10. It’s. Not. Even. Close
IT’S. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE
BEFORE
Everything at regionals goes our way.
Because it’s what Lucas and Brody trust me to handle, I distribute the problems after skimming each. I can tell right away that the fates are with us.
Two of the problems happen to align with the combinatorics sections I’d assigned myself. There’s a physics-adjacent problem that makes Brody do a little jig when I hand it to him, earning us suspicious looks from the nearby teams.
Five are right in Lucas’s wheelhouse. I don’t expect him to finish all of them.
Except of course he does.
He’s Lucas Fucking Murray, the guy Caltech grad students come to when they’re struggling with their algorithmic problem sets.
Brody and I each solve and code three, and when I see that Lucas is struggling with his last solution, I take over. It’s not hard for me to see the small error he made, and I’m the faster coder. By the time I look up, we’ve completed eleven out of twelve.
The second-place team, from UCSD, has solved nine.
I was so lost in the last bit of coding that I forgot to check the scoreboard. It takes a moment for me to realize the Arjun-Xinzhe-Dmitry trio has only finished eight, which means it’s not even close.
Dmitry’s words.
It’s. Not. Even. Close.
Arjun is so furious he slams the ICPC-provided laptop and doesn’t stop cursing until one of the judges comes over to reprimand him officially. “My father will buy you a new one—he’ll buy everyone here a new one.” Arjun’s voice is dismissive, as if the expense of a new laptop is trivial.
The official remains (unsurprisingly) unimpressed. “You can apologize, and then we can start some paperwork.”
Arjun backs down immediately and shuffles towards his teammates, muttering about the unfairness of today’s competition, that the problems at last year’s worlds were far more sophisticated, requiring a much higher degree of understanding. More nuanced coding.
Basically implying-not-implying that Arjun himself didn’t fail . . . the judges and contest-writers failed him.
The awards ceremony has barely concluded when Arjun approaches Lucas, who has his head down, still scribbling on a scratch piece of paper trying to figure out that twelfth problem. No use telling Lucas the contest is over—he’s never been able to walk away from a puzzle.
It takes a couple of tries before Arjun finally manages to get Lucas’s attention.
“You can tell them she had an emergency.”
Arjun is still in dress slacks and a now-wrinkled button-down. His formal bandhgala has been tossed to the side, but his attire makes it clear—he expected to not just place, but win. He was photo-ready for his moment.
And now, he’s in damage-control mode.
“You’ve proven your point. You’re the man.
You solved five. I’ll even admit I missed what an untapped talent Brody is.
” Arjun looks at Brody, who raises an eyebrow, derailing Arjun completely.
“You happy? You’re Lucas Fucking Murray, you break curves and see the shit other people miss.
But you can’t seriously be considering going to nationals with Lorelai? ”
Lucas is silent, and Arjun leans forward, a note of urgency in his tone. “If she has an emergency, if she can’t make it, we’re allowed to apply for a substitute. Take me to nationals and I’ll get you to worlds.”
While I don’t believe Lucas would betray me, I hate that Arjun has identified me as the weakest link.
I hate that most days, I can’t tell whether Arjun’s right.
I have the most experience with programming competitions, but I’m not the wild card that is Brody, who looks at problems with joy and curiosity. I’m not the powerhouse that is Lucas.
Despite the scheduling and managing I do for us, despite the additional research and practice I assign to myself and the fact that Lucas and Brody listed me as the nominal captain and contact person for the team, there is (of course) a small insidious voice that whispers, I am not enough.
I am the weakest link.
And though I need the prize money that could come with a strong showing at nationals, I can’t help but wonder whether the team might be better off with bronze-winning Arjun.
I’m racking my brain for a clever retort, but for once, Lucas beats me to it.
Even though we’re in the middle of a large cafeteria, surrounded by competitors and coaches who are filing out, Lucas doesn’t bother to keep his voice down.
“Lorelai solved Problem F. No one on your team managed that. Only one other team tonight even attempted F. Meaning even if it was my decision, I’d never replace her. ”
“Lorelai’s a freshman in remedial calculus. That puts her at the bottom of the incoming class. I’m in two grad classes.”
“But you still lost.” I find my voice, finally.
“And oh, it wasn’t even close.” Brody crosses his arms and directs this at Dmitry.
Arjun lets out a frustrated huff, not ready to give up. “What kind of a captain are you if you can’t do what’s best for the team?”
“Lorelai’s our captain.”
Brody seconds this. “We call her Red Leader.”
Which no, they have not ever called me that.
“As captain, I’m hardly going to replace myself.”
Arjun’s eyes are narrowed, his tone dripping with suspicion. “You’re kidding.”
Brody does his patented bro/dude shrug, and Lucas says nothing, giving Arjun no choice but to finally, finally look at me.
It’s hard—even with my years of learning from my father how to not react, not react, not react—to stand my ground, there’s that much malevolence in Arjun’s eyes.
But Lucas comes a little closer, and Brody moves in to throw a careless arm around me.
If I were a more emotional person, I’m sure this is when I’d tear up.
Instead, I raise my chin.
Arjun throws his hands up in the air, a drama queen to the end. “Fine. Your collective funerals.” He stomps away, the petulant forever-victim in his mind.
Lucas waits until Arjun is out of hearing distance before asking, “Red Leader? Since when do you watch nerd movies?”
“Star Wars is mainstream.”
And at the unconvinced looks Lucas and I both give him, Brody finally admits, “I dated a girl who liked to cosplay Star Wars.”
“Brody’s twenty minutes late.” We can’t start the contest without him, even though Lucas and I have both been pulling up practice problems while waiting.
“He’s been consistently late since we won.”
“It’s like he doesn’t understand we should be practicing more now.”
Lucas smiles at me over the top of his laptop, and I look away. I bite down on the side of my lip, worried Mr. Bro Dude is doing this on purpose.
“I’m going to text him.”
Brody’s reply is almost instantaneous.
brODY: I have parties to host and chicks to do. I’ll be there next time. Scout’s honor.
brODY: Try to have fun without me.
“I’m going to kill him.” I look around the smelly study room we’ve booked for six hours—it’s the one that’s closest to the restroom, and I swear you can smell the bleach each time someone exits.
Lucas looks up from his phone, where he’s presumably reading the same text messages. “You want Xinzhe or Dmitry as our third?”
“You could have just said we’re stuck with Brody.”
“We get to be stuck with Brody,” Lucas corrects. He’s silent for a moment before clearing his throat. “Also, I think Brody is trying to give me the chance to—that is, he knows I want to ask you—”
“Don’t.” My voice is not only sharp, it comes out more loudly than I intended. I look around a bit nervously. It’s a closed room, but we’re still in the library.
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
I look over to Lucas, who is clearly struggling not to fidget without the paper origami he normally leans on. He’s tugging at the collar of his shirt before he catches my gaze and clasps his hands together on the table, like a little kid who’s been caught.
“You’re going to ask me out.”
Lucas opens and then closes his mouth. “And you think that’s a bad idea.”
“No, I think dereferencing a null pointer is a bad idea. Bogosort is a really bad idea. The two of us dating is a terrible idea.”
“Because we’re teammates?”
“Because we don’t have time, money, or a backup plan for if we date and blow up.”
I’m looking at the code on my screen as I say this, unwilling to make eye contact. Just because I don’t want to date him doesn’t mean I want to hurt the guy.
The silence stretches between us, and when I can’t stand it any longer, I look up, expecting to see a distraught or disappointed Lucas. I’m worried he’ll be angry or at least—
“Why are you smiling?” In actuality, he’s not just smiling, he is (quite uncharacteristically) grinning. I’ve just turned him down, without even giving him the chance to ask, and he’s . . . what, delighted?
“You like me.” His voice is full of wonder.
I let out an incredulous breath. “Are we having the same conversation?”
“Presumably.” There’s that stupid crooked twist of his lips again. Not quite a grin. The suggestion of a smile. The hint of a smile to come.
I hate it.
And I particularly hate myself for not hating it.
“Then you heard me, just now, delineating the reasons why dating would not work.”
Lucas stares down at me, hazel eyes bright behind the too-thick frames. “You listed logistical concerns. If you weren’t interested, you would have said so in no uncertain terms. You pride yourself on being abrasively blunt, remember?”
Well . . . shit.
Lucas continues, seeming to draw confidence from my silence. “Stands to reason that once I address your individual concerns—that we don’t have time to date, that we’re . . . too broke to date, and that you’re worried about the team dynamics if we don’t work out—you’ll go out with me.”
I hear the way Lucas’s voice catches on the phrase too broke to date and mentally kick myself.
There are so many other reasons I could have given, knowing how sensitive he is about the transfer thing, the lower socioeconomics label.
“Even if we had money, I’m philosophically against either of us spending money on anything as frivolous as movies and twenty-dollar popcorn. ”
“No movie theatres.” He shrugs. “Budget dates.”
I close my eyes and try again. “I have done the dating and sex thing before. It never felt worth the effort. And . . .” Usually, Lucas is the one who struggles with words, but this time, I’m the one who breaks eye contact. “There might be other girls who would be more fun.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean you know?”
“I don’t think of you as a fun girl.”
Even though this was theoretically my argument, my way of dissuading Lucas from pursuing a relationship with me, I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit offended. “I’m fun.”
Lucas grins, that rare, full-blown grin that transforms his face. “I certainly enjoy my time with you.”
“But you don’t think I’m fun.”
“I think you’re interesting. Often maddening.”
“You’re asking me out because I’m maddening?” Yes, my voice tilts upward a little at the end, but it can’t be helped.
He reaches forward and grasps a piece of hair that has fallen out of my ponytail.
My hair’s still too short to keep up consistently, and now that Lucas is closer, I find myself breathing him in.
His lips curve a little as he whispers, “How about if I acknowledge you’re interesting… and you admit you’re interested?”
And yes, I see now the trap I’ve fallen into. Might even admire the way Lucas has baited me. “This is not the normal way you ask a girl out.”
“Normal is a distribution,” Lucas tells me.
I close my eyes and press my fingertips into my eyelids before a laugh escapes me, because this entire conversation is just so .
. . very Lucas. My voice is almost strangled as I tease him, “Yes, by all means, let’s talk about statistical bell curves of likely outcomes while negotiating a potential relationship. ”
Lucas waits until I’m looking at him again before continuing. “That’s why I have to date you. I can’t think of anyone else who won’t just tolerate my inadequacies.”
“Are we talking about programming or dating now?”
“Yes.” He reaches out and takes one of my hands in his, and . . . I let him. “You’re adept at pointing out my deficiencies, great at helping me shore up weaknesses.”
“How romantic.”
“You’re the one who told me you don’t believe in relationships and love. I figured a practical approach would be more your style.”
But I’m not about to be tricked a second time. “I don’t believe in relationships and love. This is more my style.”
“Then isn’t it a good thing I’m asking—or rather, attempting to ask—for one date? Uno. Yi ge.” He holds up one finger, clearly proud that he can say a whole two words in Mandarin. Then he smiles again, that broad, wide-open grin that feels intimate. It’s so rare and precious.
Mine.
I look down to where his hands are sandwiching mine. “Help me find the time, promise it won’t hurt our team dynamics, and I agree to help you become a better boyfriend.”
For the next woman, I think.
Because that’s as far as this goes.
When he doesn’t answer, I start to raise my eyes to his, afraid of what I might see. For the first time I notice Lucas is dressed in a collared shirt and khakis. The last time he wore this outfit was . . . regionals?
“Did you dress up to ask me out?”
Finally, as the blush spreads across his face, we return to our normal roles: He’s the awkward and inexperienced introvert, I’m the one nominally in control. “My mother thinks you’re out of my league. Suggested I needed to make an effort and wear something more presentable.”
I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
In truth, I don’t even try.
“You told your mother you were asking me out?”
“You’ve met her, right?”