197. Chapter 197

She watches the Danvers girl from a distance, because she’s beautiful and she’s the radiantly intelligent and she’s a massive nerd and she’s just got this incredibly sexy haircut and she’s fiercely protective of that blonde freshman girl and she’s everything Maggie wants and she’s nothing Maggie deserves.

So she just watches. “Not in the creepy way,” she defends herself to her roommate, who’s sharp as a whip and doesn’t miss a thing. “No, come on, Lena. We have classes together, that’s all. And she lives just down the hall, so of course I’m gonna see her all the time – “

“Yes. Exactly, Maggie. She lives right down the hall. So why don’t you go talk to her?”

Maggie clams up and Maggie takes a deep breath, and Lena knows, and nods, and slides her the half-eaten box of donuts.

But it turns out that she doesn’t have to bury herself in late night donuts and laughs with her roommate, and it turns out she doesn’t have to work up the courage to go up to her, doesn’t have to practice what she’ll say over and over and over again.

Because the next morning, Alex Danvers comes up to her on the quad.

“Hi. Um… It’s Sawyer, right? I’m Alex. Danvers. Alex Danvers.”

Her voice is higher than it is in class, and it makes Maggie fall even harder, because lowering the octave of your voice to make sure you’re heard is a strategy she knows far too well herself.

She stares and she splutters because she realizes, all too late, that Alex is holding her hand out to shake hers, and Maggie clears her throat, and gulps, and tries to remember that she learned the alphabet many years ago and really should have a better grasp on it by now.

“Yeah. Maggie. Uh – hi.”

Nice, Sawyer, she scolds, but Alex doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, Alex seems to…like it.

“So um. Maggie. I noticed… I noticed you’re always the only one other than me to actually get the right answers in chem lab.”

Maggie looks down and grins, because Alex Danvers noticed me, Alex Danvers noticed me, Alex Danvers noticed me.

“So I thought, you know, we could study together. If you want. Keep each other company. During… studying. And there’s this great pinball bar I know, in town. We could… study. Together. And maybe play some pinball.”

Alex’s spluttering – Alex-best-at-everything-at-all-times-Danvers’s spluttering – somehow makes Maggie like her even more.

“You asking me out, Danvers?”

Alex blushes and shifts her feet and wrings her hands and pffts a little.

“Do you want me to be, Sawyer?”

“Heads up!!!” The shout from the quad makes both girls jump, and they both reach up to catch the football spiraling chaotically their way. Alex’s hands close around it first, and Maggie thinks to be embarrassed because of her height, but Alex is beaming and Alex caught the damn thing and fuck is Maggie more than a little turned on.

“Watch where you’re throwing, Schott!” Alex laughs as she chucks the ball back.

“Oh, Winn didn’t throw that! Winn couldn’t’ve thrown that, are you kidding?” a boy that Maggie thinks is called Jimmy calls, and Winn laughs but doesn’t deny it.

“Friends of yours?” Maggie asks as Alex extends her arm to her, and Maggie nearly swoons, and loops her arm through Alex’s to steady herself.

“Of my sister’s,” Alex explains as she waves laughingly as James and Winn both whoop on seeing Maggie and Alex’s arms linked.

“On your way to bio lecture?” Maggie asks, and Alex grins down at her.

“You too, right?” Maggie nods because she’s forgotten about words again.

Alex opens doors for her and Alex sits next to her and Alex scribbles little notes to her in the margins of her otherwise extremely detailed, extremely meticulous notebook.

It’s been two hours since Alex first revealed that she even knew who Maggie was, and already Maggie feels more cared for, more respected, more fun, than she had in any of her relationships – if you could call them that – in high school.And bio lecture had never quite been this incredible.