One & Only (Canton) (2 page)

“Tess McMann.” I waited for the inevitable
what are you studying where are you going to school why should I care who you are
, but it didn’t come. I put a piece of cheese on a cracker.

“Wait,” he said and spooned up a dollop of the black stuff sitting in a ramekin on the cheese tray and, without even asking, smeared it on top of my cheese. “Try it with this.”

I did. The sharp, tangy bite of the cheese exploded in my mouth, soothed by the sweetness of the dark, creamy paste. Dylan watched, the corner of his mouth quirked up in an approving smile.

“Yum,” I said once I swallowed, though yum didn’t quite cover it. “What is it?”

“Organic date-blueberry compote. The blueberries are from Cornell, too.”

“I’m guessing the dates aren’t, though.”

“No. It’s pretty hard to get dates around here.” A flush stole over his cheeks as he realized what he’d said. “I mean—” The flush grew deeper. “Can we, uh, pretend I never said that?”

“Sure thing.”

He chuckled to himself. “Thanks. I was hoping to sort of leave the whole Dylan the Dork thing behind in high school. I was going to make a new start being all handsome and mysterious.”

“And pick up chicks with your sexy cheese factoids?”

“Of course,” he said, mock-affronted. “Any girl worth having is impressed by sexy cheese factoids.”

“That’s been your experience?” I asked wryly.

“Not as such, no.” The flush was gone, but the smile remained. It did nice things to his cheekbones. I had a hard time imagining him having problems getting dates if he wanted.

“Tess!” I craned my neck to see Cristina waving to me from across the room. She was standing with a host of other headed-to-Cornell campers. “Come here and explain your whole algae thing to these people.”

“Algae?” Dylan asked.

“
Way
more nutritional than cheese,” I quipped as I headed over to my roommate and her new BFFs.

Cristina was still staring behind me when I arrived. “Who is that?”

“Another Cornell guy,” I guessed. After all, he knew everything about their cheese.

“Cute,” she said. “Teach him how long pants should be and you’ve got a hottie, too.”

I cast a glance over my shoulder. Dylan waved, a piece of cheese in his hand. In truth, I hadn’t even noticed the length of his pants, which were, as Cristina had said, just a touch too short. I’d been too busy thinking I’d never seen gunmetal-gray glasses before.

I dragged my gaze away. “Well, have at him, then,” I said as if I hadn’t a care in the world.

She cocked her head at me. “Boyfriend, or not into guys?”

“The latter,” I replied.

“Cool,” she said. “I’d actually been wondering, what with the no-makeup—”

“What?” I said, realizing what she’d meant. “No. I’m not—”

“It’s totally cool, girl. I don’t judge.”

How could I explain? My mom had been into boys and love and the whole sweep-you-off-your-feet romance thing. And look where she’d ended up—a mistress to a married man, raising a secret daughter, able neither to live the life she’d forged nor escape it. Sometimes I heard her with her friends, talking about how happy her arrangement was, how everyone got what they needed, but I knew better. I’d also heard her on the phone with him, begging when he hadn’t come over for days or weeks. I knew the promises he’d made her when I was younger and they didn’t think I was listening. There’d been times over the years when she’d thought Dad would leave his family for us, times she’d even put me in the car and driven past “our new house” on the nice side of town. But they’d never panned out.

I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone, the way Mom and I had always been. I knew I was weak like her, willing to give up the things I wanted—like Canton—to make the people I loved happy. I knew I was weak like her and wouldn’t be able to be with a guy without falling for him.

I hadn’t flown all the way to Ithaca to date some boy. I was here to work—to prove to myself that I could do something extraordinary all on my own.

***

Not only was Dylan in my lab, but because we were assigned seats alphabetically, we shared a burner.

“Cheesemonger,” I said as I dropped my bag on the floor next to my stool.

“Algae girl,” he replied.

“So you’re a biologist?” I asked him. He was wearing an open button-down blue shirt over a gray tee. It made his eyes darker, almost the same color as the frames of his glasses.

He shrugged, and his shoulder brushed mine. “Closest fit.” He watched me pull out my notebook and freshly sharpened pencils. “I read up on you, you know.”

“Stalker.” I wrote the date on the top of the page, tapping my eraser against the edge of the paper to cover my nerves. Why hadn’t I looked him up? I’d spent a good half hour last night thinking about gunmetal gray glasses. One little visit to Facebook, and I might have gotten this all out of my system.

“That was some project.”

My science project—the one that had finaled in all those competitions—had been on algae. Specifically, on the potential for growing algae as a food source for livestock. But I could freely admit that no cute guy had ever seemed interested in it before. “Thank you.”

“You should have won.”

“You should have been on the jury.”

At the front of the class, our professor cleared her throat to begin the lecture. The room hushed.

Dylan chuckled again, soft and low, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “You’re kind of prickly for someone obsessed with the mushiest plant matter alive.”

“Good to know,” I said without looking up. “My next project will be about cactuses.”

The professor began speaking, and we both settled down to take notes. At least, I tried to, but my penmanship was jittery, and my heart pounded in my chest. I felt my cheeks flush and leaned my head over my paper, glad I had my hair to act as a screen.

That, Tess McMann, is what is known as flirting.

When the professor handed the syllabus around, I passed the stack to Dylan. Our hands touched, and all my nerve endings thrilled. This was insane. I glanced down toward the bases of our stools, where he’d hooked his sneakered feet around his footrest. His pants were still too short. That was good. Good to remember. He shifted in his seat, and my gaze snapped up. He was staring at me, his hair falling over the rims of his glasses, skimming his cheekbones.

Oh God, since when was I someone who noticed cheekbones?

“Drop something?” he asked me.

I shook my head and returned my focus to the lecture. The professor was outlining the entire syllabus. It was designed much like a college course, with most of our coursework being done either outside of class or during the lab session. We’d have a midterm and a final project, all in a three-week session.

“For your project,” Professor White said, “you may either work alone or on two-person teams.”

There was a rumbling in the class. I kept copying notes down from the board, unconcerned. I’d never been much of a team project kind of girl. In my experience, I’d always ended up doing the work while my slacker partners ended up with the benefit of my blood, sweat, tears, and grades.

When class ended, I managed to pack up my papers and notebook without looking at Dylan. Much.

“So…,” he said. “Tess.” My name in his mouth sounded longer than four letters. He savored the syllable like it was a bite of cheese and organic blueberry-date compote.

My mouth watered. I pretended to be very busy arranging my pencils into the little canvas pencil holders on the inside of my bag.

“You headed to lunch?”

“I was going to grab a sandwich or something,” I said. I had a lot of planning to do if I wanted to complete a worthwhile project by the end of the term.

“Great,” he said. “I’ll grab one with you. We can chat more about”—he grinned—“algae.”

I slung my bag over my shoulder and took a deep breath. “Look, Dylan, you’re”—
Cute. Funny. Disconcerting.
—“fun and all, but I should probably tell you something. I’m not here to flirt and I’m not here to date and I’m not here to hook up. I’m here to work. Since you read up on me, you already know that I didn’t win my science fair or the Siemens regional, and so the fact that I have an opportunity like this…well, it’s really important to me. I aim to have the best project in the class. And that means I don’t have time for any kind of nonsense.”

He blinked, taken aback. “Oh…kay. So, no sandwiches, then?”

I rolled my eyes and turned away and, thankfully, he didn’t follow.

Back in my room, I booted up the computer, my mind already scrolling through concepts for a kick-ass three-week project. I tapped my fingers idly against the keyboard, groaned, then clicked over to Facebook. There were seventeen Dylan Kingsleys, but it was easy enough to spot mine—I mean, to spot the correct one. His profile pic showed him outdoors, grinning broadly—was that a dimple?—with his glasses glinting black in the sun. I read the stats. He lived in Pennsylvania, listed himself as single. Schools: Sacred Heart,
Canton University
.

I caught my breath. Canton. He never had told me where he was planning to go to school, unlike everyone else I’d met at the party. I felt a stab of jealousy. Private school, private college, designer glasses. Must be nice. No wonder he thought his time here could be used eating cheese and chasing girls. The rest of the profile was nothing special, the usual wall messages from friends and family. Lots and lots of family. Dylan had an older sister, a little sister, a very tiny baby brother, and a mess of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. I clicked through to the photo albums—not as many as I would have thought. I wondered if he’d scrubbed his account and why.

One photo album featured a lot of guys in suits on a stage. I opened it up. There was a short, chubby kid on stage, shaking an older man’s hand as he accepted a plaque. Short and chubby, huh? Suddenly, the ill-fitting pants and the lack of photos made a lot more sense. The Dylan I knew was tall and on the slim side, with a physique more like a runner. Must be what they called a late bloomer. Better late than never, I supposed. The picture linked to a news article. I clicked through and started reading.

Five minutes later, I picked my jaw up off the floor.

Dylan, it seemed, was something of an environmental science wunderkind. While doing a run-of-the-mill science fair project in ninth grade studying frog populations in a local pond, he’d noticed some chemical readings that were off. Hypothesizing that there was degradation from an old coal mine nearby, he’d tried to bring it to the attention of the company responsible for maintaining the site. They’d blown him off. Undaunted, Dylan had taken water samples from all over the area and actually pinpointed the exact location of the leak. He’d reported his findings to an environmental watchdog group, who’d nailed the mining company on their environmental violations. Dylan, meanwhile, got himself a grant from said environmental watchdog group, a commendation from the EPA—that was the ceremony in the pictures—and kept working.

While the rest of us were dicking around with school science fairs, Dylan had been out doing
real
science. I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.

Then I noticed the new message in my inbox. I saw his name and my heart raced. Was there some way Facebook could tell you when people were looking at your profile?

Tess,

After consideration, I’ve decided to accept your strongly worded proposal to be my biology project partner.

In all seriousness, I think we’d make the perfect team. Ask around. I’m good with water stuff, but I have a desperate need for more algae in my life.

However, on one point I want to be absolutely clear. If we are to work together, you should know that I require very high standards from my coworkers. And that means that from now on, it’s not cactuses. It’s
cacti.

Dylan

THREE

For three weeks, I never heard the name Swift. For three weeks, no one once told me to be careful or I’d risk ruining my future. Cornell was a respite from all the expectations—or lack of same—that had marked my high school experience. I don’t think I was alone there, either. Everyone around me seemed to be breaking free of the stereotypes that had followed them through their teens, whether it was class dork or freak or “good girl” or what. I even saw Cristina heading to class a few times with no makeup on at all, and she taught me how to do a smoky eye and the proper use of a lip pencil.

And for three weeks, there was Dylan. When he explained his idea to me, I jumped at the chance to be his partner. Piggybacking on my algae experiments, he wanted to study the relative potential of types of feedstock algae as a sink for marine pollution. “Double duty,” he called it. “We could even do some biofuel stuff.”

Okay, I’ll be honest: I might have jumped anyway.

But the work was fun and challenging and engaging. Dylan was a meticulous partner—maybe even more dedicated to the research than I was. I’d often get emails detailing new avenues of research that were time-stamped 3:00 a.m.

Your roommate must hate you
, I wrote back when I read my email at 7:00 a.m.

His replies always came lightning-fast.

My roommate dropped out midterm. Computer science guy. Too much gaming, not enough coding. What did you think of that paper I sent?

Me:
Haven’t read it. Some of us need sleep.

Him:
Amateur.

This was par for the course for Dylan. Lots of hard work, seasoned with liberal joking. The behavior I’d taken for strong flirtation when we’d first met seemed to be my partner’s standard setting. Every statement was tinged with sarcasm; every conversation ended in a quip. If he’d ever been interested in me as more than a project partner, he gave no indication. He was friendly, kind, generous, and professional. We spent most of our time talking about algae blooms and phytochemical reactions. Sometimes we talked about food—Dylan was very disappointed in the college dining options (“For a hotel training school, I’d expected more”)—and occasionally he’d start in with a story about his family. He came from a huge family, full of busybody cousins and cheerleader sisters and a student-teacher aunt who’d apparently campaigned to get him a prom date.