Short Stories (bxb)

Remake Pt. 2: Hot Nerd, Nerd Hot

"Go get your mans," Joey whispered over my shoulder, then grunted when I elbowed him hard in the chest.

He sat down at our usual table, but I kept walking on, three tables down, until I reached Aiden's, where there were too many people to fit along it's small round circumference without some sitting on the tabletop or on each other.

Aiden grinned when he saw me. "Hey," he greeted, before turning to his friends and saying, "this is—"

"The hot nerd," the girl sitting across from Aiden—Ashley Parker—said, which I had to admit was pretty gratifying.

Aiden scooted over, somehow making space for me on the bench. "The hot nerd's name is Noah," he said pointedly.

Of those of the people at the table that were actually listening, none seemed to have any problem with me sitting there. "Welcome to the doghouse, Noah," said Hunter Foley himself, the school's optimum jock and resident chlamydia host.

"I'd like to state that literally nobody but Hunter is lame enough to call this place the doghouse," Ashley said with a roll of her eyes.

I chuckled. "I don't know," I said. "Has a nice ring to it."

"Please don't encourage him," Aiden groaned.

Ashley fixed her eyes on me, and I watched as they narrowed. There was something mischievous in the way that she was staring at me. It wasn't unnerving, though. As a matter of fact, if I wasn't seeing things, I was pretty sure I saw a game in her gaze.

"So you're like, a genius, right?"

And, though I was usually never one to sound cocky, I wanted to play along with whatever game this was, so I said, "You could say that."

"Ooh," she said, a sultry smile spreading across her lips. "Intelligence is, like, super sexy."

"Finally," I returned her grin. "Someone sees it."

     It was weird. She and I just instantly clicked. Somehow, I knew right away that she was messing around, and we so smoothly dove into what would probably go down as the freakiest exchange of my high school career.

She leaned closer to me across the table, holding herself up on her forearms. "Say something smart."

So I leaned closer, too, and in a low voice, I said, "There's this thing called Castoreum. It's a brown sludge secreted from a beaver's castor gland, right near it's anus. It was commonly used—and FDA approved, might I add—as a vanilla, raspberry, and strawberry flavouring substitute."

I saw the corner of her mouth twitch. "That's hot," she whispered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aiden looking back and forth between us, his eyes wide and confused, and I nearly burst out laughing. "Is it, now?"

"Yeah. As hot as the sun."

"Do you even know how hot the sun is?"

"'Course I don't," she said. "Please tell me."

"On the surface, about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Or 5,600 degrees Celsius, if you prefer."