Cable Runs and First Kisses

The air conditioning was busted at the rec center, which meant my hair had expanded into something resembling a deflated cotton candy monster. I'd spent forty minutes with the flat iron this morning, but Oklahoma humidity doesn't care about your aesthetic goals.

"You're gonna have to run the cable through the attic," Marcus said, chewing gum with his mouth open like he'd personally invented the concept of annoying. "I can't fit up there. I'm too broad."

I rolled my eyes so hard I practically saw my own brain. "Marcus, you're not 'too broad.' You're just scared of spiders."

He flushed. Whatever.

The rec center's director had roped us into setting up for the community talent show as "volunteer service hours" but really it was because Marcus's mom was on the planning committee and I'd failed to say no fast enough. Now we were stuck running coaxial cable through a dusty attic that smelled like raccoons and regret.

My phone buzzed. Jordan. My stomach did that thing where it forgot how to be an organ. We'd been flirting for weeks—taut as a cable about to snap—and tonight he'd actually be here. For the show. Where my hair looked like I'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket.

"Hurry up," I called to Marcus, already halfway up the pull-down stairs. "I have places to be. People to see. A life to live."

The attic was worse than expected. Hot enough to melt my waterproof mascara. I crawled across rough floorboards, dragging the cable behind me like an angry snake, sweating through my favorite vintage band tee. This was fine. Everything was fine. My life was a curated Instagram aesthetic and not at all a mess.

Then I saw it.

Huge, horned, staring at me with eyes that said I was intruding on very personal territory.

"Marcus!" I whisper-screamed. "There's a bull up here!"

"A what?"

"A bull! Like, a giant statue or whatever—it's creepy as hell!"

Marcus's head popped up through the hatch. He squinted. "That's not a bull, you drama queen. That's a taxidermy Longhorn. It's been in my family's barn for like fifty years. My dad stored it up here last month."

A Longhorn. Because of course Marcus's family had taxidermy livestock just lying around. Of course they did.

"Whatever," I snapped. "Just help me finish this."

By the time we crawled back down, I looked like I'd gone ten rounds with a dust bunny. My hair was officially hopeless. My mascara had migrated somewhere around my ears. This was not the vibe I was going for when Jordan showed up.

Except when Jordan walked in twenty minutes later—late, with that effortless smile that made my brain do that short-circuit thing—he didn't even mention my hair. He grabbed a soda, flopped onto the rec center's beat-up couch next to me, and said, "You look like you've been through something. Everything okay?"

"Attic," I said, wiping dust from my forehead. "Longhorns. Heat. The usual."

He laughed, and it was genuine, and suddenly the humidity and the cable and Marcus's weird family taxidermy didn't matter. Because he was here, sitting next to me, and he wasn't looking at my hair or my smeared makeup or the dust on my jeans. He was just looking at me like maybe, just maybe, he'd been waiting for this too.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked. "There's this food truck. Tacos."

I looked at Marcus, who was now arguing with his mom about speaker placement. I looked at the talent show setup, with its tangled cables and folding chairs and the smell of anxiety and hairspray.

"Yes," I said. "Absolutely yes."

Some cable runs are worth it. Some aren't. And some—the ones that lead you to exactly where you're supposed to be—are just right.