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Gen Ed sucked.
Pidge had found that all the interesting classes for a given subject never fulfilled the requirements they needed to. In an attempt to avoid having to deal with Gen Ed, Pidge had been putting off taking several classes for a couple of semesters now. However, with the spring semester of her junior year looming over her head, she had finally acknowledged that she needed to take the art classes that were required for her degree.
That was how she had ended up in an afternoon mosaics class. While Pidge had never really thought of herself as an artsy person, it wasn’t a difficult class. The professor was pretty chill, and he didn’t even care if they came in during their scheduled class period. So long as they were prepared for critiques, they were allowed to continue working on their projects outside of class hours.
Her reluctance to take the class was abated by the fact that she knew several people in her class. Keith, for instance, was a recent transfer from the nearby community college. While he was rarely actually in class, he was always prepared for the critiques. Hunk was her neighbor from across the hall. They frequently had study group together, due to being in many of the same classes. And then there was Hunk’s roommate, Lance. He frequently joined their study group, even though he was in a completely different major—political science to Pidge’s computer science and Hunk’s engineering. He had actually been the one to suggest the mosaics class to Pidge, one time when they had been pulling an all-nighter to get a final paper of his edited.
Now, Pidge wasn’t above admitting to herself that she might’ve… sort of… had a tiny crush on Lance—not that he ever seemed to notice. They were close friends, of course, but she had noticed that how he acted around someone he was actively pursuing seemed to be very different from how he interacted with her. For one thing, he never flirted with her—which she was not complaining about. However, he also seemed to drop the majority of his boastful act when he was around her—most of it was just joking, and never in an attempt to impress her. He was even considerate, asking her when she would be taking extra hours in the studio to work on her projects, so he accompanied her more often than not.
Her current project was a stepping stone she intended to give to her mother once it was completed. She had designed it so that it looked like a forward-facing lioness head, except the lioness was green, rather than tan. After spending nearly a month and a half putting the tiles into place—in between working on multiple other projects and essays—today was the day she would finally be grouting her project. However, the color tile she had chosen for the lioness head made choosing a grout color difficult. They didn’t have a wide variety of colors available and while she could have ordered green grout, she had felt it unnecessary. Eventually, she had settled on black. Lance had actually been the one to inspire the design choice, as he had made an offhand comment about how choosing black grout could make her project appear similar to stained glass.
The critique for this project would be during their next class, a week away, but she really did need to finish grouting it. Lance had been kind enough to offer to keep her company, so they had met up at the studio following their afternoon classes. She sat at one end of the table, working her project, while Lance sat a couple of seats away, cleaning up the work he had already done on his.
Of course, in her haste to leave her dorm that morning, she had forgotten her grouting gloves. Normally, the professor was very strict about having them, but seeing as the professor wasn’t there and Lance wouldn’t snitch on her, Pidge had been grouting with her bare hands. For the first hour, everything had been fine, and she had almost finished the entire project. Then, as she ran her hand over the edge of the stepping stone, she felt a sharp pain as a piece of tile slashed her palm.
She immediately cursed, drawing her hand back to look at the cut. The tile had drawn blood and she hissed as she tried to see how bad it actually was. Before she could do anything, however, Lance was immediately at her side, taking her hand in his so that he could examine the cut.
“This is why you’re supposed to wear gloves,” Lance said.
Pidge frowned at him. “Well, I forgot mine today,” she grumbled, annoyed in part because she had forgotten her gloves, but also because Lance was now chastising her for it. The cut didn’t even really hurt that badly. She was sure she had been in much worse pain when she was younger and scraped her knee after falling off her bike.
“That’s no excuse,” Lance tutted, gently taking hold of her wrist before he led her over to the sink in the back of the studio. “Just don’t start panicking,” he said as he turned on the faucet and started testing it on his own fingers first.
She gave a half-hearted scoff. “I’m not panicking.”
Lance laughed, as he brought her hand under the stream of water and began helping her wash out the cut. “Sure, you aren’t. Cuz I’m here.”
Pidge’s palm stung as the warm water hit it, but now that she was looking at it, the cut certainly wasn’t worth a trip to the on-campus clinic. While her palm was bleeding, it was not profuse, and the cut wasn’t as deep as she had originally thought it was. Still, she hissed as Lance began helping her wash out the cut. He did most of the work himself, and while his motions were slightly rough, he was taking care to keep lingering grout and dirt from getting into the cut. He seemed to be trying to keep her calm—even though she was calm—by talking. She was only half listening, but she caught bits and pieces about him being inspired by her stepping stone project to do his own.
“Except I would have made the lion blue, of course—blue is the superior color!”
She very nearly snapped at him, not because he was rambling, but because she wanted to tell him that she could handle it. However, there was something so genuine and thoughtful about his actions that she stopped herself and remained silent. It was only then that Pidge fully grasped the situation she had landed herself in by accidentally slicing her palm open on a shard of tile. She now stood in very close proximity to the guy she had been harboring something of a crush on for the last few months. Now she could feel her cheeks burning. She did manage to say a couple of words back to him, but they came out unbearably shaky—which Lance then misinterpreted as her being nervous about the cut, rather than their proximity.
Once Lance finished washing out her cut, Pidge watched as he began digging through the first aid kit that hung on the wall. He fished out a tube of Neosporin and a bandage, wrapping her palm up and fastening the bandage in place. Lance knew what he was doing, even if he had probably overdone it just a touch. A Band-Aid would have been sufficient.
“There we go!” Lance said, smiling brightly at her. “Good as new! I think I did a pretty good job!”
“Thanks, Lance,” Pidge said quietly, retracting her hand. It still stung a little bit, but she was sure that would fade in time. She wasn’t so sure that her burning face would go away anytime soon, though.
“No problem, Pidge,” Lance said as he turned his attention back to the sink and begin wiping water off the counter. “My mom taught me first aid, so you got quality service!”
Pidge bit back a retort, but she did snort softly in amusement. Really, she should just ask him out for… a coffee or something, and hope for the best. The only reason that she had never done so before was because she felt it didn’t really matter—she was perfectly happy having Lance as a friend. A coffee date was innocent enough, right? She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before nudging Lance in the side. He turned his head to look at her, almost immediately asking what was wrong.
“Would you like to go out for coffee later?” Pidge managed, speaking much more quickly than she had meant to.
Lance tilted his head to the side, appearing confused. “You don’t need to buy me coffee, Pidge,” he assured her. “It was just a little cut. It’s not like I dragged you out of a burning building—of course, I totally would, but this was—”
“No—no,” Pidge cut him off. Her brow furrowed in annoyance and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I meant—I meant as a date?” she tried to elaborate, and cursed herself for stuttering as much as she did. Why was she so nervous about this of all things, when she had a fifteen page paper and a presentation due in two days?
Being asked out on a date by Pidge seemed to take Lance by surprise. His cheeks tinged pink, but he fell silent, and said nothing back to her. It was startling to see Lance so quiet, and Pidge felt her heart leap into her throat. The longer the silence went on, the more overwhelming the situation became, and the more Pidge just wanted to excuse herself and run away like some kind of coward.
“You don’t have to say yes,” Pidge finally said, breaking the silence. She averted her gaze to the ground, clutching her hand to her chest, cheeks going even redder than they had been before. “But I figured I’d ask since—since I kind of like you, and if you don’t want to, then—”
“Wait, wait—” Lance said quickly, cutting her off. Carefully, he reached out to place his hands on her shoulders. “I would love to, okay?” he insisted. He seemed to be struggling to contain himself, grinning and looking ready to jump for joy.
“I mean I know I’m a catch—”
Pidge snorted, rolling her eyes. “You’re a braggart—”
“A braggart you just asked out!” Lance said, grinning at her. “So, no take backs!”
Pidge couldn’t contain her laugh. “When do you want to go?”
“Right after we clean up around here,” Lance insisted. “Are you done for the day?”
Pidge looked back to where her stepping stone sat, almost entirely grouted. The bucket she had mixed the grout in was almost empty, so it wouldn’t be much of a waste to get rid of the last of it. She just needed to clean up her station and put her project back. She could come back in a day or two in order to finish up before the critique period.
“Yeah, we just need to clean up,” she said.
“Allow me,” Lance said, “Since your hand is injured.”
“It’s just a little cut—”
“Shh—” Lance said, wagging a finger at her. “You are gravely injured—what kind of person would I be if I made you clean in your state? Please, I insist.”
Pidge sighed and shook her head. “Alright… you win, but I’ll pay for the coffee.”
Lance agreed to that before he turned away to start cleaning. As soon as his back was turned, Pidge looked down at her bandaged hand. She flexed it a little and was unable to contain her grin.