“Do—Do you want something to drink? Water, coke, or, um—“ My mind was a complete mess. All alone with Oliver; an entire house to ourselves, and I didn’t even know for how long. When would my parents return, or my sister? 

“Anything is fine,” Oliver mumbled as he slid out of his shoes in my hallway, carefully placing them next to mine. Heat rushed to my face as I stared at the size difference of our shoes and feet, with his being maybe two sizes larger than mine, if not more. 

I gazed up at him, only to catch his eyes watching me, an eased face all I noticed. All those angry wrinkles he’d carried the whole day — gone, as if they’d never existed. His hair, as always, was a cute, short mess. His ears pink and twitchy. 

You wanted to be alone, I thought, how come you look just as nervous as I am? 

“Why don’t you wait in my room?” I asked, pushing Oliver towards the staircase of my home. He let it happen without much protest, even though he could have easily stopped me by putting some resistance into his feet. “I’ll be right there with our drinks!” 

“Ah, okay.” I felt his gaze on me as I fled into the kitchen, and only after I disappeared behind the corner could I hear the old stairway creaking with Oliver’s weight, his tall body finally stepping up into my room. 

With trembling fingers, I reached for two ice-cold sodas out of my fridge. 

“I’m actually losing it,” I whispered to myself. “Why am I so—We’re just going to study! What’s wrong with me?” 

But I couldn’t ignore the nerve-wracking fact that I had an incredibly hot guy waiting in my room, one who’d been clingy and needy for days now, wanting so desperately to be alone with me … What else was I to think?

I’m overreacting, aren’t I?

Is it my wish-thinking? Am I projecting?

There was a good chance he wanted to study alone just because he got along with no one else in class. I was the only friend he’d made in the weeks he’d been in our class, and that could very well be the one and only reason. 

A glimmer in my heart, though, knew and expected otherwise. I didn’t dare think about it as I stepped up into my room, handing him his soda.

But as soon as his eyes hit mine, and his deep voice thanked me, I was already gone for, and the nerves exploded within me. 

“Maybe we need some snacks,” I mumbled. “Let—Let me bring some—“ 

I turned around to flee when Oliver’s hot fingers wrapped around mine. He had sat on the ground, using my bed as a backrest, and stretched his legs far into my room. With it being so small, and with Oliver being so tall, it wasn’t a hard feat for him to stop me in my tracks, barely moving an inch himself. 

“Let’s just study,” Oliver said. “I’m not that hungry.” 

With a gulp he was sure to hear, I nodded, and stepped back into my room, sitting down beside him on my fluffy carpet. A forced smile on my lips, I reached for my notebook and the math book, readying myself for a good study session for the upcoming exam. 

And study, we did. 

To my surprise. He focused, as best he could, on the tasks at hand, tried his best at understanding all I explained to him, and even asked a few questions himself. For a moment, I’d completely forgotten the nerves I had had coming into this. Maybe I had overreacted, after all. 

But Oliver lost his focus more often than not, requiring five-minute-breaks every now and then where he’d get distracted by silly short videos on his phone, or he’d scribble onto the side of his paper, barely even listening in. I observed him from the side, every time, only to shake my head and get back to Math. 

An hour or two of studying, on and off, passed. 

The calm before the storm, perhaps. 

“Finn.” Suddenly, his voice called out for me, looking up from his own notes. 

Our eyes met as I reacted. “What’s up?”

“Do you walk with Matt to school in the mornings?” 

Immediately, my heart beat higher. “Uh—“ A bit taken aback, though, I wasn’t sure what to make of such a sudden, random question. Up until now, my mind had been preoccupied with math, and now, he asked me something completely unrelated. 

“We used to, but these days, he picks up Sophie,” I answered truthfully. 

“You’re walking alone?”

“Yeah … Why do you ask?” 

“Just curious.” 

With question marks in my eyes, I stared at him.

Just because. No reason. Just curious. Always these vague answers when he asked me these questions … Questions that were sure to ignite conclusions in my mind. 

“Oliver, are you glad we’re studying alone?”

Oliver nodded, dropping his head and gaze back onto his math notes. 

“Are you happy?” Though I already knew the answer.

“Yeah.” 

A smile and a chuckle crawled out of me, and I hid my rising lips from him behind my fist, and the pen it carried within. 

“Oliver, do you like me?” 

“Yeah.” 

I dropped my pen into my book, pupils shrinking as I stared. Oliver’s head flinched away from me, hiding his face and instead, showing off his red ears in their full might and beauty, coupled with his blushing, heated neck, which he rubbed and scratched in an awkward response. 

“… What?” It crawled out of me, just like that question had. My subconscious had taken over, the ideas that had been sprawling within my mind for days, now. 

He wants to be alone … because he likes me. 

Oliver scratched his fingers through his short hair. “Isn’t it obvious…?” 

Badump. Badump. Badump. 

Now, it was obvious. Now, I wondered how I’d ever thought otherwise. How I hadn’t noticed from the start when he blushed at me as he gifted me gummy bears, or when he’d asked me whether I had a boyfriend. Hell, he fought his own friends because of me! I should have known right then and there!

I was blind, and in crazy denial.

Because there was no way a guy like that … liked me. 

“But—But you—You never even text me, and you barely talk to me, and—“ 

“I just recently got my phone back,” Oliver defended himself, and I turned all the redder.

“O-Okay, that’s fair, but—“ 

“And I rather talk to you in person.” 

“But—“

“But Matt’s always in the way.” 

I’m such an idiot! Such a massive, silly, idiotic idiot! Inviting Matt to everything, having him join our walks home when Oliver clearly, clearly, wanted to be alone … It was never clearer than it was now, and I was so stupid for not realizing it right away!

“I…” I was speechless, embarrassed, shy. My head was hot mess, and I was unable to think clearly. It didn’t help at all, his eyes staring right at me, no longer avoidant like they had been only a few moments prior. Now that the truth was out, he felt no need to hide. Now that all his efforts were clear, and had been in vain, making me feel all the worse, he had no need to hide his face from me. 

With his heart out in the open for me to see, what point would it have? Instead, it seemed to bring him all the more confidence, and even though Oliver was just as shy as I was, he slid closer towards me, our fingers touching ever so slightly, sending electric shocks throughout my whole body. 

I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Denial continued to grow within my heart, confusion all the same.

Are we talking about the same thing?

Does he mean what I think he means?

But Oliver, with sudden confidence, wasn’t going to let any doubts remain in my heart. Gulping, I looked over at him, his face too close to mine, so close, even, that I could feel his hot breath on the tip of my nose. 

“You—You threw a ball at me,” I stuttered, as if that disproved any of his words. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Oliver whispered. “It was weeks ago, and it really wasn’t on purpose.”

“Why did you do it, then?” 

“…” He hesitated, now, pressing his lips together. “I got distracted.”

“By what?” 

It was him that gulped, now, making his Adam’s apple jiggle. His jaw appeared all the sharper, now. “When you were laughing with your friends, you were really pretty.”

“H-H-Huh?!” Embarrassment shot out of my ears, fever running rampage across my face. With him so close to me, though, I had nowhere to hide. 

“I was staring, and the ball went your way when I hit it. I really didn’t mean to.” 

My heart exploded, a million impossibilities coming to light. He glared at me, growled, stared with that angry gaze because I had distracted him? Because I was … p-pretty?

My mouth opened in awe, all I did was stare. I watched him observe me, his perfume numbing my mind. Studying for math was long out of the picture, wasn’t it? Nothing I said would make us concentrate again. 

And Oliver … had other plans. Too familiar was it, that intense gaze he observed me with. He leaned in, his intentions laid out on a silver platter. I slid backwards in fear, heat rushing into all kinds of places, further, and further, until there was no more bedframe to support me. 

In a gasp, my back dropped onto the fuzzy carpet beneath me, elbows digging into my floor. With a racing heart, I noticed Oliver's hands landing right next to my head as he followed, and before his heavy body landed on top of me completely, swallowing me whole, panic zigzagged throughout all of my veins. 

My hands slapped onto his mouth and jaw, pushing him away. “What—What are you doing?!”

Oliver slouched backwards, and my fingers loosened, grazing past his lips and chin. His own hand wrapped around my wrist rather gently as he announced: “I’ve been trying to kiss you for weeks.”

“Huh?!” 

"But I was never sure if you'd even want me to."

He’s killing me, now, with all these confessions! What’s gotten into him?

My mind ran wild. “T-That day in the gym after volleyball…” 

Oliver stared down at me as I laid beneath him, my fingers still keeping him at bay.

“On—On the bus after your judo training?”

He continued to stare, never denying a thing.

“When I cleaned you up after your fight?” I remembered it all clearly, the same eyes, his body leaning into mine, closer and closer, only for nothing to happen each and every time—weeks, it had been! Weeks, he had tried! For weeks, he liked me?

“Since—Since when do you—“

“You called me unbearable.” His voice was calm, but when I listened in ever so cautiously, I could hear a slight tremble within. I blushed once more, embarrassment flushing over me like a wave. 

“But you’ve made me nervous from the start—“

“O-Okay, enough, enough! This is too much! This is—“ My heart couldn’t handle any more. 

“I like you.” 

My hands slapped onto my own face as I let my head drop backwards into the carpet, and I hid myself from him, my entire body covered in goosebumps, shyness, and a tad bit of excitement. With a racing heart, his words, and that pleasant voice he said them with, echoed in my ears, and I stared at the ceiling above me, as if in a daze. 

He likes me. 

Before anything else could be said or done, I heard keys unlocking my front door.

“My—My parents are home. Maybe you should go—“

“What?” 

I jumped onto my feet, pulled him up by his arm, and pressed his own backpack against his chest. He stood there, perplexed, his arms wrapped around his bag. 

“I don’t want to go yet.” 

“My parents won’t let you stay, since it’s past dinnertime. Even Matt doesn’t get to.” 

Oliver pouted, now, but he had no choice but to nod, slouch down the stairs, and slip into his tennis shoes to leave. He greeted my parents, and in the same breath, he announced his departure. 

All the while, I pressed my hands into my burning cheeks, trying to hide their blush from everyone. 

At the door, I stood, my parents long disappeared upstairs, and waved Oliver goodbye, but he still seemed rather disappointed.

“Oliver.” 

Before turning, he froze, and my fingers reached for his pinky, tickling past it. “You should text me more.” 

Ever so slightly, a smile emerged on his lips. “Okay, I will.”

It barely took a few minutes for a message to arrive, breaking all sense within me and replacing it with butterflies. 

[19:34: Oliver: you're the prettiest in our class]