it’s not like I could actually come here without a reason. I had to tell my parents you were helping me on a science project. Which, knowing my track record, wouldn’t be so hard to believe.” Without her bag and her jacket, Maddy felt like fidgeting. Like now that her hands were holding on to nothing, she didn’t know what to do with them.
She tried to glance around surreptitiously for a place to sit, which Nate noticed because he was right there in front of her and thankfully, took her out of her misery and nodded towards his desk chair while he sat on the bed.
“Do you want something to drink?” Nate’s voice surprised her out of her sudden nervousness.
“Anything that doesn’t have caffeine,” she said. That was the last thing she needed. She’d probably fidget her way into next month.
A hint of amusement seemed to cross Nate’s face.
