Chapter Text
A bell jingled merrily as Steph pushed her way into Miss Retro’s, a gust of chilly air following her inside. Thursday at 3:30PM didn’t appear to be the most popular time for the diner—the only people she could see were a middle aged woman with her kids, both in their soccer kits, and a man in a leather jacket leaning on the counter and chatting with Miss Retro herself. Nobody Steph recognized, and more importantly, nobody who would recognize the mayor’s daughter meeting a classmate for a redo of the study date he never made it to.
Walking deeper into the diner, Steph peered over the backs of booths until she finally spotted a familiar face. Pete was sitting in one of the booths in the back, hunched over a notebook. A lock of shiny black hair had fallen out of place and into his face. The neon lights above him glinted off the lenses of his glasses, not quite masking his fresh black eye. It looked even worse than it had that morning, patches of sickly greenish-yellow mottled in with the black and blue. Steph felt a pang of… something stab through her heart at the sight. Pete had gotten beaten up trying to help her, and here he was, a day later, ready to give it another go.
Man. He must be a real pushover, to still wanna help her after that.
Pete perked up when Steph walked over, her high-heeled boots clicking on the floor. “Hey.”
“Hi, Steph, if you wanna—“ Pete gestured at the seat across from him, but Steph was already sliding into the space beside him, swinging her backpack off her shoulder and dropping it between her feet in one fluid motion. This side of the booth wasn’t quite big enough for two people, and even though Pete practically flattened himself against the wall, Steph still ended up with one leg hanging off the seat and the other pressed parallel to Pete’s thigh. Her shoulder knocked into his. Her hair tickled his neck. Even just sitting next to him, Steph could feel Pete’s face heat up. “Oh! Uh, yeah, that works too.”
“I figured this way we’d be looking at the notes from the same direction,” Steph said, smiling innocently.
“Right.” Pete blinked a few times, his eyes darting from her leg to her mouth to a space somewhere beyond her right shoulder. “Good—good call.”
Steph turned to the papers spread across the table before he could see her triumphant smirk. Then, her eyes fell on the actual content of the notes. Tiny handwriting, stapled pages, diagrams she couldn’t even begin to parse. She was here to kiss him, sure, but maybe she should also ask him to try and dumb all this down for her first. Who knows, it might even help. “So, you’re the geek here—how do I actually… do this?”
Pete gave a shaky little sigh of relief beside her. “Right. Um, I guess, what do you usually do before a test?”
“I mean… nothing?” Steph said. She winced a little at how that sounded. It was so easy to brag to her friends, but to say it to Pete, who was actually, like, smart? That was harder. “I tried to study. You know, a—a while ago. But every time I try, I just end up thinking, why am I spending all this time learning stuff I’m never gonna use once I pass this class? And it doesn’t stick in my mind.” Steph’s voice lowered to an almost whisper. See, this was why people called her stupid. “And, y’know. It probably didn’t help that I was arguing with a grown woman on twitter the night before the test. Which, like, that was her fault. Who argues with a high schooler at four AM? Like, girl, you have a job. Be the responsible one here, y’know?”
“Yeah,” said Pete, with the tone of someone who absolutely did not know. “…What was the argument about?”
Despite herself, Steph felt a spark of that night’s anger spring to life in her chest. “I just—this absolute bitch cherrypicked one article out of millions about a pit bull attacking a kid and claimed that that was why all pit bulls should be put down. Except she clearly didn’t read it, because the pit bull was rescued from a hoarding situation—so it basically had PTSD—and the kid hopped the fence to chase it, even though the owner had made it clear the dog wasn’t good with strangers yet. And it’s totally a myth that pit bulls have, like, a locking mechanism in their jaws. That’s bullshit. They have a strong bite because they’re strong dogs! A cute, cuddly old golden retriever could hurt someone just as bad, but because they’re not associated with poor people, everyone assumes they’re fuckin’ angels!”
Steph paused her rant to catch her breath. “Wow,” Pete said. “You seem, uh, really knowledgeable about pit bulls.”
Great. Now even the nerd thought she was a weirdo. Why was Steph’s face so red? “Sorry. It’s just—they’re not bad dogs. People just assume they are, and then they just get treated badly, and then everyone blames them when they lash out, even though it’s all they know.” She blinked hard. She was not going to tear up over cute, innocent doggies being mistreated right now. She was on a mission to spend some time with this hot, hot nerd, and nothing was going to mess that up.
“Yeah, it fuckin’ sucks,” Pete said. At least he sounded pretty sympathetic. He drummed his fingers on the table for a second, then said, “You said it doesn’t stick in your mind, right? When you study.”
“Yep.”
“Because you don’t care?”
Steph nodded. “Pretty much.”
“But you care about pit bulls, so you remember a lot about them…” Pete’s finger drumming got faster.
Steph’s face flushed. “I mean, that’s way different from studying, though. That shit doesn’t matter.”
“But it matters to you.” Pete’s voice was so soft and earnest that Steph had to bite her lip. “And because it matters to you, you can remember it!” Pete snapped his fingers, shooting finger-guns at her. “So, if studying mattered to you, it would be easy!”
Steph grimaced. “You sound like my dad.”
“Huh?”
“He always says stuff like that. Like, ‘if you just worked harder, you wouldn’t be having these problems! You’re stupid because you want to be, Stephanie!’” Her voice lowered of its own accord, turning biting and snappy. Even though she was the one talking, it still made her chest hurt a little to hear her own words, copies of ones she’d heard so many times before. She pushed it away. Talking like that would only make Pete think her dad was right.
“Wow.” Pete’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he found words again. “Your dad sounds… bad.”
The ache eased up a little. “I know, right? He’s such a bastard!” She smacked the table with both hands.
Pete raised an eyebrow. “So… d’you wanna prove him wrong?”
“Hell fucking yes!” Steph bumped him with her shoulder, flashing him a bit of a smile. This time, instead of looking vaguely terrified, Pete smiled and bumped her back. Score! She hadn’t weirded him out too bad! She was back on track to kissing him! “Hey,” she said as casually as she could, putting her hand on his shoulder and leaning into him a little. “Since that seems like the most important part of studying done with, maybe we should—“
The bell on the door jingled. “Pete! Hey, Pete!”
Steph squeezed her eyes shut in frustration and turned towards the distraction. Two figures stood by the still-swinging door, one awkwardly tall and messy-haired, the other so short that only her frantically waving arm was visible over the backs of the booths. Even from far away, Steph recognised them as Pete’s two best friends. Ruth practically sprinted over, Richie following more slowly, but both of them reached the booth just in time to ruin the mood. “I can’t believe you ditched us again, dude!” Ruth said, sliding into the seat across from them. “Hey, why are you guys on the same side of the table?”
Pete pulled away from Steph’s side, practically flattening himself to the wall. “So we can both look at the notes from the same side?”
Richie added himself to the booth. “Smart move,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Pete glared. “Don’t.”
Ruth grabbed a sheet of notes, giving it a once-over. “Ooh, asexual reproduction? That’s, like, my second favorite type of reproduction!”
That got Richie rambling about some anime he was watching about cells, which got Pete and Ruth rolling up sheets of note paper to whack him with. Steph looked down at the table. Well, shit. Looked like she was actually going to study tonight.