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“Hey buddy, ready to learn my deepest and darkest secrets?” Mac asked Daisy while sliding into the chair across the table she was currently sitting at.
Their latest assignment in Honors English was to interview their assigned partner with questions given to them by their teacher, and as luck would have it Daisy was paired with Mac. The two of them decided to meet after school in the library to work on the assignment.
“You’re ten minutes late,” Daisy told him, giving him an unimpressed look.
Pointing towards the empty entrance of the library with his thumb, Mac replied, “You should’ve seen the traffic, it was horrible.”
Not amused in the slightest with Mac’s theatrics, Daisy flatly responded, “Cute.”
“Aren't I? I’m glad we both finally agree on something.”
Ignoring him, Daisy took note of the materials he brought with him, or rather lack of.
“Where’s all your stuff? Don’t you have a notebook to write all this down in?” Daisy asked him, waving her own notebook for emphasis.
“What’s a notebook?” Mac asked back with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.
“Oh my god,” Daisy whispered to herself. Sighing, she flipped her notebook open to the page where she wrote down all the questions they were supposed to ask one another.
“I’ll write down both our answers if you could just focus, okay?”
Without giving him the opportunity to respond with one of his quips, Daisy asked him the first question. “What is your proudest accomplishment?”
“Easy, stopping World War III.”
Setting her pencil down more harshly than she intended, Daisy scolded him, “I told you to focus.”
“I am focusing, Daisy. That is my proudest accomplishment.”
“There are numerous things wrong with that, an obvious one being World War III never even happened.”
“Exactly. You’re welcome,” Mac responded with a pleased smirk.
Not writing down his asinine answer, Daisy moved on to the next question. “What is the best piece of advice you have given someone else?”
“Telling my old pal Mark to change The Facebook into just Facebook.”
“That was Justin Timberlake.”
Mac let out a long sigh, leaning back in his chair while running his fingers through his hair. “I know, but I could’ve thought of that too. Plus I have better hair than him.”
Suddenly sitting back up, Mac leaned over the table and snatched Daisy’s notebook, ignoring her protests.
“You’re asking all the boring questions,” Mac said while scanning the list of questions with his index finger.
“It’s an assignment, it’s not supposed to be f-”
“Ah, here’s a good one,” Mac proclaimed, interrupting her.
“What is Daisy’s favorite thing about Mac?” he asked, looking up at her with a solemn face, yet not being able to hide the amusement dancing across his eyes.
“That’s not an actual question,” Daisy shot back, leaning forward to take her notebook from him.
Mac expertly avoided Daisy’s reach and leaned back in his chair, holding the notebook high above his head. “Listen, I didn’t write the questions. If you have a problem, take it up with our teacher, otherwise you gotta answer.”
Realizing they were causing a scene when Daisy’s eyes met the intense glare of the librarian over Mac’s shoulder, she sat back down in her chair.
Mac followed suit, placing the notebook back onto the table and folding his hands on top of it.
Daisy gave him a look as if to say ask me a real question. Mac returned her look with one of his own, silently replying I just did.
After staring each other down for a solid minute, Mac groaned dramatically and said, “Fine, don’t answer.”
He then reached over and plucked Daisy’s pencil off the table while saying, “I’ll just write down you said I have dashing good looks and a nice ass.”
Even if Daisy did agree with that sentiment, which she definitely did not (she did), she wasn’t about to let Mac write it down when they were supposed to be focusing on the real assignment, not whatever questions Mac made up.
Grabbing another pencil from her backpack, Daisy threw it at him, hitting him square in the forehead.
“What happened to focusing!” Daisy practically shrieked at him.
“What happened to friendship!” Mac dramatically retorted while rubbing his forehead. “I hope you know I could sue you for this in civil court, but I won’t because I like you.”
Daisy’s eyebrows raised slightly at that. Only recently did she start to think Mac had some type of feelings towards her. Their interaction at The Max when he said I like that after she told him what she whispered in Gil’s ear at the spirit competition was on a constant loop in her brain. Daisy had spent more time than she would like to admit dissecting the conversation, trying to figure out if he was just being friendly or if he was actually being flirty.
Taking note of her silence and noticing his misstep, Mac casually, or what she assumed was his attempt at casualness based on the tightness in his shoulders and his deliberate avoidance of eye-contact, said, “You know, just like how I like zumba. Or any other exercise that is both parts entertaining and sweat inducing.”
While she usually found his unexpected comments endearing, now she was just disappointed. She wished Mac could be serious for more than one second and be genuine with his emotions, but Daisy was starting to think that was never going to happen.
Trying not to show her disappointment, Daisy responded with a simple, “Sure.”
Taking back the pencil she threw at him, she started fiddling with it, averting her eyes downward.
After failing to successfully spin her pencil in her right hand for a good minute (she had been watching videos on Youtube for weeks on the skill and had yet to master it) she glanced back up at Mac only to find him already looking at her.
Mac was gazing at her with a seriousness and intensity she had yet to see from him since they met.
He swallowed a bit too harshly and slightly nodded to himself like he was about to do something he needed courage for.
Tapping his index finger on the notebook, Mac said, “I like this question.”
Lightly clearing his throat, he read aloud, “What is Mac’s favorite thing about Daisy?”
“What are you doing?” Daisy asked, confused.
“I’m focusing, m’lady. Now hush, I’m trying to work.”
At a loss for words, Daisy stared at him in silence as he picked up a pencil and started writing in her notebook, saying, “Kind of hard to only put one thing, but one is definitely that you see the good in me, even if I don’t necessarily deserve it.”
Instead of responding, Daisy only watched as Mac wrote. The corners of her mouth lifted into a ghost of a smile when she took note of the page and saw he spelled ‘necessarily’ like ‘neccesarrily.’ Daisy heard him mumble under his breath what sounded like “that doesn't look right” as he continued to write.
Without looking up at her, Mac moved on to his next point. “You’re really smart, and not like the bad smart where you make everyone else around you feel dumb for not being as smart as you are.”
“Mac, you don’t have to do this,” Daisy said, her voice coming out weaker than she intended.
“I’m almost done, just one more minute,” he said, still not returning her stare. “You’re a good person. Probably the best I know. You’ve shown a lot of privileged assholes at Bayside, including me- no, especially me, what it means to be one.”
As he was talking, he started writing faster and faster and Daisy couldn't keep up anymore, so instead she averted her eyes elsewhere. When he was done he slid the notebook back towards her.
“You should keep that,” he told her gently.
“Thanks,” she responded, just as gentle.
Mac looked up at her then with an expression Daisy could only describe as shy. He opened his mouth as if to speak before he was interrupted by his phone ringing loudly.
Fishing his phone from his pocket, he let out an exaggerated sigh, though it lacked his usual zeal.
“Anya Taylor-Joy won’t stop calling me,” he groaned while showing her the screen of his phone that clearly said ‘Mom.’
“A moment, please,” he said while holding up a finger.
Daisy silently watched as Mac mostly listened on the phone, occasionally saying a few "uh huh’s" until hanging up and slipping his phone back into his front pocket.
“My mom wants me home. Someone named Margaret Atwood is there and she wants me to meet her. Whoever that is.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
“Not in the slightest. Is she the most recent winner of The Voice? Wait- don’t tell me. I haven't seen the finale and I don’t want to be spoiled.”
Electing to ignore everything wrong with that sentence, Daisy told him instead, “I’m gonna stay here. The next bus doesn’t come for another hour or so.”
Mac gave her an incredulous look. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you home.”
“But I live thirty minutes away.”
“Perfect. We can listen to The Cheetah Girls’ entire discography on the way there.”
“I’m being serious, Mac. I couldn’t ask you to drive thirty minutes out of your way.”
“You didn’t, I’m offering. Now come on, we got places to be and songs to listen to.”
---
The thirty minute ride went by a lot quicker than Daisy expected. For one thing, it was definitely because Mac drove way too fast, but also because she liked spending time with him, even if he made her roll her eyes numerous times in the thirty minute car ride alone.
As he pulled up in front of her apartment building and put the car in park, he told her, “Remember our deal.”
The deal in question was how Mac made her swear to secrecy never to tell anyone at school he unironically listened to The Cheetah Girls.
“I already agreed like a million times.”
“Just making sure. You can never be too careful.”
“Okay,” she replied, laughing slightly because of how ridiculous this all was.
“This is no laughing matter,” he said in a serious tone, but the growing smile on his face told her otherwise.
Unbuckling her seatbelt, Daisy picked up her backpack from the car floor and placed it on her lap.
Looking over at him, she said, “Thanks for driving me home. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course,” he softly replied.
She smiled at him before turning around and pulling on the door handle. Just as the door opened an inch, she closed it and turned around once more, facing Mac.
“You’re a good person too.”
Opening his mouth to speak in what looked to be protest, Daisy cut him off. “I’m not gonna lie and say you were a good person when we first met because you weren’t. But you are now, or at least starting to be. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Thanks, Daisy,” he responded in the same gentle tone from earlier.
Nodding her head in reply, Daisy pulled on the door handle and pushed it open. While she was getting out of the car, she heard Mac whisper to himself something about an "only soul” and "light beneath darkness."
“What was that?” she asked him after stepping out of the car.
“Uh- that was nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he said quickly.
“Okay,” she replied a bit confusedly. “See you tomorrow at school.”
“See you.”
---
Daisy dumped the contents of her backpack onto her bed in her bedroom, trying to find the piece of gum she tossed in there earlier that day. Scouring through her stuff, she noticed the notebook she was using with Mac earlier.
The notebook in which he wrote a bunch of compliments about her.
Daisy tore open the notebook a lot faster than she would like to admit, flipping through the pages until she landed on the one he wrote in. She was aware she already knew what he wrote, but she wanted to see it with her own two eyes.
Daisy gasped when she finally landed on the page, feeling a blush overtake her cheeks.
Mac’s Favorite Things About Daisy:
- always sees the good in me, even if I don’t neccesarrily deserve it
- extremely smart
- a good person, the best I know
- has a pretty smile
- doesn’t take shit from anyone
- stands up for what she believes in
- looks even more beautiful than she usually does when she blushes (which I’m assuming you’re doing right now, buddy)