Lucas, campus heartthrob and young CEO, notices an unusual girl holding a mysterious plant. He's intrigued. But she's too busy with her secret life as a gardener to notice him back. So he sets a scheme in motion that might just lead to love. Will hi...
The night before, Lukas finds himself dreaming. He's flying down the hill on a sled.
She's there too, by his side.
The wind whips her hair around her face. And she's laughing. They both are.
Suddenly they hit a bump in the hill. Downward, downward, they hurtle through space. She's first to reach the snow.
Then he lands right on top of her. Their noses are an inch apart.
He doesn't move. Under him, he feels her shift her weight a little, and her movement charges his body with electricity. Her eyes are wide as they stare at each other.
She's getting cold.
I need to help her up.
But he doesn't want to. With her there, beneath him, he wants to stay there and do certain other things.
Instead, he draws closer, closer, until suddenly—his mouth meets her rosy lips with the lightest touch. So this is what it feels like, he thinks. Suddenly, he's pressing into her more boldly. His tongue plays at the soft inner edges of her mouth, and she inhales—a sound of surprise and enjoyment. She reaches up and holds his temples with both hands. His full body is pinning her down, and he wants to go further.
Stop, he tells his inner scoundrel.
But it's just a dream! his inner scoundrel smirks. You may proceed!
Her body flexes under his frame, and he breathes to calm himself down. He gently cradles her head with his mittened hand.
"Are you cold?" he asks, drawing back to look at her.
"No." She smiles.
"You are," he says. "You're getting cold." He composes himself. Clambering up, he offers her his hand.
And suddenly—just like that—she vanishes. He's there in the cold, alone, looking at the softly curved dent in the snow where her body was.
Do you just walk up to her on the street? Tap her on the shoulder, til she turns around?
He suddenly imagines himself tapping her on the shoulder. Tap, tap, tap, like some weird woodpecker. Tap, tap.
With his own celebrity status on campus, that'd cause an international diplomatic incident. Maybe rioting.
So then how...?
You have no idea what you're doing,you fool, he thinks.
Ever since childhood, he's kept to himself. At boarding school he often ate alone. Solitude was comfort.
Until now.
Just yesterday, Lukas invited a guy named Kim Jungwoo to meet up for coffee. It'd been easy. Lukas had spotted Jungwoo coding late nights at the computer lab. Kid was a genius. His code was clean. Efficient. Sometimes Jungwoo even coded in one window while running Minecraft mob farms in another.
Lukas knew right away—Jungwoo would be a huge asset to his company.
So he'd dashed this off to Jungwoo:
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And Jungwoo replied, Sure.
Easy.
Start there, he tells himself. Message her just like you messaged him. Simple.
He pulls up his phone and starts with cut-and-paste.
>> Hi. Wanna meet at Starbucks to talk?
To talk? No. WTF. Obviously they'd talk. What else would they do? Start sucking each other's faces right then and there?
He deletes a few letters.
>> Hi. Wanna meet at Starbucks?
At Starbucks? No. Too specific. You sound obsessed with Starbucks!
He deletes a few more letters, then types:
>> Hi. Wanna meet for coffee
What if she doesn't drink coffee?
>> Hi. Wanna meet
No. Stalkerish.
>> Hi
Too formal. Hi, well hello there. Hi there fellow student.
>> Hey
Why the capital letter H!?
>> hey
He's ended up with a very minimalist message. A message that'll prompt one reaction—and one reaction only:
