Another victim of a generation [Adam]

She was fully aware that she could have asked him, and he would have been defensive, and he would have asked why, but he would have eventually done what she wanted him to. It just seemed like too many steps today, and she was tired of everything with Cole being like pulling teeth. Wouldn’t he ever just fall in, and not fight her every step of the way? She appreciated his individualist streak, she really did, but she also liked things going according to plan—her plan—and he was making this very difficult. Ever since their kiss, she had thought they might have changed but they were much the same. He fought her, dodged her, and she pursued him. Only, now sometimes, they kissed a bit after and during. She was happy with this, though it wasn’t quite what she was hoping for. She wanted a boyfriend, and he was determined to not be another one of the boys that followed her around, as though she cultivated and kept them.

She didn’t, not really. She only wanted him. Why couldn’t he see that? Wasn’t she obvious enough? Either way, and regardless, she was going through hoops to try to find this poor boy’s address and she was getting shot down. The address the school had on file seemed to go nowhere. He talked a lot about his ‘brother’ and staying with him, and so she knew that he must live somewhere with his brother.  He didn’t have that many friends, though, so she had to sort through a lot of boys in her year and the year above to find anyone she thought he might know well enough to write to. She only found Adam, so Adam it was.

She didn’t know Adam very well. The two went in different circles. He was this alternative kind of punkish stoner boy, and she was a student council prep girl, and she knew that put her at a disadvantage, but she could be cool too, right? If she tried. Or maybe not.

It was field day and she was dressed in workout attire with her hair in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, but had done her light brows to give her face a little definition. She felt strange without a little more makeup on, but she knew she would be jogging and running. She had just finished the relay, 1st place!, but was catching her breath as she made her way over to the bleachers where Adam and his friend were hanging out making fun of her and the rest, probably.

“Hey, Nguyen…” She smiled in greeting. “Can I pull you aside a minute?” She didn’t at all expect this to be that easy, but she had to start somewhere, right?

@Adam Nguyen

He’d had to shed both his hoodies – one after he’d done the cups stacking thing, partly because his roommate had dared him and mostly because he’d been positive he could do a better job than Jake and had wanted to rub it in, which he happily had, and one as the day had stretched into afternoon and he’d started to feel like he was baking. It was at times like this that he badly missed the South Bay (Area, not South Bay, LA.)

Having accomplished one of today’s objectives (annoy Jake) Adam and Joaquim had settled in to pursue the second (annoy everybody else). The house-elves had never heard of Otter-pops, go figure, but Adam had managed to talk them through making fruit juice popsicles, which were bougie and suburban compared to like, normal popsicles, but it seemed that wizards had not discovered the Orange Creamsicle yet, in an affront both to Adam and to America.

At least his white-lady popsicle had turned his tongue orange, according to Joaquim; he was satisfied with that.

They had spent about five minutes gently heckling Hudson before they’d gotten bored of yelling over the fields; they were hanging out on the bleachers gently heckling each other when Adam heard his name (or near enough to it) and glanced over his shoulder.

he didn’t particularly like Paige Hext, as she was taller, smarter, and more magical than him, but he didn’t have any reasonable excuses not to like her, so he glanced at Joaquim (who gave him a useless shrug) and said, “Yeah, whatever,” and detached himself from the bleachers. “What’s up?”