Chapter Five
Kennedy
“Start your stupid timer,” Will says next to me as if we haven’t been doing the timer method our whole lives.
My mom swears by it, and therefore Lucy, Will and Miranda’s mom swears by it too.
My mom’s favorite saying is that she lives and dies by the timer.
And, quite frankly, I agree. The timer is the singular reason I get anything done.
I’ve even started using the timer method at my internship and I was recently told I was “a machine” when it came to administrative tasks.
I set the timer on my phone for thirty minutes and get to work on finishing up my macro econ chapter.
Will and I work in silence side by side for the duration of the timer and I’m less than two pages away from finishing the chapter when the alarm goes off.
If I were by myself I’d keep going, set another thirty minutes and then take a break, but since I’m with Will, I’d rather not.
I reset the timer on my phone for ten minutes then lean over into his space trying to read what he has.
“Don’t look at my screen,” he whispers, trying to block his screen with his hands.
“Show me how much progress you’ve made,” I whisper back, trying to tug his hands down from the screen.
He elbows me out of his way and closes his laptop, “It's not ready yet,” he whispers way more seriously than I was expecting.
“Hey,” I whisper back, “I was just messing with you. I don’t care how much progress you made.”
He scratches the back of his neck, looking awkward and self conscious. “I know.”
There is a tightness in my chest and I don’t really know what to say.
I forget how self conscious Will gets about anything he perceives as a representation of his intelligence.
I think it's because Miranda tends to outshine Will academically.
It's not like Will isn't smart, he is, it's just that Miranda is smart. She’s the type of person that never needs to study and aces nearly every exam. It would be obnoxious if it wasn’t so impressive.
Unsure how to respond, I say, “Have you finished the astronomy quiz for this week yet?”
He shakes his head no, “Why, you want to take it together?” I agree and pull out my laptop from my bag while he navigates to the quiz on the online portal.
My “rest” timer alarm goes off, causing my phone to vibrate on the desk between us.
I tap the end button and don’t restart the timer, accepting that I probably won’t get as much studying done today as I had originally planned, and strangely don’t feel too upset about it.
I’m logging into the online portal when Will scoots his chair closer to me. His elbow is bumping up against mine and neither of us moves away. We start on question one together, and of course, the questions are randomized. But we both look through our notes and help the other with each question.
By the sixth question I am extremely aware of Will’s body next to mine. His knee is bumping against my bare thigh and it's making me slightly nervous.
Because I am so aware of all the places Will’s body is touching my own, I am acutely aware of what he’s doing next to me, to an almost painful degree.
He keeps reaching down and pressing his knuckles into the side of his knee and up the outside of his thigh.
He’s not saying anything about it, but he keeps grimacing every few seconds too.
“Your knee bothering you?”
“Yeah, a little,” he admits sheepishly.
“How bad is it?”
“Not bad,” he says too fast to be convincing. “C’mon, we’re almost done.” He nods his chin at our screens and clearly letting me know he doesn’t want to talk about his knee.
I turn back toward my screen and Will scoots his chair even closer to me. Our arms are nearly pressed together, his leg is butted up against mine, and the toe of his shoe is just barely resting against the heel of mine.
We work through the next set of questions with Will carrying the majority of the work. I can not concentrate with him so close to me. My stupid little crush on Will seems to be flaring up again. Extremely inconvenient.
Over the years, my crush on Will has come and gone.
I mean how could it not? He’s the tall, athletic, extremely good looking boy I’ve known my entire life who happens to be my best friend’s twin brother.
A classic case of boy-next-door if you will.
Obviously, nothing has ever happened between us and never will.
I could never ever imagine telling Miranda that Will and I were together unless it was very serious.
I don’t think my friendship with Miranda could survive Will and I breaking up.
Plus I know for a fact that my family and his family will never stop hanging out and vacationing together.
I’d have to see him at every family gathering for the foreseeable future.
No thanks. Not to mention the fact that the kind of girls he usually dates don’t look a lot like me.
To my knowledge Will has had three major girlfriends, all of whom I can only describe as modelesque levels of hotness.
Actually, let me correct that; two of his girlfriends looked like models, one of them actually was a model.
As in, she got paid professionally for people to take pictures of her.
I know I’m attractive, but I am nowhere near model level attractiveness.
I’m regular-person attractive. She’s not nearly as hot as she thinks she is.
A voice in the back of my head says. So maybe I’m less than regular-person attractive, I amend.
I’ve spent the last year trying to rid myself of ever reading that comment, but it seems to pop up in my head relentlessly.
It was the most liked comment on one of my naked pictures that got crossposted everywhere.
Before the photos were taken down, that comment had nearly two thousand likes and hundreds of replies.
Girls replying in my defense, girls replaying in agreement of the comment.
Men arguing with each other about my level of hotness.
It was quite intense and jarring watching people debate in real time over my naked body.
“Do you know if this professor keeps grades hidden, or if she lets you see them right away?” Will whispers.
I snap my head in his direction and try not to let myself loop hate comments over and over.
Instead I force myself to notice that Will’s so close I can smell the spearmint of his gum.
Models, I tell myself and shrug my shoulders at him.
He leans forward and presses the submit button.
It takes about five seconds for the screen to load and display his grade: 95%.
I press the submit button for my quiz and wait for my grade to appear. Will lets out a surprised chuckle when my grade displays a 90%. “How’d you get a better grade than me? We took this quiz together.”
“Don’t be a hater,” he starts to say.
I interrupt him, “–That’s it, I’m done for today.” I close my computer and gather up my econ text book, LSAT prep book, and pens. I shove them into my backpack and Will does the same.
He trails behind me as I head toward the elevator.
Neither of us speaks as we step in and the doors close.
He presses the ground floor button and steps to my side.
For the second time today I notice his proximity to me.
He’s standing in a way that causes his arm to brush up against mine and I feel crazy for noticing it.
Will’s arm has brushed up against mine hundreds of times, I don’t know why this is any different.
Will’s arm is still pressed up against mine when the elevator doors open.
A rush of relief washes through me and I feel like I can breathe again when he steps forward breaking the physical contact between us.
“Where are you parked?” he says, hands gripping the straps of his backpack emphasizing the muscles of his arms.
“The parking lot behind the library.”
“Me too, I’ll walk with you.” We push through the library doors and step into the humidity–gross. We walk for several minutes side by side in comfortable silence before he breaks it, “You have plans tonight?”
“Kind of, Miranda’s coming over to bake cookies and watch Bachelor in Paradise with me. Why? You want to come?”
“I don’t know, Miranda got pissed at me last time I crashed a Bachelor night. Remember?”
“Yes, I remember, you were being a dick about the rose ceremony."
“You have to admit that’s just plain stupid.”
“I won’t hear another word about it,” I say, holding up my hand to silence him. A reluctant grin pulls up the edge of his lips as I continue, “You’re more than welcome to watch with us. But you can’t be a dick,” I say and throw him a look. “And you can’t argue with Miranda either.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ll behave if she does.” He breaks away from me and heads toward his car, tossing over his shoulder, “Is it cool if I come over now?”
“You’re annoying,” I say but I don’t mean it.
Twenty minutes later, Will is wearing my apron–a pink frilly thing with heart pockets in the front, and two oven mitts which are a ridiculous (extremely cute) designer set my mom bought me with oranges and strawberries all over them.
“The tray isn't even hot, why are you wearing oven mitts?” Miranda says to Will. He scoffs as he grasps the tray of raw cookies in both hands and stands in the middle of my tiny kitchen waiting for Miranda to open the oven for him. “I’m not opening the oven for you,” she says and walks away.
I throw him a look and he says, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He starts grumbling to himself, I’m sure about how I let Miranda be mean to him and not the other way around as he opens the oven and places the cookies on the rack.
He looks hilarious in my apron and oven mitts—I snap several pictures of him and immediately send them to our combined family group chat.
I know for a fact that my mom and Lucy are also making cookies, drinking wine, and watching Bachelor in Paradise.
I can almost hear them giggling over these pictures of Will.
I hate to admit it, but he does look just a little bit cute and slightly charming in the ridiculous apron.
My apartment is small, teeny tiny even. It's a studio. I don’t really have much in the way of a living room. My bed sits in the middle of the open floor plan, a love seat mini couch rests at the foot of my bed instead of a chaise and a TV sits on top of my dresser in front of the love seat.
We take our usual places–Miranda and I on my bed with Will taking the loveseat for himself.
With the small amount of time we have before the cookies are done and the show starts, I feel compelled to tell them about my list. I feel a little silly about how proud I am of it, but I am.
It feels big to me. “I’ve been thinking about what you guys said the other day.
” Will and Miranda both lower their phones and look at me.
“About getting out of my comfort zone, trying things again.” I say, “I made a list.”
Miranda’s face brightens and reaches for me, “Oh my God, yes! You have to show me. I want to see!”
I open my phone and pull open my notes app then hand my phone to Miranda, who lets out an excited chirp.
Will stands up and comes around the side of the bed, leaning over our heads to get a look at the list too.
“This is good,” Miranda says matter of factly handing my phone back to me.
“We’ll obviously help you with what we can,” she says, looking at Will.
“Let me see the list again?” Will says, holding his hand out toward me. I deposit my phone in his hand and he brings the phone closer to his face. I watch his expression as his eyes dart over the screen several times. He doesn’t say anything, making me feel nervous and self conscious.
“It’s a stupid idea,” I start to say.
He shakes his head, “No. It's not. I think it's good. I already said that I agree with Miranda on this one, you need to get out of your comfort zone again.”
My old fashioned kitchen alarm bell goes off, alerting us to the cookies being done, and Will zooms over to the oven. He never took off my apron but dons the mitts and pulls the tray out. “How long until I can eat them?”
“Maybe five minutes?” I say.
I don’t know why he asked because he rips a mitt off and tries to take a cookie off the baking tray with his bare hands, “Fuck, fuck, fuck” he says, bouncing a molten cookie between his hands, then shoving it into his mouth.
“Everyone shut up, it's starting!” Miranda announces, turning the volume on the TV up and setting herself under the blankets. I grab Miranda and I each a cookie off the hot tray and place them on a plate, bringing them over to my bed to eat after they’ve cooled a little.
I get under the blankets and try not to think about Will’s reaction, or lack of reaction to my list and what that means.