I’m speechless as my brain struggles to process this moment. This moment that I thought would never happen. But it is. It’s happening right now.
When we break apart, he’s holding me by my shoulders, that giddy smile plastered on his face.
“I can’t believe it,” I say through a laugh of sheer disbelief.
“Believe it, Poppy. You did it.”
He looks so happy as he gazes at me. So genuinely thrilled. For me. It makes my heart tumble around in my chest.
“What are you doing tonight?” Nick asks.
“Studying.”
He shakes his head. “Not anymore. We’re celebrating.”
Ten minutes later, we’re walking across campus.
“Nick, we really don’t need to celebrate,” I say, walking faster to keep up with his long stride. “I have a test at the end of the week that I should be studying for.”
“We absolutely need to celebrate, Poppy. This is huge. You’re a YouTuber with a hundred thousand followers. You’re a big freaking deal.”
A small group of students walks past us.
“Yo, St. George! Good game the other night,” one of the guys hollers.
“Thanks, man,” Nick hollers back. “Hey, my girlfriend’s YouTube channel just blew up. You should check it out. It’s called Poppy The Tutor.”
I smack his shoulder. “Nick! What are you doing?”
“That’s cool, man. We’ll check it out,” the guy hollers back.
“You don’t need to tell total strangers about my YouTube channel.”
He slows down his walking pace so I can keep up with him. “I absolutely do. We gotta get you to one million subscribers next.”
I can’t help the grin that pulls at my lips at how he’s pumping me up.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say. “I thought we were celebrating one hundred thousand followers first.”
“You’re right,” he says. “What do you usually do when you ace a paper or get a perfect score on a test?”
“Nothing.”
He stops walking and turns to me. “Nothing? Are you serious?”
I hold the straps of my backpack and nod. “It’s really not a big deal. Good grades were expected of me my whole life. I didn’t get rewarded for it because it was baseline.”
Nick’s brow furrows the slightest bit, like he’s sad. Then he shakes his head. “All the more reason to celebrate. You did something amazing, and you deserve to make a big deal out of it.”
That warm feeling from earlier resurfaces. He’s being so sweet to go out of his way like this for me.
We keep walking. “You and Anna used to get ice cream in high school when you’d ace a test in your hardest classes, right?”
I almost trip over my own feet, surprised at how he remembers that.
“Yeah, we did.”
“We’re getting ice cream.”
