Me:OMG no. Not boring at all. I won’t have an issue sleeping because
I paused. We were supposed to be going slow. I wasn’t supposed to admit how much I was into him already.
Daniel:because what?
Me:Because I don’t think I’ve been this happy in a long, long time.
He sent a smiling emoji. Then a heart emoji.
Daniel:I’m going to say good night on that high note. Good night Samaya.
Me:Good night, Daniel.
26
Whispers Is Whispering Again
Daniel was helping Andre and Muniba at the farmers’ market the next day, and I almost went and joined them because all I wanted to do was spend time with Daniel. I still had that warm, goose-bumpy feeling come over me whenever I thought about what had happened last night. I wouldn’t mind more of that. Not the scared-about-Yasmin part of the night, but the closeness-with-Daniel part at the top of the slide. The kissing part, too.
But instead, I decided to do the smart thing and spend Saturday and maybe Sunday, too, studying for my physics midterm test coming up on Monday. Without studying I would probably be fine ... but I was Samaya Janmohammad, and I had no intention of letting this shiny upgraded relationship affect my grades.
Daniel did text me a few times over the course of the day. Sending me pictures of the lemon squares we made the day before, plus some pictures of the pumpkin pies one of the farm stands was selling. He let me know that our bars outsold Andre’s cinnamon rolls again. And he texted me some other silly Daniel-type observations and jokes, just like he’d always done. In fact, none of his messages were any different from the ones I’d always got from him.
Which ... why? Maybe I imagined that closeness last night? Maybe in his eyes things weren’t really changing? I mean, we did agree that we were going to keep most of the relationship parameters the same until the Nerd Prom. Just (hopefully) with more kissing.
Ugh. I was tied up in knots worrying about this.
But near the end of the day, after I had done a fair bit of studying for physics and finished my functions and English homework, another text came through from Daniel.
Daniel:Okay so I’ve been trying to play it cool all day...but I haven’t been able to think about anything but seeing you. Can we video call?
I grinned huge and opened the call right away.
“Hey,” he said, his voice a little low. Okay, that was different from how he normally sounded when we FaceTimed.
“Hey, yourself.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I just looked at him. He was so gorgeous. I couldn’t believe he was into me.
But ... this was awkward. We couldn’t stare at each other all evening, could we? My nose wrinkled. “What are you wearing?”
He frowned looking down at his T-shirt. “I’m thinking that wasn’t a suggestive”—his voice lowered to a growl—“‘what are you wearing’ but a more disappointed ‘whatareyou wearing.’”
I laughed as he moved his phone away so I could see his whole shirt—it was Mickey Mouse in full gear playing hockey.
“Now that I’ve actually trapped you,” he said, “I can let myself go a bit and wear my cartoon characters in hockey uniform shirts.”
I must have looked horrified, because he laughed. “Kidding, kidding, Samaya. I don’t have any more cartoon character shirts. And I only wear this one at home. This lady who used to work at the shelter bought it for me because I liked hockey. Sweet lady. Very creepy Disney obsession.”
I laughed again. “They really spoiled you there, didn’t they?” Now that I knew that Daniel had once been a resident there, the way everyone treated him at the shelter made more sense. Whenever I’d seenhim with staff and even some residents, they were protective of him. He was clearly a favorite because of his ... well, his amazingness, but also, everyone looked out for him like he was one of them, because he had been.
“What can I say? Mom-types love me.”
As soon as he spoke, I could tell he regretted it. And I thought I knew why. Last night he’d said he’d never imagined I could be into him because my parents wouldn’t approve of me dating someone who didn’t come from a professional, high-achieving family like Devin’s.
And the conversation was awkward again. Why was this harder now? We’d never had trouble talking before. I bit my lip.
“Hey ...,” Daniel said. “Wanna playDragon Arena? We can try that Ruby quest again. No pressure this time, just for fun.”
“Your hand okay for that?”
