"Dante!" I hear a pleasantly familiar voice call, and then my brain catches up with everything else. It's his first day of freshman year, and I was too tired to actually remember to do something cool for him.
I make sure to close my locker before he goes barreling into it like I know he's about to, and then brace for impact.
Oh, wait. This is Travis. Right.
He stops a few steps away with what's probably the biggest smile he's had on in forever, but his hands are fidgeting with the buckles and straps on his bag.
"Hey..!" is all he can manage, and the more I stare, the harder it is to ignore that as much as I wished he was going to, he didn't shrink over the summer and is still way too much taller than me.
"Hey, Trav!" I slam my locker shut a little louder than intended, and it most definitely spooks Travis a little bit.
"This school's a lot bigger than I thought it was gonna be.. oh!" He's messing with his bag so much that I'm pretty sure he's about to unbuckle it and have it fall to the floor. "Uh, are you still coming to my house later?"
"Yeah, of course, man! It's been like, forever-"
Travis lets out what is very easily the most forced, most nervous laugh I've heard from anyone ever. "Great! Uh- what classes do you hav-"
He doesn't get to finish, and I'm pretty sure he almost has an actual heart attack when the bell rings.
It's only a little bit adorable when he trips up as he's running, because knowing him, if he'd actually fallen he would've cracked his head open and then told me all about how cool it is that he got to miss school for being an idiot.
"See you later!" I call after him, but he's definitely out of earshot now. Oh well.
-
".. so, Travis. You might be wondering why I asked you to come to my locker!"
"..Uh-huh." He sounds tired, but it's not really a surprise. If I had to bet on it, he stayed up late playing some game again. Can't really blame him, though.
"Well, see, I," What's possibly the worst sounding laugh in existence forces its way out of me, "..can't open my locker."
Travis laughs; it's light and just a little bit judgmental, and a lot more than just a little bit cute.
"Are you kidding me?" he sighs, but he still has a huge grin on. Maybe he thinks it's endearing? Hopefully?
"Give me the code."
I don't know it by heart, which is probably the issue, but I pull out the tiny slip of paper some teacher shoved in my hand a few weeks ago and place it in his.
"Thanks, Trav!" I beam, and he just shakes his head in disbelief that I couldn't do this.
It's the end of the day, and we both have people that bring us home, so it's no big deal that he struggles with it at first. The moment it's open he backs off and returns the code to me.
"And you call me the nerd."
"You are a nerd, but you are a lifesaving nerd." He seems pretty surprised when I give him a quick hug, but really he should be used to it at this point.
Things get awkward- he's standing there and just.. watching me put stuff in.
"Uh.. shouldn't you be going home?"
Travis suddenly looks a lot more confused than I feel. "..Didn't you say we were gonna hang out at your house?"
Oh.
