Wonderful

Stevie avoids the diner like the plague.

A part of Stevie is a bit interested in how Hugh is doing in his job hunt. But a bigger part of her is terrified of the implications of having a friend that managed to get her heart to jump to her throat on their first meeting. She’s been thinking about it, dissecting his words, and the shake of his hand, and she still can’t figure it out. She even talks to Connie about it.

“Easy,” she says, after Stevie’s told her, “You have a crush on him.”

And that’s ridiculous, really, because Stevie would know if she had a crush on Hugh. Not only that, she can’t have a crush on him; she barely even met him.

“So?” Connie laughs, picking up their empty dinner plates. “You can be attracted to someone you’ve just met.”

“Ugh, why did you have to use the ‘a’ word?” Stevie says, leaning against the sink. “It’s not... like that.”

“I think it is.” Connie places the dirty plates in the sink and stops to take a long look at Stevie. Her knowing look unsettles Stevie and she’s about to sprint to her room when Connie finally says, “You should go for it.”

“Go for what?”

“For him,” Connie says, slapping Stevie with a dishtowel. Stevie flinches because it’s probably filthy and Connie laughs. “Come on. He seems like a nice guy.”

“A few problems with that,” Stevie says, beginning to pace in front of Connie. “First, you’ve never met him, so you cannot possibly know if he’s ‘a nice guy’. Second, I know nothing about him, so he could be a murderer. And third - and I feel like this is important - he’s twenty-five, which anyone else would argue is not an acceptable age for someone to be hanging around an 18-year-old.”

“Well, it’s not like you hang out with people your age. You hate your peers.”

“I don’t hate anyone,” Stevie says automatically. It’s a knee jerk reaction by now, since she’s always having to correct others about that. “I just don’t like hanging around them.”

“I know you don’t,” Connie smiles. “But maybe this boy is worth hanging around.”

“He’s not a boy, he’s a guy, and you really shouldn’t be encouraging this. My mom should fire you.”

“Let’s see her try.”

~~~

Natalia and Freddie do not stop pestering her about their “blossoming friendship”, as they like to put it. They talk to her during class now and walk her to her classes because, apparently, that’s what friends do. They even eat lunch with her, which is could easily be avoided if Stevie had the sense to sneak out of school and to the diner.

But she doesn’t, because Hugh might be there.

And Stevie feels a little bad about leaving him high and dry like that, but the thought of having to awkwardly interact with him again makes her queasy. It’s for her health, she reasons. She doesn’t want to be hurling in the middle of the street. Besides, they really should not be friends, right? The whole age difference is kind of a deal-breaker.

So Stevie decides to never see Hugh again. It’s for the best, really.

Which is of course, why the universe decides to place Hugh right on her doorstep.

~~~

Hugh realizes that stalking an 18-year-old girl is probably unhealthy behavior, but after she’d failed to show up at the diner for an entire week, he’d started to get a little worried.

Now, sitting on the steps of this monstrosity of a private school, Hugh is beginning to second-guess all the decisions he’d made to get him up to this point. It’s nearing six o’clock in the afternoon, and he really should be home preparing for the big interview he has that Friday, but instead he’s waiting, oh so pathetically, for a girl who probably thinks he’s a cradle robber.

Which he isn’t. He’s just pathetic.

It’s 5:54 when Hugh decides to let sleeping dogs lie - or whatever - and go home. It sucks to realize that he’s never gonna see this Stevie ever again - she was, by far, the most fascinating person he’s met in a long time - but it probably is for the better anyway. He stands up and begins to make his way down the steps when he hears the school doors open (And really, looking back, both Stevie and Hugh admit that this was one of the most cliched moments of their acquaintance). He looks back and, of course, it’s Stevie who’s making her way down the steps.

“Hey!” Hugh calls, meeting her halfway down the steps. “Hi, how’s it...” Hugh trails off after noticing Stevie noticeably stiffen.

In the time Hugh Braverman has spent on this planet, not once has he been considered a threat by anyone. Women don’t walk faster down the sidewalk when it’s dark and lonely, because he’s got this air, this “I am not dangerous” thing about him. Besides that, Hugh never has intentions to hurt anybody, and it clearly shows. So Stevie’s deer-in-headlights look is quite disconcerting.

“I just...” Hugh says, taking a step back. “You never came by the diner, so I sort of got... worried?”

No answer.

“I - I - I got an interview!” Hugh finally manages. “Yeah, I got an interview, thanks to you. That’s - that’s why I wanted to see you. To thank you for your help.”

“You already did that,” Stevie says in a clipped tone.

“Well... I’d like to do it again.”

She raises one suspicious eyebrow at him.

“Maybe... dinner?” But before he can finish his sentence Stevie blurts out “I’m not going to have sex with you.”

Hold on. What?

“H - Hold on. What?” Hugh asks, almost choking in his own words.

“If sex is what you were expecting to get from me -”

“Oh my God, no. No, no, no, no, of course I don’t - I’m not a - I’m not - not a - a
I thought I’d been clear about that. I just want to be friends. Honest.”

Hugh is sure that she’s about to ask him why again, and he doubts that he can go through that again. She surprises him, though when she -

“I have to go home,” she says, looking over his shoulder. Hugh turns and sees a black car (he wouldn’t be able to tell you the type), apparently waiting to take Stevie home.

“Right,” Hugh says intelligently. “I should probably go home too.”

Stevie walks past him and toward the car. She opens the door and, before stepping inside, turns to Hugh.

“When’s your interview?” she asks after a second of hesitation.

“Friday,” Hugh says, a little squeaky. “At noon.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Stevie says, getting in and, before closing the door, “Bring all the suits that you own. We need to figure out which one you’re going to wear.”

“I - I -” But he doesn’t get to actually finish that before she closes the door and drives away.

~~~

“The thing about me, is that I don’t look good in anything,” Hugh says from inside the bathroom of the diner. Stevie stands next to the door, making sure Hugh doesn’t chicken out of... she’s not sure why he’s so shy about modeling his only (and Stevie had hounded him about this fact for a long time) suit for her.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Stevie says, feigning boredom. Inside, she’s a jumble of nerves. It’s stupid to even be here right now, knowing what being around Hugh does to her (she still refuses to put a finger on it). She’d tried talking to Connie about it again, hoping she would talk her out of it, but she only encouraged her “blossoming friendship.”

“Okay, I’m coming out,” Hugh says.

She waits.

And waits.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Stevie mumbles, hiding her actual excitement (yes, she wants to die).

“I -” is all she hears before the door slowly opens, and Hugh’s face comes into view, his body hiding behind the door. “It’s smaller than I remember.”

Stevie rolls her eyes and pushes the door back. Hugh jumps back with a yelp and finally gives Stevie a good look.

And fuck.

“How do I look?” Hugh asks, nervously. “Would you hire me?”

Stevie has a crush.

“In a heartbeat,” Stevie says, softly.