Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Romance

2017

Maggie Yoo-Henderson yawned, exhausted. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, and the air-conditioning in the bookstore where Maggie worked decided it wanted to stop working on that day. Maggie did always hate the summer: the mosquitoes, the ungodly heat, the realization that summer would eventually come to an end and you'd soon be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment (school). The only plus that Maggie could fathom--sleeping in late--didn't even apply to her. Each morning, she'd awake at 7 am, make lunch for her younger siblings, and then she would be at work from 8am to 6pm. Afterwards, her friends would pester her about "living their lives to the fullest" and going out to do something trivial and stupid.

Maggie snorted as she checked her watch: 5:47pm. Great. Her friends would saunter in any minute to give her hell about being boring and not living up to her "potential as a junior in high school." The bell chimed, indicating that a customer had entered the shop. Not glancing up from Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, Maggie deadpanned, "Where will you be forcing me to go tonight?"

A silence, uncharacteristic for Maggie's friends, followed Maggie's irritated question. Frowning, Maggie glanced around her book, surprised to see not her goofy friends, but rather two boys who appeared to be around her age, staring back at her with expressions of complete confusion. The shorter of the two wore a smile, his green eyes amused as he sauntered up to the front desk, "Is this how you greet all your customers," he glanced at Maggie's nametag. "Maggie?"

Maggie felt her cheeks flush as she stared back at this boy with easily tossed blonde hair and gleaming green eyes. Internally, Maggie was panicking, why was her stomach feeling so uncomfortable and nervous? Had the yogurt she had at lunch gone bad? Externally, Maggie pressed her lips together firmly in a pout and refused to meet his eyes, "No. I thought you were somebody else."

A chuckle escaped the boy's lips as he backed up towards his friend, who Maggie hadn't even noticed. The friend was tall--maybe six feet?--with fluffy dark hair that had been pulled back into a bun. He had dark skin and large brown eyes that reflected a mixture of confusion and amusement as he looked at Maggie. The blonde boy spoke again, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off as rude. My name's Alexander Hoskins," Alexander smiled warmly and Maggie pressed her lips together again.

"Je m'appelle Cheney Bleu," the tall friend piped up, his voice heavily accented. He scratched his neck, obviously embarrassed of his accent. 

"Nice to meet you, er, but the store is closing soon so you may want to find what it is you're looking for--"

Alexander shook his head with a chuckle, "No, no, we were supposed to meet our friend Dominic here--he says he's friends with the clerk and they meet here every night."

Cheney cleared his throat, "Alexander," he inwardly laughed at his rather dense friend. "She is the clerk."

"Oh! Dominic described her a little more mascu--" Cheney cut Alexander off with a quick smack to the forehead. Maggie giggled slightly, watching Alexander as he groaned and rubbed his forehead tenderly.

Cheney forced an annoyed smile, "What my stupide friend means to say is that Dominic was very--how you say?--vague description of you."

"No," Alexander piped up again. "He said it was a little Asian who would beat you up if you sai--"

Cheney exasperatedly covered Alexander's mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence. Worried that Alexander had offended Maggie, he checked to make sure she wasn't angry or upset. To his surprise, the girl's round face was flushed red and her hand had flown to one of her (rather messy) braids to twirl it around one short finger as she pushed her glasses--which had begun to slide down the bridge of her nose--back up. Cheney blinked. Was it possible that this girl--no. That wasn't possible.

He looked her up and down. She was short probably around five foot (give or take an inch) and she had a round, chubby face. Her eyes were rather small and stuck behind a pair of glasses that appeared to be a bit too big for her face. She was wearing an old t-shirt with a pair of jean shorts and a pair of old sneakers. Her long dark hair had been pulled into two messy braids that honestly irritated Cheney (he hated asymmetry). 

The door chimed again as the familiar (and obnoxiously loud) voices of Dominic and Lila floated through the door. Dominic slammed his palm on the counter in greeting to Maggie, "Hellooooo, America!"

Maggie didn't take her eyes off Alexander who smiled at the sight of Dominic, greeting him, "Dom! Thanks for inviting us to go bowling!"

Dominic grinned back, heartily patting Alexander on the shoulder. Lila smiled across the desk at Maggie and snapped her fingers several times, trying to get her attention. Finally Maggie glanced back to Lila, whose full lips had finally pulled back into a smirk. Her green eyes danced excitedly as she pulled Maggie into a hug and whispered, "Dibs on Frenchie."

xxx

Four months had passed and the school year had started up once more. Maggie found herself much busier than ever in between packing lunch for her younger siblings, manning the bookstore, juggling her seven AP classes, studying for the SAT, beginning to revise her notes in preparation for midterms, helping her siblings with homework (if she had the chance), preparing for her Science Olympiad events, tutoring for NHS, helping with stage crew, maintaining a social life, having romantic attractions for another person, and--on top of all that--finding time to sleep. Maggie was stretched to the limit between all that needed to be done.

For example, that December night, Maggie had been one of the last people in the school building--she had been taking inventory of the sound and lights for stage crew and reorganizing the tech room (she really should not have been doing that on her own) and was stuck there until nearly 8pm. She locked the stage doors as she exited the building from the north doors, shivering as the cold of the night struck her like a baseball bat. She pulled her coat tighter around her body as she wished the winter would end: she didn't like winter or summer.

As she began down the icy steps, she heard a familiar accented voice, "Maggie!" 

She turned to face Cheney, who came bustling from the locker rooms, wearing a dark jacket and a goofy grin. "I thought I would have to walk home alone in the cold. But now I have you."

Maggie rolled her eyes as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, "You have a way of making everything sound like it should be in a romance novel."

"It is the French, non?"

Over the past several months, Alexander and Cheney had worked their way into Maggie's group of friends (no doubt by Lila's infatuation with Cheney) and although every Saturday and Sunday, Cheney would accompany the rest of Maggie's friends to her bookstore to pick her up, the two never really spoke much. Maggie didn't mind silence, but it obviously made Cheney uncomfortable, as he searched for something to say, as the pair made their way downtown.

The streetlights shined and the trees were decorated with Christmas lights (the beauty of downtown always amazed Maggie) as snowflakes danced down from the sky. Cheney and Maggie walked several feet away from each other as Cheney fumbled over his words and Maggie responded with grunts of yes or no. Eventually, the topic of relationships somehow found it's way into the conversation (much to Maggie's discomfort) as Cheney brought up Lila. 

"Lila is...something else," Cheney chuckled. "I think she needs a boyfriend. She is always complaining about being single. Perhaps Dom would be a good match for her?"

Maggie inwardly laughed: Lila had all but thrown herself at Cheney. She constantly complained about how hard it was to be single and how she wanted a boyfriend as nice as him. Maggie was not the only one that found it amusing: Dominic and Alexander thought it hilarious. "Why don't you date her, Cheney?"

Cheney let out a nervous laugh; he did not wish to date Lila. She was a sweet girl, no doubt, but she was simply not his type. "She is a nice girl, but she is only a friend."

Maggie nodded, tucking her cold hands into her pockets, not knowing whether or not she should tell Lila about this conversation. The two walked in silence again for several moments until Cheney interrupted the silence, "Mon ami, you have a--how you say? er-- boner for Alexander, non?"

A silence.

"What?"

"You have...feelings of attraction?"

"...You mean a crush?"