1"I was expecting Cary Grant and I got Danny DeVito!"
~Blair Waldorf, Bonfire of the Vanity (Gossip Girl)
She started life with a boy's name and a complex. The overcompensation factor was ridiculously evident: the painted nails, the sparkly lip gloss, and the one-woman cult worship of the colour pink. Then followed the string of failed relationships with gawky, awkward, or lustful teenage boys who were trying to overcompensate just as much as she was. Then came the ice cream stage, the conviction of feeling fat and unlovable. And then school life gave out with a shudder and a gasp of final year exam results and SAT scores, and she was in college.
On the very first day, the admissions clerk was sure there must have been a misprint on the form. Tapping the ID photo, he said confusedly, "Miss, are you sure the name isn't Cara or something like that?"
This only reinforced her conviction that Americans were stupid. But the long queue waiting behind her shuffled impatiently; she squirmed in embarrassment. "No, it's not a mistake. It's C-A-R-Y. Like Cary Grant. The actor."
"If you say so, Miss," he said dubiously, signing her papers with a flourish, and handing her the schedule for the week. "If you have any problems, don't hesitate to ask us for help, or your upperclassmen for directions," blah, blah, blah. She nodded politely, and escaped, cursing the universe for producing not enough female celebrities with a name like hers.
It didn't take her long to fit into the daily rigour of classes. Contrary to the popular stereotype of American public schools producing hordes of students who didn't know what global warming was, college coursework was a bitch to keep up with. It was surprisingly easy to get along with her classmates; the ethnic divide should have been a chip on her shoulder, and by the first day, she got tired of over-friendly people asking her about the Taj Mahal and Aishwariya Rai.
Four months was all it took to destroy the perfect college fantasy that she believed in. And it started, as all stories do, with a boy. His name was Scott.
Or rather, this story begins with graffiti that someone had scrawled on a corridor wall. Cary my love my love my love. It was a rather an odd thing to graffiti, but not if the vandal had been high or drunk at the time. That would explain, also, why he'd signed it with his initials: S.T.
It took one quick leap of infallible, romantic logic for Cary to be convinced that varsity sophomore star Scott with the amazing pectorals and the winsome smile had left that message on the wall for her. From then on, falling in love was a piece of cake.
"Basically, when my mom was pregnant with me, my three-year-old sister had apparently said she wanted a baby brother to play with," finished Cary, grinning at Kate, who sat wide-eyed on the desk opposite. "Happy birthday, big sis. It was the strangest coincidence that we were both nearly born on the same day. She swears I almost ruined her fourth birthday party."
"So that's why you were named after a guy?" summarised Kate neatly, still a little shocked. "An admittedly very, very hot guy (who is now way too old for me) but a guy nonetheless?"
Cary shrugged, like this was the long and short of it, leaving out her father's initial disappointment of not having a son who liked cricket, and her mother's love for forties' Hollywood romance. She was lucky to have so narrowly escaped being named after Rock Hudson.
"If it makes you feel any better," pointed out Kate, "if you were any more girly, I swear you'd be seriously annoying."
Before Cary could respond with a witty comeback she hadn't yet thought of, a third, male voice quipped, "If she was any more annoying than she already is, I swear I'd hang myself. Or commit seppuku; that's ritual disembowelment, you know."
"Shut up, and go away," snapped Cary, glaring at the intruder over Kate's head. Andrew Hart shot her a cocky smirk, and dropped into the chair beside Kate. "Do we have to continue this conversation with the world's biggest jackass in the room as well?"
Cary and Andrew had never gotten along, much to the chagrin of their many mutual friends. ("If any of us wanted to be a peacekeeper, we'd have joined the UN.") The blood feud had begun on the first day of college, when Cary had made the mistake of talking to Kate in his vicinity.
"Wow, it's so cool to meet another Depeche Mode fan. I'm Kate," she'd added, holding out her hand. "What's your name?"
"Cary," the other girl had mumbled. "Nice to meet you too."
"Excuse me," a third voice interrupted, and it wasn't the politely apologetic kind of way. It was the loud, obnoxious, incredulous excuse me that would have irritated anybody at first sound. The boy leaning nonchalantly against the wall, arms crossed, was staring at her with thinly disguised mockery. "Did you say your name was Cary?"
"Andy, don't be a jerk," Kate had said at once. "Lots of girls are called Carrie."
Andrew turned a polite smile on Cary. "Oh, so that's how you spell your name? C-A-R-R-I-E?"
She knew immediately then that he'd been standing behind her in the admissions queue. "No, that's not how you spell it. It's an A-R-Y."
Kate didn't blink, but Andrew went blithely on, "You mean like the actor?"
"Yeah," she replied through gritted teeth, "just like the actor."
He nodded in pretend-understanding. "Oh, you mean this is like one of those feminist movements where girls call themselves by unusual names, like Germaine or Max? Or like girls playing the male characters in a play? I always thought that was pretty closet lesbian."
Cary blinked in shock. Had they really just met seconds ago, or had she murdered him in a past life and didn't remember? Kate evidently thought so too, judging by the sharp admonition she shot Andrew. The latter didn't seem embarrassed in the least. Smirking maliciously, he shoved his hands into his pockets, and strolled away.
That had been the beginning of the end. Cary had recovered from the shock of being insulted by a total stranger, fast enough to hit Andrew where it hurt. Their next meeting had dissolved into sneers and more insults.
"Hey, Cary Grant. Acted like a real genius in class today, didn't you? What on earth made you think that was a plausible answer to that question?"
A charming smile. "Wow, your dumb-assery probably rubbed off on me, didn't it?"
"Dumb-assery? Really, Cary Grant?" He raised both eyebrows, looking scathingly sceptical. "Where do you get this stuff? If you're going to insult me, then at least get it right. Call me an inbred troglodyte who never properly evolved from the Cro Magnon. Otherwise, it's just... just beneath you."
Cary gaped at him. Had he just insulted her insult?
After a string of skirmishes, Cary quickly recognised a pattern that was forming: he came and shoved his nose into her business, she insulted him, and he floored her with a wittier comeback. Somehow, it was just easier to duck into the girls' loo whenever she saw him coming. Now, as Kate shifted on the desk to give him room to sit on the chair by her, Cary groaned to see him smirk.
"Hey, Cary Grant. Did I just hear you say your parents thought you were going to be born as a guy?"
Damn government policies that made sex-determination ultrasounds illegal. She smiled her sweetest smile at Andrew. "Don't make me want to castrate you." She was gratified to see him cross his legs.
"So," he drawled, struggling to restore the power equation, "about the moron behind the graffiti in the corridor. How much did you pay him to do it?"
"Andy!"
Cary looked unruffled. "Wow, Andy, were you really so sloshed that night that you don't remember doing it yourself?"
His lips drew back in a sneer. He looked so angry that she was worried she might have touched a nerve. "Figures anyone would have piss drunk out of his mind to profess undying love for you."
"But you're so repressed all the time, I guess getting plastered is the only way you vent your true feelings." She mock-batted her eyelashes at him, and he growled. He actually, almost literally growled. Cary was half-convinced someone should hang a BEWARE OF DOG sign around his neck.
"Change of subject," interrupted Kate loudly, eyes darting from one to another. "How many people are there in this place with initials like S.T.?"
"Scott," suggested Cary immediately, unable to help the goofy grin tugging upwards at her lips. Beside her, Andrew silently faked retching. "What?" she said defensively.
He smirked at her. After months of practice, she was well-used to that smirk, which never meant anything good. "What are you, in la-la land?" he sneered. "What the hell makes you think first-string star of the sophomore year Scott is going to go around defacing private property for you? It's more likely that some nitwit girl in love with the real Cary Grant scribbled that on the wall."
She glared at him. "Is that supposed to be a cheap shot?"
The smirk widened a notch. "Only if you understand what I mean."
"You're a bitch, Andrew Hart."
"And you're a closet lesbian, Cary Grant, so I guess that makes us even. No, wait, hold on... nope, even so, you're still infinitely more pathetic than me."
"Get out," she said, her voice low, cold and lethally serious. "Get out before I punch your lights out."
For a minute, it really looked like she was going to hit him. He held her gaze for a second, almost feeling the palpable rage beneath her skin. The smirk taunted her lack of self-control and his composure. Finally, languidly, he stood up. "Just because the truth hurts, Cary Grant," he murmured, "doesn't mean you have to hurt other people."
With that parting shot, he disappeared out the door.
It escalated into war when he tried to sabotage her attempts to be around Scott. She called it jealousy on his part; he called it stalking. So what if she was lurking in the corridor outside the boys' locker room? No one would have noticed anyway, if Andrew hadn't been looking for her, in order to sabotage her.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked Andrew sullenly. Football practice started in under ten minutes, and the game was next week. The feverish expectation of winning was contagious, and both fans and non-fans were flocking to the stadium, cheering encouragement to the players on the field. There was no legitimate reason for Andrew to be hiding outside the locker room, unless he was gay and a potential rival for Scott's undying love... at which point Cary decided it was best to stop thinking altogether.
The question seemed to offend Andrew. "I happen to be on the team, you know."
"You're a reserve."
"So what?" he demanded belligerently. "I have my own jersey."
"Oooohh," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. He glared. His repertoire of insulting expressions was obviously very limited.
The sound of double doors banging open and laughter floating out of the locker room made them both turn around. A group of upperclassmen, changed into familiar, well-worn varsity jerseys, came trooping out. Scott looked like he'd just come out of the shower, and the sparkling hazel eyes automatically made Cary's heartbeat quicken.
She smiled at him, like she always did, and to her surprise, he smiled back. He had the most perfect white teeth that— he smiled back at her. He smiled back. He. Smiled. Back. Oh my god, he smiled back. Her heartbeat was pumping into overdrive, making it harder to think straight because he was Scott and he was in repressed love with her and he was walking towards her.
A tiny squeak escaped her, followed by the conviction that if she died now, she'd die the happiest girl on earth.
"Hey, how's it hanging, man?"
Of all scenarios in which she could have possibly lost her voice, this was by the far the worst. Given the generally low level of an American's intelligence, she couldn't expect a more coherent greeting from Scott anyway. The problem of figuring out an appropriate response was resolved quite fast when she realised Scott wasn't talking to her anyway.
"Heard you planning to break your own record?" drawled Andrew, fist bumping Scott, who grinned proudly at him.
"Yeah, everyone's been telling me dude, that's the stuff dreams are made of," he admitted, a little sheepishly. "Can't wait to prove 'em wrong." He seemed to notice for the first time that Andrew wasn't alone. He nodded at Cary, who made a funny, muffled sound. "So, see you outside, man?"
"I'll come with you," offered Andrew, slinging an arm familiarly around Scott. "So tell me, should I start pooling bets about you breaking..." Their voices trailed off into the distance as they went down the corridor, leaving a very nonplussed and very miffed Cary in their wake.
It was official: boys were stupid. And Andrew — Andrew Whasshisface — had stolen Scott right out from under her nose. Why had she even woken up this morning? Worst of all, as she passed through the corridor on her way to morning classes, she saw the blotchy re-painting job they'd done over the weekend, forever obliterating the only confession of love anyone had made in her name. Granted it was graffiti, but as a girl with a boy's name, she'd lost the right to be picky.
Then Kate, too, refused to join the I Hate Andrew campaign.
"Wait. You're serious?" she asked blinking. Cary nodded, deathly serious, as they navigated their way through the all-male cheering squad, who were running through the hallways shouting luck and greetings to every varsity member they could see. Kate immediately began to regret the loud, enthusiastic way she'd met Cary's announcement, knowing it would give her friend the wrong idea. In fact, it could give only one idea, and that was the wrong one.
"Oh, damn, I'm so sorry," she began apologetically. "I really wish I could campaign with you, you know..."
"Hmpf. I bet."
"No, no, no, honestly, I do," blabbered Kate earnestly. "But his mom, and my mom, they're like this, you know." She demonstrated illustratively by crossing her first two fingers. "It'd be like Chernobyl in my house, with me at the epicentre, if I got pissed off at Andrew."
Cary didn't look appeased. "At least that explains why you two are friends," she muttered to her shoelaces. A roar was gradually building up from the other end of the corridor, and she glanced back to see the big, burly football guys come barrelling down. "You're nothing like his other friends. Hell, you might actually be normal."
"See?" grinned Kate. "My point exactly."
Her words were drowned by the massive war-cry that exploded in the tiny confines of the college building. She grabbed Cary, flattening them both against a wall as they watched the football varsity and their cheering minions rush past. Cary's eyes nearly popped out of her head as she noticed Andrew right in the middle of the crowd, seconds away from being borne aloft and carried on the shoulders of his adoring fans.
"But he's just a reserve," she protested weakly, but no one heard.
"Let's just go to class," suggested Kate wisely, thankful that the other girl probably hadn't noticed Scott yet: he'd probably be crowning the parade. "We have Econ 101, so if there's any sleep you need to catch up on..." She trailed away meaningfully.
Cary laughed. "Do I ever? Have you noticed how I'm wearing too much make-up to hide the fact that I look like the walking dead? Well, you won't believe what— OI!" She whirled around indignantly, trying to discover who'd thrown what at the back of her head.
Behind her, pooling on the ground was a varsity jersey, emblazoned with a number on the back and the name: HART. Andrew came jogging up after it. The cheering posse had progressed further away without him, but he didn't seem to mind. Grinning crookedly, he bent down and retrieved the jersey.
"Thanks," he said off-handedly.
"For. What." If looks could kill, Cary would have been behind bars for murder. Apparently, some girls don't like having old, dirty laundry chucked at them. Literally.
"You know, for stopping my jersey. Intercepting its trajectory and all that." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He held it up in illustration, and mimed throwing it like a rugby ball; at least one person present was not amused.
"I have awesome aim," he added. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he continued to grin stupidly.
"Whatever you say, reserve boy," shot back Cary, a little unkindly. Andrew was only a reserve because he was so young; the youngest guy on the undergrad football team was already in his second year. In fact, when Andrew Hart had received his college acceptance letter, there had been a second letter in his envelope, from the football coach.
"Actually," he corrected, grinning widely now. "I'm no longer a reserve. I'm playing the game this weekend. Our unfortuScott goalie skidded on a waxed floor and nearly fractured his thigh. I'm his replacement."
"Uh goalie?" repeated Cary, eyes turning into huge, horrified saucers.
"Why hasn't the whole school been buzzing with the news?" demanded Kate, the more practical one.
"Just happened this morning," said Andrew sedately. "And that's right, Cary Grant. Our beloved goalie, keeper of our hearts, the elusive S.T. Scott it is. I'm taking his place this Saturday."
"No," she breathed. The dramatic irony of it all wasn't lost on her: the dashing prince Scott struck down, his throne usurped by his evil half-brother and arch-nemesis Andrew. Granted, the two of them weren't related, and Scott actually seemed to like Andrew (god knew why,) but none of that was the point.
"What're you doing?" asked Kate, exasperatedly. While she was fed up with her friend's permanent preoccupation with Scott, she could also see Andrew had an agenda she might not like. "Is there something you want, or did you just come to gloat? Because if you did, I'm sure there's still an entire building full of people who are as uninterested in it as we are."
"Actually, there is something," Andrew began to say, the grin shrinking into a more curious, tight-lipped expression. "There's an after-party this Saturday. At, uh, Royce's. You guys should definitely come. Royce has a pool in his backyard, and, uh, stuff." He trailed off under the pressure of Cary's Bambi-eyed stare. "And don't look at me like that, dammit. It's not like I pushed your precious Scott on that floor or something, alright?"
He turned sharply on his heel, and stormed away, leaving two extremely bewildered girls in his wake.
"Am I the only one who thinks that was weird?"
"Am I the only one who thinks he's on crack?"
As it turned out, Cary really had less to grieve for than she'd thought. Now that Scott wouldn't be on the field, leading their college to glory, he'd be sitting on the bleachers instead, and preferably close enough for Cary to smell his cologne.
"His cologne? Really?" repeated Kate, grimacing. "Isn't that a wee bit stalkerish? Just a wee bit, mind you."
"Oh, whatever," laughed Cary, nudging her friend as they stood in line for the terrible cafeteria food. "He's back attending classes today. I saw him coming out of the boys' locker room." Kate only raised her eyes heavenward, but said nothing.
"Can I cut the line?" asked a male voice politely, prompting Cary to immediately say no. She glanced over Kate's shoulder to see who it was, and promptly turned a violent shade of red.
"Hey," greeted Kate cheerfully; at least, she remembered where she'd last left her manners. "I can't believe you'd want to eat this sop."
Andrew shrugged. "I don't, but figures I should keep healthy for the game tomorrow. I have my sock stuffed with steroid doses and needles, but I don't want to run out of my prescription early." He winked to tell her he wasn't serious, and sniggered when he noticed Cary's desperate attempts to hide behind her friend. "Hey there, Cary Grant. Flattered you should lurk around the boys' locker room to catch a look at me, but I'd show you the goods anytime. All you have to do is ask."
Behind her hand, Kate made a grossed-out face, which didn't deter him at all. Cary turned an interesting green colour. "Excuse me," she muttered. "I shall go get us a table."
She marched away, scanning the cafeteria for the first empty table. There was only one at the back, and she hastily plonked herself down on it, careful to sit with her back to Andrew, who was still waiting in line. She could still feel him looking at her, probably more amused than was decent.
"Is this seat taken?"
Cary glanced upwards, double-checking to verify the speaker's identity before she replied. Her words choked on her tongue. Scott stood towering over her, leaning heavily on his crutches, but still smiling good-naturedly.
"You're Carrie, aren't you?" he said. "Hart's friend."
She wasn't, but then again, she wasn't going to be telling this particular boy he was wrong.
"He's always been telling me what a huge soccer fan you are," he went on pleasantly. He was still standing, awkwardly holding his crutches for support. Cary blushed violently, and nearly knocked over the table (and at least one chair) in her insistence to have him sit down.
"Andrew's been talking to you about me?" she asked, surprised.
"All the time," he grinned. "It's all good things, don't worry," he added, with a wink. "I keep asking him where's he's been hiding this Venus de Milo from me all this while. Figures the cafeteria would be the last place I'd think to look."
"I'm no Venus," Cary told the worn and scratched plastic tabletop, mumbling under her breath. Yes, of all the things she could have denied, it would have to be this one. Scott burst out laughing.
"So, hey, you're definitely gonna be at the game tomorrow, right?"
"Absolutely," she said with a straight face, looking right into lake-clear sapphire-bright Paul Newman blue eyes. "It's such a shame you can't play. I've seen you at the games. You're easily one of the best goalkeepers in the Tri-state area."
"Whoa, thank you," said Scott, sounding like he'd never been paid an outrageous compliment before in his life. The blood rush coloured his cheeks, and Cary stuffed her fist into her mouth to quell the giggle. "Hey, then, does that mean you're also going to be at Royce's party? That dude knows his DJs, and he has a pool. It's gonna be a helluva night."
Why did everyone keep mentioning Royce's pool? Didn't these Americans have one in at least every other house?
"Then it sounds like I definitely shouldn't miss it," she said, smiling her most earnest smile up at him. She could see Scott melting at the corners.
"Give me a call sometime? We're seeing each other at the game tomorrow, anyway, right?"
"Right," she squeaked, sitting like a frozen ice statue in her seat. Scott leaned forward, and pulled a stray napkin towards him. A Magic Marker materialised in his hand, and he began to scribble something on the napkin. It was a number.
"Here you go," he said, smiling straight into her surprised Bambi eyes, and picked up his crutches again, and loped out of the cafeteria. Cary sat there for a minute, clutching the napkin, and convinced that she was starring in Inception and this was a very strange, very realistic dream.
"Now all you need is his DNA, and you can grow your own Scott in a petri-dish," offered Kate, as they waited at the bus-stop after classes for their ride to the mall. She pretended that she hadn't been watching Big Bang Scottry too many times, but it was useless. Cary was lost in her own little bubble-world, a frown furrowing between her eyes.
She moved like a zombie, holding onto the handrail as they scrambled for an empty seat on the bus. Kate offered her the one, knowing her friend would probably be so preoccupied that she'd just topple over the moment the bus hit a speed breaker.
"You know what was weird?" asked Cary at last, turning up a puzzled gaze at Kate. "He said Andrew put him up to it. Andrew Hart has been going around telling Scott that I'm a huge football fan, and god knows what else."
"That's... nice of him?" Kate hazarded. "Or is it suspicious activity on his part that we should be wary of?
"At one point, I'd just be convinced that it was him trying to embarrass me in front of Scott. Like out my crush on him, or the fact that I suck at football. Uh, soccer, I mean. But now. Now, I'm not all that sure." She looked pleadingly at Kate for support. "Is that crazy?"
"A little bit," said Kate, just to provoke a reaction. "You're admitting that there might just be some good in Andrew Hart?"
"I was just wondering, that's all," said Cary quickly. "Scott all but asked me on a date. Who's Andrew, and why am I thinking about him?" She snorted, flipping out her phone, ready to programme Scott's number into it.
Kate shook her head, trying not to wonder about her friend's odd choice of words. When the hippie in rainbow chucks stood to get up, she slid into the empty seat beside Cary. "Whoa. Is that your wallpaper these days?"
"It's old," she said defensively. "I forgot to change it."
That wasn't strictly true. It was old, definitely, an old photo of the graffiti on the wall that read Cary my love my love my love. Trying to hide it from Kate's laughing gaze, she quickly switched windows. She glanced down into her lap for Scott's number, and froze.
"Um. Kate. Kate."
"Hmm? Ew, can you believe it? There's gum on the back of my seat."
"Kate. Scott didn't graffiti that wall. It's not his handwriting."
"Yeah, well, what are the chances, right?" laughed her friend. "That would have been straight out of a fairytale. Like winning the lottery—"
"But I have the handwriting of someone who did."
On the napkin, innocently above Scott's number, someone had helpfully written an address. Below that: Royce.
"I keep expecting to see cheerleaders and men on stilts, and maybe people turning cartwheels," admitted Cary, glancing all around them for just that. "Is that normal?"
Kate burst out laughing. "Dude, nothing about this is normal. Look around. Regular people turned into a homogenous screaming mass. I think they're more nervous about the outcome of this game than the teams are."
The visiting team's coach pounded past the laughing girls, heading for the aisle between the bleachers. His cleats, under his stocky frame, sounded menacingly on the concrete. The bleachers were filling all around with students and teachers, sporting college jerseys and caps in a resounding show of loyalty. Everyone was talking all at once, a deafening blanket of noise hovering over their heads.
It was thirty minutes before the game officially started, and the strain was definitely visible.
"Look, there's Scott!" exclaimed Kate, pointing as he sat down, surrounded by a group of upperclassmen. The handy distraction didn't work. Cary looked extremely high-strung and nervous.
"Why don't you go find us a place to sit? Look, there's Amy and Kim waving to us. I'll join you guys in a bit, okay? There's something I need to do first." She gave Kate a meaningful shove in the general direction of their friends, and turned around and sprinted away down the bleachers, and towards the... locker rooms?
Kate didn't want to find out why Cary spent such an inordiScott amount of time hanging around outside that place.
The first person Cary ran into outside that place happened to be one of the mid-fielders. He nodded at her, unsurprised to find a girl there. Maybe there was some unspoken parallel with rock concerts and groupies.
"Hi," she called out desperately, running up to him. She tried not to blush when he raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Is, uh, Andrew inside? I have to talk to him. Please. It's really, really important."
"The game starts in fifteen minutes," he pointed out, in the tone people use to insinuate you're crazy.
"Please," she repeated. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't so very important."
The guy shot her a wondering look, part amusement, part amazement, and stuck his head through the double doors of the room again. "Hey, Hart!" he bellowed. "Some fresher chick here to see you. Good luck," he added for Cary's benefit and wandered away.
Andrew appeared a moment later, looking around for whoever might have called him out. As his gaze landed on Cary's flushed face, it was evident he hadn't been expecting this one. "What's up, Cary Grant?" he said, making a show of checking the time on his non-existent watch. "I don't know if you noticed, but I don't have all that much time to stop and chat."
"Why did you do it?" she blurted.
She forgot the well-rehearsed speech, the articulate, succinct one that should have blown him away and put him in his place. She saw only his poker face, and the wavering eyes that gave him away.
"I'm not sure what you're referring to," he said casually, half-heartedly meeting her gaze.
"You wrote Royce's address on my napkin. I'd know that writing anywhere. I just didn't know why you signed it as S.T. Why not A.H.?"
"I was drunk, for one thing," he told her, as callously as he could. There was no point in her getting any airy-fairy ideas about this whole business. "For another, for the real reason, well, uh..." He snuck a peek at the expression on her face, and looked away quickly. "For another, it's not exactly a secret how much you like Scott, is it?"
"So, that was it," she said slowly. "A prank. A drunken prank."
"Well, I wasn't sober enough to think it through," he snorted. She flinched, but he pretended he couldn't see her. "But I wasn't all that drunk either. Hell, I knew what would have happened if I'd even initialled it A.H."
"You don't know that," she said. The defiant tone in her voice made him sneer.
"Oh yeah, Cary Grant?" he said mockingly, enjoying the expression on her face. "You were expecting the prince, Scott himself, to say he's in love with you. The real Cary Grant. Instead, Danny de Vito shows up. Like hell I was going to sign it with my name."
"Well, are you?" she said quietly.
"Eh?" Andrew glanced her, knowing he'd let something slip that he probably shouldn't have. "Are I— dammit, I mean, am I what?"
"Are you in love with me?"
"Didn't you listen to a word I just said?" he asked angrily. He didn't need her to do a Bette Davis, or a Lauren Bacall, or whoever else Cary Grant was usually cast opposite. "You're a girl. Pink and make-up and everything. You're not that hard to figure out. You all always want some hunk hero, not the fumbling, wittier sidekick."
"Someone had to have loved Danny de Vito," she said very quietly. Andrew's gaze snapped to her, the quiet, serious look harbouring in her eyes. "And you're way taller than he is, anyway."
Every time afterwards, when he replayed the moment in his head, he always cringed to remember how his breath had hitched in his throat. That one moment of glorious realisation and hope, teetering on the jagged edge of doubt. And then she'd flung herself at him; her arms around his neck would have choked him if her lips over his hadn't already cut off his air supply.
For a moment, while some part of him found it impossible to believe that she was kissing him, the lack of oxygen wasn't even that troublesome. Figures he wouldn't miss breathing all that much anyway. Not when, even for a moment, before he walked out on that field, he had her. He had her. Even a moment was enough.