Glitterbug

"Aren't you going to be late?" I watch Lexi pause packing her backpack to put on lip gloss.

She waves a hand at the table we're standing at--we're advertising the ice skating club--and smacks her lips. "No, I have, like," she checks her watch, "oh crap, I have five minutes to get to class." She grabs her bag. "You'll have to take it from here," she tells me, blowing a kiss.

I make a face at her in response, and she laughs as she dashes across the quad, dodging tables as she goes.

I adjust the flyers on the table in front of me, waiting for the next round of classes to let out and release a new wave of students. There's quite a lot of people here already, seeing as it is the Fall Activities Fest and the weather is nice, but most everyone is attending their own booth. Or they're not interested. Or they're walking by and I haven't said anything.

Moral of the story is I'm not very good at attracting attention. That's Lexi's job.

I pick up one of the ice skates we have on the table. It's for figure skating, and it's Lexi's, so naturally it's coated in glitter. A pile of shimmery dust falls onto the table, and when I set the skate down, I notice it on my hand as well. I try and brush the glitter away, but it just sticks to my palm more.

"So, what club is this?"

I look up and into the face of a boy whose skin is darker than my own. His dreads hang across one of his eyes, and he picks up a flyer off the table, barely looking at me.

"Um, ice skating," I tell him, pointing at Lexis' skates.

He laughs. "Yeah, I thought so." As he meets my eye, though, he tilts his head. "Hey, have we met before?"

I rub my palms together, a nervous laugh coming out of me. I'm staring at a cluster of autumn leaves behind him, getting trampled by a group of freshmen. I think I would've remembered him. "No?"

The freshmen approach, and there's four of them, all blonde girls that probably just came from some sorority table. I can feel the boy's brown eyes watching me as I explain the club to them. He's stepped off to the side, but is listening.

I'm surprised, because most guys won't touch ice skating if it's not hockey. At least, not in a club form.

Two of the girls write down their info on the sign-up sheet, and I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, smiling. Success. Lexi and I promised our club advisor that we'd get a hundred sign ups, which seems very ambitious to me. I think right now we're at thirty.

Make that thirty-two.

The girls drift away, and I look around but the guy from earlier has gone too. I can't say I blame him, looking around at the other tables. Most of the other clubs have cool stuff, like snacks or music or dogs (which is cheating, really) or, in one case, VR headsets. Granted, it is VR club.

The wind blows, and I slap a hand on the fliers before they blow away, but the sign-up sheet, which one of the girls must've pulled out of its clipboard, takes off. I follow it with my eyes as it swirls in the air, a blink of white amongst the orange leaves.

Crap.

I grab Lexi's skate, chuck it on the stack of fliers, and head towards the paper, which just hit someone's ankle but they just kept walking, and now it's under someone's boot, and I almost bump right into someone else, and for a moment I lose sight of it. I stare at the pavement, but it's just crumpled leaves.

"Hey."

It's the same voice, and I startle.

The boy that was at the table before is holding the sign-up sheet, a small smile on his lips. It's enough to make me think he planned this.

"Oh, thanks," I say, but he's not offering me the paper.

He holds it at his side. "It was at Lucky L's, by the way," he says. And those words conjure a flash of images: his dreadlocks, a handful of playing cards, my friend Brie and a bottle of wine.

I press a hand to my eyes, temporarily mortified. Lucky L's, or Lucky Library, is what everybody calls the basement floor of the main student library. It's all archives and study tables and dark corners, and all the upperclassmen have stories of 'getting lucky' down there.

It's a good place to take a break from studying, contrary to other parts of the library, and my friends and I have visited once or twice. Not entirely sober. But we just like to go to chat and play cards.

I don't know why this guy was there that night though.

"I'm sorry, yeah, ok. I remember we played Hearts?"

He nods once. "Do you have a pen?"

Someone bumps my shoulder, and I step backwards to avoid being mulled by a group of Frisbee golf guys. He takes a step towards me in response. "Why?" I ask, a swirl of leaves building around us.

He points at the sign-up sheet, still in his hand. "Your spiel convinced me. I just ran into a friend and was gonna come back to sign up. Until the list found me, anyway."

"Right." I lead him back to the table, where no one is waiting, unsurprisingly. He picks up a pen and scribbles his name, and I try not to seem too obvious as I lean in to see what he writes.

Brad.

I lean back, pretending I never looked. Brad?

When I glance back at him, he's silently laughing. "You should see your face. My name's Amir, actually," he says, filling out a new line on the form.

Embarrassed again, I laugh and chew my thumbnail, a nervous habit I picked up from my mom. "Right. Good."

His eyes flit up at me, that nice warm brown, like the trees. "You shouldn't do that," he says, a faint smile still on his face.

"What?" He's looking at my mouth and my insides all turn upside down so suddenly I think I might need to sit down.

His smile just grows, and he lets the silence linger long enough for me to nervously raise a hand, about to chew my fingernail again.

"Your hands have glitter on them, and it's on your lip," he says, setting the pen down on the table.

I drop my hands and look at them. Shit, I forgot. I rub at my bottom lip with the back of my hand, which is glitter-free. I'm almost afraid to look at him. "Right, thanks. And thanks for signing up," I tell him, wondering where I can go find a mirror.

I notice he hasn't moved. "I hope I'll see you at club..." He sticks his hand out, his eyes flicking between the glitter on my hands and the glitter on my face.

I should be embarrassed still, but I smile and hesitantly reach out my hand. "Shani," I tell him, taking his hand.

He gives me a firm handshake. "I hope I'll see you at club, Shani," he says, then lets go.

I nod. He steps away, shoes crackling on the fall leaves, but looks back at me and waves. His hand shimmers with glitter.